Monday, July 21, 2008

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

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I never felt like a plodder when doing ultras. Maintaining adequate speed for me was a function of spending a couple days a week at near tempo pace for at least a couple miles. I took it to the barn when the opportunity presented itself or I was dreaming about racing Keino again.

Double

Anonymous said...

I'm sure your time spent on the American Girl dollhouse will be remembered for many years so probably time well spent. Sounds like a cool project.

Anonymous said...

That is one sweet picture. -MG

Chad said...

Double, I think Katie used the term "plodder" loosely. 8 hours at Ed Fitz is not much behind your studly performance in '02.

Jim, you're right. Those browie points come in handy when I'm out for a long run or at a race.

Matt, yeah it was a great way to end a really fun day. Hope you can nail a 1500 meter PR before coming home.