Green & Growing
Just a quick post to summarize a busy weekend. The inaugural Windsor Green Half-Marathon enjoyed some sweet weather (after Saturday’s ominous clouds floated off) and 1000 runners participating in its 13.1, 6.2, and 3.1 mile events. Being a teacher in this community, it was so good to see this event come to Windsor, at long last. I’ve been wondering for years why in the world the Full Vineman Triathlon (at a minimum) doesn’t finish on the Green instead of Windsor High School? Maybe with the success of the WG 13.1, we’ll get a step closer.
Training and racing mirror life, and like the bitter sweet symphony itself, racing can throw its share of curve-balls at us. To keep growing and moving forward, we gotta keep swinging at whatever the pitcher on mound lobs our way. While some Point Positive athletes got through their events on Sunday without a hiccup, others weren’t so lucky this time around. There was a snapped crank-arm on the bike at mile 30 at the World’s Toughest Triathlon in Auburn on Sunday. There was no love on the run during the Auburn Sprint Tri for another athlete, who conceded two places in only the last half mile of the race to finish 4th in his age-group. And there was no run at all for one last athlete who made the hard call to not run the Windsor Green Half and allow some more recovery time for a recently menaced calf in order that he come into the Vineman 70.3 ready to rock-n-roll.
Thus, I’m reminded that we usually have some issues to deal with as we’re out there chasing each other around in training and racing, whether it be an inflamed achilles tendon, tight IT-band, or even a mild hangover for that matter. If you want to continue improving, there’s going to be those inevitable growing pains along the way. Seeing an athlete miss a race is tough, even when it happens to be a so-called “training race.” What really counts though is showing up at the big one (the A-Priority event) 150% ready for action. And that’s how we roll…
Jeff Ottoboni with Coach B
Great views on Eastside Road during the Windsor Green 10k
A glimpse of Bob's spirit animal, beckoning him to leave the hard asphalt and come frolic in the forest...
Amanda's parting shot out the window before I embarked on Saturday's Echelon group-ride. It's nice having the complete Echelon complete kit now, including a sweet vest and cozy arm-warmers.
Home from school today to tend to my ailing fiancee. Got to make this rad breakfast (Hey, I like me some veggies with my eggs).
Did you know that coconut water, besides being a great hangover remedy, has more electrolytes than Gatorade?
According to Charlie Duerr’s article in TIME this week… (And oh yeah, drank some over the weekend, but not for a hangover. Did watch the movie, The Hangover, too. That was good time.)
Bit of bar trivia: 10 years ago, when the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) was granted a patent (the first ever given to a U.N. agency) for bottling coconut water in a way that preserved its nutrients, an FAO official noted that the drink contains the same five electrolytes found in human blood.
Interesting right? As usual, Amanda was spot on about this. Guess I’ll have to have the coconut water in the fridge for after long workouts, and in the less frequent event of the mild to moderate hangover as well.
>>> Point Positive! <<<