Providian Relay 2009 with the JUICE

Rain can make me miserable. Not for a training run, but for a race, I'm already feeling a little anxious and on-edge. Then when I go all day never getting totally dry or warm I seize the opportunity to grumble about something. That's how I know that Providian was a great time - it was raining and muddy the whole way, and I barely even noticed.

Ogliore recruited me for The Juice: Terror in Meatspace at the Providian Relay.

I was worried because of the mild strain/aching in my hamstring, but it held up well and the relay was great fun. We each ran three legs, totaling 200 miles between the twelve of us. My actual running felt choppy and labored all the time, and the 6-7 mile stretches felt long, but I held up okay.

I only knew about half the team beforehand, but I got to meet all the runners as we went along. A few things that I think made the day work well were:

• The men on our team were reasonably close in ability, and so were the women. There was no worrying about if "that one guy" was going to totally bomb. On the other hand, the legs were all very different and there was no trying to one-up each other. The result was we had a mentality of a single unit.


• We started in the back and continually caught teams (I passed maybe 10 runners on my middle leg, which was typical for the team. I think Jesse and Katherine both passed in the 15-20 range during a leg.) That kept us feeling like were were on a sort of a mission. It was different than running an race from scratch and trying to hold someone off or catch them up. We weren't focusing on any single competitor. The nature of the competitors (a different group of teams every leg) meant we couldn't focus on them. We were basically forced to focus on our own running.


• Ryan's eclectic mix tape.


• The relay was pretty well-organized. I only had one moment of confusion about the course (at the intersection of Henry Road and Henry Lane), and nobody on the team got lost. The bathrooms were decent by my standards, the course was generally challenging, interesting, and scenic.


• The atmosphere was friendly. The vans stopped by the side of the road always cheered, and everyone was full of smiles at the exchanges.


• The JUICE is a very cool crew.


• Running is fun.

Friday, May 1, 2009 (30 am)

Jogged a little in the morning, just waiting for Providian.

Thursday, April 30, 2009 (30am, 30pm)

I took off Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday because my upper hamstring was sore. I guess I strained it mildly, but last night I also discovered a large bruise on that leg. It's on the inside of my thigh, so it's relatively hidden from view, and I hadn't noticed it before. I'm not sure when it appeared, and I'm at a loss to think of a traumatic incident in the recent past that could have caused it. It's about 10cm from the general location of the pain I'm feeling, so while I don't have any particular reason to believe they're connected, it is possible.

Both runs felt fine. I'm feeling the soreness in this muscle mostly when I sit still for an hour, then get up, or occasionally when I take a long stride or do something else that might stress my hamstring a little bit.

I hope that I'll be fine through the relay this weekend. I'm almost certain I'll make it through the first leg with no problems, but I don't know whether running 6:00 pace will aggravate the problem. That's what makes life worth living though - the mystery of the great unknown!