Colds suck.  When I have a race I like to be on. With a cold it’s usually followed by several up and down races and it’s never confidence building. Almost makes me feel human, which also sucks, because we’re inherently weak.  I know, I sound pretty bitter but I’m not really. Maybe I should be to try and use it as motivation but usually it works the opposite way with me and just undermines my willingness to do anything hard.
I’ve had several up and down weeks lately since returning from Spain. That race and subsequent travel led to a funk and several weeks of my body not feeling right. And I still don’t. I got this weird virus like cold at Teva Games a couple weeks ago that didn’t give me any symptoms except extremely sore muscles all over my upper body and lots of fatigue. Weirdest thing ever. Got rid of that to crank out a good steeplechase at the Portland Track Festival by the weekend after and qualified for the trials, then ran fatigued but managed to win the US Half Trail Champs the next day. I’d say a good weekend, although in hindsight probably not smart because Monday I was down with another cold. This time it was a regular cold. Hoping that it wouldn’t turn into an infection, I hopped on a plane bound for Mt. Washington (well technically Boston) for the Mt. Running Champs. Turned out not to be an infection so the Mt. Running Champs didn’t go terrible but not making the U.S. Team isn’t exactly a successful run either, actually rather disappointing really. 

["Pushing to the finish"]

So, down, up, down. I feel like I have the emotions of a 13 year old girl (no offense to you 13 yr old girls out there, just the facts of life). This is me (in a condescending, self-pity tone of my inner voice): “Ugh, I just don’t know what to do. I’m out of shape, I’m fat, I haven’t been training enough. Does my butt look big in these jeans. Oh geez, I think my arms are getting flabby. I wonder what Michael had for lunch. He’s so dreamy…” Uhh, wait, not that last part.  So I’m trying to figure out what to for races the rest of the summer. I’m hoping that I can get some training time under my belt and start to feel good again.

["Me, Sage, Sage's Bro, and Richie (our host)"]

A few points on the weekend since I know at least a few of you critical readers out there are like, “how do you go from World Champ one year to not making the team. What a loser.”  1) Yes, technically I’m a loser, do you really need to point it out again? 2) I’m not totally disgusted with my race, it was over a minute faster than last time up the Rock Pile, (not happy either) 3) No, I’m not blaming the cold…totally. 4) This team in the last 5 years has gone from really not that competitive, to being on par competitively to making the US Cross Country team.  I know many of you won’t agree with that on Letsrun, but I’m really not in bad shape for running hills and I got squeezed out by stronger guys than me this weekend.  This team definitely has the fire power now to take the Silver, if not Gold, at Worlds again like we did two years ago.  If Sage has a run at Worlds like he did at Mt. Wash, he might even win the thing. That was an incredible run by him. I just can’t figure out where that came from.



And still not sure if I’m 100% in to the Oly Trials next week. But I think I am. Not sure how I managed to crank out a steeple with three steeple workouts in the past four years either. Just like riding a bike right? So that’s next then it’s back to training and feeling good again. Steen’s Mountain Running Camp is coming up in July. One of my favorite weeks of the year. I’m inspired every year by the tenacity of the kids that are there. How they elect to put themselves through something they would normally think was impossible. It’s cool. And restores my faith in teenagers every year.