STUMBLING THROUGH

I’ve had 20 milers that went by quicker than yesterday’s 5 miler. 78 degrees and a dew point of 72 (at 6 AM) didn’t help matters. I thought about running another 5 miles last night, but decided to save it for this morning’s workout.

Whatever I saved, there wasn’t enough of it as I really struggled with this workout;

2 mile warm-up
4 ½ miles at M
¾ mile at T
4 miles at M
¾ mile at T
1 mile cool-down

3 miles into the first marathon paced portion of the run, I came within two steps of shutting things down. I was only running about 7:00 pace and was pretty frustrated because I thought I should be about 15 seconds faster per mile. I just couldn’t get going.

I can’t even blame the weather since the humidity broke overnight and it was 65 degrees with a dew point of 58. I did use the nice conditions to help keep me going – albeit at my continued slower pace. I figured this might be the best weather I see for the next 6 weeks, so I should at least stumble through the workout the best I could.

My right quad is still tender and swollen. Although I don’t really think about it when I’m running – except when going downhill – it seems to be affecting me. If nothing else, it’s done a number on my confidence. I just seemed to be gaining fitness and confidence with each passing week and now this ‘injury’ – although not running related – has put a damper on that.

I guess there always has to be some obstacles along the way.

In any case, I managed 13 miles in 1:38 and I consider just getting through the workout a victory – even if it was slower than I would have liked.

Quote of the day;

“I guess the bottom line is; the root of Lydiardism is this sense of being fit; not being restricted by things like, “Oops, my heart rate is 6 beats per minute too high! I’d better slow down…” or “Oh-o, here’s a hill; I’d better walk…” To me, it sort of saps “joy” of adventure running out of it…” - Nobby Hashizume

SELF-IMPOSED

Sometimes things work out for the best when you plan out all the details. Sometimes things work out for the best when your plans fall apart. In the first instance, last week’s 22-mile run is a good example; nice weather, perfect course, plenty of water, some company along the way, etc.

As for the second instance, that occurred Saturday morning when I went to run a 10K race in northern Wisconsin. I used to run the Firechief’s 10K as far back as junior high school – it’s been around forever. Well, I guess ‘forever’ means ‘until 2007’. My mom warned me that she didn’t think they were having the race this year. But I saw info for it online, so I wasn’t sure what to believe. Since the race is only 10 miles from my parent’s house, I drove over any way. I pulled into town around 8:15 for the 9:00 start and things didn’t look good. While there was activity, it was of the flea market variety, not the running race variety.

I asked around, but couldn’t seem to get a straight answer; “I’m not sure.” “Yeah, I think they’re still having it.” Even the cop I asked said, “It was advertised.”

Rather than waste time waiting for a race that wasn’t going to happen, I decided to head out for a run and followed the old course – or at least, how I remembered it. I forgot how tough this course is. Even though you start and finish in roughly the same location, the amount of up hills leaves you wondering, “Where were the down hills?” And mile 2.5 to 3.5 was up a gradual hill, into a 10-15 mph wind, on gravel – not a good combination for fast times.

In the end, I think this was a blessing in disguise. Given that I ran a hard workout Tuesday and then ran long on Thursday, I don’t think my body was ready for a race on Saturday. I’m at the point where I need more recovery between my hard workouts. So ‘missing’ the race probably worked out for the best.

And now I’m not sure when my body will be ready for anything other than easy running. After returning from ‘the race’ I was helping my dad and brother tear down an old barn. At the end of the day there was a piece made out of 2 pillars with another board across the top that my brother and I were going to knock down. Well instead of both pillars falling away from us, his fell away while mine spun back toward me. The board across the top conked me on the head, knocking me on my ass – followed by the pillar landing on my right quad.

