are you sayin’ I’m innocent? In fact the reverse

From Patrick on September Seventeen # 
Hey Reid, any chance of a race recap regarding all the fun you had yesterday? That was something else haha.

(Edited on 9/23 with links to pics from Vic Matthews XC race)

On Saturday the University of Guelph hosted the Vic Matthews XC race on the Nat XC course.  For the last few years the U of G alumni have put in a team but have never defeated the current Uni team.  This year Taylor Murphy spearheaded a reunion of sorts with a bunch of alumni running the race.  It looked like we had a good battle on our hands and the good-natured trash talking ensued.  It had been one month to the day since I raced the Berlin marathon so I wasn’t really committed to racing hard but I was ready to put in a solid effort.

I started fooling around before the gun went off by tickling the guys ears with a stem of grass so they would think it was a bug.  When the gun went off I still had the stalk of grass so I put it in my mouth and whenever I got around Brunsting, Boorsma or Kozi I would keep ‘bugging‘ them.  I got it down so I could run with it coming out of the side of my mouth and it would be touching their ears as I was beside them.  Brunsting started to pick up the pace and a couple of times I went with him but then I told him if he picked it up any more I was done because then it would be beyond tempo for me.  Of course he picked it up a little more and I never caught up to him again.  Towards the end Boorsma started making ground on me and I knew he was trying to get my number.  I had fun with this by turning around and taunting him for the last 100m.  The funny thing is that I almost fell for real about 10 feet before the finish line when I stepped on uneven grass.  The Alumni finally beat the Varsity guys 32 to 36.  I ended up running 24:12 for the 7.5km course, and I’m pleased with my effort for my third workout back.

The next workout done in a race will be the Run for the Toad trail race on October 3rd.  Run for the Toad is a 25km and 50km trail race in Cambridge that has over 1200 participants.  I’ll be running with Taylor Milne and Josephat this year as T-Bone Murphy has opted for the 50km this time around.  The race always sells out fast because it’s a ton of fun and has the best post-race meal going.  If you like trail running you gotta try it some time.

In the next few days I should have an idea about my first race this season.

On Sunday Rob Watson and I recounted our experiences from Berlin at the Guelph Runner’s brunch at Shakepeare Arms (come out every third Sunday of each month, 10am).  Afterwards the Speed River group had 2:1 meetings with our strength coordinator and our phyiotherapist for evaluations.  This entailed doing exercises in front of a camera with dartfish and seeing where our weaknesses were.  After that it was off to the Kinetico Running Festival in Caledon East where over 1000 kids took part in a one mile race.  It was pretty cool to see so many little runners participate, especially since there were 8 kids’ races after the Vic Matthews Open the day earlier in Guelph.  It’s great to so many kids being active and having fun.  Hopefully that translates into some future record breakers (and less fattys).