MASTERS WEEKEND RACES AND RUNS

I have two favorite cross-country memories, one because it's so vivid and one because it was the best XC experience I ever had.

1) High School XC my sophomore year. I'd run varsity my frosh year, but my sophomore year I was third man, and we had a great squad. I remember every invitational, every start, finish, and sprint to the finish line. I remember the dual meet league championship meet against South Pasadena, the final 300 meter horseshoe finish over the grass with family and friends lining the course, cheering wildly as we eeked out a 2 point win. What a year that was!

2) A 4-race cross country series when my ex and I lived in Woodinville, WA. I especially remember the race at Gig Harbor, because Jinny (my ex) and I ate homemade ice cream cones on the boardwalk the night before the race, and got such huge sugar rushes that we giggled uncontrollably for about 15 minutes. The next day's race wound through the trees on a narrow trail. I remember having to reach out and grab trees in order to make the turns. I ended up winning the men's series and Jinny won the women's title. It'll never be that good again!

FYI - Over the course of the past 5-6 years of posting to this thread, I've often mentioned the technique drills I do - and to which I credit a lot of my masters success. Anyway, Running Times just posted a video I did for them demonstrating the drills (with the help of Ceci St. Geme, Grace Padilla, and Christian Cushing-murray). Just go to runningtimes.com and click on the "drill, baby, drill" link if you're interested in checking them out.

Hope everyone has a great week of running and life!

Let's get the worst xc memory out of the way first. Club Nationals 2008 round and round the windswept frozen tundra of some park east of Spokane. I've lived on 4 continents and run in about 100 countries. No place was so cold.

Best xc memories for me were any day (sometimes 2-a-days) of the four years spent with brothers of Appalachian State Mountaineer Cross-Country Team; running the hundreds of miles of trails in Moses Cone Park or any country road in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

5 weeks post-op PF surgery and got to run twice on the Alt-Gravity Treadmill NASA built for us. Hope to be running outside in 10 days!

Have a great xc season friends.

Greetings from Phoenix. I guess my favorite CC memories were watching my sons run in HS. I did a 5K trail race this morning. Pretty hot for this northern boy but I finished 21st out of 218 and 2nd in my age group. I missed the finish line too and had to double back. I thought they were making a short loop before the chute but it must have been a mirage. Went up to the Grand Canyon yesterday and they have posters up about a 24 yo female marathoner that got dehydrated in the canyon and died. This was a few years ago. Skinnbones gave me some trail info which I will explore probably at sunrise tomorrow. I can actually see one of the trails out the front door of this complex. And I can practically spit to the gold course, which doesn't matter because I don't golf and I think the green fees are about equivalent to 2 pair of new running shoes. Take care.TC

OUTstanding feature on drills Pete! Really excellent. I can't wait to use it for the youngins I coach and my old body.

X-C has never been my strength. Love the atmosphere at X-C meets, though. I'd happily suffer through a race myself in order to hang out and watch a bunch of races before and after. :-)

Had a solid week of training. 100 miles, with 2 workouts, a short tempo run, and an over-distance long run. Workouts are still frustratingly slow, but at least I'm back at a fitness level where I can do workouts, which in itself is very satisfying.

Hope everyone has a great week of running!

Maurits

Thanks for the link to the drills video SoCal Pete, everything is very clear. The one question I have is on frequency of doing the drills, in the video you say once a week, or at least a couple of times a month, but I'm wondering if twice a week wouldn't yield quicker results?

Fall is in the air of North Central WI and Michigans UP. College football was never so good as the game passionately airchaired by "Coach Jim Engel" yesterday afternoon . 3 cheers to MI, for the come from behind win over Notre Dame.

The week went well over all, despite one of my training partners falling prey to dehydration and ending up in the ER on an IV. Fortunately, Fish is OK.

Ran the 4th rendition of the Wakefield Marathon yesterday and came away with a sub maximal effort win in 3:42. I know, the field is only 22 folks, but at 58 I'll take my wins where I can find them. Though the day started in the 50's it reached 81F under full sun, and pace needed to be adjusted acordingly.

So many good memories from HS-CC I wouldn't know where to start. I am thankful for a Coach that gave a bunch of spindly farm kids the tools of self esteem, and confidence, needed in the years beyond.

