Blog#K

The 10000 on the track is like trying to pick up girls at the bar,  When youre a man like me it frickin’ hard!

So last night I got down in the 10000m Ontario Championships down in London.  As I mentioned in the previous blog it was going to go down like a Nascar race and if all things went well there would be no blow ups or explosions!  Well if you tuned in last night you would have gotten to see a very entertaining exciting blow up of all explosions.  If you were not there you can watch the video here :  http://www.trackie.com/track-and-field/media/2012-London-Distance-Series-meet-1.php?event=5

So here’s what I had in mind going down there..If I run smart I think a 31.20 or perhaps quicker was in the cards.  All I had to do was run smart. Smart would have meant running even paced so I was hoping to hit 73-74s laps.  It looked like there was a big group hoping to run in that 31 minute range. Lets get into it.

So heres how the evening goes from how I see it in my mind.  Warmup went well, I was feeling fresh and excited to go. The ponies were ready to rip it up and I had to reign them in on the warmup.  So were on the line gun goes off and I tuck into the group.  We it was a good little pack and we were moving but about a second per lap slower than I had in mind.  So I hang in the pack for about 6 laps and then I felt I needed to start to move a bit faster if I wanted to run 31 low.  I start clipping along and was feeling really good and smooth and then my boy Rob Watson is there screaming at me and he says that Sami Jabril and Kyle Dekker are coming back to me . So the first time I hear d this I said to myself “that Rob he’s so crazy I am not going to catch those guys theyre 150m ahead of me, silly Rob”.  So I keep moving along and then 400m later I notice that Dekker is only 125m ahead and as I work my way through the laps I am starting to close in on him.   At this point I was telling myself holy hell Dekker is a champ, am I legit?  You see back in high school Cory Currie and Kyle  Dekker used to hand me my ass on a paper plate on the track so I was freakin pumped to be closing on this guy.  As quickly as my glory came it faded.  If we had been racing 7600m last night I might have won the damn thing. But we weren’t we were racing 10k and with 6 laps to go all hell broke loose.  My arms got heavy as ever, I was throwing them trying to keep it rolling then one guy goes by me then another and then another, the last 800 I don’t really recall alot. Rob said my eyes were closed and I was just swimming.  Damn that hurt.  Finished up in 31.41. Ouch. 

I am just Ok with last nights race.  I wanted to go quicker but I also have little experience racing on the track and the 10000 is a long one.  That was my 4^th track race in 7 years so I am trying to gain experience and learn every time out.   Heres what I learned last night,  the 10000m is like trying to pick up girls at the bar.  First you need to be patient, even if it seems a bit slow at the start you need to stick it out, it has to pick up.  The next thing you need to know is if an opportunity comes along early you need to stay calm.  Dont go getting yourself all excited.  If you get too fired up too early you, go and get yourself all aroused, something is going to blow, and when it does its game over, you cant come back from that tonight. So be calm be cool and then when the nights getting late and you can see the finish in sight, let it all hangout  go for it with all you have.   Yeah folks I realize I raced that 10k like a 16 year old at prom.  Lessons learned.   On the bright side Kyle Dekker used to beat me by that much in a 1500m in high school.   Beard Power!

Thanks to my cheering crew that all came out last night Clint, Lumani, Ashley, Loney, Coleshill, Deboer, a whole bunch of good old Fanshawe College folks, The London running community in general that was cheering for me, and Rob Watson,  man I love that guy, he was all over yelling at me and getting me all fired up.   Everybody that came out y’all are great.  Also I sincerely apologize to the man doing to lap counter, with about 4 laps to go I spit and it hit him in the leg, the next time I came around I noticed my big foamy spit on his pants, Sorry man.

Heres a few pictures that a Local Distance Running Legend Jimmy Burrows took last night, Thanks Jim

I was feeling so good here, farmers tan is coming in nicely too I see.

	On the pain train, eyes closed starting to swim!

The legs felt pretty good this morning but as today has progressed they have slowly gotten heavier.  A mile into my long run this afternoon I was going to turn around and go home, Mail it in, screw it, but I rolled on.  Calling 13 miles a long run today.  Get back  into the groove of training and get fired up for the 401 series to start up and take another crack at the 5k. I figure a 5k should feel pretty short now, and if I can mature a little bit and keep my arousal level controlled we just might be able to pick up and run another good one.

