Patience

It is Friday, January 8th, 2010. Tomorrow is the first track meet of the season. We meet in the field house and load the bus to leave by 8:30. I have been waiting for this moment since last May. For 8 months I have been patiently waiting to avenge the epic failure that was last track season.

And I must wait at least one more week.

My peroneal tendon hasn't quite gotten with the program. The soreness still refuses to go away, so Russ has had me on the bike the past two days. I do get to run tomorrow (mile), but it will hardly be a real race. In fact, the entire distance squad is required to run a workout of 400's before the race itself, which Russ wants us to use as a sort of "95%" tempo. That "race" will then be followed by another set of 400's. I'm only doing half the normal workout due to my leg, but it will still take a lot of patience to let my opponents go at the end of that mile. Some of the others have insisted that they'll probably end up racing anyway, and I can't really say if I myself can hold back the way Russ wants us to. The main thing I'm worried about though is how well my leg holds up. If tomorrow is a success, I should be back to regular training next week. If not, I could be on the bike indefinitely. This season is starting out EXACTLY the way last year did, except for one little difference: I'm in dramatically better shape. And I won't let it fall apart. Not this time. Not again. Not here, not now, no way. This is my year. This is OUR year. So the monster may need to stay inside for a bit longer. But in another week, or two, or however many weeks it takes, that monster is coming out. And it's gonna be hungry.

What happens when you put a monster in a cage?
It grows.
It gets stronger.
It gets angry.

And it waits.