Betty Zane 2019

So me and this guy - one won the race, and one got second in his age group.  Probably no reason to go into specifics, but I am proud of this kid for getting his first ever 5k win.  Pretty cool that it is at home and Dad got to be in the race too.  So even though I didn't win (spoiler alert, wait did I do that right? I mean seriously you should be able to tell from the pic) I did set a PR with an official 28:58 clocking.  The temperature was about 82° and sunny, it felt warmer than the 82 for sure.  I modified my race strategy to seeking shade when possible and stretching out the walking periods in the shade.  I'm glad I got a PR by about 30 seconds, but I was hoping for 25 minutes when I started training and trying to get to around 27 as a minimum (wait a tick if I change the minutes to seconds . . .that makes it a 24 minutes and 238 second run, so sub 25 ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ).  I have done more focused training this year than the past 2 years, but feel this result is a little disappointing.  I'm on the right path though.

Disclaimer: on Sunday I did wreck the riding lawn mower at Mom's house over the bank.  It ended up flipping up on one side, not sure how it didn't keep rolling over the hill, but when it tipped over I landed in some pretty tall weeds and apparently some poison ivy.  I have a pretty decent bruise on my leg and the poison was bad enough that I had to get a shot.  So no excuses, but that is not the best way to finish your training before a race.  I told Sampson this and he said "noted".  Love that kid. I may make a blog post on this event...stay tuned.

Anyway he was actually a little disappointed too.  You see the last 1/2 mile or so of the race is pretty much a straight shot to the finish and Sampson had been leading pretty much the whole race.  Well his buddy from last year, who had the bad race at the end of the XC season, came up to him and started chatting it up during the race.  Well Sampson was about out of breath and so I don't think he responded, but then his buddy went out ahead a little and even though nothing was said, Sampson said that he thought his buddy checked up a little bit and maybe... just maybe let him win.  I didn't see the end of the race, like not the first finishers, I mean I saw the end when I got there about 10 minutes later but... I told him that he should remember last year and how is buddy had his worst race of his senior season at districts and he thought he was done until the team pulled out a qualifier for regional with Sampson running a PR and placing number 8 overall and first for the team.  I told him, maybe he didn't let him win as much as he wanted to square up.  Or maybe he just cramped up or something and he got the dub out right.  Sometimes you can't over think things, I mean be glad you won the race kid.

Anyway back to my race.  So I have been training on the course pretty religiously this summer. I would say I have run the full race at least twice, but run the first mile or so about 20 times.  Last year there was a water table right after the first mile, so I kind of planned on hitting the first mile pretty hard, taking a little break at the water station, to wet the old whistle and then run hard to the rec center.  I would try and catch my breath a little before the hill and run up the hill.  Well there was no water station after the first mile.  This through my race into complete chaos.  Well maybe not complete chaos, but definitely had me thinking more, like were there going to be any water stations, and was I screwed, would I die of the dehydration like Bobby Boucher's Daddy.  Anyway I have been training without drinking water on a run, but it was hot and I was trying harder than normal and my mouth was really dry at this point.  Well the first station ends up being at the top of the rec center hill.  Which is actually a good location because you can take a quick break after the big hill, recover and take off on a pretty straight flat stretch, with a nice little down hill for about a mile.  Well once I broke the seal of stopping then it becomes to easy to stop and I probably stopped about 4 more times.  I ran a practice race on Saturday and finished in 29:58 and I only stopped 3 times, and the last little downhill from total sports I clocked a 6 minute mile for about a tenth of a mile.  This time though I wanted to meet that time goal so every time I ran I tried to run hard and with good form, but the endurance just wasn't there.  I think I have some good technique now, but no aerobic.  Anywho, I am happy with the finish, but I have some unfinished business.  Which is good in a way, because I am still motivated.  I do like running, but I need to figure some more stuff out, and do more speed work. I only trained at a max of 12 miles per week, which is above what I have done in the past, but the results are only sub 29.  I mean a tractor did roll on me 3 days prior so there was that.  But I think I need to run around 20 miles or so a week in order to break that 27 barrier, and if I can get the cardio, I may be able to get sub 25.  I'm not sure that I can or will ever be able to keep a pace of sub 20 starting this late in life running, but that may be wayyyyy out there as a goal.  More likely I will run a half marathon before I break 20, but it may be fun to see what can happen first.  Oh some more motivation, the guy who got first in my age group...beat me by 2 seconds.  But honestly I tried to run as fast as I could that last little bit, and I just couldn't get there.

Anyway it was great to run in a race with my son, who I never actually saw after about the first 1/4 mile until the finish line.  But I have some goals and look forward to meeting them.  I was think about running the Debbie Green race, but Sophie said that was a bad idea to run two 5k's in the same week.  Well it is also a bad idea to roll a lawn mower on you and get poison ivy, so why the heck not run two.  Well she never signed me up, so there's that, but maybe next year...

