Take Plans, Round 2

After a dismal season opener, I had my next chance to open the way I wanted with an over distance race. Yep 1000 meters and personal best you are mine. Well, the 1000 didn't think so highly of that overly confident statement. I thought that I had a PR in me, I honestly thought I had a sub 3 min in me. The race or maybe it might have been mind had other plans. I started off trying to hold back my usual gun it and lead, Lap 1 I was with the mix but off my goal, no problem. Lap 2 I'm in the middle of the pack then make a move to get out but then fall back, split is off, not sure what's going on. I start thinking about being off and rather than DO something I just kinda held on. By 600 meters I'm well off my goal lap intervals and really just going through the motions of just running, not racing. Finally at about 150m left I decided it was time to maybe do something, of course that was WAY too late. I crossed the line and looked up at the results screen to see the result I really didn't want to see, but I knew was warranted as I didn't get in the game. Seriously *Go* button is broken. Blah! Again like the first race recovered too quickly, meaning I didn't give it my all. I know that the 1000 is an odd race and I haven't raced it in 4 years and really it doesn't matter, I hang on it because I'm simply frustrated. I just want to race well. Silver lining of my gray cloud (because I'm not a pessimistic person and there is always something good to take away from the bad) is again the strength/endurance is there from my recovery turnaround time.
Lesson learned run my own race, race not run, get out of my head and simply just GO!
Round 3, Next...

365: Week 1

1/1

1/2

1/3

1/4

1/5

1/6

1/1/13: New Year, new cool Believe I Am journal to tend to my running garden

1/2/13: Sad sad shelved cameras

1/3/13: Every Picky Bar's lovers dream, a bar chock full o'chips

1/4/13: Death of the Christmas tree

1/5/13: The best part of my mornings

1/6/13: Because one cannot be too bright for a night run

A Lovers Quadrangle...Resolution #2

Fine it's not really a quadrangle than it's really a triangle but it just sounded cooler to say quadrangle. At first it was just a simple straight line. 20 years ago I fell hard in love with running, it was my 1st love. For a good 6 years it was just us. We had some amazing times and we had some spats but it was just the 2 of us, we were a dynamic duo, head over heels for each other. Then along came a boy and typical teenage ways, then all of the sudden there was a triangle. What's a girl to do? I tried to hold on to both loves, but then said boy wanted more time and I wanted to give boy more time. Again what's a girl to do. Work wasn't an option, school clearly wasn't an option, ok well maybe I could just let up a little with running, but just a little bit. Slowly that little bit turned into a little bit more, then a lot bit more and then there was only a straight line between me and boy. No more triangle. I broke running's heart, then not too far down the line boy broke my heart. Then it was just me. I eventually ran back into the arms of running.

This cycle cycled through another time when I started college, not quite the same way but quite similarly. This time after though I left running for 6 years. We had a couple rendezvous in that time but they weren't ever for long stretches of time, someone or something always came along and got in the way of our trysts. Then after having my heart broken by another yet another boy, I flew hard back in to the arms of my 1st love. I knew it could console me like no other. A few months later after a trial run and a bit of research, I made a commitment to love, honor and cherish until death do us part. I knew that no other could give me what running gives me or makes me feel the way it makes me feel, so I took the plunge. I vowed that I would never let it go for someone or something else. We'd always be a line together just us or yep a triangle with another. 

I've upheld my vows pretty well the past 6 or so years, so much so that I've not let any boys come around or I've let many boys go or they've left because they just don't get it or understand our love and really don't want to be a part of this crazy triangle. I did once cheat on running with a boy I really thought I liked but then it made sure that I felt it's wrath for that, then I threw some spikes at it, then that boy turned out to be dud. 

But now since I'm not getting any younger I need to find a way to make this perfect isosceles triangle or at least something close work. This is New Year's resolution #2. Date, run and find balance between the three of us.

