100+ Days of Trying to Replace the SCRC

My knee hurts; often but never severely.  About right on from the surgeon’s prediction nearly a year ago. 20+ years was a long time to kick around on a damaged knee and I just need to keep sucking it up another 20. I believe I’ve stumbled upon a way to help me chip away at a couple of the next 20 years.

It’d be an impossible task to replace the SCRC; it’s been thought by many through the years; I’d venture to guess never actually put to paper as a statement. Feeling the need to find anyone local with whom to train I made my first stab at it a little over a year ago. I was directed to a location, couldn’t find it, wound up late and missed the group. Nerves shot. Fast forward through the holidays (of ’10) and a number of events late in the year and we land on January 2011. That story’s already been told. I bailed on trying to find anyone. Fast forward to April/May ’11 when I was able to trot a bit again and I made another stab at a group. Fast forward another seven months and it’s stuck. Or I’ve stuck with them; whichever.

Since 90% of my work is either solo or with animals I figured I didn’t need my workouts to be solo as well. It’s been great; the talent is phenomenal; multiple ironman finishers(including one who completed Kona and 5 weeks later Phoenix), a gal who’s completed a 2000 mile bike event, a guy who’s run Western States twice, a guy who completed a 100M trail (20,000 feet of climb) run in 29 hours~~ at age 50, a gal who ran a Trials qualifying time at Chicago this year….etc….. and in the break in days between penning this we’ve had another gal run a 2:49 and another guy a 2:40. The group is large enough it never ends.  So given my long, slow trek back into some sort of fitness I stay far away from my own resume figuring I have nowhere to go but up. 

Mixing in with this group has been fairly easy: it’s sizable with ages, interests, agendas and abilities all along the continuum. Plus it’s about 50% female which is a different dynamic than I’m used to. In fact, 5-6 of us aging guys clearly on our decline typically fall in line with 5-6 20-something gals who are still at the cusp of figuring out how to do this stuff. A good mix. Within 12 months we’ll hit that crossover and we’ll need to move on to the next group of up-n-comers till they pass us…repeat. Oh, the group fields RAGNAR teams as well–3-4 consecutive years I believe so I may be able to get back on that train in a year. The group is great, our coach is great and I’m convinced our crushed cinder track and dirt trails on which we do nearly all our warmups, speed work and cool downs will extend the life of my legs significantly. I don’t know how I could go back to pounding repeats on hard surface after the last few months of springy, sometimes spongy track work. That alone is worth the fee charged by Coach.

Speaking of Coach; he’s just been selected to a formal role within the RRCA.  There’s talk of him hosting a team Christmas party this year~~ hope he does; it’s a great socializing group.

Yes, I’ve managed to complete a couple timed events starting Labor Day with a brutal 8-Miler, then on to a challenging 1/2, then to my second El Tour  (111M version). A great event worthy of more than a couple simple summary words. A summary is that I suffered three mechanicals and a physical (think adjustment) and I lost several minutes off my 2010 time. Disappointing, yet such a fun event and day I’ll line up for it again next year.

My SCRC substitute also serves as my primary social outlet as well. In just these first few months we’ve finished two long runs at homes where we’ve been served breakfast and made to feel welcome in their homes. We carpool on occasion to long-run starts (recall the city size), we sit around every Thursday night after repeats for happy hour(s). Sometimes at the park bench, (BYO) and occasionally we head for a place with a big screen and hot food. Every Monday is an easy run followed by an unavoidable happy hour at Maynards.  Through the weeks I’ve learned that one gal is from the Waterloo/Cedar Falls area and another went to the Uof I for a year and that one of the group ran the Des Moines Marathon in either ’09 or 10. Believe he even won a pair of shoes so had to maneuver his way from a downtown hotel out to FitnessSports (without a car) to pick up his prize. The planet really is pretty small.

A couple e-mail distribution lists also provide the familiar schedule, encouragement, results, photos, social happenings and general mindless banter. This helps maintain a degree of connection since our formal,  coached workouts are only a couple days a week and the less formal (yet still structured) runs are a couple more days. The team distribution list helps keep things fluid throughout the entire week.

All the components are in place for a nice run at the SCRC title; only time will tell if I’ve found a suitable substitute.  I’m happy to simply be hanging in the mix and fortunate to fall into a group with its variety, dynamic and talent. It’s nearly a full year since my knee work; that means it’s time I start really testing it; look for more frequent updates moving forward as I work on getting back to a more normal event schedule; even if my meager resume won’t produce a lot of dazzling results in this stacked-with-talent town. Matters not; it’s now my town and I intend to make a go of it.