Taker easy folks, Summers coming, life is good

John

Blog#J

Boogity Boogity its time to shake ‘n bake

Ladies and gents its time again.  Going to get down on the track on Saturday night and race a 10k.  The 10000 is the Daytona 500 of track running.  The 100 is like drag racing all supped up cars and by the time it’s started it’s over.  The 10000 is the long haul, steam from the natural “stock cars” of distance running. The 10k is made for rednecks lots of time to take in a few pops and corndogs and soak in all the action.  Much like nascar theres a lot of laps 25 of them to be exact.  Lots of laps of not a lot going on, there will be some drafting, bumping, passing on the inside, swinging high through the turn to make a break. Awesome action. If youre really lucky you might get to see some blow ups and crashes. A few blown tires if you will.  Hopefully for me I will avoid pitstops on my trek to a good one.   So yeah folks if you are not up to anything get your coolers and snacks and get on out to TD Waterhouse Stadium on Saturday night.  It will for sure e some exciting action, and if you are lucky Paul Roberts will even be on the horn giving colour commentary. 

Ok who am I kidding I don’t really enjoy Nascar, but come on out to TD on Saturday and check out the races it should be pretty exciting stuff.  And once its all done were going to head out to a fine establishment in London to enjoy a few cold ones, it will be grand.  I am pumped!  Since that 5k a couple weeks ago the confidence has come back and workouts have been going really well.  Grip it and rip it is the plan. Cant wait

So  this is what I did the last 3 days...

Built that nice little deck for a friend of my good buddy Josh Lumani.  It turned out great! I was really happy with it, I am sure those boys will have some great summer nights out there.  I like building decks, they really seem to add to a home, and lucky for me I have another couple lined up for the summer! There was however a bit of a casualty, a stray finish nail from my nail gun managed to find my finger, right on the side of the first fingers knuckle. It hurts a bit, ok it hurts a lot.  Tonight it’s kind of swollen and bruised looking.  Ohwell, could be worse, could have been like that time I almost lost all my manly business to a drill!

So yeah, last summer I was putting a railing on a deck.  One of those fancy black metal spindled railings.  I was drilling all the holes for the spindles to sit in, and since there were so many holes I was using my Mixing drill.  You see a mixing drill is designed for high torque drilling and mixing , it does not have as high of rpm as some other drills but has more power.  It was ideal for the task of drill many holes as it would not suffer from the wear and tear.  Anyway back to drilling all of these holes,  So here I am drilling holes(the next bit happens in a matter of 2 seconds) and as I lift the drill out of a hole to clean it out some how the 2x4 rail wobbles and as I reach to grab it the drill bit somehow grabs my shorts. I mean grabs my shorts about an inch to the left of my manly parts.  And so this high speed high power drill with a new razor sharp forsner bit grabs my shorts and spins and spins up a big mess.  It hurts folks. Hurts really bad. It feels like it has been buried into my leg. Oh heck, so I try to pull and it hurts more, I think that the drill is so tangled up in my shorts and flesh that I can not pull it out.  So I do what any man would do , I switched the drill into reverse and spun it out of my leg.  I immediately fire my hand onto the spot thinking I will have a ¾ inch hole in my leg and that this is going to get messy.  To my suprise there is no blood.  I look again, no blood.  Turns out the shorts and boxer shorts I was wear filled up the cutter head of the drill bit.  The spinning cloth filled bit just gave me basically the worlds worst purple nurple!   It was sore and gross as heck.  One of the fancy multi colour bruises! I took a pic but you really don’t want to see it!  Any way so yeah be careful out there folks it is a wild world we live in.

In other news, my beard is still in full force! BEARD POWER!  I am growing quite attached to it.  I don’t know if or when it will ever go.  It seems to be a love-hate for the beard.  People are either huge fans or are completely disgusted.  Like the child the other night when I was doing my workout on the track in Guelph by myself.  This girl was playing in the park adjacent to the track, the saw me pointed and yelled “ewww disgusting, mom look at this”   Ohwell, what did you do today little girl, go to school? Whats that going to get you? I have a beard, I build stuff, and now Im busting my balls on the track, deal with it.

So yeah I learned a wise lesson when I was very young and realized I was not going to make it in life on my looks.  A quality Canadian TV star always said, “if the women don’t find you handsome, they should at least find you handy” so I took a good long look in the mirror and decided I better get damn handy and fast.  And here we are.

Taker easy folks, get out to the track on Saturday night and cause a ruckus during the 10k. It should be a beauty weekend here, get out there and enjoy it, drink it in, it always goes down smooth!

Peace and blessings

John