365 Project

I don't usually do New Year's resolutions, I rather not hold myself to something for the entire year then feel all sorts of guilty when I can't hold up my end of the bargain  Let's be real how many of us really can and actually do, seriously I can't think of anyone I know that has done such. In my running world at the beginning of every season I do do "resolutions" and set goals for myself, because then why would I put myself through the nitty gritty of training uber hard. These typically are only for 3-4 months and much more easily obtained. Do I fall off every now and again, sure but I can revert the next season and make an attempt again.
Well I decided that this year I would make some New Year's resolutions (actually only 2) that sort of had nothing to do with running (because I'm sure I'd like to think there is more to my life than running and track). One of my cheesy cliche resolutions is a 365 project that I've swiped from some of my photog friends. A photo a day with whatever camera I have on hand. I found myself on this train mostly because it occurred to me that I only brought my big girl SLR out from it's dwelling once last year and I honestly didn't take nearly as many pictures as I had in the past with even my little guy camera. Now you ask why in the world am I making a blog post about this?? You 2 or maybe 5 readers don't care and isn't this blog supposed to be about running. Weeeellllll the answers are simply I need to stop slacking on my blog so I figure why not incorporate this in (maybe it'll keep me on point, though I'm sure it probably won't) and like my title description says it's sometimes about that thing I call life mixed in. Also I'm sure 80% of my photos will have something to do with, yep shocker, running. My attempt on here will be a weekly compilation of the daily photos. Let's do this thang. Also please feel free to call me out if and when I do slack.

Gotta start somewhere

After the original race I had planned on racing was nonexistent, I decided to open up my season with a meet that's held the day after Christmas. Little did I know when I came to this decision that this meet was condensed to only sprint events (400, 200, 60, 60H)  from the previous full bill of years earlier. At any other point in my training I probably really wouldn't have cared but I did not want to open with anything short, and honestly it wasn't in my plans. I want indoor to be concentrated mostly on the longer endurance part of training, over distance training.

Needless I had bend my plans because I also did not want to open in January. I opted to do a 400/200 double and told myself to treat it like a really hard workout. Unfortunately in my head I can't detach myself from the word race or meet. As much as I want to treat this like a practice, it still looms in my head and I manage to get myself all worked up. Then you can guess what happens I under preform and get frustrated. My 400 was about 3 seconds slower than I know and my coach knows I'm capable to hit at this part of my training. Grrrr. I finished up with plenty left in my tank to repeat that same interval at that same pace with little differential. Oh and wait that's exactly what I did in the 200, split the exact 1st 200 split of my 400. Seriously not impressed. 

I know that it is the season opener and it is used as a cobweb shaker. I can't really expect to be in peak form since the last time I raced was back in July and I did just come off of a crazy work schedule that kept me up weird hours and on my feet for long hours. BUT I did expect to come off a little bit faster than I ran. 

Ok fine for the positive plus side that I need to find in every race, since I did have extra gas left in my tank after the 400, it means I can absolutely go faster. It also means that I'm strong and my 800 should be looking not too shabby. 

Now I'll carry on to the new year and other races.

KISS

I really came up short this week with trying to figure out what I wanted to accomplish as far as goals. I could have kept the same board as last week, or reverted back to weeks 1 and 2, but they just didn't call to me. As of Monday I could muster up was a weekly mileage of 27. And today I threw in 2 lifts. I guess I'll stick with the good ole acronym KISS: Keep It Simple Silly. I'll let you know later in the week how that goes.

Check marks the box

Snow

Week 3's goal board was pretty extensive and a little more specific. Now that indoor season's on the verge of starting up and I will likely be racing my first race of the season in 4 or so weeks I'm starting to go into crunch mode. One of the big things I want to get in check is my weekly mileage. I've never really been one to fret over how many miles a week I'm doing, I'm a sprinter it doesn't really matter as much. But my plans are changing and that means I need to make changes. I really want to concentrate on going a little longer indoors, and improving my 800 tenfold, this all to hopefully help out my endurance for the hurdles outdoors. I had a great improving season for my 8 last year but I want to continue that. Even though I'm a 400-800 800 runner (for those who don't know what that means, it basically means I train better with speed than with volume. I'd go deeper into the nitty gritty of training of the half mile but it's pretty complicated) I realized that my 5-10 mile a week regime probably isn't going to cut it to go much faster than my 2:19 PR.
First goal up 24 miles for the week. Although that might sound like a paltry number, it is quite the task for me to hit. My track workouts at best hit 3000m which it's only 1.89 miles, usually only one of my days of 3 hit that high, typically the rest are between 1000-2000. Combine that with a 1 mile warmup and 1 mile cooldown I'm ranging from 2.5mi to 4mi, times 3 that doesn't add up to be much. I have 2 rest days that leaves me with 2 days to make up a lot of miles to get to 24. I can take away one of those rest days but still quite a bit of ground to cover and as I get older my recovery time lengthens so that 2nds day is often necessary. All logistics (or we could say excuses) I need and will find a way to get it done.
Lucky for me funky weather has had it's eye on NYC (not so lucky for those still out of power and such from the hurricane that hit only a week ago. My heart aches for them). Wednesday threw in a Nor'easter with a dumping of snow. What do I love more than running, running in crazy weather. I've said it before and I continue to say it, I'm weird. This helped my mileage out for the sake that Wed was one of my off days and Tues track workout was super fast super short stuff (no real mileage there). I ended up going for a 3 miler in the snow, getting me closer to my goal.
By the time Sunday rolled around my days had added up perfectly for the 7 mile long run I planned (the 2nd goal) to equal out my 24 miles. The 7 miles def was no easy feat either, by my lonesome nonetheless, but I proudly chomped through it.
As for the rest of my goal board, I faired pretty well. I missed another stupid lift day, still mad at myself for that and really it's just me being lazy. The nutrition end I missed 8oz of water the 1st day but then rallied back the rest of the week never missing my min mark. And my sweet tooth got me an extra day. Overall I'm not too disappointed with my week. Baby steps to progression.

