Blog #74

I’ve been crashing at my parents house for the past two weeks. It’s been nice, I’ve got to hang out with the folks and spend some time with little brother Erik. I have dined like a champ, and I have sampled many a beer with my buds. Basically I haven’t had a care in the world. Sadly though as a result of this wussy lifestyle my running has been crap, great big crap balls. It’s been real London, but it’s time to move on. Time to get the head and body back on the grind.

The training grind is a funny thing. Whilst yer in the thick of hard training it is so simple. You just get into a flow and get the work done. It is easy, you have goals, and you do what needs to be done to accomplish them. You wanna be fast and ya wanna improve, so ya just get at, it’s routine. But then you take a bit of time off, you drink some beer, eat some junk, get fat, get lazy. The fitness melts away more and more with each successive day spent on the couch nursing a hangover and eating ice cream. You lose your grasp on the grind, it slowly slips away. Once ya get removed from the grind it can be difficult to get it back. Takes a bit of time. I know it’ll come back, this current suckness is part of the ebbs and flow of the game. But right now it is rough, being outta shape is lame as hell.

So now at least I am back doing some running workouts. The outta shape workouts are hilarious. When I am fit and rolling I really look forward to working out and running hard. Each workout is an opportunity to build on the fitness and make some progress, I’m pumped when it starts to hurt and it gets hard, that’s when the fitness is built and the improvements are made. But when yer outta shape, damn man, workouts suck. I was at the track last night, supposed to do 15×600, not very fast, basically just do it. Man, it was a sad, sad sight. I had no fun. One of those workouts where after the 4th one I was ready to call it a day. These workouts are depressing, but they are very important and they gotta get done. I just wanna get fit again!

So here’s a story about when I was young, fit and fast. When I was a senior in university I went to Oregon and ran a steeplechase, it went really well and I ran a school record. I can’t remember what my time was, but it was a good day. I remember cooling down and hooping and hollering down on Pre’s trail. Nothing quite like nailing a race, damn it felt good. I was flying so high!

After the race a teammate and I went to Tracktown Pizza to celebrate. We each got a pizza and a whole bunch of beer. I was at the restaurant buzzing pretty good and I went and ordered a couple more pitchers of beer. I was on my way back to my table when I happen to stumble upon my coach!… I really wanna tell ya what happened next, but I like my coach and don’t wanna get him in trouble. So I’ll leave out the details. Anyways, eventually I got drunk, it was glorious,  a very fun night was had in Eugene.

However, during this time I was dating a girl who was also the track team. The day after I ran my good race in Oregon CSU had a home track meet. She was scheduled to run a steeplechase of her own. I was still flying pretty high about my big breakthrough race.  I called my lady friend to see how she did in her race, she was crying. I just assumed that she had a bad race, girls are always crying after a bad race. Go to a track meet anywhere in the world and you will see so many crying girls, it’s insane! They also pee their pants when they run…Girl runners are weird man, but I love em!

Anyways, so my girlfriend was crying, and as I said before I just figured she had a crappy race. But what really happened was that she had  tripped over a hurdle during the race and broke her arm! It was such a buzzkill, way to rain on my parade, so selfish of her. She was an awesome girl…but she just wasn’t very good at the steeple. She should have listened to my coaching advice about steeple strategy (fig 1. below).  Side note, having a girlfriend with a broken arm is lame, it’s hard to get sexytime whilst rocking a sling and a cast…

Back to the female steeplechase for a quick second.  I think that they should make the women’s hurdles higher. A 30′ hurdle is just silly, it looks dumb, way to low. Besides, if you watch a women’s steeple race they all jump a good 3feet over the barrier anyways, just raise the damn thing. Make a note, this is coming from a guy who was a horrible hurdler in his own right. The only reason I made it over the hurdles was because I’m 6’3 and can step over the damn things.

If ya ever wanna see a beautiful steeplechaser look no further than my boy Alex Genest, that guy is like poetry in motion in that damn event, and now he’s going to the Olympics for it, way to go buddy!

