Be Thankful

Thursday was Thanksgiving. I planned on going for a run around 1 PM or so in order to work up an appetite, but a sore knee convinced me not to bother. I'd rather play it safe at this point than end up getting hurt again. I have an uncanny knack for getting injured at exactly this time of year. Last year it ruined the entire track season. That can't happen again.

While one day off always seems to me like one too many, I suppose I should still be thankful for the fact that I can run as much as I do. There are plenty of people out there in much worse shape or with disabilities that prevent them from enjoying things as simple as running. Sometimes just being able to stand up or walk is a blessing. And while I felt deprived of my usual endorphin fix Thursday night, I ended up heading out again the next morning and discovering that the pain vanished completely as soon as I took my first step. I also played football that afternoon without any problems (although no amount of physical health could rectify my total inability to catch the ball). Today I ran with Ash at 11 o'clock. It was fairly warm, about 45 degrees or so in the shade, and considerably warmer in the sun. We stopped at about 4 miles to watch part of the Grafton Christmas parade, then finished up the last 3 miles on the other side of town. Only about 3 weeks left in the semester, then it's another holiday break and track time.

Too much to do

It's the last week before Thanksgiving. Tonight I attended a dinner hosted by President Ferry in honor of all the conference champion teams from the past year. Our track team dominated in the spring, so we were all invited to this special occasion. I almost stayed behind however, due to the increasingly formidable stack of books and papers forming in my room. I have so much work to finish this week that I feel like it's an avalanche crashing down on top of me. But that's just another reminder of how every challenge makes us stronger. In the library the other night I was complaining about the numerous papers I needed to write over the following 24 hours, and asked Karl what someone should do when they didn't have enough time to get everything finished. His answer: Keep on truckin'. Decide what is the most important and get that done, then focus on the lesser assignments. Hack away at the stack and accomplish whatever you can. Don't quit, don't ever give up. Sounds to me like building a monster.

It's 11 PM on Monday night. There's two days of classes left before the holiday. I have three papers due tomorrow (one and a half are already finished) and another two due in the week after the 4 day weekend. I'm tired, have a sore throat, and am once again increasing the running mileage to prepare for track.

There's 37 days until the official start of the season.
The monster has to be ready.
But it can't come out until my homework is finished.

Long Day

As of right now I'm in the middle of a very long day. I got up at 7:30 this morning to run with Richard. It was a bit chilly still as the sun slowly rose and I wore all my winter training gear for the first time. Under Armour, gloves, hat...they kept me warm enough. The reason I had to get up early is that I'm working at a grad student info session from 4 until 8 PM. After that I'll probably stick around the library for another hour or two to get some schoolwork done. It seems like the work never ends, but that's life I guess. You spend the first chunk of it in school preparing yourself to work the rest of it, and if you finally manage to retire some day you're too old to do half the things you used to enjoy.

Over the past 24 hours something inside of me has decided to run the steeplechase in track this year. I've started doing hurdler stretches again in the hopes of gaining some flexibility. I figure that since so few people run that event I'll stand a good chance of scoring points at the conference meet. Plus it's just a ridiculous race. Made for monsters.

The Beginning

This weekend was the Regional meet in Oshkosh. I didn't run since I was only 9th on our team at conference. Instead, I went along to cheer on my teammates. We got to the course Friday afternoon and ran the entire 5 miles. I honestly didn't like the course at all, thinking it was way too flat and smooth. I absolutely abhor running in circles on a golf course. But everybody else seems to love those kinds of races just because they give you fast times. Oh well, I guess I shouldn't complain since I was only a spectator this time.

Speaking of spectating...I don't think I've ever gotten such a workout at a meet before without actually running the race. I did about 6 miles in the morning before we left for the meet, then spent the entire time we were at the course sprinting back and forth while screaming my lungs out. Twiet was busy taking mile splits, so I accompanied him and tried to point out a few of our teammates while I cheered. Meanwhile, Jon wore our mascot, Freddy the Falcon, which provided a great deal of difficulty as he desperately tried to keep up with the rest of us. Twiet, Daniel, Fife and I put on blue war paint and hair spray that we'd collected with Dave and Mike the night before (while wandering around the streets outside at 8 PM). That, combined with a few other props such as blue beads and a certain santa hats, as well as a lack of shirts, resulted in quite a fan crew.

The races went pretty great overall. Most (if not all) of the women managed to PR, and a lot of the guys did as well. Some people dropped as much as a minute. Ash and Braun were pretty disappointed by their performances even though they're both way faster than guys like me. Nobody made it to nationals, which means the season is over. I don't think those guys will ever be fully satisfied with how fast they are, but that's good in a way. It means they'll never stop trying to get better. And that's exactly how it should be for all of us. I saw some of those guys absolutely dying out there today, releasing all the monster they could muster and still coming up shorter than they'd hoped. The monter's not so much about winning or running a fast time though. It's about trying as hard as you possibly can. If you did your best, you can't be disappointed in yourself because there's nothing more you could have accomplished. And there's always another race. Because this isn't the end. It's only the beginning.


