One More Time, I Gonna Celebrate.

Last night with my partner in crime. Last night I see him till the end of time. Gonna celebrate, he may be broken and frail, but that ain't stopping tonight. We going out, out on the town, dont know when I'm gunna be back home, most likely past curfew, most likely gonna get in s*** by the folks, oh well, I'll respond will "durr". They will know what that means, they will also see the sad expression on my face, the tears in my eyes, but they wont see the fear, nope no way. You know why? Cause there is a little bitta durr in everyone.

The voyage will commence early sunday morning and we head south east to the White Mountains. I'll pick up a tad of altitude training while i'm there, 4000feet or something. I'm curious to see what affects it has on my body, too bad I'm only there for a day. Either way, should be a fantastic time. 

I'll let you know how it go.
Hey Cam grow the fro.

rj
sorry... needed a rhyme.

I brought a megaphone, To use inside your home.

The street I live on was fantastic growing up, there were always kids older than me that I would look up too, I also wanted to be just like these older kids too. I'd see them playing basket ball or road hockey and that stuff, so naturally me and my friends grow up playing basket ball and road hockey. So i'm bringing this up cause the other day I seen two young guys going out for a jog, these kids were no older than 12. Thinking about it, did these kids see me and decide that they wanted to be like me? I mean do the little kids on the street look up to me? Would be pretty freaking cool. But I truly do not wish these career choice upon anyone, (does that em make sense?) running sucks! Its freaking hard. So many ups and downs. But I love it! I love pushing my body to its limits, finding my breaking point. Little off topic here... What I'm trying to say, if you kids were truly inspired by me, please go after it! Running is very good for the body and the mind. Its a lot of work but its so worth it in the end. But how can I say such things.. I havent yet made it too the end. Speaking of not at the end, I'll talk about the start. The start of XC season is very soon. To make it better, I retired from work! Got a week off then off to the real maine for some relaxation and solid training. Then the next stop after that is X.

LETS GO
LETS GO
LETS GO

rj

First I limp to the side like my leg was broken, Shakin' and twicthin' kinda like I was smokin'

Three things on tap for today, Chest Flow, Evan Jager and One Direction. I dont really know how to make this 3 topics blend well, but I'll try. Here we go. Imma start with swag. I know it's not on the list but its kinda a link between these 3 topics.

Now thats a picture of Evan Jager. And he has swag. So I'm kinda hoping that most of the readers are runners and can understand some of the runner slag, but I'll try to dumb it down for the non-runner readers. He has hair, lots of it to be exact. most of it is on his head. I think he shaves he legs (pretty bada**). This dude might be one of my favorite runners born in 1989. Now the explantation of why I am talking about him.

Number One: Hair
Number Two: White
Number Three: Steeplechase
Number Four: His Swag, the guy has the biggest bounce and shoulder shrug mid run.

Now speaking of his swag it looks like he doesn't have hair on his chest. Maybe he shaves that too. Either way, I have have chest flow. I do admit that it gets shaved or trimmed every once and a while but currently its pretty lengthy. Now heres my problem its summer, it's hot, and the bugs are out. Now I don't think I have ran in a shirt in about 4 months due to the heat, it doesn't help to much its hot out. And with the heat comes the sweat. So...

Heat + Hairy Chest + Bugs = Sweaty Chest Full Of Dead Bugs.

Its actually a fantastic feeling! Actually I'm lying it sucks, its gross.

Now finally the 3rd topic, The Olympics. Canada did extremely well bringing home 18 medals. More importantly we had all 3 marathoners cross the finish line unlike the USA. Congrats guys! Atta be Coolsaet, Gillis, and Wykes. . 

from right to left: rando guy, Wykes, Coolsaet, Gillis, Cam MF Levins.

They look so pumped! It must be cause they just seen ONE DIRECTION at the closing ceremonies or they are just really drunk. The second option seems more true. Either way Olympics are over.

Like MC Hammer On Crack!

rj

You're hot then you're cold. You're yes you're no.

Basically my life is being turned upside down. Very confusing last couple weeks. As you may have read I was considering becoming a Rally Car driver. This dream of mine has been put on the back burner for now, for the most part I have bigger things ahead of me before i get behind the wheel of a ker. I guess we will start from the beginning and say my attempt to go to Jr Nationals are over... Well they were over a couple weeks ago, just didn't wanna face it. It tears me apart that I won't be beside my main man DC next weekend, but it is all for the best I guess. I guess I'll bore you will the greasy details of my early retirement. Basically was, and still am, working 40 hours a week on a farm, and trying to run over 100km a week, as well as do huge workouts, and last but not least have a social life. Not the best way to train properly. Oh well, lesson learned. So the plan was to either quit my job, give up my friends, or hang up the spikes for good. All of which I wasn't super keen on doing. So I compromised by doing a bit of all three. Lowered my hours at work, lowered the mileage to a tolerable volume, kept the workouts pretty intense but with the lower mileage its easier to handle, as for my social life, well.... I'll tell more on this if you keep reading.

