I've always believed that a person has reached the pinnacle of Runner Dorkdom once they start blogging about their running. However, at long last I have decided to quit living in denial, stop fighting the feeling, embrace it, and join the ranks. I've never done this before and am a little bit technologically impaired, so we'll see what happens. I might end up writing this whole thing over again.
Speaking of joining the ranks, Cody was generous enough to give me a spot on the BRC team just a couple of days ago. I am pretty stoked to say the least, and it's quite the honor to be able to be part of a team with such tremendous talent and so many accomplishments to boast and I am very thankful for it. It gives you a lot more "umph" when you're working to make something else better in addition to yourself.
Getting up to speed with the training stuff...hmmm...where to start? Well, I just wrapped up my collegiate eligibility after five years of competing for UCCS at the beginning of last March. After a somewhat lengthy layoff for injury post-indoor season, I got things going again around the end of June. It was a bit stop and go until I actually started getting back to doing some pretty solid workouts and mileage at the end of August, and things are going very well now and I feel pretty fantastic. I have run a couple of races during that span of time; one being the RMAC Open 6k in Washington Park towards the end of last October, which went very well. I went there with the intention of it being a rust-buster of sorts, but really didn't feel rusty at all. I initially was worried that I might have forgotten how to race, which seems to happen whenever I'm away from it for a while, but that was not the case and I walked away very pleased with it considering there were some very good runners in that field to keep things honest. Got in some good training for about another month, and ran the Mile Hi Turkey Trot 4 miler (also in Washington Park) on Thanksgiving day. It was another good day and I finished 20-some-odd seconds behind Cass Slade. And I've just been training since then with my sights set on the U.S. Cross Country Championships on February 13th and the hopes of making a world cross team. It'd be sweet to race wearing the U.S.A. and that's pretty much my life's mission at the moment. Obviously it won't be a cake-walk though, so just need to keep grinding away. Training mostly consists of weekly fartlek runs of varying duration and design, hill workouts about every other week, "medium" long runs, and long runs. Plus the little details; drills, strides, core work, and the like.
That's just a brief summary and I'll go into a little more detail down the road, but needless to say, 2009 was a little bit of a (and I hate to say this because I just think it sounds so cliche'...but I'll say it anyway) "re-building year" with not too many races and mostly just getting back on track to where I was back last February, and gaining some more. One of the up-sides to post-college running I have figured out is that you have a little more time on your side to do stuff right and really listen to yourself, rather than having to be hasty and rush things from one race to the next. But I am very pleased to say that I feel like training has been going better than it has in a very long time and I feel better than I have in an even longer time....I feel like a spring chicken again! Hooray! So I am very excited for 2010 and what's to come, and I'm pretty sure that the best is yet to come.
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