Week 7: Speed & Tempo

LoCo Fair Review, I Bet Taylor is a Runner & Mr. Training Log…

Logan County Fair Review

It was quite the week at the Logan County Fair. Van Winkle Dairy and its 4-H group West Winkle Dairy Dandies exhibited 11 heifers, 5 milk cows and 3 baby calves. Emily’s daughter Tarrah and the cow named Kamel took Supreme Champion in the dairy show again, Running it Back! ‘22, ’23!

Ava Lahmer’s and Company were in attendance for the dairy show as Chris Lahmers was the evenings dairy show judge.

The Pee-wee Show was the ultimate highlight of the fair.

I bet Taylor is a Runner!

I’m currently experiencing the grieving process. 1 week ago on Sunday I took off from my farm in West Mansfield and ran to the county fair in Bellefontaine. Along the way I picked up a miniature American Flag on a stick laying in the ditch on the way to East Liberty. As I was stuffing it in my Nathan runners back pack I decided I was going to plant the flag on the peak of Ohio. Running on County Road 10, I ran up and down Bristol Ridge through Zanesfield, across the overpass on State Route 33 and up to B-town. Once I finished my final climb I found an electrical junction box that I figured the flag would be safe by and planted the flag. 1200 feet of elevation, it was grueling. I closed out the run and made it to the Logan County Fair in 2 hours and 30 minutes. Total of 16.89 miles.

As I hit the gates of the fair grounds 2 thing were clear to me, one I was happy with the effort but two my right calf muscle was singing some Taylor Swift break up songs to me. In other words it was mad, like big mad! Wish I was a better man kind of mad.

Taylor Swift has been crushing it for 17 years now. Her first hit took off in 2006, Tim McGraw, the same summer that I was training for the Niagara Falls Marathon and also getting ready for my Student Teaching placement at Fairbanks High School. Taylor has interesting cross generational connections that very few artist have. We have members on the CC team that weren’t even born yet when she released her first hit.

With Taylors song Tim McGraw, Taylor used name association for getting her first hit noticed. Every time someone searched Tim McGraw her song would appear in that search box. There is something about word and name association. I always get a kick out of how the word run is everywhere. Most of the time the word has a negative association, getting run down, running out of gas, getting run! It seems like most people don’t want to associate with running, it’s connected to pain. What about endurance? 17 years and Taylor is admired for her ability to last, to have a long and durable career, to span generations and music genres. She’s an endurance artist, I bet she’s a runner, at least I would like to think she is.

Back to my calf issues. I took a couple of days off over fair week to make up with my calf. Yesterday I thought maybe we were all good to go, so I went out for a run through the farm. About a mile in and a pop in my calf muscles and guess what I was thinking about? Is it over, did I just break up with my calf muscle for the foreseeable future? Well, maybe. That’s running but it’s not endurance, it’s not setting your goals and finding a way to get to the start line or the finish line. I’ve made the point before that injuries are the biggest set back to fitness, and summer miles are the best prevention for cross country injuries. Injuries do happen regardless and the best way to move past them is to have a training log, look back and see what happened. For me, I tweeked my calf in early June, I rested a bit, changed around my shoes and seemed to be getting along fine until the week of the 4th of July. That week I ran 2 races, a 5k and the mile dash. At the Dash I went out in racing flats, something I haven’t done in years. The next day I ran Bristol Ridge. It’s 7 miles to get to the base of the Ridge, just to have the opportunity to run up and down those hills and before I got to that point my calf muscle was already mad, but I had a flag to plant.

Today I hopped on the bike and began working through the grieving process by listening to Taylor Swift break up songs. I was on the bike for 24 miles, 1 hour and 45 minutes and you can bet I thought about running, a lot. Fitness is fitness. When dealing with injuries you need to remember that, and 24 miles on a bike will build or at least maintain fitness. The biggest limiter to fitness is doing nothing. Nothing does not = endurance.

This is a long winded way to say, I’ll be riding the bike this week.

Mr. Training Log!

Bryce Nisly is well within range of being the first member in the 300 mile club for this summer. 181.5 miles through July 13th. We will be doing summer mileage checks at the end of this week for the 300 mile club.

Nice work Bryce.

Week 7: July 17 - July 23

Training Plan