Blinders On! 01.28.09

Well, it’s hill day again, or should I say mountain? It should be a piece of cake for the group who are on their third week, but for the rest it should be interesting.

Got to the hill, and it turns out Sean is feeling his calf a bit, so we will not have him run. Instead he will get the Norwegian spa treatment and get worked on in the foothills of Berkeley. Also, Cecil is working out for a team on Saturday so he will do the jog and the warm up and then get oiled up as well... lol



Today we are sprinting the hill as best we can but we will be working off a time limit. The big guys get 90 seconds while the smaller guys get 60. We have 5 hills today, but four if everyone makes the time. I will take some video on the last one for you guys to look at. That way you will see the difference in their development.



During one of the sprints, Demetrius and Julian (did I get it right this time?) were neck and neck for about a quarter of the way up and then D began to pull off. Julian reached out to try and grab him to slow him down, but the reach itself was enough to take him out of his stride and completely remind him of the hill he still had left. In other words, it broke him! Crazy thing about the distraction is it took Demetrius out of his stride and almost broke him as well… he ran his slowest mountain, 66 seconds.

When all the guys got back down, we talked about Commitment. In this case, commitment to your stride - the power of totally blocking out everything else and focusing only on your stride. I told them how I used to keep a beat in my head and try and stay on tempo all the way up. I would refuse to even look up to see how much I had left until I knew I was at the end.

Everyone agreed that losing your focus for any reason kills your momentum, and how on the hill the momentum is everything.
Me, being the wise old sage of the group, said the same holds true in life. We must commit ourselves to our endeavors if we are to realize them. This means blinders on.

In a gym once, I was asked why I was so rude to everyone. As I took off my ear phones to hear what the person was asking, I just laughed. “Focused to the point of being rude!” It became my mantra for life. The person was simply asking why didn’t I engage like everyone else. Well unlike everyone else, I was training for the Olympic Trials and didn’t see how talking to anyone while doing that could get me closer to my goal.

So today, the hill became our metaphor for committing ourselves to our dreams. Blinders On, Boys and Girls!

COMMITMENT ~ dedication
The glue to the patchwork
That binds you to your dreams
Keeps you on your program
Repairs the broken seams

Yeah, they thought that was the end as well….lol No, off to the steps, we have four sets today.





By the way, I have to say how proud I was of all the guys' efforts today. They killed that hill and smashed the steps. We are ready to step it up!… That’s if they get past pool work tomorrow!…lol