silver for DRC @ Natz

I'm going to refer you readers over to my friend/teammate Tony's blog as he got to it before me and created an eloquent summary.

My own personal account.....I WOULDN'T HAVE CHANGED A THING! If there was a regret then it might be that I wished those three weeks of lost training could have been given back to me but forget it. Apparently, many hours of rehab I put into getting myself to this start line had paid off because my achilles was no factor at all. Sometimes we need to face a poorly dealt hand to realize how passionate we are about an event and never take it for granted. My only strong desire for the weekend was to perform in the relay w/the guys and enjoy the established special rivalry that we have when the crew from River Falls, WI are present.

Had I known the plan Tony laid out for himself in Saturday's 10k, we should have matched up in the orange fencing as we staged like cattle before the gun. I had the same mindset for the 6k loop before passing thru to go out on a different 4k loop to finish it up. Seeing the clock turn over @ 30:00 had me say, well, time to get this party started!! It felt like an eternity since I'd last been uninhibited by injury but it all came back in a heartbeat, literally. Immediately noticing the fitness I developed a month ago was gone didn't discourage me a bit. Having the elated sensation that I was pain free and my timing couldn't have been any better was enough. I wretched over rolling terrain in a gitty way and finished in the top 1/3 percentile along w/everyone else from the Duluth Running Co.

Sunday, the 2.5k course utilized "the wall" across the bog in the early going. It was a couple stories high that forced some racers to dab at the ground in order to reach the summit. We went back & forth each of the legs down to the wire but lost it to Paul, Kyle, Rick, and Jim. It felt great passing Rick Cleary during our third leg battle on the penultimate climb before tagging Chris to anchor us. He felt bad that his ultra-marathoner prowess wasn't enough to hold on for the win but he and Jim both overtook another position during this short and intense effort. Overall, we placed third and because the champs are removed from categories it left us on the second step of the podium.

I've already checked the damages following the weekend by running early this morning and everything seems fine. Meeting w/Gorby on Thursday to discuss the next phase(strengthening exercises) and the eccentric contraction ideas Hex' and I talked about post-race.