Blog #Q

So the one Newfie is down at the local watering hole whooping it up celebrating.  One Newf says to the other Newf what are you celebrating there boy, and he says I just finished a jigsaw puzzle it only took me four months.  The other Newf says “four months? That doesn’t seem very fast!”  To which the other replies oh yes on the box it said 3-5 years. 

So we shall title this blog from that.

Things are coming together like a kid’s jigsaw puzzle!

So the last couple blogs I was going on about the upcoming Vic Matthews cross country meet in Guelph. We had been hyping up the Guelph City Championship/bragging rights.  I was fired up for this race, really fired up for it.  Workouts had been feeling great and confidence was coming back.  I was looking to get into this stacked field of runners, run smart, run fast, and boom the bonus would be our Speed River men might upset the alumni.  So, things were feeling good race morning I was ready to rock, So here we go, get down to the line, the field of athletes is huge and I know these kids are going to get out fast and I just need to race smart so I stay close to the back to the Guelph crew.  So the gun goes off and its chaos bodies, limbs, flying all over the place.  And WHAMMY 30m in everyone decides to move to the right and make a mass cluster-chaos and it happens, someone steps on my right heel, back of the shoe goes down and under my foot.  I didn’t know what to do, so I keep running, we get around the hair pin bend and everyone slows down. So this flip flop like shoe I now have is not going to work I pull to the side at 400m and try my damndest to pull the heel pack on quick. No dice and in the heat of the moment did not want to be out the back door anymore than I already was.  So I kept this flip flop thing on to get down the woodchips and kick it off just before the 1k marker.  I roll through the little loop and come around and see my shoe nicely sitting there just off to the side, Oh shit it has my timing chip on it.... So I continue on through the first big loop, by this point my foot is sore, calf is getting tight, not a good feeling. I spot Cody Murray and yell at him to find my spike by the K and get it to me.  Cody tracks down the shoe and I spot him as we are heading out to the back of the last loop. Cody! You didn’t untie the shoe, (which I later learn that he had and loosened it so I could slip it on) any way he quickly untied it and I stopped again and tried to get it on, thats not easy to do mid race, with cold hands,  shit tieing the  dam things was a struggle.  Any way I was happy to have both shoes for the last 2k on the gravel, but the legs were done my head was out of it and that results were written. 

Rolling shoeless

So I was pretty rattled and angry, it was a great day to run fast, a great course with an outstanding field of the best OUA teams and top notch south western Ontario club teams.  Any way I got over it. I let it go.  But like my old coach at Fanshawe told me a long time ago,  “at your elite level, you don’t just have off days, you need to figure out what went wrong and learn from it”  So I have learned from this event,  First thing is, there was nothing I could do to prevent it, my shoe was double knotted and tight ( hence why I couldn’t pull it on easy) But if it is to ever happen again I know now to just stop, fix it, boom back in it with the whole race to go.  My constant slowing surging stopping starting surging took its toll and if I  had just fixed it I would have been 25s back with the whole race still left.  Lesson learned

I loved that atmosphere last week when we were getting all pumped up for the big show down.  It got everyone on board and it reminded me of my college days running on a team.  Not that Speed River doesn’t have that team feeling but with people racing a range of distance all the time here and there it’s just not the same as the atmosphere of a collegiate cross country team and racing for a team.  I have also hit up the old stomping grounds of Fanshawe College to run a bit with the cross country team there,  They practice on days I am not up in Guelph so I just get the legs rolling with them on their warm up and then continue my run on the beautiful trails of the Fanshawe Conservation area.  The college and university kids are awesome, it’s such a fiery exciting atmosphere.  Everyone is on board for the team, not for a qualifying time or PB.  All they want to do is get better and run fast. It’s great!   And thats when I stumbled upon this gem and Lisa basically is saying what I am, the fire and excitement of the college and how she feeds off of it.  http://www.flotrack.org/coverage/249682-2012-Cross-Country-Season-on-Flotrack/video/658569-Lisa-Uhl-tells-why-she-left-Portland-and-Jerrys-OTC-crew 

And like my boy Josh Lumani said “I no longer watch Flotrack for the races, more just to search for wife prospects”   Yeah!

While we are on that topic of ladies, I have noticed what must be the new fashion trend for the fall while out driving. These leather “riding boots” Im going to call them?? Theyre like knee high leather boots, some have layers some are just straight.  But I like it, Ladies they look good!  Thats when I began to ponder why they look good and it quickly hit me,  these boots hide the worst part of the female body.  The Ankle.  I don’t care who you are, the ankle is just an awkward mess of joints and bones and muscle and tendons.  Even the sweetest legged distance runner girls have ankles and as slim as one can be its still an ankle.  And recent trends of skinny jeans has just brought everything tight and down to the ankle and boom there it is the ankle.  So now these boots kind of smooth everything out and flow over the ankle,  Lets say they’re doing good things.  Good work ladies!

Oh so I guess I should summarize this and take it back to the title of this blog, running has really been coming together nicely.  Really smooth and easy like a kids jigsaw puzzle.  I am in a good place and doing the little things right and that seems to be making a big difference.  I am sleeping well, getting my mileage back up, hitting the core work hard, taking my vitamins, stretching, rolling out the muscles and its working, Im back baby.  Looking forward to big things down the road.

Oh shoot yeah you might notice the advertisements over there to the right on this here blog now,  and I hope you don’t all start to hate on me.  As I have before called out runner who have blogs and just use them to beg for money and hand outs.  Well  you see they pay a little bit to allow advertisement on blogs, it is not a lot but it is based on the number of hits a blog gets.  And this here blog seems to be viewed by a lot of people. So, I wont be on here begging for a hand out, I am going to take the helping hand that has been provided.  I ran it by one of my top followers and best friends  and he was cool with the idea. Yeah there you have it. 

Keep it real folks

John