Monday–November 21, 2005
Training: 90 mins am with FritzBoss and Mrs. FritzBoss, 20mins pm
Where: Thun to Uttigen and back, Thun?Quotes: "I think my training is finally coming together…"
On Sunday the 27th, we have our last of three qualification races for European Championships. The selection process goes like this…Basically Fritz puts in our names if he believes that we could finish in the TOP half at European Championships. It is a little easier for juniors to qualify because they could bring a team (consisting of at least 4 people). It is a bit more challenging for the men and women to qualify because they don't have the numbers to make a team so we as men and women have to qualify individually. Here in Switzerland, we just don't have the numbers of men and women who do cross. Many stick to road racing or preparing for outdoor track.
Anyway, so FritzBoss, who as I have mentioned several times is the official Swiss National Coach, puts the names through to a selections committee who then decide who they believe could finish in the top half at the European Championships, based on performances at our three qualification races. The reason they don't just send anyone is due to financial reasons and 'politics' like everything else…We all know that there are always some sort of politics behind running…Like in college, dear lord…Anyway, if they, the selections committee sends someone to the European Championships and they DON'T finish in the top half, then they loose funding from Swiss Olympic (As I understand it). SOOOO, basically it is important that they have faith in the people they send who have the ability and most likely will finish in the top half. There is a whole whirl of politics between funding from Swiss Olympic and the many sports here in Switzerland that are supported by them. I feel this is nothing new because anything that requires funding requires some sort of political..a- hem… argument…of some sort… It is a challenge to make it to the European Championships, but of course there are also other options if that doesn't turn out…but I won't talk about that until after Sunday!!!
Tuesday–November 22, 2005
Training: 63 minutes with Astrid
Where: Next to the Aare of course…while it still is runnable and not frozen over!?Quotes: JosiJoy (21:30:42): it is only 4.4k so i am nervous
bigdeuceluce (21:30:51): a sprint!
bigdeuceluce (21:30:57): (for the josi's of the world)
My race in Paris is only 4.4k so I am a bit anxious again. For those of you who know me (bigdeuceluce, you totally do), you KNOW that for me, the longer the better! Hell, I would do 10k cross if I could! I am going to try to go out faster than I normally do of course. We will see what happens. I am not going to think about it just yet, it is a bit too early.
Aaah, the weight issue yet again. No matter where you go in the world, the same problems in our sport arise…
…I don't own a scale. Being a woman, (or at least a lady-aged person haha) I feel it could become an obsession. When I look at pictures of other professional runners, I think to myself, "Hey, I don't look like that…" My mind then wanders farther and I wonder what those pros eat anyway etc… Again, I feel like I am just a baby in the professional distance world and I feel, like with my development, I will naturally become stronger and more fit with time. So instead of over-analyzing what I eat, I just eat whatever it is I feel like eating, eat when I am hungry and just train. I think if I had to pay attention to what I ate, I would make myself crazy and think I were psychotic or something. The reason I have this mentality, though, is because of being surrounded with eating disorders in college and if someone were even a little bit picky, I would tell them to pretty much shut up and eat. HAHA I do think that I am at one extreme end of this whole eating spectrum. I think as a pro, a baby pro at that, maybe I should pay at least a little attention more to what I eat, but I just can't bring myself to do it because of the fear I would start having a problem and then start denying it (like I have witnessed so many girls denying…) So I just continue to eat my cookies and my sweets and my 2.7% milk (that is what I find here in Switzerland…why the .7? I have no clue…) , lots of pastries and other foods with lots of fats and sugars because I can't bring myself to "watch" what I eat because I would feel like I had some sort of disorder….I feel like if you are surrounded by girls with eating disorders, it still affects you tremendously. I feel the problems affect everyone who is there to witness the eating disorders, especially if those girls are your friends. There was nothing more difficult in college than to witness some of your best friends just waste away more and more until you could make out almost every rib, every bone in their hip, watch their cheeks sink in, the fuzz grow on their faces from their bodies crying out… and knowing that there was nothing you could do about it because in the end, it was them who had to finally admit their problem and take steps to a healthier life. Some of the girls on the team who didn't have eating problems, called the girls with eating disorders "cheaters" because those girls would run better for a year or two (IF they didn't get injured first) and then would just crash. Some other girls got "lucky" and were able to run well with an eating disorder for more than that, but those without problems always got so mad because of how well some of the girls with eating disorders ran. Of course I got pissed off too because I thought it was a terrible example for other girls who were trying to run well too. Especially if they were younger and would look up to these other girls. The anorexic girls would start running well and would make the younger ones question whether or not they should "try" it out as well. I was really lucky when I first came to college because I had a really strong senior who was awesome and kept me sane. We kept each other sane. She and I would lean on each other when we were just sick of the problems with eating disorders and we would have to remind each other that "Yes, we are normal. We eat a lot, we are normal." She would give me the strength for me to stand strong, even when she graduated. Being around some of those girls was still hard at dinner because then you would start feeling guilty that you were eating so much. And then of course you would purposefully eat more than you really should so you could SHOW those other girls that you could eat a lot and be fast too… And as far as eating disorders in college, it wasn't just isolated to MY college. Everyone in our sport knows it is a wide-spread problem from middle, to high school, to college etc… Anyway, I think that witnessing those eating disorders is why I don't even dare to even think about what I eat, I just eat. I don't feel guilty about it and I am fine with my weight because I have weighed the same for 5 years and I doubt I am going to put on pounds and pounds now (although I have no scale so I couldn't tell you for sure…but I look the same.) As far as I am concerned, I will continue this way until some professional person, be it some sort of sports doctor or my coach or something, gives me professional advice on what to do and how to do it because after witnessing all those problems in college, I can't distinguish what is "healthy skinny" and what is unhealthy skinny. To me, everyone who looks a little too skinny, is unhealthy skinny. As of right now, I feel like I don't need to think about that eating stuff, I have enough to worry about than to worry about what goes down the hatch. I focus on my training and on my strength training and I think the fitness will just come naturally with my hard work. Of course I am glad I wrote about this because if you were here in front of me, I probably wouldn't dare to discuss it. Something about this way of communicating makes it okay to bring this sort of thing up. So JUST SAY NO to eating disorder. I doubt they do any good once you are 30 with osteoporosis and unable to have children. Maybe don't come to my extreme where I eat anything in front of me, be it a huge chunk of fat, sugar and condensed milk mixed together and caramelized, (it is delicious by the way) but stay right down the middle!
NEXT: November 23, 24 – In distance running, attitude is everything...PREVIOUS:November 17, 18, 19, 20 – Oh that's right, you Swissies don't have jello here...
INDEX: Unfinished Business -- Former PA XC state champion Josi Lauber's post-collegiate adventure.