The Cross Country Addendum

Hail my running brothers and sisters!  The school year has started and with it:  cross-country!  My son's elementary school (which is awesome by the way.  I will totally pimp for SBA, since I think that has been a great learning environment for my kids) participates in a parochial league, and I help coach some of the kids.  Why don't I head up the whole thing, you ask?  One, I'm so over-committed between work, other school activities and marathon training that I'm lucky that I have time to fart, much less run a K-8 cross country program.  Second, our cross country program is a very laid back, come-one-come-all, have fun and run affair.  If I were in charge, it would not be.  Rumor has it that when it comes to racing, I tend to be a bit...just a bit, mind you...over-competitive.  Thankfully, I have other parents, and my lovely  wife, to remind me that they are just kids, and we want them to have fun.  Don't get me wrong, we would also like to win, and we have quite a few fast kids.  But if I were in charge, everyone would hate me because it would be windsprints and long runs every day.  Kids would be too tired to do homework.  Test scores would drop.  The Y would be full of delinquent ne'er-do-wells.  Riots would ensue.  Like I said, it's good that I'm not in charge.

As it stands, I'm running with the 5th and 6th graders for now.  I run them a mile out and back, trying to work on form, breathing and strategy for those who are interested before the meets start.  My only problem is that practice is falling on my training days, so I'm having to re-adjust my training schedule to get my miles in.  This week was supposed to be a rest week, so I've been able to play with my schedule to figure out how it will work.  I have determined that I will have to keep myself in check when I run with the kids.  No macho posturing for me by trying to keep up with the kids (durn whipper-snappers are fast!), or I will likely hurt myself before November.  Yesterday, I had to cut my 5 mile easy run short, because my legs were dead, and I skipped this morning's make-up run to get some rest.  This is a rest week, so rest/recovery are more important to me today than the miles.  I'll worry about making up the miles later, but I don't want to overdo it (Wimp!!).  Later kids!