Club XC Wrap Up and What's Down the Road

Welp, Club Cross is done and dusted and happily our women came away with second place, and our dudes got third. But those things are old news by now, and we got the job done. Next year I think we are due to move up a place though.

As always, there was not a dull moment the entire time. Cody must do some sort of behind-the-scenes psychoanalysis/interview/Rorschach Inkblot Test before allowing people on to the team to make sure that their personalities are sufficiently quirky enough to sync together in a really freaky way. No other team stops traffic the way that we do (and in Brie's case I mean this literally). And Levassiur, you're an excellent dancer, don't let them call you Ape Arms.

I would go over highlights from the trip, but Bobby took my idea so never mind.

So now it's back to the grind and looking ahead...what next? First order of business, get my foot straightened out, it didn't fail me in the race but had me pretty nervous leading up to it. Let's just say that the Minimalist Experiment was not the success that I was initially envisioning. After that, USA Cross Country is on the docket as usual, maybe an indoor 5k (for the sake of trying to PR, NOT because I like track. I don't. It's flat, and hard, and unnatural, and oval, and everyone looks like a bunch of freaking graceful impalas running on it EXCEPT for me who looks like a laterally-lurching-bow-legged-pigeon-toed ox for whom foward locomotion is an absolutely authentic praise Jesus miracle that defies all laws of nature. I mean, my arms....why are they doing that? No. Just no. Track is a necessary evil and that's it.), then hopefully Gate River....and I think that three months seems like a more than adequate time-frame and I'm not looking past that.

In any case, I would like to try some new stuff in 2013, perhaps dabble in the trail and mountain running scene just a little, and while I don't like to put goals out there in print because I believe in Do-First-Talk-Later, there's a little rinky-dink half-marathon in late summer that goes up this awfully big 14,000 foot hill that overlooks all of Colorado Springs, and it's been calling my name for a couple of years now, this might be the year to actually acknowledge it, we'll see.

I've also been debating the possibility of having a coach help a little bit, I've briefly had a couple since being out of college, but in looking back I've truthfully never really wanted one, it always felt necessary because everyone else seemed to have one. But sometimes I debate their effectiveness, and mostly I just don't like the feeling of having lost ownership of my own running because it's my project, I dislike feeling the need to "people please" and like I owe someone else success, especially when I know that they will only be there during said success and won't want to know your name otherwise. So I get nervous and I get cold feet and then I run away...sounds coachable! And admittedly so far I've wanted to do what I want to do and that's not necessarily what Coach So and So wants to do: They say 25x400, I say hills, they say tempo run, I say miles (and I'll be damned if I'm doing them on a track). But after a while it's like, I have forever to do what I want to do, I have now to really do something, and that might eventually require conceding to someone else's knowledge. I already know what I'm going to get doing it myself, I don't know when I might stumble on a good match and turn a corner if I never even give it a fair shake. I mean, I do the same thing like every week: Pyramid Fartlek The Original, then Pyramid Fartlek Version 2.0 (which is the same as The Original, but now with hills for added exertion!). But that's all still really up in the air, it always seems like such a big risk because running's a lot more important to me than I know that it should be, so relinquishing control of it sometimes rubbs me the wrong way. Either way, I have a lot more soul-searching to do on that one, it really comes down to keeping my head on straight, which is no small feat.

That's all I got, usually I strive for deeper meaning in my posts and try to employ similes, metaphors, and complex symbolism, but I think that I sound sufficiently undecided about pretty much everything in life by now so this is a good stopping point. Great work to everyone at Clubs, it was as always a joy seeing everyone kick some ass and represent.

BUS 900 out.

Mattie and Brie's kickass-fest that I thoroughly enjoyed being part of.