Special thanks to Roy Pirrung for being on board for the jaunt to the UP.

Mike,

What a nice way to start the thread. Can you write chapter 2? I enjoyed being in the moment in chapter 1 :)

It is amazing that we have such strong positive emotions for things that happened so long ago. And smells can bring back such great memories instantly.

Some of my best XC memories occurred in San Diego at Balboa Park. I always seemed to race well there amidst the hundreds of athletes hammering over the hills. It 'smelled' like XC there much more than Az. And true XC can't be run unless there is the taste of mud in your mouth. I think that is why so many of us still show up for XC Nationals.

I had a great week of training. GaryB and I have decided to train for the Army 10 Miler in October so we are keeping tabs on each other. It has helped me to have a solid week of training that included a long run of 14 miles earlier today.

I ran my typical steady run on Saturday morning as well.

Have a great week.

Can't say that I can remember my best XC memory but my worst was probably yesterday! Ran an LPW (Lifetime personal worst) for a 4 mile race, on a hilly 2 loop course. Legs were mush by 2 miles and I was competing like a big wuss.....

Guess my excuse is I was still wup'd from Mondays 15K. Had a pretty good race, going 52:34 on a tough course. The entry form states "The course is very tough and, with rolling hills, is a challenge to the best of runners." So I'm ok with my week as a whole.

On a personal note, we had to put down our 11 year old Golden on Friday afternoon. What a terribly heart breaking thing to do. I'll never forget her last few minutes when she looked at me and licked my hand as I petted her...Man, the tears wouldn't stop...

Have a good week everyone...

Dave

My best XC memories were:

1. Having the cheerleaders come to one of my HS XC meets, though it took us cracking the single class top 20 in the Indiana rankings and our football team being en route to their third single or zero win season in a row.

2. A different meet, the same year. A teammate and I were running side by side, and a runner on a rival team tried to take the inside line on a tight turn around a stop sign. He didn't make it. I still remember hearing the smack of his head hitting the sign and seeing him fall to the ground dazed (he was okay).

I managed 45 miles this week in spite of spending the week in Japan. I didn't have much fun trying a tempo run on my jet lag day yesterday (3.6 miles at 10k pace), but I felt great in my 11+ mile run this afternoon. The memories of leg 1 of HtC have apparently faded from my legs. Next up is a HM in Muerzer, Austria next weekend.

PAalsoran wrote:

Thanks for the link to the drills video SoCal Pete, everything is very clear. The one question I have is on frequency of doing the drills, in the video you say once a week, or at least a couple of times a month, but I'm wondering if twice a week wouldn't yield quicker results?

While some runners like using a few of these drills as part of their normal warmup (for harder sessions and races), the drill session as a whole (with strides, etc.) should be treated as a "hard" workout - in that it takes a couple days to recover from it. With so many great "hard" workouts to fit into any base training phase - short and long hill reps, tempo, progression runs, trail intervals and fartlek, and long runs - it wouldn't make much sense to slot a couple hard days a week for drills. Besides, once a week is enough to see results (as long as you do 5-10 sessions total). Personally I work the drills as a series of sessions into my training about twice a year (for about 6-8 sessions each). That seems adequate for achieving and maintaining my best stride.

Enjoying the SUNSHINE today. Pushed my morning run today to lunch to just savor the sunsplashed trails. Not many more probably this year ~

Favorite XC experience. Personally ~ I suffer more in this sport, but do love it. I guess going for the win at my first Masters Nationals, suffering horribly for the middle miles, then shaking it off and getting back up to 4th by the finish. I'll take it!

This is topped though by watching my son as a jr hang on to the pack throughout a grueling Washington State Meet and outkicking the field for the win last year. I was numb the entire 4 hr drive home!

Put up a solid 80 miles this week and got in three longer workouts.

Mon ~ Hard 10 miler on the trails w/my boy.

Weds ~ 2 x 17 min @ 10k pace on trails w/:60 sec rest. Then mile on track in 5:02 w/:60 after trail runs.

Sat ~ 6 x 800 @ 5k pace on XC course.

