Week 8 - The Butt-Kicking Continues...

"Butt-kicking" has multiple meanings:

Tomorrow's butt-kicking workout will meet at 6pm at Whole Foods, for a lovely tour of the hills of Clarksville. Hydrate today and tomorrow, and pray this weirdly cool weather holds.

I've put individual assignments on the calendar - if you double-click the little schedule thingy that says "Double Click Me", you'll get details. If you have questions, let me know.

This Saturday, let's have a group run. 8am, Whole Foods. We'll probably just run on the trail, and we'll do different distances. Then, we shall eat things.

So, enough of all that, I really want to talk about all the butt that was kicked this weekend by various Team Spiridoners. Jennifer, Laura (and her boyfriend Charlie), and Sharon all ran the Texas Round-Up 5K, and Amanda (and her boyfriend Chris) and Paul ran the 10K.

For Jennifer, it was her first race since beginning a long string of persistent injuries in March 2007. She trucked through the pretty challenging course without walking.

I try not to focus a lot on time, at least, for everyone else. For me, I'm overly obsessed with it. But I do have to say, Laura came damn near my prediction that she could run a 30-minute 5K, running the 5K in 30:45, 2:20 faster than she did on a faster course at the Bun Run a couple of weeks ago.

I haven't had a chance to hear from Sharon yet, but I know she finished at 45:55, so I'd guess she probably got through the whole hilly thing without walking, though I would not fault her if she did have to walk a little. I was talking to some of the 5K winners later, and the stretch of Lavaca and that last hill on San Jacinto really stuck it to even them.

Amanda and Paul both finished well - it was the first time Amanda had run that kind of distance since probably last summer, and the first for Paul since the half-marathon in February. Momma Michelle Streetman and Upstart of All Upstarts Connor Streetman showed up as well to cheer folks on.

Meanwhile, out in Nashville, Jacala finished an impressive trifecta, finishing her first marathon in 5:30, to go with her first half marathon on January 27, and the Austin Half Marathon (a lot faster) on February 17. Hopefully, she'll be submitting her race report soon.

I'm tremendously proud of everyone. If you haven't run a race yet, your time is coming - everyone is doing great. It's up to you - stick with the workouts, get your runs in. Don't slack - remember, you signed up for this because you had goals that must have been important to you. If you slack on going out to run three times a week, what else in your life are you going to slack on? If, on the other hand, you can make that happen, and get results, then what else can you do in your life?

So, what are you still reading this for? Go run.