Week #3

I decided to bump up my goals this week to get a little more specific and also add in some nutritional aspects that I have trouble with.

HurrIcan(e)

My stormy run

This week started off with a (for lack of better description) bang, New York City and the eastern coast were set to be pummeled by Hurricane Sandy. With the subway shut down, carless, on a tight budget that does not allow cabs, and friends not living close by I was stuck in my house by myself for the duration. I might add I don't sit still very well and LOVE storms. I'm that crazy person that wants to be outside experiencing crazy mother nature, I envy the weather people. I'm weird I know this. I think I make a lot of people worry because of my fascination with awry weather, but I am not completely reckless in thinking I'm invincible from the wrath of MN. Anywho around 1 pm I couldn't take the sitting and waiting so I turned on the tv to check out the prognosis of where and when this hurricane was supposed to hit the NYC area the hardest, it was still 6ish hours away. I couldn't take it so I weather proofed myself laced up the kicks and journeyed out for a run. It was pretty windy, not as wet as I thought. On my journey to crazy land, I learned I was not the only screw loose person out for a run in the madness (this even more solidifies runners are a different breed of people). I stayed on the high line route of the Hudson (see I used my smarts and didn't sneak under the police tape to go down near the water) and went with an out and back 4 miler with a brief stop to capture a quick photo to catalogue. The 2 miles out I had a huge tail wind, so much that mile 2 was a blistering 5:50, I was flying. Mile 3/4 brought me the head wind, a few times with the gusts I thought I was running in place. Then when I was done strangely the rain and wind stopped, seriously, it was an eerie quiet calm. I took that moment to stretch and enjoy it since I knew after that point I'd be stuck in my house again.
The rest of my week just kinda went by. Tuesday I went on a walk/jog to survey the damage, upper manhattan was spared, from the look of news and photos lower manhattan was not. Wednesday parks were still closed which meant tracks were closed, though I stumbled upon Riverbank track open when I went for my run later in the evening. I stopped mid run went into the track did some drills in the infield then did a couple r150's then went back to my run. I was having track withdrawls since I hadn't done a track workout in almost a week. Thursday Columbia was back in the game so I went up there to do a workout by myself with the mid distance folks in the background. Then my schedule kinda went awry. I picked up a few extra shifts at my restaurant, since no one could really train due to transportation being uber limited. Of course the more hours I work there the harder it is to get my own workouts in, standing 6-8 hours holds unconducive to training. Going before leaves me in pain during, going after it's either too late or my body is completely shot. It's my best excuse and I fell trap to it. Sadly it left my board missing a link. One run shy, one lift shy. I will give myself credit for procuring a 6 mile run in my mix bag week. On to a new week of goals

No frills

Week 2, took off a race and decided to keep it simple and attempt the same goals from week #1.

