Saturday, August 12, 2006

Like good times, some angles never die


Abstract

I had fun at a cottage with old friends. I did my final taper run this morning and everything felt good. I am now at my sister's house in Toronto.

10 Ways to Ruin a Taper (and possibly a race)

1. Meet up with old friends from residence at a cottage for the annual Boys' Weekend.
2. Bring lots of chips, cookies, ice cream, and alcohol.
3. Go Tubing behind a Jet-Ski.
4. Eat copious amounts of chips, cookies (Peak Freans Fruit Creme), and ice cream (Rolo and Kit Kat).
5. Consume copious amounts of alcohol.
6. Make fun of people who didn't make it to the cottage weekend.
7. Stay up way too late.
8. Practice Greco-Roman wrestling in the living room of a cottage.
9. Get up early and run.
10. Drive back to Toronto shortly after.

Ok, so I skipped numbers 5 and 8, but I did the rest. And I did not eat copious amounts of ice cream, but four BIG spoonfuls, and I did limit my tubing (although I wanted to do WAY more) because I didn't want to carry any soreness into the race, and the cookies were just way too good and and I hadn't eaten any of them in way too long, and I slept well, just not a long time, and then run felt alright everything considered and the drive home went super fast as an old friend and I caught up on the past 5 years, and the chips, especially the Ruffles Sour Cream and Onion, were AMAZING. The moral is - do as I say, not as I do.

Spending time with old friends, like time spent running on trails, shouldn't count toward your allotted time on this earth. Seeing the boys is always great and it shocks me how quickly we fall back into things. We are getting older and the topics of conversation have started to widen, including house purchases and kids, but it always comes back to the guitars on the docks, the groggy morning after, and the kinship of close friends. Thanks to Kevin for offering up his beautiful cottage to us this weekend. We will rebuild those broken parts next time.

And I would like to commend both Dave and Chris for making it out on the run at an 8:00am which came quicker than most. The run was fun, but the lake was divine!


And special thanks to Kevin for driving me up to the cottage and to Jason for getting me back to Toronto.

So, it begins tomorrow. I am now at my sister's house and going to eat well tonight and then off to the race in the morning. I am getting adjusted to running at what my body thinks is 5:00am, but it shouldn't be a problem after tomorrow.

Thanks to everyone who has left a comment - it is nice knowing that there are masochists who will suffer through reading my posts. You rock!

Run great!

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sounds like the mind and body are in their right places – best of luck – looking forward to your updates. S’s Mom

Unknown said...

Thanks Dorothy. I will try to keep the content of the blog up to a certain standard, which may mean banning some of my friends!

Ryan said...

6. Make fun of people who didn't make it to the cottage weekend.

Ban me and I'll send Chinese nukes your way.

I'm sad this morning.

Rozee said...

Brad, relaxation is key to the taper. Sounds like you are doing the right thing. Do us proud out there at that running thingy!

Anonymous said...

5 posts and the race hasn't even started yet?
good thing carpal tunnel doesn't affect your running....
kidding. jen thinks we should write something nice now, so i'll say this -
everyone out this way thinks you're fitter now than last year, us included.
kill'er
tre & jen

Anonymous said...

Brad,

Thanks for including us in your account of your run - it makes for great reading (English teacher response!) and is inspiring to the amateur runners. We wish you well as you begin - it sounds like you are ready and it will be great. Enjoy.

Karen and David

Unknown said...

thanks for the comments. tre actually said something nice (never mind jen was threatening him) - thanks man. you don't have to wait for me to come home to move stuff!

Anonymous said...

It was the cottage weekend that gave you the gold jersey!
Congrats and god luck during the race.
Shannon (& Troll)