It's November 14, 2009. Track season starts tomorrow.

I'm not done yet, Mr. President

Yesterday was my final "race" of the season. It was the 2009 President's Run in honor of CUW's President Ferry. Our top 7 were not allowed to run fast, so the men's competition essentially came down to myself, Fife, Jon, and whatever other individuals entered from the community. I thought I had a legitimate chance of winning in the days before the race, but the event itself was a bit different.

My two teammates and I took it out with the lead pack right away and tried to keep ourselves in contention for the victory, but some of the other competitors apparently had decided to start too fast and we all got pretty tired in the first few minutes of the race. Jon even went so far and to talk about how tired he was before we made it out of the opening Runway field (which was still fairly muddy a week after our water-logged conference meet). We ended up hitting the first mile in about 5:30, which was right on the pace I'd hoped to run, but once we entered the Meadow everybody seemed to run low on energy. The wind heading west was a little strong and I found myself joining a line of several other runners drafting off Jon, the self-described "Mother Duck."
It was at this point that Fife started dropping back while we watched the two leaders pull away in front. A minute later Jon started to pull away from me as well, but I refused to let him go and managed to keep up until he started fading himself. Later he said he needed to go to the bathroom. I'm glad I didn't have that problem myself this time (bad past experiences).

I found myself battling one other guy in the last mile, but he got away from me as we approached the road and the home stretch. I should have beaten him but I think I just didn't care enough in that last mile. I finished with a time of just under 18 minutes, which I consider to be a terrible performance. I was 4th place overall however, which is actually my best placing ever in any individual competition (tied with the 1000 meter run at a track meet my junior year of high school). I was also 2nd in the 20-24 age group, so I got a silver medal. Not terrible I guess, considering the small size of the race and the fact that we didn't quite follow our normal warmup and pre-race preparations.

I spent the rest of the day hanging out with Richard, Twiet, and Dave (LAN party!) and later joined them and a few others at Romano's in Cedarburg for a "surprise" pizza dinner for Jade's birthday. Getting there was a bit of an experience for two of our three vehicles, involving one hit deer and a group of pathetically lost friends.


This morning I got up at 7 to do my long run, driving to CUW in the hopes that Richard and a few others would be there to join me. Only Katie K, Jade, and Guppy showed up at first, but Richard finally arrived after they'd left. None of the other guys had woken up, so we went out to do our 10 miles by ourselves. We ran a certain "10-mile-loop" that I had never used before, which turned out to be sort of an extension of the similar 8 mile loop. I felt horrible but that's most likely because it was morning and we were going a little quick. Sometimes that feeling is good though, especially after you're finished.


This may be the final week of the season. I'm not competing at Regionals, so really all I need to do now is show up to practice and go along to Oshkosh this weekend to cheer. Hopefully everybody will do great; I have faith in every member of the team. A couple might have a shot at nationals, so if everything works out well there could be another week after this one. Either way, we're down to the wire, and now my role is to inspire my teammates to release their monsters rather than letting loose my own.




But I think monsters can also come out of the fans on special occasions. Let's just say I plan on leaving everything on the course Saturday, even though I won't be in the race.

Monster Mudfest

I feel like I haven't been updating this blog as much as I used to. I guess I'm just busy with school and whatnot. Hopefully it'll keep going.

Anyway, yesterday was the conference championship meet at home. Our course was extremely wet and muddy due to a week of rains, but that only made it about 10 times more fun. I was covered in dirt before we even got out of the first field. There were mud puddles several inches deep in some parts of the "runway" and the meadow was one long line of slush. Everybody got pretty dirty before it was over.

I was determined to stick with Jon and Fife this time, and I succesfully managed to do it. We ran as a pack of 3 for the first 2.5 miles or so, but then Jon had to drop back as we were following the west side of the meadow, along the road. He was right beside me when I suddenly heard him say "Ow" and he started slowing down. I tried to say something to encourage him to keep it up but he just couldn't fight it enough to stay with us. Fife and I ended up running together around the pond and through the woods (which had a second "pond" in the middle of one path and a couple inches of mud on the other) before he pulled away from me around the 4 mile mark. I managed to catch up again in the last 800 meters as I summoned the monster, but he barely stayed in front of me on the final stretch. I let out another war cry just before I crossed the finish, which caused several of the spectators to laugh. I'm glad they enjoyed my monster.

This is me near the finish. I was pretty angry.

It was pretty cold, so we all went into the field house for the awards presentation. There were a couple of glitches in the results, so we had to wait anxiously for our final scores. Guppy ended up winning on the women's side and Ash also took the men's crown, so we had two individual champions. The women's team also were conference champs, but the men were second to Edgewood. They beat us by only 3 points. Some of the guys have blamed themselves, but I don't think there's much of anything we could have done to improve our chances. We went out there, released our monsters and fought the best fight we could. We were half victorious, and the season isn't over yet. Regionals is in two weeks. I'm on the cheering squad this year, having placed 9th on the team at conference. I plan on losing my voice.