A Sneak Peek

 Family of deer

Blend into the charred hillside

Ashen grey and brown.

Friday, November 19, 2021

 Over the years I’ve tried to worry less about my competition and focus on time or process goals at races. But I’ve broken down and took a sneak peek at the competition for the next couple of events.

 Sometimes I’ll do this as a practical matter to help me better prepare. For example, the next two events I haven’t done before and I’d like to try to go under 20 minutes for the 5k on Thanksgiving and under 3 hours for the 30k at the No Name 30k on December 4^th.  So I”ll peek at past results to give me an idea of what’s conceivable.

 On Thanksgiving, at the Ventura 5k, the times seem pretty fast with even a few people in my age group going under 20. In fact, there’s a good possibility I'll get whooped there, which hasn’t happened in quite a while. I’m going to try and put that out of my mind and just try to hold a steady pace and let the adrenaline and sea of fast runners take me under 20. If I go under 20 where I place will just be a matter of who shows up.

 The No Name has now been changed to a 25k so I’ll have to set a new standard for that. Seems a little less daunting than Bull Dog, which I ran in 2:12 so I’ll give under 2:10 a go. Again, placing will be a matter of who shows up.

 Recently I read an article about Ryan Hall saying that he wants all of his athletes to have both a time and a heart goal. My heart goal for the 25k will be to hang with whomever passes me after the first half hour and to also not walk a step. I was pleased to do that at both Bull Dog and the Old Boney 30k.

 Whatever happens it’ll be fun to get out there and face new competition on new courses and to see how it all works out.

54 Hours

The cold morning ghost

Presses on the canyon brush

With a thick, damp hand.

 Tuesday, November 16, 2021

 At 63, nearing the end of my working life, I have come nearly full circle and almost have the same final ideal work schedule that I had when I started on this crazy journey of work.

 I started happily working at age 12 when Mr. McGowan, the owner of McGowan’s market, the local mom and pop grocery store, offered me a weekend job. He paid me $6 to come in on the weekends to sweep the sidewalk, wash windows and do general cleaning and other odds and ends.

 6 bucks for a few hours early Sat/Sun morning back in 1970 seemed like a great gig and if the dude hadn’t sold the place a few years later, who knows, maybe I’d be an old man now still out there with broom and dustpan.

 In between then and now my predominant line of work was as an elementary school teacher, who’s hours weren’t all that bad and, though the pay and benefits were marginally better, it definitely was a lot more work both physically and mentally. Teaching did allow for weekend training/racing but squeezing in workouts after an exhausting day was challenging.

 For the past four years I’ve been working at a wellness retreat four days a week. But recently that’s been changed to a straight 54 hour shift starting Saturday morning and ending midday Monday with occasional Saturday mornings off to get out and race.

 This allows me four solid days to train, relax and do pretty much as I please. The only small downside is that I’ll need to take time (money) off occasionally if I want to compete on Sunday or have a significant race that requires long travel, but finally, near the end I hope, of this seemingly endless work cycle I’m back to working on the weekends .

Old Boney

An amorphous cloud

Hovers below the mountains

Slowly vanishing.

 Tuesday, November 2, 2021

 At the moment I’m in that transition phase where I’m still taking way too much time feeling good about myself from last weekend’s race before slapping myself to get it together and getting back to training and focusing on the present and future events.

 The Old Boney 20 miler, like just about every race, had its share of accomplishments and failures. I failed to hit my time goal of under 3 hours. This year I have not hit a time goal. I’m not missing by much though so I’m not going to write myself off as an out of touch optimist just yet. Next up will be a turkey trot where I’ll give under 20 in a 5k a final shot for this year.

 At Old Boney I did win my age group and came in 5^th overall in a very respectable 3:08. Next month I’ll shoot for an under 3-hour 30k on a far easier course, but with weather and what not…

 I did fall, but with minimal damage and not much of a setback. Otherwise, everything pretty much went according to plan. For the No Name 30k next month I’ll make some minor changes in equipment but will set out to keep the same basic plan and outlook.

 One racing element that was fortified by my approach is that for longer challenging races it’s wise to reign it in a bit at the start. Since Old Boney began at 6:30 a.m. the first 15 minutes were in the dark and all of the runners pretty much cruised and used that as a warmup. And that didn’t prevent the winner from doing a blazing 2:40 and running away from the rest of us mere mortals. Nor did it prevent me from feeling great once I got going and allowed me to work myself into the race where I felt very comfortable pushing the pace and challenging myself to do something special.

 Darkness won’t be an issue at No Name and given that the course is easier, the temptation to gun it at the start is going to be hard to constrain. Once I have more details, I’ll better be in a position to feel if a pre-race warmup is desirable or if I’ll be better off to again start slow and work my way into race pace. But my time and effort level sure felt right at Old Boney so it’ll be an interesting compare/contrast if I deviate.

 Alright already, enough pats on the back. It’s time to kick myself and get back to work.