Luckily, I didn’t break or tear anything – or worse. The teardrop part of my quad, right above my knee took the biggest blow. It has a big scrape on it and is swollen. I was able to run 5 easy miles on it last night and another 10 this morning. It bothers me the most when I’m running downhill, which shouldn’t come as a surprise. I thought about doing an interval workout this morning in order to ‘makeup’ for the missed 10K, but in the end I figured that wouldn’t be a good idea.

So, for now, it’s a self-imposed cutback week, which I probably need anyway.

Quote of the day;

“Timber...oomph...I’m okay.” – me

PLEASANTLY TIRED

Wednesday I was trying to figure out where I wanted to run Thursday’s long run. Should I just combine a couple of the loops I run near my house or possible run the out-and-back course I used for Boston? Then I thought, I’m not training for Boston, I’m training for TCM, so why not run the TCM course. I’ve run parts of this course numerous times, but it’s always good to get a sense of what that last 10K is going to be like on tired legs. In order to do that I started at the St. Paul Cathedral and ran the course in reverse to Minnehaha Falls and then turned around and came back – that’s basically running from mile 26 to mile 15 and back.

Ed was nice enough to join me for 5 of the first 6 miles. While those miles were faster (low 7s) than I planned on running, a lot of that was due more to running downhill than running with Ed. After Ed bailed the road leveled out and I settled in to 7:45 pace.

After turning around at the Falls, I tried to pay more attention to the course. From miles 15 to 18 the course really has a nice gradual downhill. Going up to Franklin and then over the Mississippi River around mile 19 breaks that up before flattening out until mile 20. That’s really where the “fun” begins. The next 3 miles are nearly all up hill – mostly gradual, but it’s still up. Maybe the most disheartening part of the course, if you’re not familiar with it, is that sharp left turn just around mile 22. You can’t see around the corner until you make the turn and then you see the steepest part of the course. But overall, I don’t think it’s that bad of a hill. I’m guessing it only takes 60-90 seconds to get up.

Sifting through Doubles two comments on my last post, one of the things he touched on was being able to really only race hard the last 3 miles or so of the marathon – most runners can’t go hard any longer than that at the end of a marathon. That comment combined with this course layout makes me believe you really have to be feeling good at mile 20 at TCM. That way you can increase your effort a little for the next 3 miles to get up the hills and then still be strong enough to race the last 3 miles and take advantage of the gradual downhills. Keep in mind there is one last uphill right around mile 25 that lasts about 2-3 city blocks.

Overall, I ended up running the 22 miles in 2:49, which is 7:40 pace. I was pleasantly tired afterwards, but by 8 PM I was ready for bed.

I’ll close the week with two more Team USA Minnesota journal entries; Chris and Jason. It's nice they have these journals because so far it's the only way I know what elites are running TCM. You'd think the person who will be writing press releases and the media guide for the race would be privy to that info.

Quote of the day;

“If you want to excel, really maximize your potential as a runner, you’re going to end up walking that fine line between optimal training and overtraining.” – Jason Lehmkuhle

RACE SCHEDULE

I’ve said it before. We sure like to bitch about the weather around here. But how about a little praise when it’s been spectacular? I’m talking 80-85 degrees and sunny with a dew point in the mid-50s. Does it get any better than that?

I thought May and June were really nice and have been waiting for July to be miserable. However, we’ve only had a few really crappy stretches of weather and they seem to have only lasted a day or two.

This morning I just ran an easy 5 miles. I’ll run another 5 tonight on the treadmill while watching the TdF’s Alp de Huez stage. Tomorrow I’m taking the day off of work and plan on running my longest pre-TCM run. Hopefully the low dew points can hold out for one more day.

Looking at the calendar, there are just over 10 weeks until TCM. That’s kind of the point where it seems a long ways off, but really it’ll be here before you know it. I was laying out my upcoming race schedule and here’s what I came up with;

7/26 Fire Chief’s 10K
8/10 MDRA 15K
8/23 Rochester Half
9/1 Victory 10K
9/7 City of Lakes 25K

I’m going to try and arrange Daniels’ workouts to fit these types of races. For example, the 15K will replace a 45-50 minute tempo run. And the half marathon and 25K will be used at marathon pace/tempo workouts like I did with the 30K back at the end of May.

