Careful reader of Pigtails may have noticed I took off Thursday and Friday. I don’t usually go for two days off in a row, but I was still so tired yesterday I decided I needed sleep more than I needed five miles. After I slept like royalty last night (from 11pm until 10am), I got up, spent some quality time with my roller stick, strapped on my fuel belt, and headed through the 86-degree weather into the city to run a few laps with my coach as he celebrated his 41st birthday by completing 41 upper loops of Central Park.
By the time I made it to the 102nd Street Transverse, Ramon had just left on his 32nd lap. I chatted with some old TNT buddies (hey PS and SR!) and then caught Coach as he came around for his 33rd lap. I recognized a bunch of old teammates in the little pack that surrounded him, and latched on. After shouting my greeting, I was flattered to realize EN had adopted my look, and was running with his flowing locks tied up twice. (He’s growing it for Locks of Love.)
Now, I know my coach is a wicked fast runner, who has run qualifying times for both Boston and New York more times than I could guess. But, I figured I had a chance of keeping up with him since he’d already ran 45 miles, and me, just 5.6. Uh, yeah. His pace was still faster than a chat pace for me. And do you people realize that he ran that hill at the top of the park 41 times that day? I am in awe.
My plan had been to run back from the park as well, thus getting in something over 12 miles for the day. But I was all out of fluids by the time I finished my two laps with Ramon, and frankly, was not looking forward to the heat that surely awaited me on the 59th Street Bridge, so I bummed a ride home with SR.
Click here to bring Ramon closer to his $75,000 goal on behalf of Team in Training, to fund the discovery of a cure for all kinds of blood cancers.
Have been geraing up for the Olympic T&F Trials in Eugene, OR — I mean, as a spectator! — and was thrilled to hear Kara Goucher made her Olympic “A Standard” Time. Click here for the Trials site.
Pigtails Flying 
Ramon is amazing!!!
Yay, I got a shoutout!!
[…] 21, 2008 by TK I haven’t seen EN since I ran with him at Ramon’s birthday run, and in the meantime all sorts of things have happened to us; most notably, he cut his hair for […]
[…] knowing there will be a lot of friendly faces out on the course, I am sure I’ll also see my dear old TNT coaches, […]
[…] Coach Ramon (it was excellent to catch up with him) led us on a 40-minute run from the New York Running Company store (at Third Avenue and 63rd Street; this new location is gorgeous) over the Queensborough Bridge and back. It was strange to be there with a massive group, but not unpleasant. I was scheduled to run 3 for recovery (after Tuesday’s hills and Wednesday’s tempo my legs were feeling a bit battered), so I turned around before the rest of the gang. […]
[…] trying to Go, my hips were basically like, “You’re joking, right? Good one!” When Coach Ramon spotted me with half a mile to go, his demeanor totally changed from Big Cheer Machine to Soft […]
[…] me, Ramon, the coach with the accent, remember me? You better say a big YES or huge SI!! I am at it again!! […]