Go Dawgs and today Seachickens!!

cheers

Pete ~ thx for the drills ~ I changed mine up some.

ty

sorry for the loss of your dog, racerdb. I'm not a dog person but I know from many friends and relatives what an integral part of the family they can become.

Favorite x-c memory: from my one year of being on an x-c team (JV in freshman year of college), improving steadily throughout the season from an asthma-induced DNF when I would have been close to last (circa 38:00) anyhow in first race, to being 6th of 18 on JV (well behind the 12 on varsity) with a 34:16 10k in last race.

this past week: 70 miles with 22 on Labor Day (second 10 at marathon pace, 61:48) and hill repeats Weds.

then today I ran the Parks Half-marathon rockville to bethesda. My wife and son got up early to walk a couple blocks from our house and see me go by in mile 2. Finished 15'th overall, 1st master, in 1:16:37 -- not a PR, but a "course PR" by 8 seconds over 2006 version of me. Barely won a good duel with my 45-49 friendly rival Dave Berardi of Baltimore.

have a great week.

I have a favorite cross-country memory! I do! I ran it in HS! I did! OK, now that everyone is done shaking their heads at the thought of a hurdler running XC....it was the first year of girl's XC of our high school and the coach (who knew I ran track) asked me to help fill out the team. So I was always the one bringing up the rear, and my rear was dragging as well. I do remember the coolness of fall running and how I liked the parts of the course that wound through the woods. The scenery distracted me from the pain.

And our team was so new we didn't have our own uniforms, so we had to wear the boys singlets. The arm holes were so large we had to wear t-shirts underneath for modesty's sake.

We've had weird weather here. This past week it hit 100 degrees on at least 3 days, then yesterday and today it is slightly overcast, breezy, and in the mid 70's. I ran some very hard interval workouts during the week and did two sessions of resistance training, but then I had heavy legs and a small head cold when I woke this morning for hurdle practice. Combine that with a stiff headwind for less than optimal conditions. Luckily my coach is good at gauging my energy level and he made the workout more easy than hard. I think I'll go to bed early tonight and make the cold disappear.

Happy running!

spikez,

I'm not that surprised that you ran cross - there's a vicious rumor around these parts that you do an occasional 5k to keep us slow runners honest. I for one would not challenge your kick knowing your 200m times :-)

scott

favorite XC memory is first race on varsity junior year of high school and missing the bus and freaking out bawling to my mom who handed me the keys and $20. I got there after a 2 hour drive to Spokane and the coach let me go ahead and run. I ended up being the #5 guy that day and got better from there.

The only race all year in my tiny town was Friday night and as it was an evening race (started at 6:30) it was very hot. Around 90 degrees at race time. I ran fast enough to win by :42 over the 5 mile course, but had to be treated for heat exhaustion afterward.

Got in 19 miles this a.m. Quads were still thrashed from Friday night, but lungs were OK. looking forward to a week of recovery and then a 5K in Boise next Saturday.

One of my favorite HS CC meets was an invitational my senior year. For some reason, while we were out warming up, the bus driver took off with our stuff still on board! Coach told us to race barefoot, and it was a beautiful run on a golf course. Even better since our team won that day.

Could not agree more with the way to start a decent thread. Not much activity this week with only 30 logged at a moderate pace.

Memories:

1. Winning my first race in ninth grade.

2. Going to my first big "invitational" and going over the course and seeing all this stuff written in chalk about some guy named Harold Kuphaldt. So I ask who is Harold guy, some of other teams say just watch...So I watch him just kill the rest of field. And that my friends was when I got hooked on running XC.

3. Any and all races at Belmont, Woodard Park, or Mt.Sac.

4. Friends I have mad along the way.

Have a good week

[quote]skinnbones wrote:

Mike,

What a nice way to start the thread. Can you write chapter 2?

Chapter Two:

Once into the woods, the frantic "positioning" blitzkrieg somewhat subsides but is immediately replaced with thunderously cognizant / doubtful "self talk"..."did I get out too hard?"..."am I gonna die?"... followed 275 yards later by a more welcoming inner chant of "settle in, settle in"

No coaches, friends, famiy, supporters out here in the dark hinterlands...am all alone in my own survival brain while simultaneously surrounded by a coagulating swarm of frantic worker cross country bees all fighting their own deeply personal anaerobically infested battles...

MF