a visit from Eric Liddell

a visit from Eric Liddell

11 PAX launched into the soupy weather at 0515 on Tuesday at the weekly loafer’s hideaway disguised as #F3Swift. Can we start calling it Wiggler-HD?

The Thang:

• Pre-run at 0500 to lay out the cones and get lost in the wilds of the Ballantyne Corp Park.
• Arrive back late at 0517 to several PAX in the Vine lot staring like they had no idea what was to come. Come on men! Are you all Bagpipers or Swifts today? Ahh, all Swifts, let’s go.
• Off to the course near the Bull Ring, down the hill of Rushmore Dr., pass the fuming Diesel generator, and stop for some warm-up drills.
• Main set was the “Eric Liddell” along Rushmore Drive with rounds of:
• 200m at R-pace (1 mile race pace found at http://runsmartproject.com/calculator), 200m jog recovery and regroup
• 200m at R-pace, 200m jog recovery and regroup
• 400m at R-pace, 400m jog recovery and regroup
• Round 2 same as the first
• Round 3 start the 400m on the downhill
• Long recovery back to the base of the hill. 30 sec hill at the same effort as before. Repeato 4x.
• Head back to COT

The Moleskin:

• Honeybee, the Mouth, and Bratwurst for the early shift. 1.5mi extra credit. Eventually we made it back to the Vine after mistaking a few parking lots, buildings, and bushes for the way back. Thankfully Honeybee reminded us, when in doubt, follow the Power Lines.
• With the Blue Ridge Relay only 8 1/2 weeks away, it’s starting to get serious. Today was about developing the strength needed to hit the hills. While not actually running up / down many hills today, speed work is important for those long grinds that will be coming.
• One-niner and Honeybee have a secret competition going on, or 19r is HB’s secret coach for those Haggis surges in the last 100m of any race. Hard to tell who took it on an impromptu AYG on 200 #4 today (right at 0:30), but it was perhaps ill-advised with a 400m looming.
• The Mouth must be too reliant on his watch for timing and needs to recalibrate the internal clock. When YHC called the 30sec hill, Mouth shot out of the cannon but quickly figured out that 30sec is kind of a long way. 1 step does not equal 1 second…or 1 yard…or even 1 meter. Still, he did cover 10.9 kilometers today. #metric
• Champagne can always be counted on for “deep” biting questions, such as questioning if this BB was ever going to happen. One more of his keen observations of the morning was that a lot of the intervals seemed to be too flat (“where’s the BRR prep in that?”). So, instead of giving the PAX the hill on the way up, we gave the PAX a jumpstart on the last 400m for the way down. On the downhills, keep good form, lean from the ankles (got to attend DevilsTurn for more on that), and don’t overstride. Though, we couldn’t let Champagne off too easy, so we did the uphills at the end to finish us off.
• Random Tootie sighting on Sunday by YHC outside Target in Blakeney. Which begs the question, when you spot a PAX in the wild, do you shout his F3 name or his Hospital name? Great to see this guy continuing to bring it at Swift and increase the mileage for the BRR this September.
• Ringer is quietly sneaking up by pushing the pace faster and faster. Don’t know what his nickname refers to, but pretty sure that he would be the silent Ringer on most BRR squads.
• WorldWideLeader and Wing Man (8.6K) are pushing themselves through all of the workouts as of late. It’s just a matter of time before Wing Man adds this strip on Rushmore Dr to the Strava segments. But YHC asks that he holds off for a while, since HoneyBee would have another Course Record with that 200m AYG in the workout today.
• Great to bring Chipotle over from Bagpipe and out to Swift. YHC is not sure that I would want to post to FightClub with Chipotle. Previously, YHC would have just danced around the ring to outlast him, but with all of this running Chippy has been doing, that would take a lot longer to outlast Chippy because he only needs to get in one shot needed to end it all.
• Teddy is definitely in the ranks of the PAX with soft names (Cindy, Bunny, Material Girl, etc.) who pretty much only wear #smokeboots. While he doesn’t get the press of the others, watch out for Teddy if you ever see him (because you won’t hear him).
• Stated in the Preblast, “Eric Liddell” is much of the inspiration for #F3Swift in general and this workout in particular. The Preblast video (Chariot’s of Fire clip) has Eric Liddell speaking to an audience and this is the inspiration for his speech:
• The Greatness of God – Isaiah 40 –
  15 Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket,
  and are accounted as the dust on the scales;
  …17 All the nations are as nothing before him,
  they are accounted by him as less than nothing and
  …21 Do you not know? Do you not hear?
  Has it not been told you from the beginning?
  Have you not understood from the foundations of the
  earth?
  22 It is he who sits above the circle of the earth,
  and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers;
  who stretches out the heavens like a curtain,
  and spreads them like a tent to dwell in;
  23 who brings princes to nothing,
  and makes the rulers of the earth as emptiness.
  …28 Have you not known? Have you not heard?
  The Lord is the everlasting God,
  the Creator of the ends of the earth.
  He does not faint or grow weary;
  his understanding is unsearchable.
  29 He gives power to the faint,
  and to him who has no might he increases strength.
  30 Even youths shall faint and be weary,
  and young men shall fall exhausted;
  31 but they who wait for the Lord
  shall renew their strength;
  they shall mount up with wings like eagles;
  they shall run and not be weary;
  they shall walk and not faint.