Yard work and the big race.

Saturday, October 23, 2010


I was scheduled to go to Mimi’s and begin the job of winterizing her house and getting leaves from the yard and into the woods. It was supposed to rain, but when I arrived there in the early morning, the skies were holding back. I spent the next several hours performing tasks like putting in the storms, cleaning out gutters, sweeping leaves from the garage and playing with Edgar, her standard, but spastic, poodle. He needs a giant play toy and I’m it when I’m there. All in all, I managed to break a pretty good sweat and when I arrived home, was still in the mood to work.

I knew this feeling could leave me quickly, so I immediately began to rake the leaves in the yard. I’ve got three maple trees which are still holding all of their leaves. I’ve also got a lazy neighbor behind me that knows if he ignores his leaves, they’ll blow to the yards surrounding his. I filled my tree lawn with these leaves over the next two hours…enjoying the workout, but by 5 p.m., was beginning to lose steam.

There was a gentle rain falling, which took cycling out…so it was head to the park for a run or nothing. I chose nothing. I’d run the previous five days…about as much as I want to do right now…and with all of the manual labor I’d performed over the previous eight hours, decided my old body had had enough.

I spoke with Marie about her district race earlier in the day. She’d taken 3rd and run well advancing to next week's regional race for an opportunity to qualify to the state meet. She will need to place in the top 15 in the region to gain a berth and is completely capable of that task. For me, next Saturday will be spent fretting over that race and then watching her run. As much as I enjoy working with high school runners, I dread the regional races. It’s the make or break event that is the culmination of six months of very hard training and racing. An off-day due to sickness, injury or even bad luck means an end to the season. I coach the kids to believe in themselves and their training and let their competitors do the worrying. It works for them…but not for me. Still…I love the opportunity to help them achieve their goals and this one will be no different.  Good luck, Marie.