Here is a quick story about a squirrel…a squirrel that I killed. When I was pretty young, like 8-9 I ran over a squirrel with my bike. The squirrel freaked out and ran away, but its tail fell off in the process. I stopped and picked up the tail. It was kinda bloody and gross. I wanted to make a hat with it, but mom would have none of it.  For the rest of my youth I was always on the lookout for the tailless squirrel that was roaming my neighborhood. I was too young and naive to realize that the squirrel most surely died soon after I ran it over, poor guy probably fell outta a tree:(

Okay, I gotta go pack, getting outta of London today. Gonna spend a couple days in Toronto before flying off to Colorado on Friday.  Gonna race the Boulder Bolder on the 28th of May. Then spend the next month or so in Colorado and Flagstaff.  Super excited to get at it.  As for the race, Well, that should be interesting…

Have a great week!

-Rob-

Blog #73

I was in Vancouver over the holidays this winter. Whilst I was there I met up with a guy named Darren for a run. I had never met Darren but we had mutual friends so we hit the trails along the waterfront for a nice little run. As we were running we got to talking about running and such. It was immediately obvious that Darren was one of those guys who is just positive as hell and a friendly as a sonofabitch. I liked him right away.

We got to talking about running, our goals and aspirations and whatnot. I was talking about Rotterdam and my Olympic dreams. He mentioned that he had a big goal of qualifying for the Fukuoka marathon one day. The qualifying time was 2:42:00.  It was an ambitious goal for Darren at the time, but his excitement and positiveness got to me, so without thinking I immediately offered to pace him to his 2:42:00 whenever he needed it done.

Well fast forward 5months.  Yesterday Darren and I lined up at the start of the Toronto Marathon, the time had come, 2:41:59 or bust.  Darren had put in a tonne of hard work over the past 5months and he was ready to give 2:42 a shot.

We were joined by Dan and Mike, two of Darren’s teammates, they had also been rolling and were ready for some solid runs of their own.

The dudes had agreed that due to the nature of the course they would go out kinda fast and then settle in as things got going. The gun goes off and we get on our merry way. Oh yeah, So Bill Rodgers was there at the race, he shot the gun off. I was tempted to try to win the race so that I could impress Bill and get to talk to him, that man is a badass!

Back to race. So we get going, early on we were just cruising, we were right on pace and the dudes were chill and relaxed. It was cool. The guys were working together very well. I was just kinda running off to the side letting them do their thing. Every so often I would just chime in with some encouraging words.

At around 20km Dan figured that he had caught a flyer and he was ready to roll, he took off.  He was looking good, the rest of us wished him well and he was off to break new ground. Just Mike, Dan and myself cruising through the streets of Toronto at this point. The Dudes rolled through the half at 1:18:01, a solid minute ahead of their goal. I was proud, they were going for the good ole’ FFTF strategy, nice.

At around 28km Mike also decided that he was on for a good one, so he took off. He was moving well, we wished him the best. Now it was just Darren and I, the weather was getting warm and the legs were getting heavy.

Usually I am a pretty calm and collected guy. I don’t get to excited and worked up very often, but when I do, I become very loud and very obnoxious. I also have pretty dirty mouth, this fact is exasperated as I become more and more excited, eff this and eff that all damn day!

At around 30km Darren was still moving pretty well, we were still on target for sub 2:42 but we were starting to lose a few seconds each km. By 32km is was obvious that Darren was starting to hurt pretty good, it was also obvious that we were going to be cutting it close!

I knew how much Darren wanted this time and I knew how much work he had put in to get to this point. I had also just run 32km with the guy. So needless to say I was emotionally invested to his cause, I was starting to get a little worked up. By 34km I had upped the level of verbal support and encouragement. Darren was digging, he was holding it together but he was not having much fun at all.

By 37km Darren had gone dark and I was no longer encouraging him, I had just started to straight up berate him, I was like a gosh darn drill sergeant out there. I’m so sorry to anyone we ran by in that last 5km and had to witness/hear me yelling at my poor, suffering friend. I was a friggen maniac.

So that last 5km was pretty rad, Darren was all balls man. He was brilliant and he dug very, very deep. We rolled around the last bend and homeboy brought it in in a solid 2:41:53. Bam, mission accomplished! Great stuff!

I was pumped after, so happy that Darren performed so well and crushed his goal…by 6 seconds! Darren, well Darren was pretty much a zombie for the next hour or so, it was brilliant. Marathons are hilarious. It was a great day all around for the Longboat crew. Dan rolled a huge PB with a 2:36:59 and Mike came through in 2:40:51 despite going off course for a good 800m (I know it’s hard to put on such a big event, but there were certainly some problems with the course at points). My boy Anthony also rolled a 2:45. We celebrated with many beers and cookies after.

