High School Running Part II

During my junior year of high school we had a cross country coach by the name of Amy. And before I tell you about her coaching style let me tell you about a story she told us at practice about perservering. She told us that at one point in college she ran a cross country race while pregnant. Now you must be thinking, this woman told a bunch of 14 to 17 year old kids about being pregnant, they must have been grossed out. The truth is...we were. And it's not that I have anything against people having kids but at the age of 16 that reaffirmed my belief that our coach was crazy.

But fastforward a few years and everyday at practice we can never figure out where to go on the runs. The girls, on the other hand, are out the door and on their way; but for some odd reason and I can never figure it out, even though they leave before us and run for less minutes than we do, we also beat them back. For example if we have a 50 minute run and they have a 40 minute run, they'll leave before us but we'll be back at the track finishing up drills and strides when they get back. Much like how I will never understand Heisenberg's Principle of Uncertainty, how we finish before the girls is just beyond me.

But back to high school and the thought of not knowing what run we were going to do never came up. That is because we did the same thing every week:

• Monday: run the cross country course twice at Apple Valley Golf Course
• Tuesday: 5 mile loop at Mary Lou Retton Park. And let me just say, I don't think they should call it Mary Lou Retton Park, because she sucks. She denied being from Fairmont and I had a chance to meet her at a Fourth of July event a few years ago and she's annoying. She's got nothing on my girl Nastia.
• Wednesday: Indian files at Prickett's Fort
• Thursday: LSD day on the Rails-to-Trails. As much as she talked about the long-but-slow day, it made me believe she was on LSD.
• Friday: run from someone's house before a spaghetti dinner
• Saturday: GAME DAY

But we did this routine every week during the course of my junior season. Which is probably why the group I ran with in high school is so used to routine. Much like Brooks in The Shawshank Redemption we became institutionalized and didn't know what to do without a set schedule. Heaven forbid we run at the park on wednesday and do Indian files on a Monday. The only difference between us and Brooks was the fact we didn't write "Brooks was here" and commit suicide.

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Miles ran since last post: about 8