Backward Glances and Creativity

It has been a busy week for me. I've been known to take on a bit too much. Consequently, I'm forced to be a bit creative with my workouts. Yesterday, for example, I was enlisted to be athlethic trainer for the football team at work. Nothing like the smell of high school football players, and then having to tape their wrists and ankles. Now THAT's dedication, right? I was talked into doing stats at the game - what a gorgeous day. SO, Indian Summer in upstate New York basically means that I forgot sunscreen and water, got a nice sunburn and verged on dehydration. Well, this all got me to about 5:00 where I just didn't feel up for a run.

Hot Hal is always saying that you can shuffle workouts a bit. So, I ask you? Does mucking three very dirty horse stalls count as cross-training? (upper body, core, legs. back) I gotta think that it does.

I made contact with my very first track coach this week. I only just found out that he is the Superintendent at a nearby school. I thought it would be fun to get his input on my training. To give some backgroud...... in elementary school, I wasn't the most healthy of kids. You would have described me as overweight and relatively inactive. Well, in the summer between 7th and 8th grade, I grew about a foot and lost about 20 pounds. Mr. Amundson asked me if I was intersted in running track. So, in 8th grade, I joined the track team. It was a BLAST. For those of you who didn't run track, let me just say that you missed out on the only co-ed sport in high school. Tons of fun. So, my bad luck revealed that I was pretty good at the 800 (half-mile sprint.) Ask anyone, not the most fun race in track. Well, I was good at it. By 11th grade, I held the school record and made it to State Qualifiers three times. Long story short, Mr. Amundson was very encouraging of my running. Toward the end of our season, when I was training for sectionals and State qualifiers, I often had to workout with Coach all by myself, because everyone else was done with their season. Mr. Amundson left our school shortly after I stated running track (9th or 10th grade) but I had hoped that he would remember me. I sent him an e-mail breifly explaining our marathon goals. I got a response back and hope to hear more soon. Maybe he'll give me some training advice.

Karoline - how is this week looking for you? Can't wait to have a post from you....our followers are getting bored of me. We need some friendly banter.