SKELETON DANCE

It’s amazing how much the weather can change in 24 hours. Yesterday’s weather was very similar to Sunday’s; 80-85 degrees with a dew point over 70. Today is was 60-65 with a dew point of 50. I was almost cold out there – even with a t-shirt on.

Yesterday I managed a very easy 5 miles. I had thoughts of running another easy 5 miles in the evening but I decided to “make my easy days easy and my hard days hard.” Instead, I added another 5 easy miles this morning and I’ll follow that up with a hard hill/track workout tonight.
That’s it. That’s all I have today; weather and 2 easy 5 mile runs to report.

While I was injured I was posting passages that I like from Running with the Buffaloes. I kind of got away from that as I got healthy. Rather than going off on GPS, HRM, iPODs, etc, I’ll get back to the book.

“If you can get to four miles feeling good, then people will be doing the skeleton dance there. Go by sensory data. It’s never wrong. Respiration tells you everything.” – Wetmore to Tessman

Tessman already understands the beauty of Wetmore’s system. It is designed to make you run well at a specific time. It is a system built on faith, because you cannot panic if you are not racing as fast as you can during the season. – Lear

Talking about how talented a cyclist Chris Severy was in high school…He raced the Mt. Evans Hill Climb, a ride that starts at over 7000 feet and finishes at over 14,000 feet, clad in a T-shirt and shorts. He was and still is “anti-gear,” and he loved “how all the other cyclists would be pissed when some kid in a T-shirt and shorts beat them.” He was there, he said, “to race, not to win a fashion contest.” He went on to win the amateur portion of the race, beating legendary triathlete Mark Allen by two minutes, and his time would have placed him 20th among the pros.

As with seemingly every cross-training regimen, his ambition to get after it cycling or swimming has faded with each subsequent day. – Lear on Batliner’s injury

Like the others, his training is what gives him confidence, or as he puts it, “my training and fitness govern my mind. My mind is completely reactive to my physical strength and my fitness.” – Batliner

Wetmore never counts on his athletes running out of their heads. He was and is preparing them to approach NCAA’s as just another race. After all, “How many people go to the National Championships and run better than they have all year? Ten percent? I don’t want to go in having to run better than ever. I want them to think business as usual. If five of us run business as usual, we’ll be alright.” For this reason there will be no fire and brimstone speeches. Wetmore believes “the more cranked up you are on rhetoric, the less likely you are to run well. You go out hard the first mile, mile and a half, and run worse than you would have.”

Quote of the day;
“Every day I'm training I'm at least thinking about racing.” – Double