...for at least a week yet.
Who am I kidding? I want to run! I want to train! And while
Joe Friel's series on the Offseason was tremendous reading that I've recommended several times over...I still like to have something on the backburner motivating me to keep in shape and build fitness.
Ellie is looking at a trip to Ireland next February, before she gets too huge in the belly region (and she's starting to show!), so I decided I'd look for a weekend getaway in February myself. I've been reading now for a couple years about the
KC Trail Nerds. It's time to make a visit, so I'm probably going to KC for the
Psycho Wyco 50K in February. My brother-in-law will be living in St. Louis at that time (he's starting Chiro School in January) and has been talking about getting into trail running. I've been out with him a couple times on the Ice Age Trail and he absolutely loved it, so it's time to get him to an event. The Psycho Wyco is perfect, too, because it's a loop course of 10 miles (you run it 3 times), so I can have him train (it won't take him much to get into shape...he's a much better athlete than anyone else in his family) and then pace me over the last 10 miles. I'm really excited and hope it works out for him to come. I promised him the
best steak back in StL and some beer if he makes the trip. He'll be there.
Other reasons to go include the fact that
Westy will be there (maybe). Oh yeah, and
Helen. Which means round three of the running/beer challenge IS ON!
In Round 1, Helen got her Irish hinder handed to her
at Chippewa this past year, where I ran a negative split and beat her in the race, and then actually drank a couple beers at the "after party" while she sipped on protein recovery stuff (see picture in race report). Unfortunately, she evened the score quite convincingly at Grandma's Marathon, where she marched past my
still-walking corpse at about mile 21, cussing along the way about the heat (and later crediting Hot Yoga for her success...well guess what, Helen?! I'm attending yoga twice weekly and wearing 7 layers of clothing!) in route to a dominating performance.
I'll be honest...I don't like my chances against her in round 3. The fact Chippewa was a longer distance than Grandma's not withstanding, I'm pretty sure the more difficult the terrain and the longer the event, the more likely she is to march past me at some point and not look back. And the Psycho Wyco 50K has
a reward for any male to break 5 hours on the course (which I'm going to
try to do but am not likely to succeed at) and a reward for any female that breaks 6 hours (which I believe Helen will
surely do, barring injury).
Perhaps she'll show me some mercy after considering that my preggo wife is in Ireland at the exact time she's considering passing me?
I had planned on running two other events in the coming months, but both have been scratched off the list. First was the
Frozen Otter in mid January. Instead, I'll be off to Colorado for a week. I'll pass on slogging 32 miles in the Northern Kettles and spend my time
skiing enjoying some
Apres Ski in Winter Park and Arapahoe Basin. This was actually a tougher call than most would think because I'm not sure how to work it with the office quite yet (i. e. when I leave, the Biz shuts down, or I pay another Doc to cover...), but I'm looking forward to the vacation. Next was the
John Dick 50K, which has been on my list for 3 years now. It is the week before Psycho Wyco this year, so once again, it'll get put on the back burner...unless I decide to run it, therefore developing a perfect reason to rationalize Helen's destruction of my ego in Kansas City.
ps...at some point soon I'll change the header logo. I need to go running and take a picture, first though. So it could be a week or two yet...