Double commented on adding in some shorter repeats. Daniels does have 3 or 4 workouts that combine intervals and these shorter reps. So far there has only been one on the schedule and I replaced that with a race. I’ll try to get in a couple of shorter rep workouts – along with strides 1-2 times per week.

I seem to be gaining fitness and confidence with each passing week and feel like I'm right where I'm supposed to be.

Quote of the day;

“I can lose in Munich and live with it if I give 120 percent, but if I lost because I’d let it go to the last lap and got outkicked…I’d always wonder whether I might have broken away.” – Steve Prefontaine, prior to the Munich games

ALL I COULD HANDLE

Not much time to write today, so this will be a short one.

First off, man, I really wanted to sleep in this morning. After feeding the dog, I just kind of sat on the couch and tried to figure out how I could go back to sleep and still get my miles in for the day/week. There was no way I could do it without missing a workout. And since I hadn’t really done anything hard since last Wednesday, I forced my way out the door.

I ended up running the following;

1.5 mile warm-up
3 miles at tempo
6 miles easy
1.5 miles at tempo
.25 miles easy
1.5 miles at tempo
1.25 miles cool-down
Total = 15 miles in 1:53

Ideally this Daniels’ workout would have a little longer easy run after the 3 mile tempo – more like 8 miles easy – but getting up at 4:30 was all I could handle.

In the end I was glad I didn’t go back to bed.

Quote of the day;

“Running with him was like running with a stallion.” – Jere Van Dyk, referring to Jim Ryun

BEST LAID PLANS

My neighbor took this awesome photo of our kids hanging out together on the 4th of July. We had just grilled out, made some ‘smores and lit sparklers. Here they’re looking towards where the fireworks were going to be.


Two weeks ago I mentioned wanting to increase my weekly mileage by doubling up my easy days and cutting out the unneeded days off. I followed that up with weeks of 81 and 74 this past week with one day off. Unfortunately, my best laid plans for running yesterday didn’t materialize and I ended up taking the day off – just two days after my last day off.

Friday I mentioned working on a project at home. It was a doll house for my daughter – actually it was more like a 4’ x 5’ cube divided into four small rooms for her American Girl stuff. Anyway, after getting it put together and painted we were finally able to get it up the stairs with only putting one hole in the wall – that was pretty good given the size of this thing. However, as we tried to get it into my daughter’s room, it was about 2” too big. I ended up taking the whole thing apart in the hallway and putting it back together in her room. Then I had to re-touch up the paint, as well as fix the wall and repaint it. So the time I had set aside for running was spent on manual labor instead.

This morning, even with an easy pace, I struggled through 10 miles.

I just came across this link on runnerville. Be sure to read the comments too because they’re very good too – especially Claudia’s.

Quote of the day;

“The loss of speed translated to poor performances all the way up to the marathon. I have been doing more speed training this year and it has helped me feel like a stud-muffin miler–chick instead of a plodding ultra runner.” - Katie Koski

TWO CHOICES

For the fun of it, I'll start with a photo of my Katie, mugging for the camera.

The two days following my last hard workout the choices were an easy 5 miler, followed by a 10-mile trail run or a day off followed by a 15-mile trail run. Given that I was busy with a project at home and that I haven’t had a day off in 15 days, I opted for the zero on Thursday and the 15 today. Gotta love those 2+ hour runs during a week day. And with a day off of work today, I was able to cool down by taking the girls skating – indoors, of course.

Since I don’t have much else to say, I’ll close with a bunch of links to help with your weekend reading material.

Several Team USA Minnesota runners have updated their journals, including Antonio, Matt, and Katie. It’s interesting to read the latter two’s thoughts on their Trials experience.

