Tuesday 18 October 2011

Blog#B

The good The bad and The Ugly

So here we go again with this blogging adventure, there was zero negative feedback from the first one, so we forge on!  I have discovered you can put damn near anything on this interweb and people will believe it!   Anything!   Im sure my blog is attracting the most intellectual crowd and you folks all know better than to believe all you read on the net.  There are some serious snake oil salesmen out there!  So this weekend was the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon weekend!  It was hyped up pretty big this year, Reid gunning for the Canadian Record, Eric and Dylan being realistic hopefuls to run the Olympic Standard.  Cleve and Myself fired up to crush the Half.  The events of this weekend can be summed up by “the good, the bad, and the ugly”

The Good
-Taper was over, Summing up the last incredible 15 weeks out on Cooks and Carter and the N-way with the boys!
- Another road trip with the stunningly good looking-wise beyond his years Cleve Thorson.  Years ago Cleve became my idol when he was on Flotrack drinking a beer while getting interviewed after qualifying for World Cross Country Championships.  Cleve is tougher than Sylvester Stallone in the First three Rocky movies.  He has been my go-to guy over the past 10 months, as I learn the ways of the river!  So I was fired up to be rooming with him again!
-Reid crushed the marathon “rolling the dice” as he called it going out with the leaders. Eric is Olympic bound again after an epic kick for the ages!  Someone out there that has tech skills should put that last 100m into a video with either that epic chariots of fire beach run song, or the Baywatch running song to it.  That would be beautiful, that would be beautiful!

The Bad
This weekend could be called adventures with Cleveland, my god an adventure it was!  It starts as when we were never emailed about our elite status for the race, We didn’t know the whereabouts of the technical meeting.  So being Wise as he is, Cleve looked up the meet hotel and we headed there by foot.  Turns out the elites were at a different hotel, a hotel that was a $25 cab ride away. We missed the meeting!  As we went to ask the Race official (lets call him Cliff) for our bib #s and kit, Cliff told us they were at the expo because we were not staying at that hotel.  Luckily Gillis lends us his hot whip to save us a Cab ride and we race over to the expo.  At the expo we were told that because we were elites that our bibs and kits were at the elite hotel, with thats right you guessed it- Cliff-the man who told us they were not there!  So this lovely Sportstat supervisor tells us she will give us new numbers and chips.  Whilst waiting at the chip activation tent I decide to take-a-load-off. And rest my ass on the edge of the table, as I put my weight down-BOOM! Table collapses, the Sportstat Laptop and a collection of other things crash on top of me. No harm no foul.  We then return the Gilly mobile and take a $34 Cab back to our hotel.  Avoiding the protest and a handful of fellows that were chanting about their beliefs and how they didn’t seem to be fans of “the white man for stealing their souls.”  Scary yes, but we forged on.  Warm up went well the next morning but then at 18min to the gun we were trapped on the third floor of our hotel!  The emergency stairs led to an alarmed door and for the past ten minutes no elevator would stop on our floor.  I was dialing the front desk to tell them we were going to blast through the emergency door and that they needed to deal with it, when I hear Cleve yell from the hall “its hear” We were free. And that folks was about where my luck ran out!

The Ugly
7-21.1K  yeah Sunday was not my day.  I was fired up and feeling great when the gun went off I felt comfortable.  Settled into pace and was cruising. Then around 6.25k the shit winds were a blowing, I struggled, 6.37k I was dropping off the back of my pack, even as I tried to fight to stay in touch with them. 6.5k Rob Watson looks back to me and Yells “Mason get your effing ass right here” I knew i need to be there.  So this 20m gap had formed,  I decide it would be in my best interest to sprint up to this pack.  This is when things get real ugly. I start to  sprint or so I thought, and you know what?  That pack got further and further away.  Then things start to get really really ugly, I start to get rolled by the 2.18-2.20 marathoners and then it went from bad to worse,  I hear a pack rolling on me, I say to myself ok hook  up with these guys and I check my shoulder “oh shit”  yeah folks these were not guys.  We had the Womens marathon leaders rolling my ass.  I had got chicked.  Granted these women did go through the half in 67.something but none the less I was chicked.  I grabbed my bottle at the 11.5k table to get a little C2MAX boost to maybe fire up the engines.  I got a shot of it alright- a shot straight up my damn nose! So I opened my mouth further and tried for another shot and again straight shot to the nose. I think powerbar should research snorting options for fueling protocol as!  Any way I smashed the bottle on the ground and yelled a few profane words, by that time Im pretty sure I had checked out of racing.

In Conclusion
So yeah!  Needless to say I was pretty down Sunday, running 3and a half minutes slower than planned.  And then just to throw the emotions for a spin I get to see my training partners crush Olympic qualifiers. The highs the lows, so we had a chat with the Man DST, we had a good cry and hug, and I had surpassed the Hour time limit Cleveland had given me to be mad! Life goes on.
I have survived and we forge on today.  Im fired up again and ready to find another race.  This would be a good time to thank the folks that got me ready to Run a sub 67 Half.  Family and friends-all the support was felt and makes it worth it, my wonderful ladyfriend-putting up with me , DST-the man puts his heart into coaching us and getting out our best, Moults-has the energy of a hummingbird and fires me up to no end with his passion for the run, Reid and Eric- the masters-teaching me from your wisdom and getting me excited, Rob-Love this dude, toughest man in the league he wanted me there and I owe him some pacer work for his next one, Cleve- master of consistent quality and great looks(except for you goose hawk). Paul the video man, CBL, Wild Bill our fallen soldier! Get it together man!  And all the people that support us in Guelph.  Seriously the people of Guelph are effed, this must be average conversation around the dinner table Guelph resident#1 “hey what are you doing tomorrow” Guelph Resident#2 “Its Saturday” GR#1 “lets get up early and go drive around watching some guys long run” GR#2 “thats a great idea”.  There is a reason Guelph is killing it on the running scene, DST said it “running is not an individual sport” and In my head if you can get a group of people together with the same goals and ideas, heck  folks we can damn near do anything!  So yeah the Guelph residence that showed up at 7 am to drive around watching us long run or came over to watch and support during workouts.  You folks are great, John Marsden, Cal Staples, Volmer, Scotty, Maloney,   a hand full of people I cant remember your names, Thanks. 
So yeah thats it, the end of this blog got a little sappy and my tough as balls persona is going down the tubes, it seems fitting as I finish this here the credits are rolling for the Littlest Hobo, one of my favourite TV shows and as it says “maybe tomorrow Ill want to settle down, until tomorrow Ill just keep moving on”insert  whistling sound now!

Roll on

  John

1 comment:

  1. Hey John! Rough race weekend for sure, supplemented with highs to counter the lows, but I love the way you tell it. Guelph/Speed River sounds more special every time I read about everyone's personal experiences. You're in the right place for sure. Looking forward to seeing what you do in the Spring. Keep blogging!

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