I had a lot of fun running that marathon yesterday. I love the road racing scene man, so many positive vibes. It was so cool to see the joy and exhilaration on all the finishers faces. There is so much pain and so much suffering, but after all is said and done the sense of accomplishment and satisfaction makes all that hard work worth it.

That it something that I absolutely love about running. No matter how fast you run, and no matter your goals. When you get in a race, especially a marathon there is going to be a point where you are gonna have to dig deep, you are really going to have to go dark at times. All of us runners experience this sensation. It is at these times when it is all on you, it is a very personal and unique experience, you learn a lot about yourself. Sometimes you hit your goals, and sometimes you don’t. But it is a great feeling walking (or hobbling) away knowing you gave it your all and you fought a good, honest fight.

When Darren was just holding on and suffering yesterday he didn’t let the pain and the suffering win. He fought back and he gave it all he had, and ultimately he hit his goal. I learned a lot yesterday, it was really an awesome and inspiring experience.

Alright, so two more weeks in southern Ontario folks. Then I’m off to Colorado to run the Boulder Bolder, then some training in Colorado/Flagstaff before I settle down in the Vancouver. Exciting stuff, but sadly I had to sell my car yesterday.

I loved that car so much, it was an oldy but a goody. That car and I have been all over North America together. Sure the passenger door is damn near impossible to open, the front fog light was destroyed by flying ice and the sound system consisted of a tape deck and some blown speakers. That car had character man, gonna miss my Dieter…cue Green Day’s “Good Riddance”

My boy Dieter and I, love that car.

Alright, well I’m back to serious training again. Gonna go blast my core. Have a great week folks!

-rob-

Blog #72

Remember back in grade school when ya had to make science projects for the annual science fair?  Kids would construct a paper mache volcanoe, make a diorama and do other cutting edge science stuff. Yeah, I hated those science fairs. You see, I have always been kind of a crappy student. But usually my crappiness was kept between me and my teachers. My friends didn’t know how much I sucked…until these damned science fairs rolled around.

The projects at the science fair would fall into three categories. There were the overachieving nerds/obvious parental involvement projects. These were the ones with working parts, lights and special effects. The Mercedes and BMW’s of the kids science fair world if you will. These kids were pretentious assholes, and we were all jealous of their awesome projects.

Next there was the generic run of the mill, standard projects. They were well done, not so many bells and whistles, good enough to get the job done, dependable. The Volkswagens.

Lastly there was the shit projects, the Geo Metro’s. It sucked to have one of these projects, but they played a very important roll. They were there to make all the other kids feel good about their projects. These were the “at least mine is better than Rob’s” projects. Yeah, and this was the category that I fell into…every damn year!

I blame my poor showing at these science fairs on the fact that I am a terrible procrastinator,  I have always been this way, It’s just the way I work. If there is something to be done that I don’t wanna do. That thing is not getting done until the absolute last minute!

Runners are generally pretty smart, hardworking and successful outside the world of running. Not me man, not me at all. I suck at real life stuff. In university we would have our annual athletic banquet and it always sucked when they’d call up the all academic team members. One year I was literally the only member of the cross country team that was not on the academic honor roll, bunch of nerds, But I could totally beat them all in a race. You see I am a specialist. If there is something that stimulates and excites me I am giving that sucker 100% and I’ll rock it (running, girls, beer drinking), but if it is something that is lame and annoying, I’ll push it aside and ignore it until it absolutely has to get done (school, taxes, shaving).

This is a fairly large character flaw that I have, I was hoping that with time I would mature and grow out of it. This has not happened. Case in point, I am currently sitting in Starbucks blogging and drinking coffee despite the fact that I have to move outta my house on Monday and I have yet to start packing or do anything about it…Sunday night is gonna suck.

So speaking of packing up and moving.  I’m outta the Guelph, so I guess I gotta figure out where to next eh? Well this decision was actually very easy. If you have read this blog enough than you know that there is a city over there on the west coast that gives me a pretty good boner. Yeah, I’m totally moving to Vancouver. I have been to a lot of different places all over this fine planet of ours, and in my opinion Vancouver is the best city in the world. It is physically beautiful, culturally stimulating and has some of the best running I have ever experienced. Pretty pumped to set up shop for operation Rio2016 in Vancouver. Sure, I can barely afford to live in Guelph as it is, and Vancouver is about 10x as expensive, but we’ll worry about these details later. It’ll all work out, it always does man, it always does.

