psycho_dad
Well-known member
I just got back from a meet where Woodridge, Crestwood, Field and Rootstown ran against each other. Nice little meet. When I ran in the 80's it would have been a dual meet, but that is a thing of the past and it's now super duals where you get the league stuff out of the way early and in one big meet. But the reason I decided to write something is because of the conversation I had with one of the coaches. Believe it or not, he coached against my teams. He's been at it that long. But he brought up where we used to run our league meet and the course at Woodridge CVNP (A course I raced on once a week or at least every other week in HS.) Our league meet was held at Paradise Lake golf course. There were rolling hills and then a hill that is more like a cliff than a hill. We ran (fell) down it and then hit a flat loop at the bottom before we would go back up a very long hill with turns in it to get back to the main race elevation.
I remember hitting the bottom of the hill and my legs being so dead that I was barely moving. I was convinced that I was in big trouble and that everyone was going to catch me. No one else could possibly feel that bad. Just when your legs would come back, BAM the big up hill. I'm done. Everyone else has to feel better than me and it's just a matter of time now before I'm caught. The Woodridge course was/ is a lot like that. The first mile is down hill and you go through the mile mark at like 4:45 like it was nothing. Then you hit a steep hill. You crawl up that then at the top you go down a free fall of a hill that has your legs turning over so fast it almost hurts. Then you feel horrible and can't get into any type of a rhythm then you hit killer hill and by the top of it you could walk faster than you are running. Two hundred meters of really feeling sorry for yourself and knowing that the entire field is going to eat you up before you can run again. Then just one more really steep downhill and two very steep uphills oh, and the other downhill you forgot about. No rhythm at all.
That's how courses were. The course up in Perry had us running through creek beds that you had to pull yourself up the bank on the other side with tree roots. It snowed there twice when I ran and rained real hard another.
Most courses I ran, if you ran stupid, went out too hard or just pushed too hard in a part of the race you shouldn't, you could get into big trouble. You paid a price and the rest of the good runners would make you pay. It's not like that now. Goodyear had one hill and it was the downhill that hurt you, but that course is history too. The courses are not a factor anymore. You don't have a Paradise Lakes where there is a stupid crazy downhill in the middle of the race where if you run stupid to get there, you're done.
We can all marvel at the times the kids run now, but I ran a 15:15 on a course that most would call hard by today's standards.
We run at Brecksville which is a nice course and the Woodridge CVNP, but there aren't many like those anymore.
Cripe, I'm old. I've turned into my dad.
I remember hitting the bottom of the hill and my legs being so dead that I was barely moving. I was convinced that I was in big trouble and that everyone was going to catch me. No one else could possibly feel that bad. Just when your legs would come back, BAM the big up hill. I'm done. Everyone else has to feel better than me and it's just a matter of time now before I'm caught. The Woodridge course was/ is a lot like that. The first mile is down hill and you go through the mile mark at like 4:45 like it was nothing. Then you hit a steep hill. You crawl up that then at the top you go down a free fall of a hill that has your legs turning over so fast it almost hurts. Then you feel horrible and can't get into any type of a rhythm then you hit killer hill and by the top of it you could walk faster than you are running. Two hundred meters of really feeling sorry for yourself and knowing that the entire field is going to eat you up before you can run again. Then just one more really steep downhill and two very steep uphills oh, and the other downhill you forgot about. No rhythm at all.
That's how courses were. The course up in Perry had us running through creek beds that you had to pull yourself up the bank on the other side with tree roots. It snowed there twice when I ran and rained real hard another.
Most courses I ran, if you ran stupid, went out too hard or just pushed too hard in a part of the race you shouldn't, you could get into big trouble. You paid a price and the rest of the good runners would make you pay. It's not like that now. Goodyear had one hill and it was the downhill that hurt you, but that course is history too. The courses are not a factor anymore. You don't have a Paradise Lakes where there is a stupid crazy downhill in the middle of the race where if you run stupid to get there, you're done.
We can all marvel at the times the kids run now, but I ran a 15:15 on a course that most would call hard by today's standards.
We run at Brecksville which is a nice course and the Woodridge CVNP, but there aren't many like those anymore.
Cripe, I'm old. I've turned into my dad.