8/31/09

Early Season Recap

9/1/09

Hill Repeats

9/9/09

Trail 401 - Gothic, CO

9/19/09

For those who don’t know, a beefcake is a person who is strong, buff, and has lots of muscles protruding. In my early days here at Western I was not beefcake. Actually, I was the exact opposite. I never lifted a weight in high school, and then I came here and had to max out on the bench and incline (under the former coach - Duane Vandenbusche). What a joy that was: getting laughed at because I could hardly lift the bar. I remember feeling like I was going to pass out trying to lift the bar on the incline. If only I could mentally will that thing up so that coach wouldn’t call me weak. Well, I couldn’t mentally will it over my head and when everyone gave coach their numbers I got to sit there awkwardly while he said “We have Haughwout over here who can hardly life a pencil!” How embarrassing. So I went on a rampage... a quest to get stronger.

As I have said before, my freshmen year I had a miraculous burnout that left me with mass amounts of extra time. I filled that time with going to the weight room and consuming more protein shakes than anyone should be allowed. Then BAM... three years later I was a beefcake.

Being a beefcake does mean less injuries. However, it also means more muscle soreness than ever experienced. For the first time since I have been here I can train like a normal runner. This means that I am not in the pool more than I am on the trails, which means my legs are tighter and sorer than ever before. I experienced this soreness for the first time after Tuesday’s workout in which we did W Mountain hills. W Mountain has a rocky road that we run up 1 minute hard, 1 minute easy ten times. The road starts out gradual and ends steeper than one would like. By the tenth one, my calves were screaming at me. It felt as if they were pregnant and about to birth little baby calves. My fellow beefcake pals agreed that their legs felt exhausted as we jogged down the mountain, moaning in discomfort.

Our Wednesday easy run came and the calves didn’t feel any better. Im starting to wonder if they will ever feel normal again. Maybe this over- inflated feeling is normal and I should just get used to it. I do have to say that I would rather have my calves feel pregnant and over-inflated than have an injury. So, as a beefcake, I must weigh my options: have less muscles and strength and get injured, or be beefcake a deal with inflated calves for all eternity. Inflated calves win.

I know that many of the girls on the team feel my pain. Sara Lyle is one who is always in some sort of discomfort from her calves. We have tried the compression socks, which work wonders but my golly they are hot hot hot! I wore the socks all last year, nursing an Achilles injury, but I just can’t imagine wearing those sauna socks if I didn’t really desperately need to. Hillory understands what I am talking about too. The three of us discussed our calves in depth on the warm up run while some of the youngsters look at us weirdly and laugh under their breath. Today on the warmup run I caught Angela laughing at us while we went on and on about our calves giving birth to little baby calves, and how our little baby calves would play with each other. Weird. I decided one of my goals in life is to make Angela laugh. This seems to be going well, as I can almost always get a chuckle out of her by burrowing in her armpit after workouts.

Other than the calf pain, things are going swell around here. Coach Lisa Thomas is getting married on Saturday and you can bet your bottom dollar that the beefcakes will be there, in dresses, no doubt! Today is Friday NCAA day on our own and I already miss the ladies. At least I get to see them bright and early-7:30 am tempo run! Woot woot! Let’s go beefcakes!