So as I get ready to start anew in Van city I guess it’s time to say goodbye to The Guelph. It’s sad, I have had an absolutely amazing run here in the Royal City. Guelph has been great to me, speedriver, DST, Moults, the whole community man, top notch city. I’ll take nothing but fond memories with me as I move on. I’m especially gonna to miss the dudes so friggen much. I love these speedriver bastards. Some of the best guys I’ve ever met… Cue Green Day’s ‘Good Riddance’  as I reflect on 5 glorious years in the G-Spot… *sigh*.

Alright, before I head out here, big shout out to my man Kevin Bourgeois, dude did me a huge solid last week. awesome stuff, supporting my cookiesandbeer habit like a champ! Cheers to you Kevin!

Alright, Cheers ya’ll have a great weekend.

-Rob-

Blog #71

Shit man, that was close. I almost nailed that sucker…Almost! The goal was always to run qualifying pace as long as I friggen could, and I did that, was on pace to qualify until 37km, then I blew the hell up! I blew up so friggen hard! As it was happening it was absolutely agonizing and heartbreaking, but looking back on it now it was hilarious and I’m quite proud of myself. I did what I do man, huge FFTF that had me reduced to the physical state of a of drunk 16yr old girl combined with a freshly dead human succumbing to the effects of rigor mortis. If ya check out the splits you will see that I may have been a bit ambitious to start, but there is a reason for that. Let me explain, keep reading I’ll give ya’ll a race recap.

Okay, race report. Initially coming into the race I was just looking to run 3:06 per km for as long as possible, just even and chill. I wasn’t concerned about what the other folks were doing, this was my plan and I was happy to do it. Then Mother Nature decided to be a whore. The forcast was calling for a windy one on race day. Windy enough that the prospect of dealing with it on my own would have been just stupid (sure a 64:40 1st half may have been equally stupid…shut up). So the day before the race I decided that I had to go with a group as to have people to work with and bodies to block the wind.

There were only two groups to choose from. There was the world record group going out in 61:30. Let me just take a quick second to repeat myself here. Yeah, the lead group was planning on going through the half in 61:30…that is effed. Then there was the group that was put together for the Dutch guy who had to run sub 2:10 to qualify for the Olympics (and we thought our standard was hard!) Luckily they wanted to break 2:10 as evenly as possible, so 65:00 was the half split. That was my group, good ole’ group 2.

As race day came I was excited and relaxed. It is a great feeling heading into a race knowing that you are ready and prepared. I knew that I had prepared as well as I could have. The night before the race I ate about two pounds of ugali to top up the ole’ glycogen and then there was nothing left to do but give it a go.

So on to the race, first thing is that the start line at Rotterdam is nuts. You’d think that for such a big race they’d have a wider start than a two lane road. But they don’t, the start was a mosh pit, the cannon went off and I was throwing bows and sprinting outta that gate like a sonofabitch. Luckily I got off the line unscathed, sadly the same can not be said for my man Dylan W. About 500m into the race Dylan rolled up on my shoulder; “That’s f***ing awesome man, I went down!” As he said this he gapped me, as a result of the fall Dylan easily threw in a 65sec 400 to start the race. Money in the bank!

So we settled in and got to rolling, 1st km was a 3:07, perfect. Next km was a 3:04, okay I guess. Then a 3:03… Oh well, this was my group. I would need them later on.

We came to the 1st bottle station at 5km, the bottle tables were just a cluster fudge of miscellaneous bottles, I just ran by, didn’t even see mine, oops. Dylan was kind enough to share his bottle with me, that was super nice of him. We kept on rolling, the 5km between 5-10km was covered in 15:10, shit was on! We came to bottle station #2, I saw my bottle this time and grabbed it, success!..or not, it was not my bottle. I had accidentley grabbed some random bottle. I felt bad and tried to put it back, and in the process of doing so knocked down about 10 other bottles, it was a horrible failure, and I was bottle less again. Once again Dylan hooked me up, I was starting to feel like a damn fool.

We kept rolling, next 5km covered in 15:20. As we approached bottle station #3 I was getting a little concerned about my lack of fluid and carbs intake. We got to the tables, I slowed way the hell down, spotted my bottle and grabbed that sucker. I then made sure to drink every damn drop of that bottle! It was good, but during this process I got gapped hard! I covered the km between 15-16km in 3:15 and lost 10sec on the group. I was a little annoyed as the whole reason to roll with this group in the first place was to have people there to fight the wind with as it was gonna hammer us between 20-30km. I increased my pace in an effort to catch the group. At about 18km a dude on a motorbike came up on my shoulder and informed me in a very charming Dutch accent “You must catch them by 20km or you will be all alone in the wind!” He was genuinely concerned. I just gave him a thumbs up and said “working on it dude!” I dropped a 9:00min 3km split between 16-19km and got back on the group a little after 19km. That was certainly not ideal, I’m not very smart sometimes.