And speaking of Katies, here’s my latest interview.

Quote of the day;

“I have a lot of dirty tricks up my sleeve so watch out. But what I love about all my competitors in Minnesota is after the race we’re all good buddies.” - Katie Koski

HONESTLY

It’s nice to get a comment or email from someone saying they think my fitness is improving. Usually I don’t believe them, but honestly, I feel like I’m starting to come around. A month ago I felt slow and out of shape and was kind of wondering why. Sure I was coming off of a sub-par Boston, but had my fitness really dropped so much since early in the year? Now I’m glad I’m not super fit right now. What would I do with it, as the marathon is still like 11 weeks away?

I ran another tempo workout this morning that ended up being 12 miles in 1:28. This one consisted of the following;

2 mile warm-up
20:00 at tempo
4:00 easy
15:00 T
3:00 E
10:00 T
2:00 E
5:00 T
1+ mile cool-down

I seemed to be hitting quicker splits for this workout, running closer to 6:25 pace – on average. There are 3 things that I attribute that to; 1) I made a conscious effort to only focus on the tempo portion that I was running at that moment – rather than worry how I’d feel for that last 5:00 tempo when I was still running the first, 2) I thought about Ryan Hall’s QOD from Monday regarding pain management, and 3) I thought about Adam’s comment about just going for it and trusting that I am able to run the paces that Daniels suggests.

It seems I must have done something right because the paces were quicker and even the gal at the coffee shop said I looked pretty tired when I finished my run – more than normal, I guess.

Quote of the day – for Eric;

“I remember someone asking the great pole vault champion, Bob Richards, how high did he think he would have vaulted with a fiberglass pole, rather than the non-bending pole of his era. He said he would probably sprint down the runway, plant the pole, pull and twist and jump the same height as he was jumping with the non-bending pole.” - Dan Conway, when asked if he regretted not running in his prime

HARDEST WORKOUT

Maybe I’m not running with the right crowd or reading the right publications any more, but I barely even noticed that the Lifetime Fitness Triathlon was last weekend. It seems like this event used to get a lot more publicity, locally and nationally – even being televised on NBC later in the afternoon. Anyway, in case you missed it, in her very first triathlon, Team USA Minnesota’s Kristen Nicolini-Lehmkuhle finished second in the elite wave to Minnesota’s best short course triathlete. Given her history of injuries from “just” running, it’ll be interesting to see where this leads. I believe Team USA Minnesota sponsorships run yearly through July or August, so maybe we’ll know something sooner rather than later.

Yesterday was a recovery day for me, so that meant two very easy 5 mile runs – the second run included 6 strides. Sometimes just getting in these strides is the hardest “workouts” for me to accomplish. Daniels has two of these scheduled during the week. Normally they’re the first thing that I end up not following through on, but so far I’ve been doing a pretty good job with them.

This morning I ran an easy 11 mile trail run in Hyland Park. The dew point is starting to creep up now. And the bugs are still out, but not quite as bad as my last trail run. I’ve noticed that a dark colored shirt works better than a white one for keep the black flies off my back.

Not to get ahead of myself, but I was thinking a little bit about next year and thinking that I should add in some type of explosive drills into my routine – even if it means cutting mileage. I’m not getting any younger and it feels like I’m losing what little explosiveness that I had. I don’t know what drills I’d do or even how I’d incorporate them, but it’s something to think about.

Finally, thanks to Eric for sending along a little post-Olympic Trials humor.


Quote of the day;

“I choose not to mention any weaknesses.” - Dan Conway, when asked what his weaknesses were

BALANCING ACT

It seems my ‘random thoughts’ posts are more interesting than anything else I’ve posted. Here’s a random question that I don’t know the answer to;

What’s the difference between salsa and picante sauce?

