So there I was, my whole life hanging on my ability to shave 40-some seconds off of my 1.5 mile run in 7 days.  For me, this would be as easy as juggling bubbling lava while quoting The Bard in the "original" Cantonese.  Yeah, it's just like that.  My new shoes still felt new.  My new running watch had two runs saved to memory and I was seriously wondering if I had the mental capacity to walk and chew gum (or run and remember how to operate the watch) at the same time.  This was about the most stressed I had ever felt in my life.  I moved from one state to another for this job, then moved my family and sold my house.  Me, my wife, her cat and my Macaw were living in my 5th-wheel in the sticks.  It's tight living, y'all.  Hell, my mother in law even moved next to us in her own camper.  No pressure. 

My boss was calling nearly every day to...ahem..."encourage" me.  Extended family was calling every day to wish me luck and as about "Plan B".  My instructors, from the top dog all the way to the most junior guy took turns taking me aside each day to ask me if I was ready for the run, and if I thought I would make it.  The other student's in the class took their turns at me, as well.  All of that attention made me humble, angry, frustrated, a bit scared, determined, encouraged, unworthy...pissed.

Thus, Friday morning, the last day of the 11th week of this course dawned bright, humid, just a little cool and completely terrifying.  I drove straight to the track, and got there before anybody else.  I kept a sharp eye out for one of my classmates; she was going to pace me and call me a "little bitch" if I slowed.  She was nowhere to be seen.  The instructor/timer pulled into the gate a few minutes later, but my pacer was still a no-show.  The other guy running for time arrived, but he was so fast that when he slows at the end of a run, he triggers sonic booms.  I definitely wasn't going to be able to run in his footsteps.  I was starting to feel very small, but since I have a certain ingrained aversion to quitting, I jumped out of my truck.  I put on my War Face and headed for the track.  I may not feel fast, but I tried to LOOK like I was going to kick this run in the butt.

Mr Mach 2 and I stretched out a little on the track.  Our collective breaths were fogging the air before us.  When the Timer said it was time to rock, we took our places.  Mr Mach 2 took lane one, I looked down at lane number "this is your freekin' whole life; your dreams riding on the next six laps"...er...lane #2. "GO!"

I went.  I concentrated on proper form.  I kept a too-fast for comfort pace for the first two laps.  Mr Mach 2 lapped me.  I lost lap count at somewhere between crossing the line on lap two until I was informed that I was completing lap four.  I got lapped again.  Timer told me to speed up a little.  Lap five found me breathing heavy, but as well as I ever had during a timed run.  I had a rhythm going.  I flashed back to some of the nice stuff y'all said to me.  I chastised myself for not being faster.  I wondered if I could have possibly worked harder to make this all easier.  I...Mr Mach 2 appeared at my side.  "It's time to kick this bastard in the ass, Yogi", he said.  He told me to run with him, stretch out, drive the knees, leave it all on the track.  I ran in his foot steps.  I ran faster than I felt capable of.  My breathing was still in time to my foot strikes (what was THAT all about?!).  About two hundred yards from the finish line, Mach 2 said "Go-Go-GO!"  Say what?!  This was a full 100 yards early screamed my mind.  I went.  I'm not certain where it came from, but I found another gear, and about 75 yards out, I found another.  I think my breathing stopped about 25 yards out.  I crossed the line with my chin up, chest and hips square, legs churning, arms pumping and knew I had given it my all, even though I had come up short of making my time.

That's when Mr Timer told me that I had finished one second UNDER my drop-dead time.  I puked on the football field, and fell to my knees; or maybe it was the other way around.

I think I can come clean now.  After that run, getting shot with simunitions, bit by dogs, pepper-sprayed and Tased were child's play.  It was all worth it.  I graduated with the rest of my class; graduated from the toughest police academy in my state! 

I'm still just as old, but I'm faster and less fat.  I took a couple of weeks off from running so I could wrap my arms around the tornado that life had become, but hit the road again a few days ago.  My first run was two miles.  Yesterday, I did four.  Tomorrow is speed work down at the High School. 

:::stands::: Hello, my Name Is Allen "Yogi" Rothery, and I'm a TCI runner!

