Monday, July 07, 2008

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

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