I recently “joined” a local running team.
Let me take a moment to explain why I put “joined” in quotes. I pretty much stumbled upon this guy’s coaching website in the course of researching a post a couple weeks ago. George Buckheit is the coach of Capital Area Runners, a local training club. I saw a link on the website to the Elite Racing Team, and I thought, “Yes! I might be on to something here!”
I clicked on the link, only to be directed to an email address telling me to contact George for more information…So I sent him an email, telling him my times and training habits, hoping for the best. He got back to me immediately, and suggested I come to one of the workouts to check the team out.
They workout on Tuesdays and Fridays, at either 6:30am or 7pm at Washington Lee High School in Arlington, VA.
Hells-to-the-no I’m not working out at 6:30 in the freaking am – looks like I’m heading to VA after work.
I went to my first workout August 10. It was hotter than hell, and thus pretty miserable. But at least I was miserable in a group of pretty decent runners (misery loves company? People do crazy things when part of a group…).
“Alright, good workout Mollie, maybe we’ll see you next week!” said George as I headed home.
Questions I then asked myself:
1. Do I want to take the Metro to run once a week? (It took me 45 minutes to get home – the DC Metro screws me once again…)
2. Is George expecting me to pay for this? (Because I’m not exactly at a point in my life where I can pay to have someone tell me how far to run…I can do that pretty well myself thanks.)
3. Am I going to do this again next week?
Answer: Yes.
And now it’s been 3 weeks, and I guess I’m just about part of the team!
George sends out emails every week with the general training plan, as well as some pretty good advice and links to relevant articles. He also includes some inspirational quotes – as with all quotes, they can be cliché and lame sometimes, but I’ve been pretty impressed with the ones he’s found.
Hope you find something you like!
“Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much, nor suffer much, for they live in the grey twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.” – Theodore Roosevelt
“Marathoners wake up in the morning feeling tired and go to bed at night feeling very tired.” – British Olympian Brendan Foster
“I don’t wear a watch during my long runs. That way I am not tempted to compare my time from week to week.” – US Olympian Lynn Jennings
“Stupid, blind determination forced me on, reeling along the streets until somehow I made the Halberg home. The rest were inside, dressed in track suits. I tottered in, collapsed on the sofa and burst into tears. It was most humiliating, but I just couldn’t stop myself.” – 3 time Olympic Gold Medalist Peter Snell on completing Arthur Lydiard’s mountainous, 22 mile “soul searching” Waiatarua run
“Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out.” – Robert Collier
“Most people need a coach to tell them to work hard; I need a coach to tell me to ease up. Sometimes I wish I had a coach to tell me, ‘Okay, stop working, you’ve done enough,’ because if you tell yourself that, you’ll feel guilty and guilt is what keeps a lot of guys going after they should stop.” – Marty Liquori
"Some succeed because they are destined to, most succeed because they are determined to." – Anatole France
"Completing a workout is like putting a deposit into a bank account. Then when race day comes, it's time to make a withdrawal of all your accumulated deposits." – Karen Smyers, Triathlete
“We train every day of the year under all conditions. A runner once asked me: ‘What would we do if there was an earthquake and the epicenter was right here?’ My answer was: ‘Then we would run right down the middle of the Earth!” – Mario Moniz Pereira, coach of 1984 Olympic Marathon Champion Carlos Lopes
“It’s absolute agony and I dread it, but it allows my body to recover so much more quickly.” – Marathon World Record holder Paula Radcliffe taking about ice baths