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The one meet which cemented my enjoyment of XC was our meet at Riverside.  When we arrived there was also another team they had on the schedule (Center HS) that day so with three teams there was a pretty sizeable field.  Again this was all new to us.  I had never heard of Center HS at that point in time as they were from another county.  With a few races under our belts we knew the drill.  Leave a bit early from school, learn the course, and dress for the weather.  I liked a t-shirt under the race tops we had.  All green with Spartans in white diagonally across the front.  This day was a wet one.  The course was okay, but it was overcast and plenty of rain had fallen.  By now after running against some really good teams you figure out just let them fast ones go after a couple hundred yards.  Thing is we are not educated enough to know who is who so you just wing it by perception.  If that doesn't work then look around after a half mile and these are the folks you are probably going to be competing with. 

This course largely ran around the high school property.  You had a little bit of everything.  A bit of macadam, sections of woods, and large grass field areas around the football field and perimeter.  About a mile into the run I am running back and forth with one person from Riverside and one from Center.  Honestly I have no idea what place we are in, but we do occasionally run by a few folks.  I still remember the feeling of the first time of being comfortable running off their pace.  Consciously my job was let them dictate the pace and I'll spend my time reacting to it.  Several times I questioned my ability to hang, but strangely enough there were times they showed vulnerability and suddenly I'd be in front of them.

If there was one thing I felt I was marginally good at it was my willingness to kick it in at the end.  My speed was decent and there always seemed to be an extra gear there one could touch off.  The trick is knowing when.  As we came down to a quarter mile to go you headed towards this one small sapling, made a sharp left, and ran on the grass beside the road about 300 yards to the finish.  The three of us are still together and as I make the sharp left my feet go right out from under me and within a split second I hammer the ground.  It is like someone shakes you out of a dream.  The grass was cold and wet and those two guys are barreling for home.  There is no planning now.  How did Mike Tyson put it?  Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.  As you have probably figured out by now, I was able to get past these two guys and finished 5th overall.  I still remember the three of us chatting afterwards and them asking me what grade I was in.  One of them was a junior and the other a senior.  It felt good.  Better yet my Dad was there as he really enjoyed coming to the races and then talking about them.

I'm still getting out about everyday learning how to run slow.  I had the opportunity to see some people at Joel's annual fun run.  Always good to catch up and see what people have been doing.  We ran at Nashotah which I really like.  It is only 9 miles away.  I think I'll try and get out there more.  I put in 10.6 miles this morning.  I'm going back out now with the dog.  She likes 2.5 miles, so that is the plan.

Big Brain

After the Union meet we go face some really good programs.  Teams such as New Castle, Mohawk, and Neshannock are just handing our heads to us.  As I recall we ran Neshannock as our first home meet ever at the Green Meadows Golf Course.  Coach grabs a measuring wheel somewhere and starts measuring out the course.  I askes how he was measuring out of curiosity and he said 1,760 revolutions at a yard each make a mile.  We ran 3 miles back then.  I'm no math whiz, but I am a counter.  I use numbers and letters in my daily life to compare distances, find matches, and estimate things without having to think about it.  I count stair steps, look for letter matches in sentences, and guess step distances to objects quite a bit.  Not enough where you know I'm doing it, but left alone these are just things my thoughts go to.  Any who I point out right away that this particular wheel would need to be 36" in circumfrence and this one is clearly over 5 feet.  No one there is buying it and I even grab a measuring tape and prove this particular wheel he has is 1,000 revolutions to the mile.  We have the data.  No one listens or cares and they go lay out the course.

When we come to race day against Neshannock (They win the AA Boys State title this year by 43 points) I personally go to their coach (who happens to live in our school district right near our high school) and point out this course is at least 5+ miles long.  In fact it was laid out in two loops.  This may have also clouded his judgement as he tells me after the walk through that it looks accurate to him.  Again...what do I know I'm some sophomore in high school.

The race starts and the butt kicking starts early.  We can't even match pace with the JV guys.  One thing for sure is we have been running a long time.  Suddenly out of no where they stop us around 4 miles.  It was confusing.  You are done now.  Right here...just stop running.  Thing is after Bailey and Gibson (sub 10 2-mile guys in track) went through the first loop in 15 minutes they realized something is wrong.  This was one of the first times in my life that I realized people will ignore hard data if it is presented by someone they discount. 

