A Heater

Today it is supposed to get up over 100 degrees someplace in the Bay Area. I ran early and it was already warm. My legs were sore from the 100's I did on Sunday. It seems no matter what I do in the realm of speed, I pay a high price. The pace today was agonizingly slow. I was bound and determined to run 60 minutes so I just kept backing it off until I was comfortable. Because I rather thick headed, I seem not to get the message that if I speed, I bleed (meaning, I pay a high price).

I want to run a fast 800 but the truth seems to be that I can go that path but not via speed work.

That means time trials and steady running and race-like events when I can find them. In other words I can't blow up the wall. I will have to knock it down with a battering ram.

As to the 100's? I guess I will have to persevere and get used to a weekly dose of them.

Maybe the battering ram is not the right phrase.

Maybe it's this.


On the coaching front. I am slightly disappointed. I am not sure you can call what I am doing actual coaching. Mostly it is like a cross between herding and babysitting. I have no real input into the workouts. The head coach, Jake, paves over most of my ideas and recommendations. So I drive around making sure kids are on course during their road work and then on other days stand around timing their speed work. It is hardly challenging. The kids are not the issue. It's how Jake felt when Hank was running things. Now I am "it".

I am sadly underutilized (sad for me). Team captains and group leaders could do what I am doing. A cardboard cutout of a coach could do what I am doing.

My plan is to let Jake know how I feel but stick out the season anyway because I made the commitment. But if this is what it is going to be like then I will move on as soon as cross country is over. My real plan (or desire) was to coach a small rolling group of adults. Maybe 5-6 runners. This was supposed to be coaching immersion. But instead it is coaching submersion.

Two months give or take. I can do this standing on my head because that is what it feels like.

Standing on my head.

Looks like I am still kissing frogs.