After Saturday morning's race, where three of my athletes ran personal bests and two (or three) earned age group awards, I was a fairly happy guy. Winning hardware in my age group or running a personal best isn't bad, but I'm enjoying it more from the outside looking in. The only thing I dislike about spectating at local running events is the inevitable question of whether I'm injured. Having an arm in a sling is usually a low-stress clue of injury, but the personal decision not to race (because of an upcoming event - a marathon) seems harder for folks to swallow. (I'm a little bummed, though - my videotape was f.u.b.a.r., so no training video for the team folks.)I only have a few truly good races in me each year. Even in this, a "selective" year (not counting a practice race) I've run ten events, with one more to go. I cannot say I've performed to my satisfaction in all of them; one or two, actually, three...were efforts which made me unhappy.
But, if you hang out at the post-race and you haven't run, you feel like the kid with the banana saddle, butterfly handlebars and coaster brakes when all of your friends have the motocross-style bikes with caliper brakes...a little bit out of place. I take the time to stand by, chat with a few friends, cheer for the ones I know who won awards...and then it's time to get out of there. Sometimes the sooner the better. Sometimes the friends who ran will come by and shake a hand, other times they'll stay clear. I don't think it's personal.
Talk about an unhealthy time of the year. The stretch beginning the week before Hallowe'en and going right into New Years' Day...and perhaps even into St. Valentine's Day, are probably the worst time to be an athlete. Well, maybe it's just me, an athlete with a sweet tooth. From the office candy dish at Hallowe'en (which around here is restocked by my supervisor the day after) to the Thanksgiving pot luck (some offices are noted for the quality of their confections), it's like walking through downtown Beirut during the 1980s...you don't know what's going to get you. After Thanksgiving, though, it's a World War I-style no-man's land, with a barrage of everything fattening, sweet and addictive.
I used to marvel at the restraint of my coach, who worked out of his home, until I learned of his love for chocolate-covered Oreo cookies. Of course, he also had the option of jumping on the treadmill in his garage for an hour during the day should the need arise. My wife has the option of getting up and going for a quick trot around the park with our dog. I manage somehow to shoehorn 45 minutes of exercise in most mornings before I go in to work and feel like I'm cheating myself.
After I looked at the times for my particular age group, I did briefly kick myself in the butt. The chances of earning hardware were quite good, even if I had run comfortably. The race director for last weekend's race has a flair for doing something a little different (printed towels instead of t-shirts), even along side the comfortable and familiar (such as the turkey chili and light beer). The overall, masters, grandmasters, senior grandmasters still received their Butterballs to stuff, but the age groupers received their own stuffed turkey. How cute.
Talk about an unhealthy time of the year. The stretch beginning the week before Hallowe'en and going right into New Years' Day...and perhaps even into St. Valentine's Day, are probably the worst time to be an athlete. Well, maybe it's just me, an athlete with a sweet tooth. From the office candy dish at Hallowe'en (which around here is restocked by my supervisor the day after) to the Thanksgiving pot luck (some offices are noted for the quality of their confections), it's like walking through downtown Beirut during the 1980s...you don't know what's going to get you. After Thanksgiving, though, it's a World War I-style no-man's land, with a barrage of everything fattening, sweet and addictive.I used to marvel at the restraint of my coach, who worked out of his home, until I learned of his love for chocolate-covered Oreo cookies. Of course, he also had the option of jumping on the treadmill in his garage for an hour during the day should the need arise. My wife has the option of getting up and going for a quick trot around the park with our dog. I manage somehow to shoehorn 45 minutes of exercise in most mornings before I go in to work and feel like I'm cheating myself.
After I looked at the times for my particular age group, I did briefly kick myself in the butt. The chances of earning hardware were quite good, even if I had run comfortably. The race director for last weekend's race has a flair for doing something a little different (printed towels instead of t-shirts), even along side the comfortable and familiar (such as the turkey chili and light beer). The overall, masters, grandmasters, senior grandmasters still received their Butterballs to stuff, but the age groupers received their own stuffed turkey. How cute.One more long run (16 miles, next weekend) to prepare for the marathon. If it feels anywhere as bad as I felt during the front end of this weekend's ten-miler, I'm not going to be looking forward to it. Every time I looked down at my heart rate, it seemed to be at least ten beats higher than I would have liked. Even if the pace was closer to 30 seconds slower than I estimated, that either means I've been working too hard or I'm overtraining. One of my athletes intimated that St. Nicholas may be showing up with a gift of increased fitness just in time for December 16. I certainly hope so. This week will be one of those where the work will be just hard enough to keep the body recovering.
I cannot wait to take the time over the holidays and dig through my training logs to figure out what worked and what didn't so I can start laying out what I want to do for the spring. Now that I'm done here I'll get the coffee started. I need more of these three-day weeks.
I cannot wait to take the time over the holidays and dig through my training logs to figure out what worked and what didn't so I can start laying out what I want to do for the spring. Now that I'm done here I'll get the coffee started. I need more of these three-day weeks.
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