Wednesday, November 25, 2009

The last month in review

If 1 post per month becomes the pattern, I might just end this blog. It has been low priority on a list that has become challenging.

It has been a challenging month in my work life, so I have been able to put my ultra skills to work. What I am going through now is a lot like the second half of an ultra, minus the death march (I hope). If you know who I work for, Google news them and you will get it.

On the good side, I am back to a consistent schedule of 8M/day 5-6 times per week. Nice and easy.

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I was back in Wisconsin last week, and ended up participating in Jeff's "Funk Road 50". Celebrate someone's birthday by running a 50k on a week night. File it under "Sounded like a good idea at the time".

Somehow, I ended up running the first 8 miles or so with the fast boys and got pounded by them. On one of the out and backs, I decided to ease off and run with 2 women who started earlier and were running slower. They were Cathy Drexler and Christine Crawford.

Cathy is a hardcore volunteer at Superior, so it was to actually talk to her. Christine is a fellow beer snob, so she gets props for that. I don't know if she has a reputation as a sandbagger, but when we were finally about 2 miles from the 25k turnaround, she kept saying we were 6 miles out. I kept thinking, "Wow, I have really lost my conditioning and sense distance". She is recovering from an injury, and is used to running about 5 minutes faster for pace.

The two of them saved me from missing a turn (the whole race was in the dark, and well marked, but I missed a small arrow on a road).

At the turnaround I figured 25k was enough on a school night, and I got the "awww, come on"s. Sorry. Ron Bero had a similar case of the "I don't want tos".

Todd E and I raided Jeff's fridge back at his house looking for beer. Never found it. I find out later it was on the porch in a cooler.

Thanks Lapham gang.

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I spent some time in Kansas City and ran a short route with a few KC Trail Nerds. I don't think they were ready to go hammer out 3 hours of hills as I was that night. So we did about an hour at the Psycho Wyco Course. I also got a run in at Shawnee Mission Park.

I did get out to St. Louis, and Travis suggested I hit "Chubb". I got there 15 minutes before the sun went down, and got kind of lost. Luckily, I kept it close. It is one of those parks which closes "1/2 hour after sunset". I never know when that actually is. That is a bad ass course.

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More to come

4 comments:

Runnin-From-The-Law said...

When you gonna reveal the contest? I've been waiting.

brothergrub said...

Great to see you at Funk Road - hope we can get you back out there in the daylight sometime so you can see what a beautiful section of the ice-age that is... 18 of our 30 starters enjoyed that aid station so much they never left so you weren't alone! Hope you enjoyed it any way - make sure to check in with us when you are back in town...(and bring us more of that home brewed sweet stout!!! We'll trade you some Blatz...)

SteveQ said...

Your runs during workdays are way more interesting than anything I've been doing.

Hope things get easier with the job and post when you can.

Anonymous said...

No one forced you to run another 12miles to prove you couldnt run anymore???...Hope thing settle down for you.....stew