On the running front, it’s nice to finally be able to back up something I’ve talked about recently, like increasing my mileage. Friday I ran an easy 10 miles on the trails with some strides and then Saturday I managed 13 miles during our group run. That gave me 81 miles for the week on 8 runs. Believe it or not, that’s my biggest week since the first week in 2008 when I had 83 miles.

Saturday’s group run was the same balancing act that I’ve mentioned before. With a workout planned on Sunday, do I say ‘screw it’ and run with the group or take a more conservative approach? I ended up hanging back with Dan and ‘only’ running about 7:15 pace. The pace felt fairly comfortable, but I definitely didn’t want to go any faster for risk of having a crappy workout the next day.

I must have done something right because I felt really good for Sunday’s 16 mile workout which consisted of a 2 mile warm-up, 6 miles at MP, ¾ mile at tempo, 4 ½ miles at MP, ¾ mile at tempo, 2 mile cool-down. The only ‘problem’ is that my mile splits were all over the map due to 20+ mph winds. One mile I was running MP at 7:25, the next mile I was running 6:40. But I’m not going to complain as the weather is still incredible. Even though it was 70-75 degrees during the run, the dew point was less than 55 degrees.

Normally, I like to post links that I find myself, however, Scott found this interesting blog entry by Ryan Hall. From it I pull today’s quote of the day.

And I finally got around to posting another interview. Notice the great ‘stache!!!

Quote of the day;

“I had reached a juncture at this point in the run: either I could get discouraged with the reality that I am not able to think myself into sprinting up the hill or I could accept, and even relish, in the pain and discomfort running throughout my body embracing the pain as part of my mission. Then something happened that I have never experienced during any painful running session: a smile slowly crept across my face. It was kind of a weird reaction to have, but for some reason I felt very alive and there was a new joy that I found in simply going all out. It was a great feeling to know that I was pushing myself to the max, that at this moment I had looked deep into myself for strength and used whatever I could muster.” - Ryan Hall

RANDOM THOUGHTS

A hard workout and a happy hour last night means I slept in today. I’ll get a run in later tonight. Here are some random thoughts;

I’m not sure if it’s because the Olympic Trials were taking place or because of all the doping scandals last year, but I nearly forgot the Tour de France was taking place. Let’s see, we had the Trials in late June/early July, then the Tour. After a 2 week break the Games will be here. Then summer will be over.

I was reading an article in Outside magazine the other night about a bike team that’s taking a proactive approach to cleaning up the sport. Rather than focusing on drug testing that detects the drugs, they create a profile of each rider and then continuously test them to monitor for the effects the drugs would have on their body. Not a perfect system, but it seems like a step in the right direction.

Any other USATF members out there? Anyone else thing their Fast Forward magazine is pretty lame? The pictures are the best part. However, the info is usually 2 months old. For example, the latest issue has a recap of the women’s marathon trials. And the “articles” are very short recaps that aren’t very exciting. Here’s a sentence I found interesting in one particular recap;

At four miles, Abdirahman pulled away from Browne at five miles and extended his lead to four seconds at the finish.

Huh?

Finally, even though I grew up in Wisconsin, it took about 15 years before I realized that the old glove logo on the Milwaukee Brewers hat was made up of an “m” and a “b”.

Quote of the day;

“In 2004 (Olympics), I felt very lonely. The Olympics is not what is used to be. It doesn't have the power. People are getting caught up in winning the gold medal, the silver medal, the bronze medal, the endorsements. It's too commercial. People are losing sight of what the Olympics is about.” - Anthony Famiglietti

EVIL EYE

My last post mentioned that I wanted to up my mileage. The simplest ways to do that are; 1) Quit taking needless days off. In the 3 weeks between June 13th and July 4th, I took 5 days off. That’s way too many. 2) Run two easy runs during my recovery days, Monday and Friday. That’s what I ended up doing on Monday – two easy 5 mile runs.

