Shop ‘til You Drop!

Not really.  “RUN ‘til You Drop” is more accurate way to describe this. 

Since our Coach Alem is Ethiopian, we, as Agonites, need to keep a close eye the rival:  The Kenyans.  This week, Canadian Olympic Marathoner, Reid Coolsaet drops some insight on how these guys train.  Reid is currently not-so-undercover in Kenya, training in high heat and high altitude for what is believed to be Boston Marathon (he doesn’t say…he just says a “marathon in April”).

On Tuesday, he did a little 7X2km Repeats (so it’s like our 1 mile Repeats) with a pack of Kenyans that were around his marathon pace group.  As with any group training, a few handful will go super fast and way over their pace.  (We’re looking at you Maharaja!)  Of course, they couldn’t keep up with the faster group, so most of the group will drop out after 5^threpeat.  They didn’t even try to finish it at their own pace.  Similarly, during a cross country race Reid participated in, he saw a bunch of people just try their hardest to keep up with the lead group, only to DNF.

What’s interesting, and very different from how we train, is that these guys literally just run til they drop, and hope that next time, next day, next loop they will stay with the lead pack. 

The mentality is to stay with the lead group as long as possible and hope that next week they can stay up there longer. As opposed to completing the full workout and hopefully later on they can complete it faster.  (Float On)

So are we too paranoid of DNF?  Are we too scared to be looked upon as a quitter?  Are we too afraid to run with all our speed?  This needs some investigating. 

Some one quick!  Make every run “run til you drop” run and see if you will PR in the next race!!

It’s Perfectly Normal.

Most of us here at Agony are pretty normal. 

It’s perfectly normal for VeggieRachana to subsist on three leafs of romaine and three green peas alone, and run 5 marathons a year.  It’s perfectly normal that LisaLisa has antifreeze instead of regular hemoglobin in her system.  It’s perfectly normal that Mr. Tom’s karma powers had separated the ocean and stopped Sandy Surge from ruining his home.  It’s perfectly normal that Xena is actually Dorian Gray.

But from the eye of a non-runner, some things these perfectly normal Agnoites do are not.  As runners, it’s important for us to understand and note these "normally abonormal behaviors",  so that we can adjust our actions and prevent unnecessary back lash, like poo-throwing, you know. 

We think ALL of the below is perfectly normal.  However, for non-runners, it’s not.

1)      It’s not normal to wear obnoxious tights.  When we look at this picture, we don’t see anything wrong with it.  Apparently, non-runners think it’s strange.

2)      It’s not normal to think “ahhhh massage” when you look upon a tennis ball, a softball, or a baseball.  Those are items for another sport.  It’s not massage trigger releasers.

3)      Hey, did you guys know it’s not normal to drink flame retardant?

4)      Apparently, it’s not normal to have some part or another of your body to hurt at any given time.  That’s why there is a large market in pain killers.  We don’t know what “pain free” means.

5)      It’s not normal to sit on items mentioned in #2 during your normal business hours in your normal business chairs.  You will end up scaring your clients/co-workers and get the suspicious look:  “WTH is this person doing with a tennis ball between their legs?”

6)      According to FDA it’s not normal nor recommended to eat a pound of pasta in one sitting.  Although...tons of non-running folks do it all the time.  In this aspect, non-runners are not normal.  We, runners, don’t deep fry our macaroni.

7)      Running 26.2 miles, pushing yourself to near-death is not “something fun to do” for most normal people.  Being unable to even go down a flight of stairs post marathon is not normal either.  On a similar note, to trade sweet, sweet, sleep for a 20 mile slogging in Central Park in near freezing/heat wave is incomprehensible for non-runners.

8)      Even for some runners, but definitely for all non-runners, SNOT BOMBS are not normal nor is it acceptable good manners.

9)      Don’t say “I did LSD again this weekend.”  That’s not something normal to non-runners.  They’ll think you took a psychotic drug…and wonder, “This guy runs marathons – how can he be tripping every weekend??”

10)   To many, many, many non-runner girls, it’s unacceptable that we easily spend $120-150 every other month on those brightly colored BEAUTIFUL neon shoes. 

Finally, even to us runners, wearing obnoxious gear during a serious marathon race is...well, just obnoxious.  We especially don’t like tutus.