Quarry "Long"

It's been a while. I took the past two days off. Thursday because it was pouring down raining in the morning and in the afternoon we had people coming over. Running club was going to happen Thursday but I cancelled it because of the rain that was relentless throughout the day. Then we had people over and they stayed later than we expected and so I went to bed late. I didn't go Friday morning as a result, and Friday afternoon I was so tired that I thought it would be a bad idea. I've rationalized this by saying that my left IT band still hurts so much, that running 7 days a week may not be necessary right now.

We were meeting at Hanover at 8am so I slept from about 9:30pm to 6am when KC's alarm went off. I stayed in bed until 7:05 when my alarm went off. My neck hurt immediately when I woke up, for no reason. I have limited mobility in it now.

I ran down Lafayette and through Alum Springs to meet at Hanover at 8am. I wore a vizipro and gloves, but decided that it was too hot for that (44 degrees maybe?) and shed the top in Pat's car. Bob, Jack, Matt, Pat, Chris and I ran through the college down to the quarry and met Scott and his son, Jonathan. He's a freshman and just finished his first XC season at Courtland. I think someone said he was the second freshman in the region on Thursday. Pat was running at the front and setting the pace, separating from the old guys right from the start. At the boat ramp, we went up-hill into the woods, while Jack and Bob went off on their own. I think they're planning to go long tomorrow.

It was nice being back on those trails. Scott and Chris (and obviously Jonathan) hadn't ever been in the tunnel before, so we decided to do that. Stupid. There was so much rain on Thursday that the thing was flooded. I sprinted through it and my legs were frozen by the time I got through it. But it was fun being back there on the trails, not worried about any pace or having to pay attention to Gu and water. We ran along the ridge line behind Kalahari and back down to the river. When we got to the quarry, the pace picked up. When we got back to the boat ramp, it really picked up! I didn't even notice it. All of the sudden, Scott, Chris and I were left in the dust by Pat, Matt and Jonathan! I looked at my watch and we were still running 6:40 pace, which is pretty quick at the quarry. Scott told me to go ahead, so I chased after them. I figured that we would continue to run hard until we got to Fall Hill, so I was trying to time it so that I could blow by them once we got onto the dirt road. I looked at my watch and it was 4:42 pace for at least one instant, and I was closing hard. But as soon as we got out to the parking lot, Pat shut it down! I was so disappointed. Then Jonathan called me gay and I couldn't run anymore because I was laughing so hard. Matt waited up for Pat as Jonathan tried came up to hang with me as he finished up at Fall Hill.

We waited for Scott and Chris at Scott's car, and then continued on our way sans Mersiowsky's. The pace slowed because Chris said his knee was broken or something else dumb, but he stopped at the Fountain as Pat and I cruised on to the cars. It was easy-- 7:30s, but it was still nice. I just enjoyed it. I had nothing to do, no where to be, no goals for the run. It was cold, but not too cold for a t-shirt and gloves. It was just a good run.

Afterwards Pat drove me home, and I did some stretching. My IT band is dangerously inflexible. I was doing a stretch with my foot up on the rock wall and my knee was probably bowed up to a 45 degree angle. Ugh. This problem needs to go away.

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