It's a wrap

I finished up my first week of goals, one down many to follow. I also FINALLY got a preseason race in (yay! only took almost 2 months).
First order of business, the goal board. I am missing 2 checks on my list, not entirely thrilled about that. I guess I could technically check off the last run in conjunction with the race, but I had intended to get in 5 run workouts plus the race, though I may have overextended my expectations. I will let that slide, only because I need to gradually build back in and not injure myself. The one I can't let go is the lift, there is no good reason for me to not have lifted twice.
Now that the depressing part of my post is done, I can rally with the semi exciting. March 15, 2009 was the last time I raced a 5K, the last preseason I raced was 2008. It's been a long time coming and I've been dying to get a distance PR. I finally broke down earlier in the week when I received an email from USATF for a race at Ichan Stadium that they were offering $10 off the $35 registration fee. I peeked into the race info to see if it suited me, and of course what caught my eye was *prize money*. I like prize money. The next round of business when prize money's involved is looking at past results to see if you could possibly vie for the loot. Of course that is not always indicative of whether you can get it but it gives you a clue as to at least know what kind of comp to expect. From the past 2 years' results if I was in the shape I think I am/should be I could at least pick up 3rd. Ok I'm sold, $50 wins back my entry fee plus a little extra. A couple clicks, a credit card number entered, I'm signed up, entry is paid, I'm in, no excuses. Saturday rolls around when I get to the stadium I have 2 things on my mind a stellar 5K PB and 3rd place prize money. As I pick up my bib peeked down the list and spotted one of the distance girls. Rah-roh hopefully she's the only one, if not I can kiss the PM goodbye. I scan around but see only a couple guys from the team, I might be ok. Then I go into the stadium to stash my bag while I warm up and get a huge surprise. Nope it wasn't distance girls it was the sight of a Brand spanking newly resurfaced track!! I'm pretty sure I looked super silly jumping up and down and squealing like a little kid. Yes I know that makes absolutely no sense unless you've raced on Ichan's track in the past couple years, more however if you've ever raced a 100, 200, or 400 in those outside 7 lanes in the past 2 years. Horrible and atrocious, seriously I'm not kidding. I sort of got lost in the splendor of this surprise that I almost forgot I was racing. Focus. After I finally composed myself and warmed up it was time to go down to the start of the race (on the track! Yay! Oh my gosh I get to be one of first to run on the freshly minted track! Um sweet! Doh focus!). I happily only saw the 1 distance girl teammate I spied at the registration pickup table, 3rd place might not be off the table, though I had I feeling I'd definitely have to work for it.
The gun went off and I had to control myself from taking off especially with the start on the track. I eased into a comfortable cadence as I watched my teammate breeze ahead. Mile 1 6:26, ok good on pace but need to hold onto pace, place 2nd female. Turnaround point is a little over halfway, as I round the bend I can see whose behind me, and what do I see 2 girls running side by side way too close to me for comfort, if both pass me no PM for this chica. Plan now holds on for dear life to place. Mile 2 split 6:47, yikes fell way off pace PB now likely out the window, still holding 2nd female but afraid to look behind me to see how close those girls are to me. The last mile was a blur my legs and lungs were on fire, it was taking a lot of taking to myself to push through. Mile 3 split 6:45, at this point I'll take it, the last .12 finished on the track. The sad face part was I was 40 sec off of my PB, gah bummer. The hip hip happy face part of it, I finished 2nd female overall! Woosah! 1 place higher than I thought I would and that meant my first ever winning of prize money! Let's hear it for some PM! $100!!! Super duper stoked, made not hitting my time goal sting a little bit less, only a little bit. Yeah I know makes no real sense, but it's my real feelings.

My prize and plaque 

The newly resurfaced track!!

Dreams don't work unless you do

A lack of entries is haunting my training log yet again. And again it has nothing to do with me forgetting to record my workouts, nope it's me not being consistent in my training AGAIN. I can come up with all the excuses in the book but in the end when I'm frustrated with my races, those excuses aren't going to console the disappointment. I needed something to jump kick me back into reality.
 I copied the post title from a believe I am poster, when I saw it it lead to some serious motivation to add to my inspirational blackboard . The saying really resonated with me and the blank spots that were accumulating in my log/book, and that was the catalyst to my new weekly goals in addition to season goals. As a personal trainer I understand the need for smaller goals inside of the bigger goals for clients, it helps keep the moral up to reaching the big one (Often times I forget to apply what I preach to others to myself).
I decided to start by taking just a few simple goals and chalk them up on the blackboard every week for "weekly goals". Getting a preseason race in was one that needed to be on that 1st weekly lineup (after all 2 of my preseason goals were race time goals).  Then of course consistent running/workout days were absolutely necessary. I figure if it's in my face I'm less likely to slack. I mean the blackboard is hard to miss at 4' x 4' and one of my most satisfying things to do besides killing a monstrous workout is checking things off on a "to do" list. Then of course to keep myself honest I would share it here and in the social media world. With 500+ "friends", 100 something followers, one of them my coach, many my teammates, someone should be bound to call me out if I slide, and yes please don't hesitate to call me out. Also if you have any ideas for rewards/punishments (I use the word punishment incredibly loosely) for for completing/not completing goals, I'd really like to hear them.