Alright so after my decision to not head over to Winnipeg for Jr Nats, took a couple days off, recuperate a bit, fix up all the little tweaks, and then jumped back into the training. But whats summer training without summer racing? And now without further ado, the first official race report NPS has ever given...

The Grind 2nd Annual 1/2 MARATHON

This year is the 2nd year for the event, the 1st year was last year. Wow, that was kinda awkward sounding, I don't know how to make it sound less weird and still make the point I'm trying to make... Anyways, Myself and DC raced it last year with SM, not the point though, the first 15km were in 63 minutes, and last 6km were in 21minutes. Overall a 1:24, not to shabby considering the 1st 3/4 was pretty pedestrian, and for our first 1/2 ever.

This year the plan was slightly different from last year, as last year we jogged the first 15km. Now we had a time goal. One hour twenty minutes. Pretty reasonable, but all we had was DC who would only pace us for 15km as a long tempo to prepare for Jr Nats and Benabus a nordic skier who kinda runs... Finally there was me, not very fit white guy, well kinda fit, just a tad burnt for the above reasons. either way, we took off like rockets. Literally! 2:55 first kilometer. Actually I'm just f***ing with you. It was probably a 4min kilometer. Either pretty slow start again as we needed 3:48's or something. But I mean it was plus 40 (kinda hot)! So seen my pops out on the course watching, yelled at him asking to become the pace car and give us water in between water stops, which turned out to be super clutch! Now 15km in DC drops back. Lets me go solo as we dropped Benabus on the Heartbreak Hill of this half. Solo for 6km. I can do this. But wait... Am I on pace. I have no idea, I dont wear a watch. I just cant stand watches (future post). So all I can do is push on and hope I'm rolling. And then... it hits me. I need to find a place to drop the kids off at the pool (if you catch my drift). I then remembered a similar situation happened to someone... Reid Coolsaet. Yepp, in the biggest race of his career he hasta take a pit spot.

Funny story about Reid, I met him once. Well it was kinda funny. So here we are at CIS, the StFX XC team chilling in this fancy hotel lobby, next thing we know there he is! All of us are s***y our pants, I mean to us he is cooler than Robert Pattinson or Tom Cruise. Basically we just starred. It was weird. But we then got up and went to dinner. Then of course the main event "The Dance" aka the race. Then the after event. Was being my drunk loner self walking around this hotel and then boom. I see him. And boom, there is my buddy GQ, perfect now I have a wingman. Lets go. Walked right up to him shook him on the hand, Gave him a beer and played flip cup with him. BAD ASS! That might be the first time i have used language that foul on this blog without staring it out.

Back to the race, looked for a porta-potty for about a kilometer then noticed I was entering a area with homes and stuff... S*** S***... Quickly seen this driveway without a home on it, went up the driveway, grabbed a leaf, took care of business and back on the road, only took 25 seconds. Pretty pumped about the success of my trip i didn't notice that Benabus caught up. Looked at him and said "dude i just took a s***". Then surged away. Now 4 kilometers later, flying down the home stretch not knowing if I broke 1:20, I see the director he looks at me and said you are breaking the course record by 7 minutes! I was soo pumped but had another 200m to go, so I enjoyed every minute of the win and crossed the line at 1:17. BOOM!

Pretty long... sorry.
anyways, I pulled a Reid Coolsaet.

rj

You Can't Trust The System, Man!

Never thought I'd post this one, but I'm not saving it for a rainy day. Yes, it's Part 1 of my List of Dirty Secrets and Things I Think About While Running.

1. Every time I run past road kill, I just gotta hold my breath. I'm convinced that the disease brewing inside the dead animal could somehow infect me if I breath it in.

2. At every culvert that I pass, I wonder to myself whether I fit inside it, which inevitably leads to wondering if I could live in it for several days if I needed to hide from the police. But what if the cops had dogs to sniff you out? I'd stuff each end with road kill.

3. It's possible that I speed up a tiny amount when I run past someone on the street.

4. I feel bad doing a workout on the track when the guy in the wheelchair is there...


More to come!