When we were directed to meet at McOoze for hill repeats I was ecstatic!!! I had hiked those power lines about 3 years ago when I was training for sheep hunting...then I was hiking, now I was running!!!
This was the type of terrain my hiking poles were designed for!! I could only imagine how much easier the hills would be with my new poles!!
On the way to the bottom of the hill, Daryl ran with me and gave me pointers on how to use the poles efficiently.
"Sync your breathing with your pole strike" he told me.
It made perfect sense. If my breathing was in time with my stride, it only made sense that my pole strike would be in sync with my stride as well....not so!!!
When you slide down a muddy hill that is so steep that a beaver would be scared to slide down, you cant sync your breathing to that!! And when you yell angry words at the swarm of mosquitoes that are flying in attack formation beside your left ear, it is impossible keep your poles in stride with that!!! My stride resembled that of an amputee octopus in a gunnysack race, but I was slowly making my way up the hills.
About this time we were about 3.5 hrs into our 90 minute training program and I realized why they call this McOoze....it is because all the bad things I had ever eaten were oozing out of my forehead. The trail befind me was SLIPPERY because of all the sweat dripping off my nose, eyebrows, lips and chin!!
"Keep your head up, when you are running up hill" Daryl instructed, as a sprinted up the hill past me in his new flip flops.
I tried to find enough wind in my wheezing lungs to explain to him that my head was down so the sweat would drip off my eyebrows rather than cascade over my delicate eyelids and pool in my squinty eyes. This would cause temporary vision impairment for sure.... and no one wants to see a blind amputee octopus in gunnysack race.
But leave it to the rest of the team to give me the final solution to all these problems. As we ran back to the parking lot from the bottom of the hill Shari started to do a survey of who all in the group had taken salt tabs today. Of course, everyone had been responsible and consumed their little secret pill earlier in the day; except for me!! But hey, I also forgot my running watch when I left the house.... all the salt tabs in the world wouldnt fix THAT problem. But maybe the salt tabs would fix the cascades of sweat McOozing out my forehead.
Fortunately, next Thursday is another day to run with this awesome group. I will remember to take my salt tabs, wear something pink, make sure my shirt is right side out, and keep on running even though my feet are turning to blisters.... Oh yes, and I will remember to drink more water on the run too!!
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