Poor, Poor Gerald

Lately I've been telling a lot of people about the abuse I've been getting from Jon's bike rides and Leah's runs. Well, it seems that Gerald was a little bit jealous of all the attention they were going so he took 8 out of us out for a hill run through Griffith Park tonight.

Ouch.

I haven't run at night in a while, and I couldn't find my head lamp. When I finally found it after about 20 minutes, I admit I was a bit disappointed that I didn't have an excuse not to the join the run. Not that it helped me much during the first half; as the sun went down, I thought my batteries were dying because it didn't seem to light up the trail at all. I had to try to stay close to the group in front of me to take advantage of their lights. I then realized that I was wearing my lamp upside down and the lamp was shooting straight up into the air rather than where my feet were landing. Oops.

It has been quite some time since I've run hills with Gerald, and I forgot how steep those trails can get. And we certainly weren't deterred by the signs and barricades saying "WARNING: for your safety and protection this trail is closed. Do Not Enter." I guess the rangers wanted to protect us from the trails, but who was protecting us from Gerald? (And it was no help that Jon was out with us.) The run was supposed to be "a little more than 6 miles" but it was closer to 7.5. As Gerald explained afterwards, "well, anything less than 10 miles is 'a little more than 6'." This is the logic we have to put up with.

All whining aside, I think I kept up pretty well. I tried a new trick I learned listening to an old Simply Stu podcast this weekend. He played a clip of my tri-hero/tri-nemesis Peter Reid who was explaining what he does when he starts hitting the wall or losing focus. Peter counts footsteps. One... Two... Three... up to Twenty. Repeat as needed. As I started nearing the top of those steep climbs, I gave it a try. And goshdernit it works. It doesn't make you forget the pain by any means, but it gives you a short-term goal to strive for: "twenty more steps."

My apologies to Gerald if he felt I was neglecting his abuse lately. And to him and Jon and Leah and Andre and Steve... Don't worry. Triathlon is a big sport; there is plenty of room for all of you to inflict your pain.