So I got with a sick tight click and went all out

Speed River is looking for another team title this weekend and it looks like we’ll have competition from TOC.  It’s not often I get to run as a team and it’s cool that we’re vying for a National title.  It’s nice having Mark Vollmer back running for Speed River, I’ve been running on XC teams with him since my highschool days at Westdale.  It’s too bad Alex Genest isn’t running for Speed River since he’s been a solid training member with our team for a while now. Taylor Milne, Eric Gillis, Chris Winter, Nigel Wray, Allan Brett and Kyle Boorsma are not racing this weekend.  Here’s our line-up:

Matt “The Champ” Brunsting.  The Champ is a 2 X CIS XC champ (2008 and 2009) and is coming off a 14:04 5km yesterday in Japan.  He’ll be good to go this Saturday as long as he catches up on some sleep which might be hard with all the excitement about the new Harry Potter movie!  No late shows this week Champ.

Reid “Coldneck” Coolsaet.  I’m the only person whose name isn’t Bairu to win senior nationals XC in the past 8 years.  I’ve only been running every other day for the past few weeks, how long can I taper for???

Cody “Heath” Murray.  Solid XC guy for the Gryphons this season and would have been up there at CIS if his team wasn’t so deep.  He gets less sun that I do, somehow this is possible.

Maxime “Poutine” Paquette.  If he’s making the trip up from Tennessee he’s ready to go, or maybe just needs a good basket of sloppy french fries.  Max has made good improvements down in Knoxville with his “laissez-fair” attitude towards training.

Derek “Kong” Snider.  Don’t mess with D-Snides.  Derek may be wearing more one-pieces and visors lately but he’s been training and racing really well this fall.  If he believes he will be up there, he will be. 

Cleve “Cleveland” Thorson.  This guy can be in the 10 in both the race and the Brass Taps beer count.  Cleveland was sick and threw up minutes before AO’s the other weekend and still went out there and raced. 

Mark “The Commish” Vollmer.  A true XC guy through and through.  His pace over 10km XC might actually be faster than his 5000m on the track.  He will pass a lot of people throughout the race.  He also has a high performance hair cut this fall.

Rob “Destroyer” Watson.  We all know Destroyer is the toughest dude on the course and he’s in great shape.  Will his one ‘down’ week from marathon training be enough to race fast? Probably.  Destroyer promises to behave at the after party this year, we’ll see…

EDIT: I didn’t mean to leave these next two animals off the line-up.  Their names simply weren’t bulked together with the rest of the Speed River team on the entry list…

Lee “The Hammer” McCarron.  This kid comes from Gillisland and likes cross -country.  He’s kind of like a mini Vollmer except he has a 1500m PB that starts with a 3.  I think he’s had some of his best workouts this fall and is ready to make his mark at senior nats.  He’s also one heck of a water bottle caddy.

Tim “The Kid” Konoval.  He calls himself “The Kid” because he attended Uni in the same city in which Sid “The Kid” plays hockey.  The Kid is quite talented over many distences but I’m pretty sure he doesn’t like to feel any discomfort when he runs.  If he wants to be tough this weekend he’ll run well, if not you know he’ll be looking handsome on the course for his fans.

There are some good comments on my last blog entry.  I don’t mind people commenting on my training, if I did mind I wouldn’t write a public blog, or at least de-activate the comments option.  Anonymous posts usually won’t get a response but ‘asdf’ raised a valid point.   Or, perhaps ‘asdf’ is a competitor and doesn’t want me running nats, haha. 

As far as my foot goes it feels fine most of the time while I’m running and for a couple of hours after a run it feels pretty good.  I’m planning on getting some imaging done to get some more info on the injury. If this race was leading right into specific marathon training I would definitely be more cautious but I’ll have more than a month before my build-up begins in mid-January. 

The workout on Saturday went really well.  I was a little worried going into the workout because of my lack of running but my fitness is fine (good amount of x-training) and I’m running enough to keep my running legs.  Our workout consisted of a small tempo to get warmed-up and then 3 sets of 1500m + 500m (60 seconds between intervals and 3 minutes between sets) and then 1km at the end. Here’s the crazy part; all my 1500m times were within 3 tenths of a second (4:25.5 to 4:25.8).  And because each set consisted of 2km of running on a 2.5km loop each 1500m was run on a different section.  The km at the end was 2:48.  The reason why I was happy with the workout was because I was able to run under control and didn’t suffer.  Don’t get me wrong, it was a tough workout however, I didn’t feel like I was going to the well, that will be for this Saturday!

I finally got around to recycling my shoe boxes after a couple of years and thought I’d take an epic pic before I flattened and tied them.

It’s kind of geeky but I often take pics of the Catalpa in my backyard.  The mist and street light make it look pretty cool.