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"The hay is in the barn."

Published by Clover
Mar 22nd 2009, 5:49pm
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I grew up way out in the boondocks of Idaho, and still have a soft spot for expressions like "nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs."  And when I first heard runners use the expression "the hay is in the barn" to indicate that their hard pre-race training was done and only the taper remained, I liked the satisfying ring of the phrase.  "I have trained hard.  I'm ready.  The hay is in the barn."

Where I grew up, haying was an honest-to-God activity.  My male classmates--and a few of the burlier females--earned their pocket money by joining hay crews in the summer.  They'd make a few bucks an hour, usually under the table, to go out into the hayfields with a truck.  The hay had already been baled and was spread out all over the field, and the crew had to drive from one section of the field to the next, park, pick up the huge hay bales, and stack them in the back of the truck.  Depending on the size of the operation, the truck in question could be anything from a flatbed to a heavy-duty pickup.  Then the truck was driven to the barn and unloaded.

The work was dirty, sweaty, exhausting, and not particularly well-paid.  The boys would return to school in the fall with farmer tans and muscles they'd not had in the spring.

So I get at least one part of the comparison. 

Training hard for a race is hard, filthy,time-consuming, and largely thankless work.  You feel as though all you do is eat pre-run meals, run, eat recovery meals, sleep, do laundry, cross-train, ice things that hurt, pop Vitamin I, look at your training schedule, and guiltily surf running sites when you're supposed to be working. 

Your family thinks you're crazy, and comments on the way you smell and the size of your calves.  Your friends, unless they're runners, mock your unwillingness to go out for a beer on a school night.  Your car is full of mud and Gu wrappers and water bottles.  Your toenails have fallen off.  Your body fat percentage is finally in the "elite" category on the chart at your gym.  Only you care about any of these things.

And you still have to race.

When farmers say, "The hay is in the barn," it's time to party.  They hit The Wagon Wheel for karaoke night, and buy a round for anyone on the hay crew who's of age or has a good fake ID.  They relax.  They look at the stacks of hay in the barn and sigh in satisfaction.  They stop thinking about which livestock they might have to sacrifice if the hay runs out.  They know they have enough to see them through until spring.

This part is NOT like finishing your training and entering the taper, not at all.  Once you've finished training, the taper may be the hardest part.  Because your miles have been cut, you feel out of sync with all your routines.  You can't sleep at night because you feel sharp and alert and not exhausted.  You worry about gaining weight.  You worry about getting rusty.  You're tempted to do a few extra miles, even though the rational part of you knows there's no reason to do so at this point.

And you think about the race.  You wish it were sooner.  You wish it were over.  You hope it will go well.  You dread the possibility that it will go badly.  You futz with your gear and worry about race-day logistics.  You can't focus.

The hay may be in the barn, but you do NOT feel relaxed and accomplished and secure. 

I'm of the opinion that the hay is not in the barn until AFTER the race.  The taper and the race are so much harder than all the training.  Having completed my last pre-race long run this morning, I feel like the hay bales are in the field, and I still have to truck them back to the barn and stack them.  Then I might just relax, have a beer, and hit karaoke night at The Wagon Wheel.



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