Monday, August 13, 2007

its go time!

Time for cross country season. Time for cool, crispy morning races. Time to revive the blog.

I love to race. It is all I want to do as a runner. When I can't race for whatever reason, I get a little moody (really, ask some of my teammates). Since the Boston Marathon, for the past 3.5 months I've had one pain after another that has led to months of very very very inadequate training. My usual 70-90 mile weeks dwindled to 40-50 mile weeks, my double sessions shrunk to barely one session, and my desire to be around races and runners almost completely evaporated.

I managed to shove my gloomy, moody, "I hate running" attitude aside to watch track club nationals last month, thinking that I would be happy to support my teammates and my desire to race would be curtained enough that I'd make it through the meet without feeling sorry for myself. It actually almost happened - I was so happy for and proud of my teammates that I dropped my "woe is me" boo-hoo attitude for the weekend we were in New York. After that weekend, however, I sunk into an even deeper state of frustration because, while my motivation was piqued, my broken body was still torn to shreds. I decided it was time to get back to basics. I pulled out my old running logs (I've kept a running journal since 5th grade, no lie) and perused the lot. I consulted my trusty Maffetone and Lydiard texts. I slowly started to run steady mileage, working my way back up to about 70 miles each week with one workout and no races. I was bored. Running without racing is B-O-R-I-N-G.

So, over the past 3 weeks, I've run 2 races. Both were very sub-par performances but, nonetheless, what I expected. I spent this past weekend racing in Falmouth with some of my all-time favorite people. The race was painful but the rest of the weekend was so uplifting and motivating that I can't help but become excited again about being around my teammates in racing settings. Our cross country team threatens to be the strongest one we've had since I've joined the club and I can't wait to watch my teammates execute some killer races. Look out for Sloan Siegrist as she ends her year long racing hiatus, Brad Kozel (the hottest runner alive) as he is in his best shape ever, and Rod Hemingway as he climbs back to stellar shape.

Now that I'm back to somewhat painless training shape, I'll be a much more vocal blogger, I promise. I think this is a great tool for us to share our training and racing wisdom. My pearl of wisdom for the day: Don't eat 5 s'mores and drink 2 glasses of wine (when you're tipsy after 1 glass) the night before a race. It yields unfortunate consequences.

*Laura

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Awesome post! Life throws a lot of curveballs, but we always come back to this running thing somehow. Not all the miles of trials are pounded out on the pavement. I am aiming to head down to watch Mayor's Cup this fall. I will bring some USMLE quiz questions for Famous, see you all then!

JJ