Walk Like A Champion

Alright, so writing this thing is a bit harder than I thought it would be amidst all this traveling around. You’d think there would be all this time, but it just seems to disappear…probably because I just sit here reading about sports; accumulating a bunch of completely useless, arbitrary sports knowledge and stats that aren’t actually very good for anything; except maybe wasting brain space…

On to the Finals at Nationals.

I’m not really sure what to say about it, other than I’m disappointed. 8^th place really isn’t where I wanted to be when I crossed the line. I was up at the front and allowed myself to get swallowed up and spit out the back of the pack in last place. I should know better than that by now. The pace was slow, which is what I wanted, considering my lack of fitness at the moment. The problem with a slow pace is that if you’re not towards the front when the kick starts, you just won’t make up enough ground on the people in front of you at this level.

I’m frustrated with myself for allowing that to happen, but I guess it can partially be attributed to my serious lack of racing over the past 2 years. It takes some getting used to again. It’s no real consolation, but if you told me in mid-January that I’d finish 8^th place at Nationals in 5 months time, I don’t think I would have believed it (considering where I was coming from)!

There are no real excuses for the way I ran, but I have to try and find the positives for now and hope to build on them moving forward.

We left Nationals Sunday morning and arrived in what seems to be a permanently overcast Vancouver. Nate, Ellerton, Quin and I settled in at the Hilton (yeah, that’s how we roll) for 5 days to get ready for Harry Jerome. It was a pretty quiet week where many hours were spent in restaurants and the hotel lobby for wifi(which was awful). Quin and I decided to try an all you can eat sushi place on Tuesday night. We went to town. There is no doubt they lost money on us. It will be difficult to accurately recap the enormous amount and vast array of fish and rice that we consumed. But, I’ll give it a try:

Miso soup, Gomae salad(x2), beef tataki, spicy tuna sashimi, tobiko sushi(flying fish roe), spicy tuna cone, yam tempura roll, California roll, spicy tuna roll, beef teriyaki roll, dynamite roll(w/ shrimp tempura), chopped scallop roll, BBQ Eel roll, Alaska roll, House roll(x2), gold sand roll, beef teriyaki, deep fried scallops(x2), Gyoza, BBQ short ribs, chicken skewer, breaded lemon chicken, Octopus w/garlic & butter, Salmon tempura, white yam tempura, and topped off with some mango pudding for dessert.

The High Points: Salmon Tempura, House roll

The Low points: The Octopus, Flying fish roe

A very satisfying meal.

The Harry Jerome 1500m was Friday night and I was hoping for a much better result than my previous encounters with this distance thus far in the season. It didn’t disappoint. My confidence has been a bit MIA lately, so I again found myself at the back of the pack. The pace was meant to be fast, so I was content with being there for the first couple of laps. I came through in about 59, 1:58 and then finished with a 3:42.21. Over a 5 second seasonal best. I’ll take it. It’s a Big step in the right direction and goes a long way towards restoring that ever so important confidence required when toeing the line. Next time I’m there, my mind will be in a much different state. Its time to start racing.

Victoria is on Sunday and I’ll be running a 15 again. Hopefully, I’ll be able to comeback off short rest to knock a few more ticks off my time.

Giddy Up!

   - Linc
 

p.s. Huge shout out to Ellerton for busting a 1:45.04 on Friday night!! A well deserved A standard and World Championships qualifier. “Very Nice”