Random Musings
I have always loved the Olympics. When we all lived at home my little sisters would groan whenever the Olympics rolled around because I would never let them change the channel. I can get excited about almost any sport in the Olympics (okay, I can get excited about just about any sport), I love the displays of pure heart, I love the underdogs, I love the dazzling athleticism of it all. Needless to say, I have been having trouble turning off the television these past two days. But the reason that I'm beginning this whole entry with talk of Olympics, is because growing up, winning an Olympic medal (heck lets be honest, participating in the Olympics) seemed to be the ultimate in achievements. Unrealistic, yes, but still watching the games in Torino some of the old hunger comes back (I once spent an entire winter ice skating for six hours a day on the pond in our backyard in Michigan because my mom told me that Olympic figure skaters trained for 4-6 hours a day.) Anyway, watching the Olympics this year, I am glad that I have an athletic goal to work towards (and a more realistic one at that). It makes me feel some level of kinship with the people hurtling down the mountains in Italy, thank God I'm not that crazy.
So this week we had our GTS (Group Training Session) in Brookhaven. It was basically the same route that I ran when I ran with the running club a few weeks ago, except a little longer. I had people over for dinner on Friday night, so waking up at 6:45 in the morning after several glasses of wine was difficult to do. Around 5 I woke up just enough to hear rain bombarding my roof. When I pried myself out of bed at 6:45 it was cold and still raining and I had nothing to eat for breakfast. I forced some really awful oatmeal down (it was regular flavored instant oatmeal and I had nothing good to add to it and I overcooked it so it tasted like glue). Then I went and picked up Su and headed up to the running store where we were meeting for our shoe clinic. I didn't need new shoes, but if you run, please, please, please go to an actual running store and have them evaluate your pronation tendencies and pick shoes that will be appropriate for you, otherwise you will get hurt. You will get shin splints. You will get tendonitis. You will suffer. So, even though I didn't need the shoe clinic I wanted to make sure that Su went, so she could get the spiel from someone other than me. Anyway, by 9:00 we were finally ready to run and God was it more painful than last weekend. Never mind the rain, the hills were deadly. The course was up and down and up and down, and just when it is almost over, there is one last hill, higher and steeper than all the rest. Since I'd run a shorter version of the same route at least I knew it was the last hill, and I happily shared that knowledge, not quite expecting Tedd to decide to go faster. He charged the hill. I don't charge hills. Maybe on race day, but I did not know where this whole charging the hill business was coming from, after all, last week he was upset we were running four miles and not three and this week he wanted to charge the freaking hill! I told him I didn't think I wanted to take it quite that fast and dropped back a few steps as he mumbled that he just wanted the pain to end more quickly. As soon as I dropped back, I realized I couldn't quite take being left behind, so I caught back up with him and pushed up the hill as well. We pushed all the way to the end and caught up with the front group (who were stuck at a traffic light).
So about that front group... Last week everyone kind of ran together, but this time not so much. Maybe it was because of the hills but people got pretty spread out. And there were four - six people who pulled ahead right after the first water stop and then just stayed up there. The funny thing was, they didn't ever really increase the distance between them and the rest of us. I mean, if it had been a race (and they hadn't been stopped by that traffic light) they might have won by 45 seconds to a minute tops. It just didn't seem necessary to me to forego that group dynamic for such a slightly faster pace. Especially since one of the runners responsible for the whole pulling ahead business was my mentor, who supposedly is supposed to be trying to create a good group dynamic. The whole mentoring business mystifies me. Su's mentor seems to think her job is to be Su's best friend and run at her pace and orient her whole running life around supporting Su. Mine has spoken less than five seconds to me. But I think I like mine better than Su's, just because I would feel smothered. I'm just not that big of a joiner and the idea of a personal cheerleader is almost appalling.
After the run Su and I tried to clock the distance. It felt so much longer than four miles. I definitely got lost trying to re-create the route, but I think I finally got it right the last time through. Unfortunately, according to my odometer, we ran almost exactly four miles (which means those were four slow and painful miles). At one point as we were driving I asked Su, "hey, did we run past this, I don't remember it." I was referring to the giant country club on the right side of the road, 100 meters later on seeing a porta-potty in the front yard of a house I exclaimed "yes, we definitely ran this way, people stopped here to pee." Sad that a porta-potty is more memorable than a country club. Weird that people freely used every porta-potty in sight. Can you imagine living in that house? Of course the porta-potties were there because construction was going on, so maybe the houses were uninhabited (we passed about four porta johns in our four mile trek), but still...
Today Su and I went running around Lullwater which was a nice change of pace. It was fun to get off of the roads and on to some trails. We even explored some really rough trails which reminded me of running in Charlottesville. Christina and I used to run in some pretty wild places. Ah C-ville, how I miss you.
