Crank it to Eleven

In the few remaining pre-practice days before the onslaught of two-a-days, weights, circuits, and workouts, I sat beside myself in a newly acquired apartment room void of external interaction. No cable, no internet, and no true sense that the world is still revolving as the hands of the clock seem to remain still. The turmoil of evacuating my former residence in the most inane way humanly plausible has left me with an elevated blood pressure and a mind fogged by stress. The thought that a move to the apartment building across the street would require two days of moving trailers, a thousand dollars, a brief stay on a friend's couch and countless forms of agonizing paperwork is nearly too ridiculous to believe. However, the antics of our slumlord real estate managers have prepared us to at least expect the most ludicrous thing imaginable. I mean, honestly...thirty minutes late to an inspection because you couldn't find a sock and you wanted to wear tennis shoes? Stupid people shouldn't be allowed to breed.

So putting that on the back burner of my overheated brain, my next move was to sit in silence and immerse myself into the world of literature. The Hunger Games trilogy, Life of Pi, and a textbook on LabVIEW have overtaken all of my waking hours.... well that and guitar hero. If only I could write as well as the authors of those novels or play the real guitar as well as I can bang on the cheap plastic one then maybe I wouldn't be sitting here typing out the mundane happenings of my pedestrian life.

However, after a week of down time practice reared its head with an awful vengeance. Coming off a down week, my ears must have been mistaken, as I could have sworn the new coach explained his strategy to have everyone running 80-120 miles a week. That's a lot. So as I sit here on the third official day of practice between my morning and afternoon session, my legs are aching. By the end of today I will have run 45 miles, lifted twice, done three P90X style circuits, and will be fully consumed by a constant state of soreness and exhaustion. Yet, despite the long death march laid out in front of my ever moving feet, I find comfort in its infinitude. Although the mileage is high, its a direct progression towards my goal of becoming an elite runner. I once again have the desire and can't wait to prove my mettle to the team and mostly to myself. I'm locked in on my future... let's just hope school, stress, fatigue, and injury can keep to themselves.