July 8, 2006
Cross Training in Central Park at 8:00 am with the "Team."

So you know I was up at an ungodly hour to make it to the all team work out. This is what we saw when Aurora and I arrived at Bethesda fountain:

Instead our of long slow distance run we usually do, we did cross training. We managed to divide in to two groups, then those groups divided in two, follow that? So half the team took off for a ten minute “"four points"” run and the other half remained at the fountain for torture, I mean calisthenics.

So Aurora took off for a ten minute run, while I started on my squats. After five minutes of squats, we did five minutes of abs. Total of ten minutes. By that time the runners had returned from their 10 minute run.

Now it was my turn for the 10 minute run (five minutes out five minutes back). We were going to do this four times. Each time we took off for a run we were to run either the southwest, northwest, southeast, or northeast leg of the park.

Now in between those runs we did more “"exercises"” lunges, calf raises, push up, step ups on a bench, and more squats. More squats? Yep, apparently the burn we were feeling by the second round of squats is similar to the burn at mile 23. It was a good workout, hard, and I'm sure I'll be sore tomorrow, but it's a good hurt.

After practice the whole lot of us met at a local school for a breakfast. While we're enjoying our bagels and coffee, we were presented with our honored teammates. One of our honored teammates, is Kate Davis, she's four years old. Unfortunately, Kate couldn't make it to the breakfast because she's still in the hospital. Her Aunt was addressing us and said something that really touched me, "When you think you can't run 13 miles or 26 miles, think about Kate who is too weak to walk around the hospital floor. She thinks you guys are super heroes for just showing up to the practices every week." Puts things in to perspective doesn't it.

Here’s Aurora and I after the work out:

BONUS: After practice Aurora and I were walking to the subway and ran into this guy. Yeah, I looked up and I said rather loudly, "“I'’ll be damned."” He was walking with his head down not wanting to be recognized, but Aurora said good morning to him. He jerked his head up and looked at both of us, and replied, "“oh, hello."” It'’s nothing to see stars on the upper west side of Manhattan, shoot I sat next to Al Franken on the subway, and literally run into Alec Baldwin, but this guy? He's not New York at all, so it was neat way to end the morning.