Valentine's Day Massacre

That title may be a little harsh for 7th grade girls basketball, but it totally fits.  You see yesterday was the final game of the season for Peach's team and the girls had gone undefeated all season.  The closest game was maybe 6 or 8 points (more on that later) but the rest of the games were double digit wins and the game before the finals was a 32 point blow out.  So basically all season the team had played the 10 girls on the team at some point every game and for most of the games the substitutions were quite liberal.  Now my opinion on the subject is that junior high teams and high school teams should sub frequently if they want to win... if you have the players obviously.  It is unlikely that a team has 10 players that are all of an equal level, but honestly there are probably about 2 or 3 that should get more minutes and the next 4 or 5 should be subbed early and often.  Also at this point in a season a coach should have developed a rotation of subs - basically if you have 1 or 2 people that you want to sub infrequently you have found a way to sub them at the end of quarters or at the beginning of quarters to get them some extra rest and the other players can develop some chemistry or a style with the big gun on the bench.  Because if you don't the team is going to get tired and you eventually lose due to attrition, and it takes one heck of a coach to pull the trigger for a sub with 3 minutes left in the game when they haven't subbed much before that, and one heck of a player to step into that situation cold.  The alternative is that you use timeouts to generate rest for the player, both of which Peach's team didn't do and resulted in a 34-31 lose to a very good team.  But a team that didn't play everyone, but did sub frequently with 7 girls.  Peach played for maybe 3 -4 minutes in the game out of 24.  Now let me say one other thing about subbing at the end of the season.  I think a lot of people think that as the season goes on you get more and more conditioned to play, but I think it is the opposite.  In the early season you focus a lot on running and conditioning, but as the season goes on, it becomes about practicing plays or game planning for a team and the practices become much more focused on strategy and most of the running a player will do is in the games.  So if you have played without subbing up to this point all the sudden loading players up with minutes in a game is going to backfire spectacularly.  This is how I envision Sampson's team losing this year in either the sectional or district, because we haven't developed bench players, and there are 2 guys that never get subbed unless they are in foul trouble. Any who, back to the massacre...
So Peach's team hasn't lost all year and most of the wins have been by double digits including one by 60 points.  Her team has probably shot more 3's than Sampson's team in less games.  Now traditionally with junior high teams if they are running the table and throwing up big point totals then they are probably pressing and getting layups, but Peach's team has pressed probably less than 5% of the time and plays almost exclusively man to man.  Most of  the time if a pressing team gets beat it is because the other team can handle the pressure and eventually get a layup on the other end because the pressing team is badly out of position against good ball handling teams, so a team that can dominate in the half court and dissect presses is hard to beat, which is what I would call Peach's team.  They also can go 8 deep, (qualifier here, the top girl is one of the better 7th grader's I have seen, boy or girl after that one girl can shoot, one can handle the ball, and the next two are taller, but the first 3 off the bench are versatile, short but fast and a good rebounder, strongest girl on the team) and have been giving more time to the 9 girl at the end of the year so the team is deep.  For this game though the coach didn't sub any in the first quarter or the last quarter, and only subbed once in the second and third for about 3 or 4 minutes total.  The bottom 3 starters have not experienced this kind of work load and to put them in that situation in a championship game was not well thought out.  If you play a certain way (and most of the time after 4 or 5 minutes it was sub 3 girls out) and win your games you should stay with that style and if you win, then you win playing your game, but if you lose, then you lost playing how you know how to play.  The girls didn't get that chance and when they were up 13 to 6 in the second quarter it really had that feel of "if we don't start subbing we are going to get tired and lose"... and that is exactly what happened.  The other thing that cost them is - if you aren't going to sub, you need to use timeouts to get players rest.  We left with 4 timeouts in our pocket.  Another thing they could have done was play zone.  While her team didn't normally play zone, it could have been very affective against the team they were playing.  They used a lot of screening action and back cuts to score that could have been neutralized, plus I don't know that they were a great shooting team, so packing in a defense and making them score over the top could have been very effective, especially after we had the lead.  A zone also helps your team rest, which if you aren't going to sub is kind of important.  But we didn't play any zone, and at the end of the game the girls were getting turned completely around, and couldn't find the ball on defense.
I felt really bad for Peach, because she is honestly one of the best 5 basketball players on her team, but she isn't fast so she gets over looked, even though she is a good passer, dribbler, and rebounder.  I understand coming in the first day of practice, looking at a team and deciding who the best 5 girls are and those are your starters, but if one person has a good day, or one has a bad day and you are too rigid to change your evaluation, then that limits you as a coach.  There was absolutely no way, that you can go a whole season and not see this.  Time will tell but I guess if Peach ever wants to have a shot, it isn't about basketball, it is about how quick they are.  Dumb.  If a kid has a skill set to a sport (good batter or pitcher in baseball, dribbling/passing/shooting in basketball) being super quick isn't the most important thing.  Good technique can make up for a lack of quickness or height in basketball too, but those have to actually be coached.  One last thing, just a coincidence maybe,  but Sampson's 7th grade team lost in the championship too.  They came back and won it all the next season and only lost one game...  No pressure kid.