Blog#D

The Fat Lady Sings, the truck of dreams, caffeine, oh and I revolutionize the running world!

The Fat Lady Sang this weekend folks, but what a glorious hymn she cascaded over me with, almost as if it was Jesus singing lead vocals for Lynyrd Skynyrd. Yes it was Glorious! And yes it is over  folks! Sunday was a great way to end off my summer/fall racing season.  I headed down to Rob Watson’s (checkout Robs blog  http://leblogdurob.blogspot.com/ ) home court to take in the London Runners Choice Halloween Haunt 10k.  It was as perfect of a day as anyone could ask for in late October.   After my poor experience in the STWM Half I had the itch to take advantage of my summer fitness.  The race was great! Speed River Teammate Matty “the champ” Brunsting and I were rolling up front and it was an epic duel from my account.  We swapped the lead many times back and forth over the first 5k loop, around 6k I felt the champ slightly off my back at this point. As we headed into the small hill up to 7k I made my move to try and drop the Champ but that dirty old son-of-a-brunsting reeled me back in at the turn around with about 1.5k to go and I was cooked.  It was a great feeling to be battling and racing again and not just out there surviving.  So I am very happy with the effort and how I felt.  It put a bit of fire back in my belly. A wise fire to not keep beating the dead horse of a season we have here and to take some time to get healthy, and reload the legs. Oh Yeah I am on DOWNTIME!  I’m going to rock the shit out of this downtime. I am going to go the store tomorrow and get me a bunch of sugary cereals, corn pops and cinnamon toast crunch, and some Captain Crunch, and Fruity Loops, oh man I don’t even know.   It’s going to be sweet.  You know what else I am going to do folks?  I am going to get waist deep into a new big project at JWM Quality Construction and put in a good 40+ hour week to get a jump on progress for next week when I get back on the running grind and working 40+ hours a week.  I love it!  So here’s the thing folks some people were asking me about improving at running, and how I got better.   So I’m going to let the cat out of the bag here and revolutionize the running world! You want to be better at running?  Don’t order a $250 12 week training plan from some nobody on the internet, don’t go buy a fuel belt (your going running not climbing everest), you don’t need some silly finger toe shoes, or a mountain man magical diet, or some wonder pill, You want to be better at running?  Wait for it, here it comes, you might want to sit down as the world is going to go for a flip here folks, You want to be better at running? Go outside and go…………..RUNNING! Yeah I know, as crazy as it sounds just go and run, and when you get used to it, RUN a bit more!  It’s that effing simple. Yeah it’s good to have that off my chest!

So back in Blog#C I mentioned the Truck-of-Dreams and a trip to Texas.  The Truck of Dreams was 1998 GMC 1500 V8 SingleCab Bench seat teal coloured beauty.   My Dad bought it when I was in gr 9 and I remember test driving it with him and I knew it was love.  The truck of dreams was like riding on a cloud.  I often explained it as an experience like the “magic carpet ride” in the Disney film Alladdin. The TOD made three trips to Texas, a trip to PEI, and a Solo mission with me to Mount Rushmore and back through Wyoming.  She never failed me!  Then one early April day this spring a freak snow storm and a poorly placed snow bank got us into a spot we couldn’t get out of.  The transmission was cooked. The Truck of Dreams was layed to rest!  There were many memories made in there, many nights slept on that couch like seat, countless hours and litres of gas, hundreds of vanillorama air fresheners. It brings a tear to my eye.   One great moment comes from our last trip to Texas, Josh Ackworth and I have made this trip twice together.  I will tell you more stories another time. Any way it’s a straight shot, 25 hours, drive, gas, subway, pee, drive, gas, subway, redbull…..you get the idea.  Any way we were deep into the drive home a little after Nine pm, in the heart of Arkansas, we stopped for gas, subway and redbull. Usually we would just get subs and drink bottled water, but this time being in the Heart of the South I got a hankering for some Mountain Dew.  And I don’t mean a can of soda, I mean a 32 fl.oz. Super big gulp. Funny thing is Josh gets the same hankering and he gets the same jug of the DEW.  So we are back on the road, eat our subs, driving, Josh has eaten a big sub and just finished a solid 6-7 hour driving stint and he quickly drifts off to sleep.  So here I am up late, a big belly full of subway, driving the highway in the Truck of Dreams.  So I start to get a bit thirsty and I work my way through a bunch of my Dew, and then I start to get sleepy so I smash a red bull. I’m driving and driving, feeling thirsty so I finish my Dew.  Driving. Sleepy, Red bull, thirsty, Oh look Josh didn’t drink his Dew, I drink Josh’s Dew. Driving. Then Whammy, I am in a rave, lights are flying at me, the radio is cranked with all the good songs, Journey, Waylon, Top 40, I’m scanning the tunes, Windows down, Josh wakes up!  Josh “hey man, you ok” Me “ yeah man Im awesome” I was flying  for the next two hours I don’t remember a thing. I was hammer down driving, singing to the radio, window open, pounding on the ceiling, Josh laughing until he hurt, then as quickly as this rush came, it fleeted.  I pulled over crawled into the passenger seat and crashed into a two hour sleep with the most outrageous dreams I have ever had in my entire life! Get this folks, Mountain Dew has caffeine, one of the highest of all sodas at that! Oh the Truck of Dreams, take me back!

Nice coyote!

John