Guessing Game.

    "hey, what are you being for halloween?"

     "I'm a guy wearing a t-shirt with a pumpkin on it." 

     Pretty eventful couple of weeks, we finally booked our tickets to the rock with a pretty stellar set of results at our conference champs. I would say I ran decent, but I don't think I did. I mean, I ran the perfect race to obtain a medal, but I didn't run to win. It's over now, can't change anything. But it is nice to have a 10km in the legs, especially on a tough course. Is it ever going to be nice to get on a grass course in awful conditions. 

     So just for fun, I am going to post my personal predictions depending on certain conditions:

 Option 1. Temperature 4 degrees, 2 feet of snow on ground, 50km/hr winds, thunderstorm occurring, each step legs sink 2 feet into snow and 6inches into mud, with 7mm spikes on.

prediction: 35:23 good for 8th place. 

Option 2. Temperature 11 degrees, has rained heavily for passed week, girls run before, anywhere from 1-3 feet of mud, slight wind, huge rainfall occurring, with 9mm spikes on.

prediction: 34:14 good for 11th place. "his mother was a mudder, and his father was a mudder"

if you don't get the quote get outa here!

Option 3.  Temperature  9 degrees, 30 km/h winds, rained on and off all week, slight rain, low areas of the course a lil muddy, with 7mm spikes in. aka normal NFL conditions.

Prediction: 31:54 good for 25th.

     Hey, do I know what I'm talking about? Naww I haven't raced ya'll since last november, I don't even know if I'm in good shape, guess I'll find out. But seriously, running is all about having fun. Just give it your all, and get a mullet.

get the cut, get the confidence.

rj.

p.s. stop by after the race, there is a slight chance we might be trashing a hotel room.

The Sock Hop.

   
       I don't know why, but for the strangest of reasons races are called dances, and the more important the race, the more formal the dance. I'm guessing this is due to the fact that as a team we participate in a "loose" sober october, and need to find a way to make races seem like fun. So naturally inter-lock gets named the Sock Hop. You know, its a good time, people from the french land join us, we kick off our shoes and hit the d-floor for a good time, not to serious. AUS now, its the Semi-Formal, I mean, its a big deal, need to win that to go to the big city on the rock. Finally CIS is simply known as THE BIG DANCE. I don't think an explanation is necessary.


      Alright, because they other two haven't happened I'll start with Inter-lock. I don't really know how to describe the race, our goal as a team was to keep up and possibly beat Laval. My goal for myself was to stay in contact with the leaders and make a push with 3km to go. Our team has had some injury problems putting a guy out that could have helped us, but being 5 points back from Laval is a good start. More importantly the positive comments we received from everyone including our competition at how surprised they were of us competing so well. Individually after the first lap, I gave the leaders 50-75m. I can't say why I did this, possibly to gain control over my race and not run someone else's and possibly to pick up the pieces of guys who went out a lil hard. In which I can say I defiantly did. Overall a good sign of the road to come.

     As I type this out for everyone, I am also half asleep on my desk, it has been one gruelling week for us in our lil university town, many miles and some final prep work for the weeks to come. The question on my mind... Nap, or Study?

I heard napping increases HGH. Hmm, I think I could use some of that.

rj.


   

Appendix 2: Racers.

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately of how XC races tend to be run, and this past weekend I got the rare chance to watch one of the meets. I noticed 3 different types of racers.

1. The FFTF
     The classic "fade from the front" made famous by everyones favourite marathoner Rob Watson, but surprisingly enough after how much he has told everyone it sucks people still go out way to hard and pay for it in the final few km's. It doesn't surprise me that this tactic is often used in collegiate racing, but still, come on guys! Know your place.

2.  The Confidence Booster
     I must say that I myself am a big fan of this style mainly because of the benefits of boosting the confidence. It's simple start the race at tempo pace and keep the place you wanna finish in your sights and slowly creep up through the pack and boom, you feel great and you just passed a ton of people. But the downside always is you wish you either did more during the race, or just ran a workout instead.

3.  The Winner.
     Pretty self explanatory here, the winner of the race, the guy who often did everything right, usually the right mix of guts and blood gets this one. But not always the winner, even 5th place could race like a winner, if they didn't execute either of the 2 other types of racers above, if they ran the perfect race for themselves. That's winning too.  


In a Championship race on the other hand, everything goes out the window. Everyone leaves a little blood on the course.

rj

Running Sucks.

I bet if I didn't run as much as I do my grades would be better.

September 22
Mon: PM: 65min
Tue: AM: 25min + strides
         PM: 20 WU-12x400m hill @ 75-69sec-20KD + strides
Wed: AM:25min + strides
          PM:65min
Thu: AM: 25min+ strides
         PM: 20min WU-8x3min(90sec rest) (950-1050m)- 20KD + strides
Fri: off
Sat: AM: 20WU-Alternating 1mile tempo (avg 5:55)-1mile race pace(avg 5:04) for 8 miles- 20KD
        PM: 25min + strides
Sun: AM: 105min.

total mileage: 87 miles

September 29                  
Mon: PM: 65min
Tue: AM: 25min + strides
         PM: 20 WU-12x400m hill @ 75-69sec-20KD + strides
Wed: AM:25min + strides
          PM:65min
Thu: PM: 20min- 5x1400m loop progression from 4:28-4:12 (3min rest)- 20KD + strides
Fri: AM: 25min
Sat: AM: 20WU- 20min tempo (5min rest) 10x 1 min on (3km pace)-1 min off (easy)
        PM: 30min + strides
Sun: AM: 90min

total mileage: 84 miles

Onward
rj