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MAN RUN

The story of MAN RUN:

Back in the days of yore, when gas was only $3/gallon, math involved numbers instead of Greek letters, and MTV still showed music videos, an email was sent out to the triathlon listserv. It detailed an invitation to every girl on the team to meet at the chapel, run 2 miles, then go eat ice cream at Ben and Jerry's afterward to talk about Cosmo and The Bachelor, and whether or not they were using the right shampoo.

Sadly, this email was read by the entire listserv. However, in a fortunate turn of events, the eventual founder of MAN RUN also laid eyes upon it. He was unbiased, a wise man schooled in the Taoist philosophy of Yin Yang. Knowing that a dark excuse for a run such as this could not exist without a shining example of a workout for ALL to follow, he created MAN RUN: a run where everyone (men AND women) were invited to come and kick their own ass to their heart's content, a run where one could get a real workout in without going to a track, a run to make up for one's own slacking. And so was born MAN RUN to save us from our own pathetic excuses.

The rules of MAN RUN are simple:
1. Tell all your friends about MAN RUN
2. Tell all your friends about MAN RUN
3. He/she who is in front, determines the route of MAN RUN
4. He/she who is not in front, will not lose sight of whoever is in front of him/her
5. No whining
6. If you go to the Huckleberry, you will be excommunicated from MAN RUN and be subject to 2 mile Ben and Jerry runs for the remainder of your time with the team
7. MAN RUN is a drop run, but a few merciful participants may circle back to make sure no one gets lost

This semester, MAN RUN will begin at 5:45PM at the Chapel every Wednesday evening, starting tomorrow. We seek the finest and bravest in the land to show us and themselves what they are made of. Many are called, and a lot of them man up and show up. Will you be one of them?

THE END

I forwent bike racing at Wednesday Worlds (the Tabor loop made it easier) to attend my first MAN RUN, the first MAN RUN of the semester, and twas excellent. Looksee:

Long runs and home MTB race weekend

Highlights of this past week definitely include the two long runs I went on and an awesome weekend of mountain biking race right here in Blacksburg.

I took recovery days on MWF, and they were well needed. I came off of 12 straight days of hard training, and needed Monday off for sure. And not only that, had I wanted to train, I was SOL, because I was doing work alllll day long. Tuesday I went on my fastest long run yet, laying down some 7's early on and feeling strong enough to hold a 7:30 pace for the whole run. Tired from that awesome run, and planning long on Thursday I definitely needed Wednesday off. I was going to go to Baker's Dozen but my warm bed and the snooze button were too much. On Thursday I took off before swim practice on what ended up being my longest run yet, and my legs were tired from the effort on Tuesday for sure. I ran nice and slow, and was running for quite a long time. Definitely hurting towards the end, I managed to hang on. Then Friday I was lucky to walk, after 2:40 of running the way before, and had a hard MTB race weekend to be ready for. And, I was doing work for all of Friday until I went to bed at 10PM anyway. It was a sleep, class, HW, eat, HW, run, HW kinda week.

The mountain bike race weekend was a lot of fun, and the highlight is definitely my second place in the short track. The results from the uphill and downhill have yet to be posted, which sucks, but we'll see how those went soon hopefully. I went up Old Farm hard, but was so tired near the top that my technical skills began to falter and I didn't even have the legs to run so I had to walk a couple sections. So my time is probably so-so, something in the 16 minute range. The Short Track was just a boatload of fun, because it was an awesome course to ride, and to spectate. I had as much fun screaming for our riders in the other races as I did in my own. In our race, I got stuck behind a hole shot crash but stayed in the big ring the whole race, pulling in all but two people eventually. For the last four or so laps, I was staying about the same distance behind an ASU rider, but come the last lap, I gave it all and brought him in to 50 meters by the final uphill stretch. Digging deep for a sprint when all I wanted to do was coast, I managed to catch and pass him on the steep part of the finish, lapping Kelly in the process, and nabbing 2nd place. The only guy who I hadn't caught hadn't done the uphill race...so he's a wimp anyway.

On the downhill, I was very relieved to find that it was not mass-start (aka death) and went as fast as I ever have down Farm. I hit one tree, and came off my bike, but was fine although I lost quite some time to stop and put the chain back on. The Dual Slalom is not my event, and it was fun to watch people hit the jumps, but I kept my tires earthbound and quickly lost my first matchup.

Sunday was the day for the cross country at Mountain Lake, and with Ben Warren offering me a set of carbon handlebars for a first place, I was ready to crush the course that I knew like the back of my hand. And I did just that. UNTIL... I got attacked by bee's. Getting third into the trail, I passed Jacob and the other dude in front of me, and knowing my way had opened up a small lead. I had heard rumors of bee's attacking in this section, and being the first person coming through after the A-train was not the place to be. Everyone else got stung too, and it actually turned into quite a fiasco with 4 ambulances showing up and some severe allergic reactions, but everyone was okay. I felt three sharp stings on my left calf (maybe 4) and swatted at my calf to no avail, and kept going to avoid more stings. Instantly my calf was in bad shape, it stung like a mother to push down hard on the pedals and it may have been swelling, but I wasn't really looking. Hurting, I got passed gradually by what was most of the B field, and was seriously considering stopping after the first lap because I did NOT want to get hit again.

Feeling the stings in my leg as I approached that section again, I relaxed before it in preparation to sprint it. I got out of the saddle and went, but my rear tire slipped on a rock and I bashed my knee into my fork really hard, and that ended up being the lasting injury. It is still swollen (late Mon night) but was okay for a 5mi run this morning. I luckily didn't get stung again, and cruised to the finish, now the pain coming mostly from my bashed quad.

They stings hurt real real bad, I was getting waves of goosebumps, so I iced and put some stuff on them (not sure what it was) that helped a little, before driving home. All in all, another weekend without any major injury is a good weekend of mountain bike racing, and we had some pretty solid results as a team (recap on http://www.cycling.org.vt.edu will be posted soon hopefully).