When easy = hard

Whew. What a day today was. Protocol A got denied board review. This review was one that my team has put in many hours to prepare for. What should have been easy, ended with a result that was hard to take. The preliminary talks went on for over an hour. In the end, the decision made the most sense. It set the stage for my next meeting.

During the 20 minutes that I would have had between meetings, I crafted my email the key players. By the time the meeting occurred, the decision to shift the plan of attack for Protocol B was easy made. Well, for some of us. It took a while to convince everyone. Here again “easy” ending up hard. We finally exited the conference room a mear 2.5 hours later…

By the time I hit the road for home the traffic was already heavy due to newly fallen rain. I parked in front of the baseball field and got ready for an hour run in the surrounding area. As I left, I could see the head coaches sitting together in deep discussion. It’s cut day…finally. I say finally because twice before BoBo was told that it was cut day only to be told that the coaches needed more time to make their decision. The coaches looked intense today as they measured each of their options (my son being one of them).

I ran in the opposite direction while thinking of last spring when BoBo didn’t make the cut for the All Star Team. He’d played on the All Stars in prior years and even contributed to a district championship. Baseball is no longer easy when the kids get past the “fun to fun” stage. There was a lot of boys trying out for the team. The fathers (who coached last year’s AS team) will soon be arriving to see if their boys made the cut. We’ll all huddle together and wait. Only this time they will have reason to be nervous just like me. Until then, I just run.

Speaking of “easy,” the term is relative these days even for me. Today’s run is noted as an “easy 5-6 mile” run but the pace is 8:30-8:45.

Coach: If you are reading this, I am not complaining. I am just noting that I have not thought of 8:30-8:45/mile as “easy” in my past running.

It’s a new concept that I am more than willing to adopt. If this pace is ingrained in my mind as “easy,” then achieving my BQ will be a piece of cake. I suppose that is the idea.

But staying at the set pace was a challenge. For starters, I began way too fast. I looked down at Garminia as she reported 7:ish/mile pace. After I found the correct pace, I promptly got lost. To add to the mind drain, that was going on in my head, my calf was tightened up. It lasted for a good part of the run which wasn’t helping build my confidence. But, as you can see, I did achieve the prescribed pace.

Although easy was a little harder for me today, it was about par for the sort of day that I was happening. Thank goodness for weekends. I almost forgot to note, BoBo *did* make the cut – he is now on his high school’s Junior Varsity Baseball Team.