8/31/09

Early Season Recap

9/1/09

Hill Repeats

9/8/09

“I’m a human being, not a f'ing mountain goat!”

Sunday Sept 6th

The title of this blog comes from the one and only Hillory “Jhillory” Davis. The words came bluntly out of her mouth as we took the first steps of our run up trail 401 on Sunday morning. The 45 minute van ride up to Gothic was filled with laughter and sarcastic comments about how much “fun” the run was going to be. I played along even though I really couldn’t remember the run, beings as I hadn’t run the trail since my freshman year (fall 06) and everything seems ten times bigger and harder when you are a freshman. By the time we got to our starting point we had successfully exaggerated the run by about a million times and scared the freshies enough that there was a bit of tension in the air. Luckily, we had Cora with us who lightened the mood when she squealed “ANGELS!” referring to one of our warm up drills. Everyone burst out laughing and we were back to our normal, goofy selves.

SO... we shed our tops and, dressed in an assortment of neon colored sports bras, headed up the dirt road. The first 12 minutes brought us up the dirt road to the trailhead which then zig-zagged up and around. “Were gonna summit this b****!” I yelled at Lisa who laughed and shook her head at me like she usually does when I say stupid random stuff like that. Then the climb got tough and I had to stop to stretch my calves that felt like they were giving birth. “Crap” I thought to myself as I watched Lisa and Tara glide up the mountain. “Now I'm going to have to catch back up.” Like most distance runners, I get a complex when people are ahead of me. So I continued up the mountain, knowing it had to be over soon. “You love this” I told myself. “This is what you cried over missing last year.” Instantly I felt a surge in my legs and picked up my pace. I came around a corner and just about ran into the back of Lisa and Tara who had stopped because Lisa was about to lose her breakfast. We walked for a few seconds, she grumbled something about her stomach and then we were on our way again.

Once at the top, Lisa, Tara and I exchanged comments about how our legs felt and jumped in a picture with the guys. A few seconds later Hillory got to the top and in natural Hillory fashion, a cuss word came out of her mouth. One by one, the rest of the girls reached the top and coach Jen took a picture while everyone recovered. Then it was back on the trail and coach Jen led us (on her mountain bike) down the switchbacks. I am constantly amazed at coach Jen’s ability to ride her bike up and down the things we run. I would be in some serious pain if I attempted to ride the things she does. Plus, we all agree that it is pretty cool to have a coach that gets out there with us… and the girls sure do like to bond with Coachie even if she rolls her eyes at us 98% of the time.

A few minutes down the switchbacks we had to stop to cross over an intense ravine, gully type ditch. “I went over this on my bike!” Grace said with pride as she jumped across.

“Ya, well I’m going across it on my a**,” Lauren said bitterly and we all turned around to see her scooting herself across the ditch on her butt. Everyone burst out laughing, even Lauren was laughing who had, by that time successfully made it across and was dusting off her backside. After everyone repeated the conversation about twenty times we forged on down the trail. Definitely one of the highlights of the run. Thanks Lauren!

We were almost down the trail when we caught the boys who were going excruciatingly slow. We tried talking crap to them for a few minutes and when that didn’t work I decided to start singing. I sang a few bits and pieces of things- Whitney Houston’s “I wanna dance with somebody,” Salt and Peppa’s “Push it” (courtesy of Lisa Thomas) and a little N*sync...until finally Backstreet’s Boys “ I want it that way” came pouring out of my mouth (yes I know all the words). I sang the first verse with backup help from Lisa and Hillory and just when I thought we had annoyed the crap out of the guys one of them started singing along! I embraced the situation and sang louder and a lot of people joined in. This filled me with a tremendous amount of happiness and I kept singing until the freshmen boys ahead of us stopped abruptly and we ran into them. Ouch. We were all disheveled and a little annoyed but kept running, curving in and out of the trees and into the campground.

We followed the boys, feeling a little ego boost for running with them for so long, through the campground, over a nice little bridge and started up the “extension” trail. Unfortunately our egos took a huge hit once we started up the next hill because within a few seconds the guys were gone and we were hardly moving. We pulled off the trail for a few seconds, regrouped, and the four of us (Lisa, Hillory, Tara and I) continued on our journey up the hill. “This is nothing compared to what we already did” Lisa said, which really did seem to help us pick up the pace. We were cruising again, talking about previous runs and years past. I gave Tara the story of my injuries and Lisa talked about how she came from the “back of the pack.” Our conversation carried on up and over one last massive hill in which Hillory slapped me on the power house (butt) and like a race horse I took off up it. Lovely. My actions brought Lisa down memory lane and we all shared our freshmen year stories. Tara seemed to especially like the sarcastic version of my freshmen year in which I experienced the most miraculous burnout Western State has ever seen. Aww... the “Glory Days!”

The end of the trail was scattered with some pretty massive cows, and as I was a little intimidated we picked up the pace a bit until we got back to the road. There, Grace came scampering out of the outhouse or potty as she put it, and we all started talking again. I can’t remember what we were talking about but I remember the feeling running next to the girls. Indescribable. A beautiful run with amazing teammates. My watch said 1:30 - My longest run in I don’t even know how long.. definitely beats the 23 minutes I ran on the school trails this time last year!

When drills and strides were done I sat in the river for a good ten minutes, got so cold I thought I was going to puke, and then stumbled (because my legs were numb) up to the van where the ladies were feasting on overly ripe bananas and left over bagels from the day before.

On the way back to Gunnison I looked around and everyone was sleeping. I was still pissed at myself about the crappy race from the day before, but today’s run brought a new feeling of satisfaction, and sharing it with the people around me made it even better.

9/19/09

The Price of Being a Beefcake