Mass Appeal

The first week back doing workouts and drills always leaves me feeling pretty sore, that’s where I am right now.  Three workouts this week and 1/2 of Wednesday’s was done on the indoor track.  I’m going to do a few more track sessions this winter than I did in recent years as I want to reconnect with some 3000m ’speed’ that has alluded me because of injuries and marathons.  I find racing indoors exciting and a good place to brush up on racing tactics.  If you can manuever around people on a 200m track you should be fine once the outdoor season rolls around.

My 25th place at Worlds was not good enough to get me carded (funded by the federal government) this year.  I’m not surprised at all because I didn’t hit the mandatory time standard (2:15:48).  The reason I believe I didn’t hit the standard in Berlin is because it was pretty hot that day (23C). Most of the runners were a few minutes back of what they could have run and I was only 1 minute off of the carding standard.  I knew going into Berlin it was more than likely to be hot with the 11:45AM start time.  I would have been better off running a fast 10 000m in Europe or a big city marathon (Chicago) in the fall to hit a carding standard.

The definition of carding is to fund those athletes who are likely to be in the top 16 at a World Championships or Olympic Games.  To make progress towards that particular goal we felt it was crucial to run and get the experience at the World Champs, although the best way to get carded would have been to forgo the World Champs and race a fall marathon .  Athletics Canada (AC) has sent a clear message, ‘run to get carded and forget representing your country’….  but how do you finish top 16 at Worlds or Olympics if you don’t race the major champs, hmmm?

The funniest part is that I sent in an appeal about my situation because I felt my performance at Worlds was worthy of being carded.  Some lady, who I’m pretty sure is clueless about running, tells me I didn’t hit the carding standard, a fact I outlined in my appeal.  Don’t tell me something I already acknowledged, have the balls to tell me that my performance at Worlds is not on a level to be carded.

It’s fun to bitch about this but in reality not being carded this year won’t change anything for me.  I still have Quest for Gold funding and support from Speed River, New Balance and Power Bar.  The motivation is still there (maybe stronger) and my goals are all still intact.  Now I don’t have to report to the AC distance coach although I’m still required to fill out my CCES whereabouts for drug testing… if they don’t think I’m good enough to be carded then why would they want to drug test me?