During the morning run, I nearly got carried away by black flies – and I wasn’t even running on the Hyland trails. At least I’m not the only one complaining about the flies. Luckily, a year or two ago a bought a hat similar to the one shown here. Up until yesterday, I had never worn it. But I broke it out for an 11 mile trail run, which included some strides. I was able to complete most of the run without having the netting down – just the wide brim of the hat was enough to keep the flies away.

Somehow I’ve gotten really lucky when it comes to the weather on my workout days. After 2 hot, muggy days in a row, I was greeted with 63 degrees and a dew point in the mid-50s this morning. Lately I’ve been running my tempo workouts on a fairly rolling course. Today I decided to change that up and I headed to the LRT trail in Hopkins that runs along Minnetonka Blvd. I ended up running 12 miles with 7.5 of them at 6:39 pace. Prior to the run I penciled in 6:35-6:40 pace, so I guess I did all right.

The weird thing is that I couldn’t get my HR over 170 for the first half – even though it’s usually around 173-178 when I run on the hilly route. During the second half I was able to get it up to 172, but that’s about it. Maybe the pancake flat course had something to do with it.

All my miles were between 6:32 and 6:42, except for the last one which slowed to 6:48. I think the 6:32 and 6:36 prior to the last one may have been a little too quick. But I had to pick up the pace because when I passed some guy who was running about 8:00 pace, he got right behind me and tried to keep up. Given that we were on a gravel path, I could hear every one of his strides. After about 30 seconds I turned around and gave him the “evil eye” but he didn’t take the hint. After about another minute, he slowed down.

Finally, here’s a LINK to Emily Brown’s latest journal entry. In it she talks about the stress fracture she got a month before the Trials.

Quote of the day;

“I spent those last two weeks kind of cut off from the running world--I didn’t return calls, texts or emails and I avoided going past the track or looking at runners out on the trails. I chose to keep myself in a state of denial. Not in denial of the fact that I had a stress fracture but more so in denial of what that meant for my season and all the hard work I put in this past year for just one race. I am still not ready to reflect on that.” – Emily Brown

SOMETHING'S MISSING

Something's missing and I can’t quite put my finger on what it is. In general, it’s confidence. But where does that come from? Is it from nailing workouts, hitting higher mileage weeks, doing the little things to help improve fitness, etc.? My first hunch is that it’s mileage, as I’ve been averaging less than 60 MPW for the last month – at least. Even with the added workouts, I don’t see why I shouldn’t be running more like 70-80 MPW, as I’ve done in the past.

Friday I jumped in the local 5 mile race. My schedule called for 24-minutes of intervals, so I thought this would be a nice substitute. The race went about how my workouts have been going lately – leaving me thinking I should be about 10 seconds faster per mile. To sum up the race, I ran 6:15s for 4 miles and 6:40 for the mile with a big hill. My splits were 6:15, 6:39, 6:12, 6:20, 6:08 for a time of 31:34. Somehow I got 3rd in my age group even though the results show that I was 4th. So if, by chance, Scott Wiegrefe is reading and wants his medal, let me know. Be sure to go over to Kirk’s blog and congratulate him on his third place finish overall in 28:26 – and encourage him to share his training secrets on his blog.

Saturday was an easy 6 mile recovery run and then yesterday I had a nice, solo 20 mile run. While the temps were 70-75 degrees, the dew point was around 60, so it wasn’t too bad – kind of a nice transition run into the crappy weather that’s sure to be here soon.

Well, the trials are over. I’ll try to post some general thoughts tomorrow. In case you missed it, Team USA Minnesota coach, Dennis Barker, explained Katie’s race strategy. I still wonder if she would have run the same way if Begley had the A-standard prior to the race. Anyway, it’s a good thing Dennis is not Alan Webb’s coach because he’d have a lot of clarifying to do.

Finally, thanks to Ed for emailing this entertaining, UNCENSORED video of javelin thrower, Breaux Greer.