The wind hit us a 20km and I was very happy to be in our group, it was pretty annoying. We covered the 10km between 20-30km in 31:25, and it felt like we were pushing hard! This was probably also due to the fact that we rolled a 64:40 1st half and fatigue was settling. I was cautiously optimistic at this point. I was hurting, but it didn’t seem to horrible…yet. Fast forward 2km…by 32km I was suffering. Wow, that happened fast!

So coming into the last 10km things were starting to get ugly. I had been dropped by the group and was starting to suffer. I came through 35km and even though I was hurting greatly I was still moving alright and was still on pace. But by 37km it was over man, my legs basically shut off and life was sad. I ran a 3:35km between 37-38km. I tried to remain positive, I told myself that I’d be fine, I could still do it, I just had to dig! Man, the next 2min of my life was just pathetic. I put my head down, let out a mighty grunt and attempted to rally.  But all that happened was that I kinda just swung my arms back and forth very aggressively and almost fell over. Survival mode last 4km for a finishing time of 2:13:37.

What happened at the finish line was very embarrassing, yet pretty funny. So I crossed the finish line and immediately fell on my face. A bunch of people ran over and started saying shit in Dutch, I just kinda groaned. I got thrown on a stretcher, it was glorious, I fell asleep. As I was getting carted away I woke up and immediately threw up all over a random dutch man. He was not happy. I was taken into the medical area and they put me beside a bed…I threw up all over the bed, we went to a different bed. It was better.

At that moment I had never been more uncomfortable in my entire life. My guts were effed, I was cramping like a surly bastard, I had gone hypothermic and I was sad I didn’t get standard. It was rough man. But then I got a whole bunch of sweet drugs through an IV, a massage and a whole bunch of blankets. I was useless and pathetic. I really gotta learn better pacing skills.

The finish line medic crew at the Rotterdam Marathon was top notch. I kept joking with them that I wanted a beer,  later I happened to run into all the medics at the post race banquet. They were happy that I had gotten my hands on a beer and they informed me that I looked much better than the last time they had seen me. One of the medics had even taken pictures of me during my time in medical, he was supposed to e-mail to me but never did, I wish I had these to share with you folks, they are pathetic.

So anyways that was my race. I’m sad that I did not get the time I was looking for, but I’m ok with it. You can’t complain about a 3min PB, that would be an asshole move, I’m not an asshole.  I am proud of my effort and I know that I can do better. Better pacing, better fueling execution and better weather will all help make the next one faster. Coming into this race I had given myself an ultimatum. If I didn’t go sub 2:15 I was going to retire from competitive running. I love this sport to the very core, but to justify doing it at this level I wanted to actually be good at it.

I am very encouraged with this result. I was starting to wonder if maybe I just wasn’t built to be a marathoner. I’m 6’3, 150ish lbs with a size 12foot, definitely not an ideal build for the marathon. But now I know that physically I’ll be okay. It’s my stupid friggen head I gotta control now. 2:13 is a good starting point as I transition into the next phase of my running career. I’m excited man. Onward to Rio!

Quick shout out to the Canadian Ladies Krista and Lanni on absolutely killing it out there in Rotterdam! 2:32 and 2:31, unbelievable! Great girls, so happy for them.

Also Dylan Wykes, yeah man. He did it, he was brilliant out there. Little known fact, at about 28km I could see that Dylan was suffering, and I remembered how fired up and adrenalized he was after falling earlier in the race. So I ran over and pushed him down, needless to say he bounced back up got a second wind and ended up with his 2:10:47, you’re welcome dude. How amazing is it that Canada will have 3 dudes in London? That is just rad.

Canadian crew post Rotterdam

Thanks again for all the support both before and after the race. You guys continue to humble me. Thanks to all my friends who continue to support me through everything. Jane (I swear we’re just friends!) you continue to rock, thanks for being rad.

