Tuesday, April 28, 2009

For this shit, too old I am getting

As Yoda said to me the other day.

The World 24 Hour championships is upon us, or rather me, again. It seems like no time at all since the horrors of Seoul, but on Thursday we fly out to Bergamo for this year's version. Physically seem to be in decent enough shape, if carrying a kilo or two too much excess baggage. The long runs have posed no problems at all: I did the last one, or rather last three, the day before flying out to San Remo. I have definitely lost a bit of speed in the past year but at my age, that's pretty inevitable. As I, or rather Yoda, said, for this shit, too old I am getting.

Mentally I have done more or less zero preparation. At this stage I'm just hoping a relaxed "Just do it" approach similar to two years ago will yield the best results. I have no idea whether the requisite desire to just do it, when it means pushing your body to the maximum extremes of fatigue and despair, is there or not. This is presumably a make or break race: if it doesn't go to non-plan, I'll probably call time on my career as an international ultra runner. I started running purely for the health benefits (my obsessive nature eventually leading to the madness of ultras), and I'm happy at this stage to go back to that if I can no longer compete at the top level. For this shit, too old I am maybe getting.

Decent enough week online since returning from Remo, up about $1500 despite doing the guts of $1K on unfruitful WSOP sats. Played the Fitz last night, and played very well but just kept losing races, some of which weren't even races. Twice I lost with dominating aces for big pots. Exit hand was not AJ for once. Down to 15 bigs, three high blind limpers limped to me in mid position. I decided this was a good spot to shove (with TT) as the chances of a bigger pair out there were slim, I could add 40% to my stack if it got through, I might even get a donktastic call from 88 or 99, and otherwise I'd probably be racing getting 7/5 on my money. With antes and a 20 minute clock, you can't be hanging around too long. So it panned out: the BB made a donktastic "lucky not to be a dominated little donkey" call with AQ and hit the ace. Ah, the joys of tournament poker. For this shit, too old I am getting.

When I came back from San Remo, I thought I'd be playing the Bruce freeroll thing as I'd been second in the Westbury standings after the date had closed and Larry had pretty much assured me I was in. However, Franco (the owner of the club, I believe) somehow leapfrogged past me to claim the second berth. Slightly surprising for a number of reasons, but perhaps not for at least one other. No point in getting too worked up about it in any case, as for this shit...

3 comments:

Are you mental going to the Fitz this week! Forget poker... Get out there and RUUUUUUUNNNNNNN!!!!!

GL!!!!

Good luck with the world 24 Hour championships Dara; between endurance running & poker you really are a glutton for punishment...

Are you back in time for the JP Masters?

Thanks Queenj.

Yup Thomas, will be back for JP Masters. FTed it last year to shake off the "one hit wonder" tag so looking forward to it.

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