I have still not entered the last man standing event.  I have been training with my thoughts geared towards this.  In real life I should step outside my body, look at the shell that remains, and then construct an unbiased training program based on all the evidence which I have intimate knowledge.  This probably won't happen because these events are unconventional.  It is becoming clearer to me the approach may be what I have been suspecting.  One needs to train to go slower.  Master the time continuum and know exactly what 55 minute loops should feel like.  Train for hours a day and master the run/walk strategy.  I am recognizing that even being old, crippled, and slow that it can be hard to train this slow.  If I was to offer any advice at this point I would tell the faster folks to learn to slow down.  It will be a simpler thing to do for me beacause my regular training pace is 10-11 minute miles on the road.  If you are a 7-8 person you better practice because there are things your body will absorb differently if not wired in.  I'm probably wrong, but I'm probably right.

No was all he said

Our high school is about a 20-25 minute drive from Union.  Most everyone has a race story to tell which is what makes the sport pretty cool.  No matter where you are, you are racing against someone else.  Teammates included.  The tradition back then was to stand and sing the school song shortly before reaching the high school.  Might sound hokey now, but that was the drill.  Just before this happens the results make it to the back of the bus and I see Laurel 27, Union 28.  I yell up the coach to ask him why he hadn't told us we had won?  He asked what was I talking about and I said low score wins in XC.  His direct comment was that he thought is was scored like football. "No wonder the other coach kept telling me nice job!"  Turns out we assumed we lost because they took the first 2 spots.  We went 3, 4, 5, 6, 9 = 27 and they went 1, 2, 7, 8, 10 = 28.  We had won our first competition.  I'll be honest, I was hooked from there on out.  In my mind it was the biggest XC win we had over the next few decades.  First because we went 5 - 27 my 3 years there.  Second after our class graduated it was decades before they ever started a team up again.  Yes we were that bad, but everyone of us enjoyed it immensely.  At my 40th reunion one of my classmates came up to me and said I was never a real fast runner, but because of your encouragement I still run today.  I think that is now the biggest win.

On the current running front I am still pondering the last man standing event.  Slots are slipping away.  It is hard to honest with yourself.  I hit the snuff can for over 30 years.  Hardest thing I ever did was quit that.  It was a friend that would never leave you.  It feels a bit like that.   

Didn't put enough dirt down

We rocket off the starting line and man does it feel good.  Looks like we all have the same strategy.  After a couple hundred yards we begin to thin out.  Soon after this and I mean real soon people drop like flies.  Not a half mile into this thing and there are five of us up front with 2.5 miles to go.  This is all new to me, but one thing is clear...I'm hurting already.  All I know is it is a race.  My job is to catch those guys ahead of me.  We spread out.  There are huge gaps of space between anyone I can see.  With a mile to go it is clear I am not catching anyone ahead of me.  I really had no idea that running could be this painful.  This particular course has a gradual uphill the last quarter mile.  There is no fan fair, you simply run to the finish line and it is all over.  I don't recall having anyone finish near me.  Coach seems glad to see me.  I finish 3rd overall.  Glad that is over.  Everyone else seems to be like me.  Tired as hell and bent over.  My buddy Rob has the dry heaves.  There are a few sprint finishes between teammates and competitors.  Not long after this we climb on the bus and head home.  Welcome to cross-country.

Today was an off day.  Felt like a wash rag that you wring out.  I cooked breakfast for Mrs. D and coaxed her into going to the 9am service today.  Initially I was thinking of an easy hour or so, but at some point common sense has to kick in.  I did stroll with the dog an easy hour at dusk.  The public hunting area is right by my house with the gun club across the road.  Tomorrow if an off day and thoughts of getting my hunting license is on my mind.  You never know when something might be the last time you do that.  Hunting was a favorite growing up.  We shall see.

I was drivin' that Model A

My recollection is we would leave early from school to go compete.  Down to the locker room, change, roll up your stuff, and jump on the bus.  Our team was about 15 guys.  The group thinned out a few spots as some decided it wasn't for them.  Some of the older guys (I had not turned 15 yet) who had been around and competed in track were busy rubbing themselves down with Mint Glo, which was a strong smelling product like Bengay.  I guess the purpose was to warm up the muscles, but I didn't like the feel.  Things were pretty loose on the way down.  Once you arrived you got busy walking and touring the course so you knew where to be running.  This would turn out to be an issue in the future as you'd forget where to go.  As the time for the race approached I would get really nervous.  I'd get all geared up.  We would receive starting directions and soon after the little starters pistol would crack sending everyone flying out.  No specific instructions from coach.  You just made the best of it.  It would be my first experience in a varsity sport and I was pumped to be flying our green and white colors.

