Wednesday was a good day. Actually, it was a damn near amazing day if I've got to be truthful! Let me give 'ya the shakedown of all of its goodness:
Wake up in the morning, peruse French book an feign studying whilst coffee brews
Come said caffeinated deliciousness, creep Facebook, and get some laughs on Letsrun ('cause I'm lammeee)
Erika arrives after class; Throw clothes on an roll to Jim & Milt's for some quality Sarah time
Roll to class to take LAST French final of all time; Leave 20min later after bending the test over the desk and making it my bitch
Home for some lunch and an epic nap-time
Wake, drink tea, and watch Slumdog Millionaire with Leedshow
Roll to Chris Hughes' house to run with him, Leeds, and HS Throwback Champ Drew "The Hobbit" Horner
Home for dinner with Erika before a solid TV and tea sesh
Pass out on couch and crawl back to bed
How great is that?!? Pretty damn great. Unless you're a dusty bastard--and in that case you can go straight to hell.
The best part? Easily the run. When I managed to drag myself from bed around 4:30 I heard the rain starting to pound the skylight...disaster. Honestly, I thought for sure I'd be rolling into Chris' to jog with him at 5:30 to a bright sun and an absolutely inhumane humidity/dewpoint level. However, it was just one of those amazing days where the storm hung aboot long enough to kick the heat and humidity out and simply provides one with amazing, and rare, cloudy 75 degree weather to run in! Add in the fact that Drew and Leeder came long and it's a damn fine run filled with a few memories and plenty of shit-talking (the art form formerly known as "banter").
It was strange to go for a run with Drew for the first time since my sophomore year of high school, actually. When Drew left he was a freak to me--Bekele level unbelievable to be fully honest. The guy was All-State in Cross-Country and Track, had school records, and was leaving to go to college on scholarship. Champion. Now, years later, I'm running along in a rainstorm, just like we'd done so many times back in the day, with two of my high school teammates. Rather surreal when one considers the paths we've taken to get there--but awesome nonetheless!
This leads me to why I hate the System. No, not the government (though I do listen to old Against Me! albums, stare at my black bandana and lighter and think "What if?"), but the athletics system we have to work within. The NCAA system is great--actually, it's goddamn amazing and one would be hard pressed to truly discredit that notion so I'll not waste good time defending its many merits. However, there most certainly is in issue in some of its modus operandi.
Now, Drew is an incredibly successful guy and that's a fact. He gets to live where he wants (Atlanta) and just flies into Tallahassee to do what he calls "a stress free job," and makes solid bank doing so. I wouldn't mind that life! Buuuuttt Drew also never got the chance to fully express his athletic abilities due to the fact that he ended up at an inferior university due to the fact that he needed the scholarship money and it was easier to get things covered at a less recognizable institution. And therein lies the problem: athletes who should be going into institutions where they can have the coaching and support they need to reach higher levels end up lower down the ladder than they deserve simply because the money isn't there to be handed out to non-high school All-Americans. This leads people to not only miss out on athletic opportunities, but (more importantly) to miss out on opportunities offered academically at larger, more funded, more bastions of academia schools.
This frustrates me to no end; as an Athletic-Student (word order changed for emphasis) who is taking a financial hit to attend a university that will allow for both of those I'm especially frustrated. But what, oh, what can I direct my anger at? I choose not to blame the football team (though I defiantly think that teams who have won an ACC or NCAA championship in the last year should be able to eat in the athletic meal hall for dinner, too!!), but to blame the feminist movement and whomever decided it was a good idea to splice Tile IX together way back when. Seriously, it's had the opposite effect of what it intended: it did not end gender discrimination--it passed it on! Now, as a male athlete of decent ability in an Olympic sport, one can look around which ever school one is attending and see female athletes of equal to lesser ability being allowed greater opportunities (financially speaking). Hell, there are even women's Equestrian and Rodeo teams at some schools to offset the football scholarship allowance. Ugh...the system blows sometimes! I love it...but it sucks, too. It's like Starbucks: It has some delicious [pansy] stuff, but it is still a massive, evil corporation that puts good, local businesses out and makes little anarcho-punks want to throw bricks through their symbolically oppressive windows.
But now that's turned into a semi-sexist rant that will probably result in someone reaming me for my expression of opinion in such a public way. C'es la vie!
Right, all that is fine and dandy--but what really, really matters is that I'm back running and have a plan for the summer! Here, let me give you a general overview of the most general summer training plan ever:
Start at 40 miles for the week last week; Work up 10% each week with every 4th week being a 'down' week at 20-25% less volume; Throw in the typical FSU 5-6 mile Steady States and Light Speeds after 5 or so weeks; Arrive in Tally at the end of August fit to train. That's the key right there, actually. last summer I spent a lot of time relaxing and trying to get my body back under me after all the medical issues I'd been having (which are a story for another day!), and, once back, running between 55 and 75 miles per week to avoid any complications. However, feeling stronger physically--and being rid of the leg issues--after last year I've made it my goal to get to 85 miles a week by the end of the last cycle where we show up at school for pre-season. While I recognize that isn't much, I feel it's a rather good [maybe ambitious] goal as when I went over my logs I only averaged 76.1 miles per week from the start of August last year 'till the end of Cross-Country, and averaged even less at 73.2 from Jan. 1 to the end of track (less if one counts the winter up until that point!). Truthfully, I must say that I'm rather surprised that those are the numbers! I never thought I had the ability to run as decently as I did off of such relatively 'low' miles.
So, that's how it's going to break down for the summer--and I'm STOKED! With moderately ambitious plan set forth for volume and complete faith in Braman's periodization with the intensity, workouts, and volume I can't wait to be knee deep into the whole thing. As for now, however, I'm just excited to go win some watermellon deliciousness this 4th of July and see the #1 Girlfriend after a few weeks of separation--and in the even shorter term take a nap before I have to meet Little Will to run this evening!
So with that I bid the blogosphere adieu...
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