Bad Boys; Bad Boys; What'cha gunna' do when Yogi comes chasing you?!

(Sulcata: aka Spur Thigh Tortoise)

Ok, so it's now something like five weeks since I started to change things up to some type of approximation of proper form, function and an illusion of speed.  Time for another update. (as much for me to look back on as anything, I suppose)

I guess I should recap.  In the first five weeks of this "class" I'm in, I managed to over-strain my left lcl, flirt with shin splints (I'm told) and pull a hammy.  That was running my old way, and under the old "in order to run faster, you run faster" paradigm.  In that same five weeks, I managed to take a whopping 23 seconds off my timed mile and a half.  Turtles were passing me on the track.  Every now and then, one would offer me a ride (probably out of pity, but some turtles also have respect for their elders, or so I've found).  Five weeks...23 seconds...whoopee-doo.  Running hurt.  Running is what felons and masochists do.

At the end of "week 5", I get TCI and a pair of minimalist Brooks.  Starting the next day, I kept up with the class during long runs.  On that note, I've made all subsequent class runs up with the class since then.  After two weeks of the TCI style of running, I shaved another 22 seconds off my mile and a half.  Hmmm...this seems to be showing results.  Sure, I'm not faster than the speed of sound, but there has been (to me) significant improvement at that point. 

More running, more practice runs, foot strength exercises, jedi mind tricks, runs with the class, at lunch and after work and some alterations to my pre-run diet, and I FELT like I was moving faster.  Better yet, after 5 weeks TCI, I haven't been injured.  Sore?  Hellz yeah, but not injured.  This is a good thing.

Which brings us to today.  Today was the "drop dead" final physical readiness test for us all.  I had to shave some serious time off my prior runs to even come close to "failing admirably".    Ok, I mentioned that I was slow and lumbering, right?  With a blush of embarrassment I'll admit to a time of 18:01 as belonging to me on day one.  Maybe slow isn't quite as accurate as "glacial", but nobody I know of has been passed by turtles on a glacier, so...(shrug)...slow will have to suffice.  Again, back to today.  ALL of our instructors were present to watch the gazelles blaze around the track.  Two in particular were leaving flaming trails behind them reminiscent of a time traveling DeLorian.  They were poetic.  They were athletic.  They were lapping me for the second time...bastards.  Then a strange thing happened.  With a lap and a half to go, breathing well and feeling only slightly puny, three of my classmates (two of them just seconds ago finished with their final lap) flanked me and paced me.  Zoinks!  The pushed me (verbally) and encouraged me.  They coached me in little tweeks I needed to make in my form.  They really screwed-up my inner monologue, but what the hell, let's make this a race.  At some point on the last lap, I broke the speed of smell.  Now, remember, my last recorded run was 17:21 just two weeks ago.  When my new posse and I crossed the line, the clock read 15:23!  As I...um...how do I say this delicately?...."fed the crickets" immediately past the finish line, I was ecstatic!  Seriously, I had a 45 second, maybe upwards of 60 second drop as a measure of success, but...THIS?!  In my little pea brain, this was faster than a Romulan skedaddling out of the Neutral Zone with Picard on his tail!  It was legendary.  It was epic.  It was validation.  It was still a failing time.

I can't say I don't care, because I do.  I care that I have shaved three minutes off of my run in the last ten weeks.  I care than  two minutes and forty seconds of that difference came since reading/adopting TCI.  I'm proud of what I've already accomplished, and very much look forward to continued improvement. 

Speaking of improvement...I'm being retested next week.  I have to shave another 40 seconds off today's time if I'm to pass this course.  I bought a Magellan runner's watch today.  (No sweat, my grandkids weren't expecting an inheritance anyway).  I'm hoping it functions as valuable tool to help me win this battle against time...and old age. ;)

7 days...40 seconds...no sweat, right?

(*note: Have you ever seen a Sulcata wearing Oaklie MP3 glasses, a gps watch, Vibram 5-fingers, spandex, a long-distance rig filled with energy gels drafting off a (formerly) fat man?  He thinks he's friggin' hilarious.  Me?  It wasn't nearly as funny when the situation was reversed, but MUST he keep "Eye Of The TIger" playing on a loop?!)