Silly steeples

Tuesday is usually my day off, but it was so gorgeous today that I felt like I had to do something, so I decided I would try to get on the track and do some steeple practice since that's the next thing I'm racing. Buuut I totally forgot that the break I have between classes is right during the actual track team's practice so I couldn't get on the track (well, technically, we - and by we I mean anyone who isn't a member of the UW track team - can never get on the track anyway...but that's another story. It's easy enough to jump the fence.) So I ended up McGyvering a steeple workout that worked out surprisingly well! First I ran to the slanted situp boards on the parcourse thing and did some practice on the lowest one running up to it, not stuttering, jumping off and continuing to run - it was obviously quite a bit lower than the actual steeple but just kind of getting the general feeling in my legs. Then I got up on a higher board and practiced just jumping off - this one was closer to the actual distance from the top of the barrier to the bottom of the water pit, and my landing is my big problem so I was trying to land on one foot (which is hard!) I was planning on just running the rest of the way around the UBay fields back to the Nat, but all of a sudden something else caught my eye...there is a sort of fence set up around the edge of the field with posts every few meters. The posts come up about to my knee and they're situated on the side of a little hill...so if you were to jump off them, you would be jumping extra distance down the hill. See where I'm going with this? So yes, I got more than one awkward look as I ran across a street and jumped off a tiny post. And seriously - it was a GREAT approximation of steeple - at least what I remember it being like. A bit shorter than the real thing obviously, but still, the impact felt similar. I also realized while doing this that I think if I'm going to try to land on one foot, I'm going to have to take off my left (weaker, or at least not dominant) leg. When I take off my right, I can't land on my left without basically breaking an ankle but landing on my right is fine. I think that anything I lose from taking off of my non-dominant leg is going to be more than made up for if I can actually land on one foot and get my ass out of the pit, so this is a good thing to know!

So it was a fun time. I actually seriously considered trying a similar drill except actually into a flooded gulley thing, but I decided it wasn't worth the possibility of accidently killing myself on a random stick and turning my XC spikes into a muddier mess than they already are. I was laughing pretty much the whole time - seriously, I think I've completely accepted my running weirdness. Last night I had dance rehearsal after practice and I was walking around campus in my spandex shorts - and I thought to myself that only someone who's used to racing in almost nothing would just not give a crap about wearing that little in public. I mean hell, if fat coasties can wear long spandex, why shouldn't I show off my runners legs in short spandex? I mean, it was also 50 degrees and raining. But whatever...

Fun fun stuff. I'm really busy this week with my Optima dance show so I have been and will be dancing up a storm - which is quite a workout in and of itself. It's a good thing I'm a distance runner, because 8 dances basically back to back is kind of insanity...3-4 minutes of pretty much nonstop craziness. It's like 800 repeats! Lol...yeah...