Wednesday, June 10, 2009

8 Mile

If I'm successful at Western States, no wait, I just ran with Star, I know better than that, WHEN I'm successful at Western States I will be able to look back at an 8-Mile training stretch that made it so.

It won't be the Rocky Mountain Double, though it was at altitude. It won't be the overnight run A2, Allen and I did last Friday, though it was at much faster than my normal pace. It won't be the run in the blistering heat I did yesterday. When I am successful on June 27 - 28 it will be my 4 Lagniappe runs at Croom that takes me to Placer High School in Auburn, CA. Lagniappe, a New Orleans assures me, means, a little something extra (and Urban Dictionary confirms this, but if you check that out, do yourself a favor and only read the first two definitions!) Ok, my lagniappe runs were the "little something extra" I did after my key training runs coming down the stretch before Western States. On each of my last 4 trips to Croom, once my run was finished, I took my fat, battered body back out to the biggest hill on Croom Road and ran the one mile out and over the hill, and trudged the one mile back up and over the hill back to the car. All of these efforts were done solo, with the exception of Friday night when I sucked ultra-buddy Allen into joining me (yeah, if that hill is any indication, look for him to win Western States!).
I remembered that when I was training for States in 2005 I routinely did that hill when everyone else was already enjoying an ice-cold beverage. Well, for the last 4 years, I've been the one enjoying the beverages, not so anymore!


Like I said, WHEN I finish Western States, it's going to be the 8-Mile Lagniappe that got me there!

6 comments:

superdave524 said...

Dude!

Star said...

So here you go it's your shot, feet fail you not,

This may be the only opportunity you got

You better Lose Yourself...

Mr. Matt said...

Hey, hey, that sounds a bit like M&M, wasn't he in that 8-Mile movie, the one with 80's hottie Kim Bassinger.

I'm telling you though it's the lagniappe! Where else you gonna get that, no where!

Anonymous said...

Wow, A-Man, 8 Miles, and it only took you 4 trips to the mountainous part of Florida to achieve that LOFTY goal!

Yeah, I been to Florida, I ran a marathon there while I was in the midst of running, oh, 50 Marathons in oh, 50 Days!

You impress me not! I could to it on one massive quad.

-Dean Karnases (I do like your friend the Professor though, where's he been?)

Anonymous said...

Heeoowww! Do it on the Good Foot! Jump Back, kiss yaself! Heeooww ... You Feel Good! So Good!

- Godfather of Soul.

Mr. Matt said...

Man, I'm glad none of you went to the third definition on Urban Dictionary, you know not all of them are family friendly!