Tuesday, April 18, 2006

SHOULD PROBABLY KEEP QUIET

Tonight I met my training group on the north side of Lake of the Isles. Since that’s fairly close to work, I decided not to drive all the way home and then back in rush hour. That meant that I got to the lake at 5:30, but we weren’t meeting till 6:30. Hey, I already stayed at work an hour longer than normal; you can’t expect me to stay 2 hours longer.

I figured I’d just get in a long warm-up and run around Isles and Calhoun, before running 75-90 minutes of hills. It turns out that Lake Calhoun is the place to see and be seen as ‘everyone’ was out walking, running, biking or rollerblading.

By the time I got back to our meeting place I had run 55 minutes. I kept the pace easy, so I thought I’d be alright on the hills. Wrong. It turns out that chasing Jenna and Jim on the hills requires a lot of energy. After about 4 hills I was running on fumes. When I looked at my watch I had a total running time of 1:45. That’s exactly when I ran out of steam last Saturday too. I managed another 7 minutes of running tonight and called it 14 miles.

My leg was bothering me during my “warm-up” but felt fine once I picked up the pace. That makes me wonder if it is shin splits, since the pain went away. With a stress fracture the pain would get worse as I continued to run.

I should probably keep quiet – but I won’t. I just wanted to make it clear that I’m not here to make friends. If that happens along the way (and it has) that’s great, but I don’t define my blog by being part of a community and sitting around singing “coumb by ya” (or however it’s spelled). It’s a running web log of my actual training and racing, my training philosophies, what’s going on in the sport and maybe even some family stuff.

Hopefully it is interesting and entertaining. If you feel compelled to keep reading (and even leave a comment), that’s great. If not, that’s fine too. I understand that there are lots of running blogs out there (and that number will probably continue to rise) and that we all have a limited amount of free time. As a result, we all have to pick and chose the blogs we read. For me, it has nothing to do with being an elitist or not liking someone, personally. It’s about finding blogs that meet the criteria you are looking for; informative, entertaining, funny, cool photos, links, surveys, or any hosts of reasons. If I find a blog that meets my criteria, I’ll keep reading and maybe even commenting as long as I continue to like that blog. It doesn’t matter if the person on the other end acknowledges me or not. I won’t stop reading good blogs just because I don’t get some sense of community. And I won’t keep reading boring blogs in order to make “friends.”

Quote of the day:
“If you feel bad at 10 miles, you’re in trouble. If you feel bad at 20 miles, you’re normal. If you don’t feel bad at 26 miles, you’re abnormal.” Rob de Castella

5 comments:

  1. Are you getting hate e-mail from die-hard RoadRunnerSports.com fanatics or something? Maybe some of the punks from the Let's Run messageboards found your blog? Just curious what inspired this post.

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  2. Ah, so you're an "elite snob" too!

    Did that phrase come from a comment someone made to you? I'm going to have to do some catch up reading...
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    That's got to be a little anxiety provoking, feeling worn out after 1:45. Do you think it's just a byproduct of overall training fatigue?

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  3. We are in the same camp. I'm too far entrenched in the sport to not always be training for something. I'm not doing a lot of miles, but I seem to pile them up week after week. I average close to 60 which is nice because if I want to crank out a few 70+ it isn't that difficult.

    I am and avid reader of your blog. How couldn't I be? The most successful crew guy I ever had.

    I am anxiously awaiting your marathon crackdown training. If you look at what Daws and Hoag did it wasn't a lot of jogging around and looking good.

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  4. Eric, I have just read some posts recently about respecting people of all abilities. Rob, in particular, had a couple of posts on the topic. I don't have a problem with runners who are slower (or faster) than me. There's plenty of room on the roads for everyone.

    I just think there are more important reasons to visit someone's blog other than because they visit yours. Just because someone leaves a comment doesn't mean I'm "required" to read their blog and leave comments too.

    Susan, it's the porn, the sense of humor and the cute profile pictures, of course.

    Chelle, I hope you know I was kidding with that comment. No, no one has made that comment directly to me.

    As for feeling worn out after 1:45, it probably has to do with running hard without any water, energy drink or gels. Overall, training fatigue is possible too. I'm definitely feeling worn out lately.

    Double, I agree. Even when I'm not racing, I'm still training. I don't understand how people can run their goal race and then just take time off until their next training program starts.

    Glad to hear things are going well. I saw your (and Jamie's) results from Trailbreaker. Nice job.

    If you can guarantee a sub-7:45 every time I crew for you, I'm there.

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  5. Good Quote!

    Hope the shins are just tight!

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