I really can’t articulate how much love I have for my family. Thanks so much to  brothers Mike, Scott and Erik, and sister Kristen, I love you all! Aunt Jill (1984 Olympic Heptathlete) Thanks for always being there with your love. Coach/ Brother Pete; dude has always been so important to me in my running, now he has played a massive part in getting me back on my feet and running fast. I love that guy. And obviously Mom and Dad are simply the best fucking people in the world.

Okay, over and out.

-rob-

Blog #70

Hey I’m in Europe. Holland to be exact. Rotterdam to be the most exact. Gonna race a marathon tomorrow. Race is gonna be neat. I expect that it’s gonna be fun for a bit, then it’s gonna get pretty hard, then it’s gonna suck balls. Can’t wait. This build-up has been so much fun. I’ve had a blast working with brother Pete, he’s a rad coach.

For this race I have one goal, but a few different race plans on how to get there. Depending on the weather and such I’ll settle on a final approach tomorrow. I won’t bore you with specifics,  but the general idea is to get from point A to point B in 2:11:29, that would be superb. If I do that I am going to fist pump and sky punch the hell outta this place. I will sky punch so hard that I fear I might dislocate my shoulder. 2:11:29 is fast as hell, and I’m gonna have to get pretty friggen ugly to get there. I am going to have to go deep man, go to that dark, dark place. That dark place scares me, I’ve been there before and dear god does it hurt. But when that happens, and when things are dark as hell I’m gonna think of my Mom and Dad, they are the brightest lights in my life, and hopefully they can help get me through the dark.

Initially I was most looking forward to running my race, then drinking a bunch of beers and hitting on pretty Dutch girls. But since getting here my mentality has shifted. I am quite straight, but wow, European men are handsome as hell! They dress so friggen well, and they are much better looking than me. I have no chance with the ladies over here, I’m way outta my league. So I guess I better get the most outta this here race in order for this trip to be a success. 100% focus and energy on the race. I still plan on drinking a whole bunch of beer after though. But now that I’m not worried about ladies, well, I may just get belligerent…and fall in a canal.

I don’t really have any stories from this trip yet, very low key. I really like Rotterdam though, it is a super nice city. Really cool architecture, friendly people and H&M’s on every corner. Seriously, there are 3 H&M’s within 5min of my hotel. The Dutch language is quite fun also, very loopy with lots of character, It makes me smile. Yesterday I saw a TV commercial for McDonald’s, and when they said ‘Chicken McNoogatts” I broke out into a pretty serious giggle fit.  So I’m adding Rotterdam to the list of cities I want to move to. As of May 1st I am a free agent and I gotta find a new place to live. Vancouver is my #1 choice right now, but there are a lot of other wicked places I wouldn’t mind settling in either. I’ll worry about that business later though.

So gonna get serious here for a quick second. Umm…guys…all you folks that come read this blog, say nice things and continually offer up your support. Thank you so much…I love you guys. You have no idea how much all the support has meant to me.  I’ve gone through some kinda annoying stuff since Scotia. Leading into Scotia, and the few weeks after were probably the lowest points in my running life. I was bummed about my running, it sucked.  I wasn’t really enjoying it that much. Changes were made, and it was hard man. I had sponsors flake out, people doubt me and some other negative bullshit go down. But no matter what was happening this blog was a thing that I could turn to, I used it to vent, it was kinda like therapy or something. And you awesome bastards were always there to encourage and support me, that was just friggen rad. Seriously, this shit helped keep me positive and motivated. I would not be here in Rotterdam right now if it were not for your awesomeness. So thanks for that. Cookies and Beer for all, no matter what happens tomorrow.

Wish I had some cooler stuff to talk about, but I don’t. So go over to my Girl Jane’s blog. I wrote a blog for her last week, then she was kind enough to do a little pre-Rotterdam thing for me. You should also follow her on the twitter; https://twitter.com/#!/shoelesscoolis she’s almost at 100 followers. Her 100th follower get’s a sweet prize, a 1hr private tutoring session on the RAS gene and it’s roll in cancer and such…she’s smart.

Technically I should probably not be such good buds with this Jane character, she did after all drag me all the way out to Vancouver over x-mas break only to break up with me as soon as we got back. That was annoying as hell, kind of a bitch move there Coolis. But she has since proven that she is still awesome despite all that nonsense. She’s been an amazing friend and constant source of support through all the shenanigans (shenanigans which happen to involve her dragging me out to Vancouver then dumping me…yeah, it’s confusing to me too). I dig her. Also if you know me than you probably also know that I can absolutely not stay mad at anyone for more than an hour or two (except maybe Jeremy Roenick, seriously eff that guy). I am capable of being upset, but only in short spurts. Being upset makes you fat, it’s a scientific fact.

