Nothing much new to add this week, but will include a rambling rant at the end.  Didn’t do a long run this week, felt too in the vacation state of mind to excert myself.  Who am I kidding?  I did excert myself by running or cycling most days last week while on vacation.  I am a maniac (or Maine-iac since I was in Maine).  It is true dedication to run back and forth on parts of an island foot path that is part forest floor, part wood chip covered trail.  There is a path that goes around the island, but the footing is too precarious in some places.   Some lovely cycling days in Acadia National Park.  We really lucked out for weather.  My coworker and I plan to hit 10 miles on the CHaD course on Friday after work so I’m looking forward to continuing my quest to kick the hill on Tuck Drive.  I will call it tuck drive from now on; lowercase letters decreases it’s power over me.  One annoying point – I was listening to a running podcast and someone had emailed the podcaster, saying that he used to consider people who ran slower than 8-min miles “joggers” but then his age and the effect this can have on pace made him realize what a chump he sounded like.  The podcaster did a great job gently disspelling this emailer’s pompous comment by talking about how when he is running, he sees people running 10, 11, 12+ min miles and those people are working hard to get those times, not just out for a leisurely stroll.  He also brought up the point about genetics, that while we can include speed work in our training and work harder at increasing speed, there is a wall that some of us will hit in terms of increased performance because of our genetics.  The emailer’s comment triggers an ongoing irritation for me – the attitude or belief that some people have about runners whose min/mile pace is slower than average or even just slower than the front-of-the-packers; that these runners are somehow not athletes, or that they don’t take the sport seriously enough, or are just joggers.  I find these beliefs elitist and snobby.  They certainly are entitled to their opinion and what a great country we live in where we can have our own opinions!  Here’s mine: I run as fast as I can for long distances and if I break 9 min/mile for some of the miles I am happy.  I’m happy if I do consistently 10 min/miles in the half event.  I would like to be faster and I work slowly towards that goal.  While I’m not looking for validation from those who expouse some negative beliefs about “slower” runners, I wish they would keep their beliefs to themselves and not choke the sport with negativity.  If they want to be competitive, that’s healthy and can make things exciting.  If they want to be elitist and keep the sport “pure”, fine.  Go try out for the Olympic team or the starting corral at Boston, where you will be secluded from the rest of us mere mortals who work hard and challenge ourselves in our own ways.  We may not break records or ever win a race, but we are the ones who give you (yeah you, you know who you are!) a field to compete against so you can be number one.

Whew.  That felt good. 

Keep ranting,

Amy