So, my plan is to write my fundraising letter by Tuesday and have an anti-valentine's day envelope stuffing party with Su while watching the Olympics and Gilmore Girls. You are all forewarned, if I have your address I will send you mail. If I don't have your address, fork it over...
This week in summary:
Monday - off
Tuesday - 3 miles
Wednesday - 4 miles
Thursday - off
Friday - 3 miles
Saturday - 4 miles
Sunday - 3 miles
Total: 17 miles
So this week we had our GTS (Group Training Session) in Brookhaven. It was basically the same route that I ran when I ran with the running club a few weeks ago, except a little longer. I had people over for dinner on Friday night, so waking up at 6:45 in the morning after several glasses of wine was difficult to do. Around 5 I woke up just enough to hear rain bombarding my roof. When I pried myself out of bed at 6:45 it was cold and still raining and I had nothing to eat for breakfast. I forced some really awful oatmeal down (it was regular flavored instant oatmeal and I had nothing good to add to it and I overcooked it so it tasted like glue). Then I went and picked up Su and headed up to the running store where we were meeting for our shoe clinic. I didn't need new shoes, but if you run, please, please, please go to an actual running store and have them evaluate your pronation tendencies and pick shoes that will be appropriate for you, otherwise you will get hurt. You will get shin splints. You will get tendonitis. You will suffer. So, even though I didn't need the shoe clinic I wanted to make sure that Su went, so she could get the spiel from someone other than me. Anyway, by 9:00 we were finally ready to run and God was it more painful than last weekend. Never mind the rain, the hills were deadly. The course was up and down and up and down, and just when it is almost over, there is one last hill, higher and steeper than all the rest. Since I'd run a shorter version of the same route at least I knew it was the last hill, and I happily shared that knowledge, not quite expecting Tedd to decide to go faster. He charged the hill. I don't charge hills. Maybe on race day, but I did not know where this whole charging the hill business was coming from, after all, last week he was upset we were running four miles and not three and this week he wanted to charge the freaking hill! I told him I didn't think I wanted to take it quite that fast and dropped back a few steps as he mumbled that he just wanted the pain to end more quickly. As soon as I dropped back, I realized I couldn't quite take being left behind, so I caught back up with him and pushed up the hill as well. We pushed all the way to the end and caught up with the front group (who were stuck at a traffic light).
So about that front group... Last week everyone kind of ran together, but this time not so much. Maybe it was because of the hills but people got pretty spread out. And there were four - six people who pulled ahead right after the first water stop and then just stayed up there. The funny thing was, they didn't ever really increase the distance between them and the rest of us. I mean, if it had been a race (and they hadn't been stopped by that traffic light) they might have won by 45 seconds to a minute tops. It just didn't seem necessary to me to forego that group dynamic for such a slightly faster pace. Especially since one of the runners responsible for the whole pulling ahead business was my mentor, who supposedly is supposed to be trying to create a good group dynamic. The whole mentoring business mystifies me. Su's mentor seems to think her job is to be Su's best friend and run at her pace and orient her whole running life around supporting Su. Mine has spoken less than five seconds to me. But I think I like mine better than Su's, just because I would feel smothered. I'm just not that big of a joiner and the idea of a personal cheerleader is almost appalling.
After the run Su and I tried to clock the distance. It felt so much longer than four miles. I definitely got lost trying to re-create the route, but I think I finally got it right the last time through. Unfortunately, according to my odometer, we ran almost exactly four miles (which means those were four slow and painful miles). At one point as we were driving I asked Su, "hey, did we run past this, I don't remember it." I was referring to the giant country club on the right side of the road, 100 meters later on seeing a porta-potty in the front yard of a house I exclaimed "yes, we definitely ran this way, people stopped here to pee." Sad that a porta-potty is more memorable than a country club. Weird that people freely used every porta-potty in sight. Can you imagine living in that house? Of course the porta-potties were there because construction was going on, so maybe the houses were uninhabited (we passed about four porta johns in our four mile trek), but still...
Today Su and I went running around Lullwater which was a nice change of pace. It was fun to get off of the roads and on to some trails. We even explored some really rough trails which reminded me of running in Charlottesville. Christina and I used to run in some pretty wild places. Ah C-ville, how I miss you.
So, my plan is to write my fundraising letter by Tuesday and have an anti-valentine's day envelope stuffing party with Su while watching the Olympics and Gilmore Girls. You are all forewarned, if I have your address I will send you mail. If I don't have your address, fork it over...
This week in summary:
Monday - off
Tuesday - 3 miles
Wednesday - 4 miles
Thursday - off
Friday - 3 miles
Saturday - 4 miles
Sunday - 3 miles
Total: 17 miles
posted by Lynn at 9:25 PM
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