3 WEEKS

Well, I figure at least 3 people will read my blog today, since I ran with Nathan, Mike, and Kirk for the first time ever on Saturday. These are 3 of the fastest blogging runners, who don’t blog about running, that I know. They each kicked my ass at the Human Race 8K two weeks ago, so I knew I was asking for it by joining them for my last long run before Boston.

We met a mile from my house and decided on 2-loop course that contained a lot of hills. Kirk even sent a spreadsheet last week that showed the elevation changes – at least that’s what I think it showed. I wasn’t positive on how to read the spreadsheet, but I did see LOTS of positive and negative numbers. Too bad he wasn’t able to factor in the wind too, that really would have shown how difficult this run was.

I ended up with 2:45 of running and called it 22 miles. That gave me 62 miles for the week on 6 runs. And since it’s not the kind of run you bounce back from quickly, I followed it up with easy 5 milers on Sunday and this morning. That means I closed out March with 250 miles (along with 16 skiing miles).

In my early days as a marathoner, I trained with a local health club’s marathon program. The one piece of advice I still remember from that group is not too run too hard 3 weeks out from your race, because it can be difficult to recover from. Well, we’ll see whether or not I left my race out there on Saturday instead of saving it for April 21st. If I did leave my race out there, I may have to find some 3:20 marathoners to train with.

I will say that the run went by incredibly quickly. So thanks to Nathan for the invite, Kirk for laying out the course and providing water and Gatorade, and to Mike for, umm…umm, showing up only 5 minutes late. That’s pretty good for him, I hear.

All right, enough about my weekend of running. This morning on The Track & Field Superblog I found a link to an article that Bill Bowerman wrote in 1971 regarding running form. I haven’t read it yet, but I’m going out on a limb and saying it’ll be worth reading. And if it’s not, you can always follow the “galleries” link at the bottom to something called “Cheerleader of the Week”. I’m sure that’s worth “reading.”

Quote of the day;

“The only way to avoid being miserable is not to have enough leisure to wonder whether you are happy or not.” – George Bernard Shaw