Flashes of Panic

A and I have remarked that tomorrow’s USA cross-country championships isn’t actually as tough a race as everyone’s talking it up to be. That isn’t to say that it won’t be deep, tough, competitive, etc.—that’s to say that it’s always like that, the more so now that the short course race is gone. What’s different this year is that we’re in Boulder, and the local organizers seem to be raising a lot more media buzz than anyone else has in the past. They’ve been spoon-feeding athletes and stories to a few key outlets for a few weeks now, and as a result, more people are paying attention.

There is an undeniable good to this, of course: the USA XC championships is one of the toughest national championships in this country, barring only perhaps certain Olympic Trials events, and people should be aware of that. But there’s some dissonance in the ears of those of us who’ve been paying attention for years, because, hey, this race has always been tough to win. Remember Lynn Jennings?

In a not-entirely-unrelated anecdote, my watch keeps two times, which is useful for leaving it set to US-Eastern when I travel. This evening I went to switch to “time 2” and was surprised to find it almost all ready—two hours behind. Something made me double-check: Nope, not two hours behind. Fourteen hours ahead.