The start of week 1

Let's get dirrtty

There is this new wave of obstacle and mud runs that have been popping up all over the place. It's almost as if it's the new marathon. Usually I pay them no mind, since most that people want me to do are either in the spring or are too far of a distance both no gos for me. They're also astronomically priced. Then it happened I found myself signed up with a team to do a 5K mud obstacle course. I guess it was only a matter of time. This one happen to be for the Special Olympics so I guess it was hard to say no to that, and it was in the fall so it wouldn't interfere with my training or racing.
So Saturday morning I commuted my way to Brooklyn to meet up with my team and do this. I had no idea what to expect, not sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Either way I warmed up as I would a cross country race, lined up at the start and then took off. I did have in my head that I wanted to be the fastest woman. The first couple of obstacles where meh and there was a lot of running, thought this isn't so bad. I had 1 guy in front of me and no one really behind me. Then came the another round of obstacles which included 10ft tall walls to climb and the mud pit. I thought I'd like the mud, I was wrong, it literally stuck to my hands like a glove and wouldn't shake off and to add was FREEZING. As I was running to the next part of the course I attempted to wipe it off on my already muddy clothes but it didn't work so well. Most of the next part was trail running and 2 of the hardest things of the course. 1st the low pipes to crawl through, I'm a relatively small person and I thought I was being swallowed by the pipes. Then came a 30lb or so sandbag run towards the end, I wanted to die. I managed to muster through it to last few things and crossed the finish line fairly unscathed as the 2nd person in my heat. Then later to find I was the fastest overall female! Woosah! and I helped my team to first place.

A very muddy bootay

The Team

Now that I have done one and know what to expect, would I do another? That's TBD but it's not off the table.

Yay! I did it!

Be Inspired

Most every athlete I know if not all has a someone or something that inspires them. If not why else would you grind through workouts, games, meets, etc. I know my love for the sport is fostered by inspiration. Olympics are definitely one of the big ones, mantras and quotes. I even taped a 4'x 4' section of a wall in my apt to paint a blackboard to keep myself inspired (go big or go home?)

Start of project blackboard inspiration

Final product

Then there are your idols, mine growing up were Jackie Joyner Kersee and Flo Jo, and as I came into high school Steve Prefontaine. My list of athletes that inspire me grows as I become more immersed in my sport. They don't just include the tip top of the track chain gold medalists, they now include athletes that go beyond their performances on the rubber oval to what they give back to the running community. Lauren Fleshman has stood out as one of the front runners (no pun intended) of inspiration in this new age. Though I've never met her and only follow through track news, twitter and get picky bars from one of her entrepreneurial endeavors, she exudes a level of connectability that goes beyond her athletic ability (which is stellar by the way). This so much that if I coached a group of girls or had a daughter I'd make sure they knew of her. There are definitely boundless amounts of amazingly captivating athletes that I follow through their careers, hoping one day I may be standing next to them calling them my competitors or teammates, or at the very least an inspiration.
What inspires you?

Knowing better

What happens when you're notoriously late and think that a  half bitten warmup before you do some starting block work is sufficient?? Then continue to muster through the prescribed workout with the sharp nagging pain?? You end up on on the couch for an undetermined amount time. Yep totally knew better than to try to do fast stuff not properly warmed up and absolutely knew better than to " run through" the pain. So now for my ignorance I sit with an ice pack strapped and funky colored tape stuck to my thigh and am confined to a 5 by 15m 4 foot deep area filled with highly chlorinated H2O with everything I do going in slow motion. Oh the lap of luxury injury

It's raining men

Torrential down pours for a lovely Saturday morning hill workout.

Oh so you thought...

Pre-season:
I had it all planned out, 3-4 weeks of nothing, absolutely nothing, week 5 start my cross training/lifting, week 6 start adding a run or two into cross training, week 8 pre-season begins. Then the daunting email from coach at week 4 that changed it all, practice begins Sunday August 11. Wait what?! That's week 5, 3 weeks before I planned to start practice. Eyi ie eyi!  Can I pretend I didn't see that and show up at the end of August?  I'm not ready to start running at that point especially workouts.
I bit the bullet and showed up on Aug 11 to Van Cortlandt Park, for hills nonetheless. It most certainly wasn't pretty and I won't lie I didn't (couldn't) finish the intended workout but I officially started my 11 months of training. Let the good times roll and the pain begin.

