Training, April 17 through April 23

Another week at sea level, another week of not taking advantage of the chance to get in some meaningful training work. 55 miles, most of it jogging. I guess I'm just tapering now, for some far-off event, like a fall marathon, or a track race when I'm 50, or for the funeral I refuse to have held in my dubious honor.


I went to a race this week and did my annual Western Mass spring-event pacing duties for my friend and co-host Heidi. Last year, I ran with her through a Mother's Day half-marathon, and this time I accompanied her and her husband Arthur to Holyoke for an 8K. (Arthur himself was recovering from the Boston Marathon held three days earlier, the third straight Boston that boasted sub-optimal weather and turned the day into a disaster for quite a few people.) Heidi, who is coming back from time off after a serious dog bite a month or so back, was aiming to run about 8:30s but I knew she'd be capable of faster and we in fact wound up at 41:04. The course at Ashley Reservoir -- normally a 5K version of it in a Thursday-night series than runs all spring and summer -- is very fun to run on, not hilly and all packed dirt and gravel. I have pictures and video somewhere but am banned from using either, which is fine because I am too lazy to look for that shit.

And that encapsulates what "training" means to me right now. I'm too lazy to do it, although running is still fun and necessary. I did a 12-miler on Sunday that was absolutely beautiful, in no small part because I wasn't thinking about racing. I figure that even if everything went perfectly for me from here on out, I am highly unlikely to see times any better than 16:00 or 33:30 or 1:12:30 or whatever, and all of those times suck. I am not interested in age-group prizes, even though earlier this year I tried to convince myself I was. Age-group awards are just another form of handicapping. I was never fast, but I was at least fast enough to win some races or be close to the front, and more importantly, feel like I was actually running somewhat fast. This shit, wherein any mile close to 5:30 is cause for token celebration, is just embarrassing to me.

I still like being a part of the scene and hanging out with cool people out there, and I won't throw that out the window, but you shouldn't expect to see a lot of interesting material (of a personal, performance-oriented nature) on this blog moving forward. On the other hand, starting in July, I am going to be part of a new collaborative writing-about-running adventure that gives me more creative freedom than my past gigs with RT/RW or Competitor ever did, so there's that.