the one at which the coach implies i'm old

Hills #3.  That was last night's workout.  I'll admit I sort of forgot about the (damn) Cat even though we were running back and forth up Cat Hill to Cleopatra's Needle.  The theme was "cresting the hill."  Make your way up the hill at a particular effort level and then be able to maintain that effort level once you reach the flat portion of the course.  In other words, don't push so hard up the hill that you don't have any energy left when you get to the top.  At one point Coach Ramon yelled out as I was passing, "That's right, show the young one's how it's done!"  Considering my two main running buddies are 10 and 15 years younger than I am AND I think I'm actually a year older than Ramon, I heard, "You're old!"  Alright, it did make me run harder.

We were all a little crabby and very annoyed by the 2 (i think) other groups that were training on the hill at the same time. Except they were running in ENOURMOUS packs.  We would be trudging along down the hill during recovery and suddenly 50 or more people would swarm around us. 

Kind of like those car tests where they rush smoke around cars to demonstrate their streamlined designs.  Except it's not smoke, it's people with elbows and flailing feet pushing you into puddles. And let's not even talk about the trauma of trying to change direction as they kept heading south at 72nd St.   If I had tried to signal a turn with my arm, I could have knocked a couple out.  Hmmm - maybe next time. 

We ran for nearly an hour.  But then we had a great stretching session with Coach Steve.  He's my favorite stretch leader because he's thorough. He doesn't let you rush through it.  It's good.

On a side note - I'm only $1180 from my $10,000 goal with 8 1/2 weeks to go.  That's pretty darn good.  Thank you all.