Personal paradigm aside, let's get back to running. Here I sit, two thousand plus miles and 5 pairs of shoes from the out-of-shape post-stress fracture me, craving nothing more than to get my ass up off the couch. Well, my ass has been off the couch, and has traveled quite a long way at remarkable speeds. I can honestly say that the past half year has been the most physically taxing portion of my running career. Averaging 71.9 miles per week with two-a-days, hill training, tempos, and numerous fartleks left me crawling up the stairs to my apartment more than once. So, in order to fully capture my grueling super-senior cross country season, I'll sum it up in a few brief paragraphs.
Skipping over November's post, in which I had the true desire to start blogging more often, I left you with the very beginning of cross season. Seems I told you I was completely exhausted after the first three days of practice...not much changed. Scope my running log if you don't believe me: Insanity.
So anyway, the season began with a nerve-racking 4k. It was around 150 degrees outside, only three weeks into the season, and I was terrified. The entire team made a poll to vote on who you thought would win the meet, which only served to amplify my terror. At this point I had no idea where my fitness level was, I hadn't raced in a year, and I felt the need to prove myself. The stress and the heat got the better of me. Despite coach making us shove ice cubes down our shorts, we failed to stay cool, and the 12 minutes and 48 seconds of running felt like a sauna. I ended up finishing around tenth overall, and 3rd on the team of six. I wasn't too happy with my performance, but it was just the first meet.
Fast forward only 8 short days and my toe was on the line at the Mizzou home meet. Everyone on the team was there as well, unattached or in uniform. Fleeting thoughts reminding me of my last home cross country meets did little to quell the anxiety welling up within. The terrible hill workout I'd had that past Tuesday did nothing to raise my confidence, as the home course is easily the most hilly cross country course ever striped.
Two long weeks of training passed unnoticed by the majority of my classmates. Next on the agenda was a trip to South Bend, Indiana to a tight, twisty, and overcrowded 8k on an otherwise beautiful campus. Although there are many stories of deafening bus movies, arguments over the aesthetics of the campus, or investigating the "talent" on the Grand Valley State team, the race was over quickly. The first mile went out in 4:40, causing a massive bottleneck around the pine trees and roping. The sloshing mud pits and freezing rain and bright sunshine did little to improve our focus, and we were out the back of the pack in a hurry. Although we managed to climb back up in the meet and limp away with a fairly decent team score, we were all disappointed. I, myself, felt a repeat of last year's Bradley meet, as I proceeded to hobble the last mile or so with a sore hip and a completely locked glute muscle. Luckily for me, a shower and bus trip gave my legs time to heal up, and I managed to escape any permanent injury. Back to the grind...
The beginning weeks of October were a nightmare. Extreme training coupled with multiple midterm exams and the frustrating last charge of researching in my lab left me completely desolate. The week before pre-nats I honestly only came home to sleep; the rest of the time was spent at practice, class, or working in my lab to piece together an acceptable set of results for my upcoming presentations. Then, the extended weekend of hell commenced.
I left Columbia on a Wednesday to fly to Hartford, Connecticut to present a poster at the Biomedical Engineering Society's annual meeting. After a day and a half in Connecticut I flew back to St. Louis and hopped on a van to Terre Haute, Indiana. After an atrocious performance I'd like to not even write about, I drove back home with my parents to St. Louis and flew to Minneapolis, Minnesota to give a talk on photoacoustics. After that talk, my buddy and fellow researcher drove us both back from the great white north to Columbia. It was an unbelievable amount of traveling and stress, and my body simply couldn't handle the race. So after getting nearly last, I was on the fence at making the Big Twelve meet that was two weeks away.
Fortunately, the rules changed for the conference race, allowing each team to take ten runners. In all my years as an athlete and member of a team, no trip was more hilarious and exciting than the trip down to College Station for the Big XII conference meet. The entire flight and bus ride (minus the part where Coach's car got robbed) was just plain fun. Jokes were flying, coach was trying to get us killed switching between 8 lanes at a time, and we all found out we might be gay by how quickly we could answer a game of 20 questions... moving on.
The late night drive to the hotel coincided with game 6 of the World Series, and with 3 Royals fans in the car, the volume level was way past eleven. As the van traveled in and out of service we kept hearing static at the most crucial moments, only to hear extremely loud cheering, as Mike Shannon could only gawk at the heroics of David Freese. After a night in a plush hotel, we ran the course and grabbed an awesome Italian dinner, and watched game 7 end in a Cardinals victory! Though the game ended late, it was well worth it to stay up and watch.
Race day finally came, and as I laced my spikes and slipped on my singlet I couldn't have been more excited to line up and race with my nine teammates. Our white jerseys were looking sexy as ever, and the Big XII was about to have a rude awakening, Mizzou style.
As my eyes regained focus on the present, they locked on a trio of blue and white jerseys just steps ahead. I was not going to be beat by a Jayhawk. Slowly my gears shifted and began the long, 1000m drive around the final loop of the 8k course.
Although the next two weeks were cut short by a minor Achilles pain, I was still excited for the regional race. However, my first 10K was anything but pretty, as the hilly and windy course left me gasping for air halfway through and finishing with a time I'm not willing to express. Yet the glory of Big XIIs was enough, and the team pictures and hugs at the end of the meet were bittersweet. It's hard to face the fact that you'll never be on a cross country team again...
But my final track season is in its infancy, leaving a monstrous window for more self-validation. And with a light semester and a mind focused on the task at hand, I'm expecting big things. I now dub this blog a true runner's blog, and will hereby be boring you with stats and times and the stories of all the races to come, as I'm sure I'll look back at these words in a few months or years and be thankful that my younger self had the foresight to pen the stories of the greatest experience anyone on this earth could possibly enjoy. Life as a runner is good.
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