First, I'm going to be hiking the Grand Canyon on the same weekend at Fountain to Falls. Not a big deal since it's just a community race and used by our team as final prep for Mt. Wilson. Speak of the devil... I am hiking the Grand Canyon rim to rim, one week before Mt. Wilson, in weather likely to reach the 90's in the basin and 30's on the north rim. It is going to be a long, hot (and maybe cold) and hard 20 miles. So what. I will still have almost a full week to recover before the race. I am willing to risk participating in the event even though I'm running Mt. Wilson because I have let go of the pressure of achieving a specific time hack on the race.
Last year when I first started to run again after two years off, I made the decision to run Mt. Wilson in 2013 and I set the goal to match my 1:51 time from 2009. Over the year I realized just how much ground I had lost by not running, but I still didn't question the goal. Then I joined the Arrogant Bastards in January 2013 and I increased my intention to not only meet my old time, but beat it... 1:49. That's how much ignorant faith I had in just being an Arrogant Bastard.
Then February rolls around with the Saturday specificity training and I am humbled and disappointed to find myself unable to hit the time hacks necessary to even train with the intermediate group... and I realized that I had set a completely unrealistic goal for the 2013 race. Yes, I know that 2013 is Coach's 10th year and that it is a HUGE year for him and our team as a whole. Yes, I know that our team goal is to shower him with medals. Yet, I also know that even if I made the 1:49 I would still be nowhere near medal contention for my age bracket. So I have let it go. That's doesn't mean I'm not going to race hard, it simply means that I am no longer making my results in this race a primary goal.
Instead, the Grand Canyon's time has come... someplace I've never seen and always wanted to hike. As for Mt. Wilson... by 2014 I will be fully prepared for the challenge!
So, on to last night's training... it's been a long hard week of training and yesterday morning I opted out of joining the CrossFit class, preferring to save it for the Bastards. It didn't help, I was still not fully recovered by last night and got almost completely smashed by my group.
BASTARDS! Reminder...tonight after speed-work (7:45pm) we'll be heading over to Matt Denny's Alehouse in Arcadia (the location of our last business meeting) for the St. Baldricks Festival. Please bring a clean shirt (for after practice) preferably an Arrogant Bastard Jersey or red AB T-shirt. RSVP here so Beth Butterfield can see please.
Thinking we had another conventional track night ahead, I brought my stop watch. Which created a whole new opportunity for Eric and teammates to tease Roadkill. I need TWO time pieces??? Yes, I admit it, I do wear a wrist watch with a stop watch feature, but on track work, I still prefer a traditional stop watch. My aging eyes can see the time at a glance while running and rarely screw up on the buttons, unlike when using my watch... which I can screw up quite easily.
Coach had created a new game called TRAIL (similar to HORSE in basketball if that's helpful) and to be competitive you needed to be paired with like fitness. A challenge for Roadkill, but thankfully, a number of our Red Team members showed up and I was able to run the game alternating between Kathy, Lynn and Maggie.
Our team races were: 400m, 300m, 200m, 100m, 50m. I won the 300m but lost the rest. Funniest story was Lynn, who hung in the back for the 400, 300 and 200, then caught us all completely off guard with her launch and speed on the 100. Awesome job teammate! As for Roadkill, my legs are smoked and I am very grateful that today is my rest day... and NO I did not do CrossFit Open 13.2 Are you crazy? I have a Ropes time trial tomorrow morning!
After we were done training, a bunch of us showed up at St Baldrick's to cheer on friends shaving their heads to support the cure for childhood cancer. We got there just in time to catch our teammates! Beth is still my hero even if I'm not willing to do what she does...
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