Okay, one last thing. thanks to brother mike for sharing this with me; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xjdkc14-zwQ this song is so rad. I can’t stop listening to it. Brother Mike has always had excellent musical taste.

Ok, I’m gonna go and grab some sorta carbo laced sports drink.

-Rob-

Blog #69

When I was in high school sometimes my friends and I would drink a bunch of beer, soak a hat in flammable liquid, put the hat on our heads, light the hat on fire and then run around with our heads engulfed in flames, all the whilst giggling and having a ball. It was great fun.

Luckily I have grown and matured, now for fun I just ignore my friends, wake up super early and then hit the roads and run until I am physically incapacitated. There is no booze, fire or giggling involved in this process… Being old sucks. After Rotterdam I am getting drunk and lighting my head on fire, gonna kick it old school.

Anyways, speaking of Rotterdam, hot damn folks! 10 friggen days until I gotta drag my body around that place. I am pumped. I have finished up all the hard work and now I am just focusing on resting up, recovering and being 100% ready to thrash on the 15th.

I want to take a quick second to say thanks to my boy John W. Mason. John is a great dude and last weekend he ventured up to Guelph to be my bottle man for my last big workout. For a brief moment in internet time John had a brilliant blog (http://jwmqualitylife.blogspot.ca/). But then he lost interest and the blog died. I think that he should get that sucker back up and going!

So, as I was saying, Johnny boy came up to aid me with my workout. With the help of  his expert bottle delivery method I was able to roll the best work out I have ever done, it was a 30km progression and it was glorious.  I am confident that I am going into Rotterdam as fit as I’ve ever been. I’m gonna go out there and just see how many 31:00 10k’s in a row I can do. I’m pretty confident that I can do 3 pretty solidly. It’s that last 12km that is gonna be a bastard. Marathons get effed in that last 12k, weird shit can happen man. It’s gonna be fun.

I really have nothing to talk about, my life has been pretty much consumed by this impending race. Hmm…I wish I had a funny story or anecdote to share, but I ran outta those at around blog #17…Hey, went to Toronto the other night and saw Chuck Ragan in concert, it was a great way to escape the mental torture that is known as tapering. Went with a few friends and it was a great time…That story sucked…umm…what else is going on?

I had to go get a new license today. Ok, bear with me folks. Usually when someone starts a story with the line “I had to get a new license today” the story is bound to suck. And come to think of it, this story is probably going down this path also. But having to get a new license is a sad event for myself. Over the past couple years I have always looked forward to the opportunity of showing off my license. I love whipping that sucker out for any reason necessary. Because unlike most people out there I have a license photo that I am incredibly proud of. Every time I take that thing out I get pretty solid positive feedback on the photo. Just today the one lady at the DMV said I looked like a movie star, a movie star! Movie stars are generally pretty attractive people. I had a lady at the liqour store once tell me that it was the best license photo she had ever seen! This lady checks ID’s all damn day, she literally see’s hundred’s of  license photo’s a week! It makes me feel good about myself. I am going to miss that jolt of self assurance once I get my new crappy photo’d ID. Yeah, so like I said about any DMV related stories sucking, just proved my point.

Rad License Photo.

Well here’s the deal folks. I’m gonna go to Holland here in a few days, I’m gonna hopefully smash my race and then I am going to party my balls off in Amsterdam. So hopefully my next blog will have an awesome race report followed by a hilarious tale about some sort of silly Amsterdam themed shenanigans.

You guys are awesome.

-rob-

Blog #68

During the Geosyntec holiday party of 2011 I got kinda drunk, a guy I worked with, Grant, also got kinda drunk. We got to talking and he decided that he should run the Around the Bay 30km. I told him that if he signed up than I’d coach him. He signed up the next day, and this was the start of my coaching career. In his very first e-mail to me Grant stated that his goal was sub 2:30. Fast forward 4months, Grant had put in a lot of work and he lined up at Around the Bay fit and ready to tackle the 30km distance.

