BIGGEST FEAR

It’s “funny.” Each morning I wake up with ideas of staying in the best shape possible floating in my head. I could bike, swim, lift, really watch what I eat, etc. Heck, I even thought about buying some roller skis and skiing all summer. Then in February I could ski the Birkie, like I always say I’m going to do. However, by the time I get home from work all I want to do is play x-box and drink beer. Luckily (or unluckily) there’s no beer in the house.

My biggest fear is that I’ll be productive with all this free time and actually start to like not running. I’ll wake up one day and my kids will be busy with their activities, so I’ll be carting them all over the place. Besides, there are always projects that never seem to get done because I’m too busy running. Last year I re-finished our dining room table, but I never did the chairs. I suppose I could use my free time on that project.

No x-ray last night, so nothing to report on that front. The pain now seems to be just below my knee. I guess as long as I have running books to quote, my blog will be semi-readable.

More from RWTB:

“Scar’s our number-one man now.” Wetmore to the team after Oscar Ponce ran 25:27 at the CSU invite and was 6th overall and the first CU runner. Two years ago when he entered CU, Wetmore told Ponce, “We have a pack of lions. And every day a different lion roars. If you want to be part of this team, be patient, and work hard. I’m looking for an investment from you. You won’t see changes for two years. You’ll be sore for two years.”

“Don’t get greedy. Bad things happen when you get greedy.” – Wetmore addressing the team before a workout.

Here are a couple of lines from when Wetmore addresses the entire team for the first time during the season;

“Everyone in Boulder wants to be you. The dilettantes, the posers, the dreamers, the schemers; they all want to be you.

The Wally Rutherfords [walk-ons] of this team, you’re the envy of them. Being the real deal is the price of this team.

We’re interested in doing it. We’re here to run races. I run the time trial to scare off people who think this is the camera club. Races are scary. You could vomit.

We’re here to run races. This is leading up to the caveat emptor. Because we’re not the jogging club, I have to pay attention to the first nine athletes first. There are 54 people on this team. I need fourteen. Seven men and seven women go to conference, districts, and Nationals.

If we go four days without talking, understand: our number-one priority is to beat people.

Remember it takes 100 days to impress me. No one day impresses me.

We have a good, good year coming. I don’t like to give a lot of rah-rah talk.

I don’t need to build you up. I don’t want you to leave here smashing your head against the wall. Be businesslike, patient, and methodical. Do a little head smashing every day for one hundred days.

Not just everyone in Boulder wants to be like you. Everyone in this university wants to be like you. You’re the top-ranked team in the school.

We live in a city on a hill. When your alarm goes off and you’re tired, think, they all want to be you. No one knows that Heather or Jen are one minute ahead of last year. No one knows I have six freshmen women who one month from now will be among the top ten freshmen in the country. I like it that way.

Rules. I have only one rule: that you be a young man or young woman of character. You follow that rule, and I’ll take care of the rest.

Quote of the day:
“I was hurting, and once I heard that, I was like, ‘Fuck, I’m a little bitch.’ I didn’t even feel my pain anymore, I was like, ‘Fuck, I’m feeling sorry for him!’” – Oscar Ponce during a 20 mile run after talking with a local Kenyan that is doing 40. He later learned he meant 40K, not 40 miles.