I put in 32.3 kilometers today.  It was a rather easy effort.  I started at 5:30am and just kind of made my way.  Just before halfway I stopped at the gas station my wife works at and picked up some Gatorade and a breakfast eggroll which was nasty.  My back began to tighten up around 13-14 miles.  This is the thing I'm trying to figure out.  Perhaps it can be overcome, perhaps not.  I intermixed about 15-20% walking and averaged 12:22 per mile.  Running like this allows you to cover great distances, but it takes mucho time.  I may take the dog out again like yesterday, but not in any exercise mode.  She seems to like doing whatever nonsense dogs do.  Dog owners know the drill.  This dog does like to eat snow and for whatever reason chew on a pile of leaves once every now and then.  There is one house with a chain link fence we pass that has 2-3 dogs that go bananas when we go by.  The owner comes out almost every time and yells for them to knock it off.  It seems to annoy him.  Cookie gets a rise out of it.  It's one of the things we both enjoy.

Big league tip for anyone who uses the roads a lot like I do.  Get off or be prepared to get wayyyy off the road for every passing vehicle.  There are multiple people every single day that don't give a rat's rump about you.  It is very similar as when you are driving and the lane coming the other way has another vehicle or obstruction in the lane and the car coming towards you never thinks twice about coming into your lane.  They are not going to wait, slow down, or yield to your right of way.  They don't care, are stupid, or in some manner have no grasp of the responsibility of piloting 4,000 pounds of metal within feet of another object.

You can't go it alone

The remarkable thing about practice that year was that I don't really have a good memory of what we did.  There certainly were not any "distance runs" and if there was it was a few loops around the school property.  After a few days you had an idea of who was capable of what.  I was fortunate in the speed category, so anything we did I was at the front.  After two weeks with no standard to compare ourselves with, off we went into our first dual meet competition.  Looking back we had absolutely no idea of what we were doing.  Our coach was a young guy who's job at the high school was to supervise the kids serving suspension.  There was zero introduction to the sport.  Being somewhat inclined to understand the sport, I found a primer on XC and learned how the scoring worked.  What happened at our little race taught me it is possible to see results one way and end up with a different outcome.

So after work yesterday we had to be somewhere at 5:30.  That meant no miles for the dog.  She got even though and tore through the trash in the middle of the night to get at some left overs.  This rarely happens, but the thing is after she completes the deal she wakes me so I can retrieve her water.  No conscious.  At 13 she is no different than when she was 3.  One difference.  She will still blow after wildlife and pull something and then be on the IR a few days. 

A large part of me understands that to continue as a runner some compromises need to be made.  Forget about the slow down phase that has come.  The next progression involves extending the running life by reducing the act of running.  I'm not ready to accept that because as most people I'm different and I'll fix the problem.  What that involves is thinking about grand schemes to make that happen and put very little effort towards those fixes.  Let's face it at some point there is a running version of me I just don't want to see and it does not involve race times.  It's like this, I have found a way to get out around 2 hours a day and basically be okay.  The issue is once you double or triple that time in an event my body balks.  If you like running ultras that can be a problem.  I see it two ways.  First I continue the way I am and hope nothing changes.  Second I contrive a running schedule that is smart and efficient, change my eating habits, and begin exercises to support my running deficient areas.  Like my buddy Eric says.  "If your gonna be dumb you gotta be tough."

3 feet tall

In 1976 our little high school decided to have a boys cross country program.  I was going to be a sophomore and knew nothing about the sport.  The thought process was I have always been just about as fast as everyone else so I signed up.  After several years of football this just seemed like a better path for a scrawny kid.  I remember getting some sort of schedule printed off on one of those machines for the summer.  Like everyone else I showed up the first day with basically zero training.  I will add that in that era we were highly active kids.  We were outside all day in the summer.  That's what we did and we rode bikes everywhere.  I can still remember those initial days of practice and some of the crap the seniors bestowed on us.  So basically the same as any other high school sport.  One of them sticks out in my mind.  He simply declared he was the best runner we had.  I had no reason to doubt him.

Today I just finished 13 kilometers.  I'll try and sneak out later with the dog for another easy 5k.  I've been moving around rather slowly and have been walking a lot more than usual.  One reason was the Doc asked me to after a simple procedure I had and the other reason is this continuing hip/back pain.  It really only becomes noticeable after a couple hours.  Well, as a guy who like long events that is a problem.  So I am trying to start exercises that might help.  Which I hate.  Plus the dog is 13 and needs a little break once in awhile, so I add in walking with her.

There is also a golden ticket event to be held in Wisconsin on April 3rd.  The winner gets into the big dance at Big's Backyard Ultra next year.  I've been looking at this for months.  But I have little success in anything that basically requires more than 8-10 hours of being out there.  I can't stop thinking about this, so I believe I'm going to be signing up.  I am very pleased that Brother Grub signed up.  He has as good a chance as anyone to do well.  That's partially why I want to be there.  Sure I want to go have a good go at it, but have to be realistic.  I think it would be neat to at least be a part of an event that sends someone to Big's.  I'm not getting any younger.  I tell myself to find a way to manage the hip/back, pile up some slow miles, and just go have fun.  So I thing that's what I am going to do.