Grant was an awesome athlete to work with. Dude had a pretty full plate; full time job, young family, hockey league and a huge friggen dog to take care of.  Yet despite all this he stuck to the training, he was out on the roads all winter putting in the work.  He assumed that I knew what the hell I was doing and he followed the training pretty damn well. He did the easy runs, the workouts and was up to over 30km on his long runs. It was very cool to watch as he continued to get fitter and fitter, and as race day arrived he was ready to take care of business. Grant went out hard, excecuted a perfect FFTF and rolled across the line in 2:29:59. It was awesome!

That is the thing I love about road races like Around the Bay. Often times we’ll only hear about the elites or some runners with some sorta unique human interest story. But everyone toeing the line has a unique story. Everyone has put in a lot of hard work, everyone has had to sacrifice something to get there on race day. And it is awesome to see the joy and exhilaration on people’s faces as they cross the line and achieve their goals. It is rad to see others do great things, it is very motivating and inspiring.

Also wanna give a quick shout out to some other friends who rocked Around the Bay; Reider with the win. Big break through for Terrance coming is second. To my buds Darren and Anthony rocking for the Longboat runners. The IronHorse crew and all the Guelph victors, great job guys. And also to the 10or so people who gave the blog a shout out as they ran by, thanks for that!

So back to my expert coaching ability. Working with Grant and seeing him do what he did was wicked. I need a new job and maybe I’ll become one of the those internet running coaches. Those people make bank! Sure I don’t really know what the hell I’m talking about when it comes to coaching. But I figure I can just read a few books, steal some training methods then slighty tweak them to create the “Watson Training System”.  When someone asks what my training philosophy is I’ll just name drop some already established coaches to sound legit ” Well it is a Lydiard style with influences of Daniels and Pfitzer mixed in” Sounds like I know what’s up right?  but what I’m actually doing is acting as a middle man between you and a book that I read. I’ll just charge ya a whole lot to pass on the info. My trademark? Well it will obviously be horrible racing tactics. But instead of “horrible” I’ll phrase it as “ambitious” racing tactics. I’ll also have amazing motivational tricks, I’m thinking a reward system based off the cookies and beer principal will keep my athletes on the ball. So That’s that, I now have “The Watson Training Method” Go big or go home! It’s gonna be huge people!

If the whole coaching thing doesn’t pan out than I have a few other plans for my future. First plan, run friggen fast in Rotterdam and go pro, that’d be the ideal set-up.

Plan #2; Take a few weeks and learn how to throw a knuckle ball then join the Toronto Blue Jays. Seriously, have you ever seen Tim Wakefield pitch? Dude just sorta lobs it in there and hopes for the best. Knuckle ball pitchers are hilarious. The best gig in the world is MLB pitcher, play 30games a year and make $10million, sweet deal. Sure, most pitchers have to be genetic freaks, workout a whole lot,  get strong as hell and have excellent technique as to make the prospect of hucking a ball 100mph even remotely possible. But not knuckleballers, nope, they just gotta learn to hold the ball funny and chew tobacco. Man, I can’t wait to win the world series, that’s going to be sweet.

If plan two doesn’t pan out then we move on to plan #3, Lottery, duh! Anyone who doesn’t play the lottery is just plain dumb. You can win $50million with a $2 ticket, that there is a  sound investment!  Man, I can’t wait to win the lottery. I’m gonna buy a really nice custom made hat. I’ve been contemplating trying out new hat styles lately, but I lack confidence in my ability to pull it off. If I had a hat that cost like $5000 then I’d have to wear it or it’d just be a huge waste of money, and that’d just be dumb.

Okay, Plan #4; Male Model. True, I’m not that good looking and I don’t photograph well, but there are a lot of goofy looking dudes who are male models. With good lighting, makeup and neat hair anyone can look good. I’m kinda hoping that this just works its self out because I have no idea how to go about becoming a male model. Also, I assume that male models do well with women, that’d be a pretty good perk to the gig. Women like male models.

Okay plan #5, I guess I could just find a real job. But what are the odds we’re gonna get this far down the list? This is a last resort option and I am not too concerned about this, nor am I taking this option very seriously. But if I become desperate and this option has to be utilized my only criteria for said real job is that this place must have a dental plan. I haven’t been to the dentist in like 6yrs, and sometimes my mouth hurts. I should get that checked out eventually.

Awesome, I now have my life planned, and boy is it looking sweet! So from now until April 14th, boring marathon hermit. April 15th Marathon. April 16th many beers and cookies in Amsterdam. April 17th back in Canada. April 18th-Dead, see above options 1-5. Feels good to have it all figured out.

Ok, Onward to Rotterdam! Have a great week everyone.

-Rob-