Quote of the day;

“This kind of shows me there is a big difference between marathon and 10k training.” – Dathan Ritzenhein, after running 28:05 to finish 8th in the 10,000m

BOOK REVIEW

I’m sure it’s a slow day due to the holiday weekend, so I thought I’d just post something I already had written up. About 2 months ago I mentioned The Runner’s Cookbook. After receiving a copy, I wrote a brief review for MDRA.

Cookbook Review by Chad Austin

Every once in awhile I come across a simple idea that makes me think, “Why didn’t I think of that.” The most recent case being a book entitled The Runner's Cookbook: Winning Recipes from Some of the World's Best Athletes. It was compiled and edited by Alison Wade, who simply emailed professional runners and asked them to send her their favorite recipe, along with a note on why they chose that recipe. Just reading through these notes and looking at the running photos was enjoyable, because it’s not something found in your typical cookbook.

The end result contains 100 recipes from over 90 different athletes, including everything from breads and soups & salads to main dishes and side dishes. Being runners, you can bet there are plenty of pasta recipes like, Pasta Arrabiata (Sebastian Coe), Artichoke Lasagna (Amy Hastings), Pumpkin Lasagna (Deena Kastor), and Mushroom Risotta (Chris Lundstrom), just to name a few. Don’t worry, just because they’re professional athletes doesn’t mean they left out the dessert section. There are over 20 recipes for cookies, pies, and other goodies.

Minnesota runners are well represented thoughout the book. You’ll find Dick Beardsley’s French Toast, Bob Kempainen’s Corn Chowder, Kara (Wheeler) Goucher’s Veggie and Chicken Stir Fry. You’ll also find a variety of recipes from Team USA Minnesota runners, Kristen Nicolini Lehmkuhle, Carrie Tollefson, Matt Gabrielson, and Katie McGregor.

So far I've only made one recipe from the book, Matt Gabrielson's Grandma D's Goulash. Do not be alarmed that my youngest daughter said, "Ew, what's that smell?" and my oldest daughter said, "If I take one more bite, can I have something else?" These are standard responses in our household for any meal that takes longer than 30 seconds to prepare. Trust me, the goulash was delicious.

Best of all, this is a fundraising cookbook and all the contributions go to the Ryan Shay Memorial Fund and the Jenny Crain "Make It Happen" Fund. The price is $14.95, plus shipping and handling. Go HERE to learn more about these runners, preview the table of contents, and to place an order.

Quote of the day;

“I have this marathon a little bit in my heart.” – Uta Pippig, referring to the Boston Marathon

DETRIMENTAL

Getting up at 4:30 AM and then staying up till midnight to watch the Trials – with only an hour nap – is not conducive to running the next morning. Rather than squeezing something in last night, I enjoyed taking the day off and getting back up this morning for a 10 mile trail run with Evan and Jason.

I know rest is a key component of any training plan, but it always seems more detrimental when I take the first day of the month off – or even the first day of the week. It kind of feels like I haven't done anything yet for this new time period, why am I taking the day off - even though I ran a hard workout the day before.

Anyway, lack of sleep was well worth it to watch the Trials, especially the men’s 800m and the men’s 5000m final. Great job by Team Minnesota’s Matt Gabrielson to finish 8th in 13:38.06. That’s about 8 seconds away from his PR, but at his level it’s more about competing – something I know he’s been disappointed with lately.

In an effort to help out Mike, who’s one of the recruiters for the TC-10 mile, I wanted to mention how local elites can get a comp entry into the race. If you go to this page and scroll down, you’ll see a list of the time standards. If you meet any of those standards, send Mike an email at: michael_nawrocki AT yahoo DOT com. This should be done BEFORE signing up or trying to enter through the general lottery process. If you are eligible for a comp entry, DO NOT enter the lottery process.

Run fast, save $60. It's that simple.

Quote of the day;

“I feel good, because I stayed in there and competed, which I’ve kind of been slacking on the last year or so.” - Matt Gabrielson