It's getting hot in here

Being in the mid west for Nationals I expected it to be hot, Kansas was hot, I did not expect it to be as brutal as it was. I especially wasn't ready to run 3000 meters with an excessive amount of barriers (35) in that heat. One would think that since Day 1 started in the early evening that some of that hot mass would dissipate, others would also assume since I'd be running through a water pit it wouldn't so bad. Here's the reality, 101 degrees at 7p not including the heat index, stifling humidity, and not so conditioned mid-distance runner are not a great mix.  The good news the 4th girl dropped out. Sweet deal for me meant unless I didn't finish, which I wasn't going to let that happen, I would get 3rd place, can we say score!  It wasn't pretty, well the 1st lap was, can't say so much for the 6 that followed, but I buried my head down and gritted it out. I finished no where near the other 2 girls as well as no where near my PB, BUT from what I was gathering from the seasoned longer distance runners all of their times were about a minute plus from their usual times, which in turn would have produced a PB in optimum conditions AND I scored my first ever individual medal at Nationals. Not too shabby for this hurdler.

SCORE!

Finding that silver lining was what I had to salvage from the meet because I underestimated how much it would tax me and the next day I completely busted my real race running my slowest time all season. Most definitely my most unproud moment of what was procuring to be the best season(s) yet. I managed to try push that disappointment out so that I could contribute my leg for 4x800, in which we secured the W.

 As a team we swept the women's, men's, and overall titles, and I can say that I lent a hand with the 10.5 pts I scored. Would I do things differently if given the chance, I'd like to say yes but probably not. Instead I'm going to look forward to the next 8 weeks of rest and recovery and to the upcoming next season, making what necessary changes to my training. Until September.

Kiddie pool ice baths at a track meet because it was so hot

Blogsphere vacation over

So again I have not been so great  about keeping up with the blog. In between my last post and now so much has transpired that I really just lost every bit of motivation that came along with keeping the writing up, I was excited, stressed, joyed and uninspired all at the same time.
Fast forward three ish months and now I'm ripped and roaring to share my thoughts and adventures that have transpired and are currently going about.
When I last left off I was getting ready to get my outdoor season rolling. I was beyond excited, I was coming off of the high of the best indoor season I had ever had, I thought as long as I stay healthy nothing could stop me from blowing my outdoor season away. While I did stay healthy and injury free that over the top season certainly was not quite the outcome. My opening race didn't happen until the very end of April beginning of May, which was a month later than it was supposed to. This was the start of the frustrations, and almost walking away from the sport. (Since I chose to have my blog public and I have since moved on from the incidents, I will not recant the stories that go with it). Thankfully I was saved from making a rash decision by a few of my super awesome friends and teammates. Unfortunately because of the prior stresses my training fell apart and so did my mental game which translated into mediocre races at best. When I was finally able to get myself grounded I was playing catch up and found myself behind schedule.

En route to Nebraska

Wrapping up this season I have yet to hit any of my goal times I set for myself. I'm sightly down on that but with that I have set all time personal bests in the hurdles & open 400 and outdoor best in the 800 so I can't be too down. So here I am on a plane to Omaha, Nebraska to the last meet, I have one last go to hit my goal time in the hurdles and a chance to hit a PB in the steeple chase (explanation to follow).
The steeplechase story...Originally I had planned on doubling at Club Nats with the 800 and the obviously the 400 hurdles. As I was entering myself in those events I couldn't help but go through the other entries for all the events to see who was there, right below the hurdle entry is the steeple. Curiously there was only 1 entrant at the time, let it go. Then as the week progressed  and the entries were about to close I kept checking my events to see what I'd be up against and of course couldn't help peeking down, now the tally was up to 2 women for SC. Interestingly enough none happen to be team members, so my curiosity peeked and I decided to send an email to the distance coach and infer if we had any girls that would be entering. With that the words that I typed  in addition to to  who's running question would set me up for my crazy ploy, because of course we in fact did not have any girls set up to enter.  After a few exchanges of emails I now was no longer racing the 800 but instead the 3000 m steeplechase AND my intended hurdle race. Mind you I have experience in SC which is the reason why I offered my "services" but I have certainly not been doing any where near the mileage for that race. Yep solidifying my craziness. But hey I was guaranteed to score at least 5 points with 4th place as long as I finished.  Taking one for the team.

In my uneventful down week this is all I have for you, but it works, take it and run with it.