BETTER LATE...

This time of year is always busy for me at work and this year has been no different. I've had lots on my mind, but not much time to write anything down.

I could have mentioned how winter arrived overnight, literally, a couple of weeks ago. We went from 68 degrees to 6" of snow in the span of about 36 hours. I don't think the temp has been much over 30 degrees since. Right now it's 9 degrees outside. It's November 23rd! If this keeps up it's going to be a long winter.

I wanted to mention that after writing that base building article I was fired up again and managed weeks of 50 and 60 miles. Now my shin has flared up. I've never had shin splits or a stress fracture, so I don't know if it's one or the other - or neither. In either case, I need to figure it out soon before I put on 50 pounds before the holidays even arrive.

I was going to ask what everyone does with all their medals. As I was laying around, not exercising, I decided to go through a bunch of stuff. I never realized how many medals I had just sitting in boxes and drawers. Maybe that's the best place for them, but I was wondering if anyone does anything special with theirs?

Finally, here are some photos from Halloween. We hosted a party for the kids and it turned out to be a very busy day for me;

BUILDING A BIGGER BASE

Almost 6 months to the day I wrote this post where I was seeking help regarding writing an article about mileage trumping ancillary training. I finally got around to writing this article. I didn’t include any specific examples yet, but I’m still considering it.

Building a Bigger Base
A friend of mine ran a fall marathon with the outside goal of qualifying for Boston. Entering the race, she needed to drop 14-minutes from her PR. That’s a rather large chuck of time to drop in one race, but it’s doable. She had a very good race and was able to shave seven minutes from her PR. Like most runners, she started to think about a spring marathon and the training that would finally get her a well-earned Boston Qualifier (BQ). With winter on the horizon she told me, “I want to focus on speed.” Her plan is to cut her mileage and include more speed work because that’s what she thinks is holding her back from her BQ.

At first, I just bit my lip and nodded. The whole time I was thinking she has it backwards. Looking at her race splits, she was on-pace for her BQ until mile 23. Then the wheels started to fall off and she lost roughly two minutes per mile the rest of the way. To me, that means she can handle the pace needed to reach her goal, she just lacks the strength to carry that speed for 26.2 miles. Finally, I spoke up and told her I thought this winter would be the perfect time to focus on more miles, not fewer miles. I think developing a bigger mileage base will more likely push her to her goal, than more speed.

Of course, this isn’t an original thought. The famous New Zealand coach, Arthur Lydiard deserves much of the credit. His training philosophy revolves around the concept of stamina and endurance being prerequisites to which speed is later added. As he put it, “Speed and the ability to run while in oxygen debt can be developed in four to five weeks, so why waste a lot of time running intervals and speed work when performance is governed by the aerobic capacity?” Instead, Lydiard preached running a lot of miles and building a huge base, saying, “You must do as much aerobic running as you can. The minimum is three months. Four months is better, five is better still but anything less than three months is not enough.”

When I think about setting aside 3-5 months for base building, I can’t help but think of our Minnesota winters. If there’s a better time for base building in this area, I haven’t found it. If you think about it, the local road-racing scene typically lasts from March to October. That leaves the other four months of the year for building your aerobic capacity. Sure, winters can be tough around here, but I like to live by the adage “there isn’t bad weather, just bad clothing.” When you combine things like high-tech clothing, treadmills, indoor tracks, running at the Metrodome, etc., you’ll find that you can indeed thrive during a Minnesota winter, instead of just survive.

If your interest is piqued and you’d like to build a bigger base, there’s no better source than Lydiard. While his training philosophy may be misconstrued among the masses, it is well regarded among other coaches. Many people think his entire program simply involves slogging through at least 100 miles per week. However, that’s not the case at all. As Olympian Ron Daws, who was a big proponent of Lydiard, puts it in his book, Running Your Best, “Mileage is important, but it isn’t everything. During your buildup ideally you should run the highest mileage you can without injury or exhaustion. As you become fitter and have reached a high but endurable weekly mileage, you shouldn’t try to run more miles, but more at or near the fastest pace you can without becoming anaerobic. Never make your target mileage a contest to see how much you can run. If you run so far you never run fast, you are doing it wrong.”

I used to hate reading any training article that included the phrase, “find what works for you.” I wondered why I couldn’t just read in black and white what to do to achieve my best results. Finding what works is often a trial and error approach that can be time consuming and frustrating. However, now I understand what a friend of mine means when he says, “We’re all an experiment of one.” Each runner is different in many ways (see sidebar) and we all have to experiment to find out what works best for us. This holds true whether we’re adding speed workouts, incorporating recovery days, or building our base mileage.

While there are many ways to go about increasing one’s mileage and building a bigger base, here are a few tactics that I’ve used with success. First, the 10% rule states that you should never increase your previous week’s mileage by more than 10%. I find this rule is most useful when you are building your mileage to levels you never reached before. If you ran 40 MPW all last year, but now you’re at 20 MPW, the 10% rule doesn’t really apply. You can ratchet back to 40 MPW quicker than the 10% rule would allow. However, if you want to take your mileage from, say 40 to 60 MPW, then increasing by no more than 10% each week is a wise move. Second, after building your weekly mileage for two or three weeks in a row, incorporate a cutback week where you reduce your mileage for the week. This will allow your body to recover and adapt to the increased stressed placed upon it before beginning another two to three week building phase. Third, as poet William Blake said, “You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough.” As you continue to build your mileage, be sure to listen to your body and be on the look out for signs of injury and exhaustion. Re-evaluate often and be flexible with your plan as problems arise. Finally, as you experiment with what level of weekly mileage is right for you, be aware that it will change over time as your season and career develop. Just because you got injured once at a certain level of training doesn’t mean you’ll never be able to handle that level again.

I understand that this type of program is not for everyone. It does take commitment and as Daws puts it, “Making a commitment to run comes down to how badly you want to explore your limits. It means honestly confronting your excuses. It means making time to train. If you do that, it will be incredible – running and improving from mileage formerly thought beyond your ability.” So, if you are serious about improving your running and pushing your limits, I encourage you to take a good hard look at your base building this winter. Lay out a plan that is beyond anything you’ve done before. Then once the snow is gone you can worry about adding speed workouts on top of your biggest base ever.

SIDEBAR
From Ron Daws’s Running Your Best
Ten common factors affecting mileage are:
1 - Previous running experience.
2 - Mental tenacity.
3 – Durability.
4 - The events that you are training for.
5 - The speed at which you train.
6 - Outside activities.
7 - Amount of sleep.
8 - Emotional pressures.
9 - Phase of training (goals in training).
10 - One or two-a-day workouts.

UNBELIEVABLE

Wow! The New York Road Runners took marathon coverage to a new level over the weekend. They had incredible coverage leading up to the New York City Marathon; live streaming, on-demand video of press conferences, documentaries, and a fun segment called the Daily Cool Down, which was hosted by Carrie Tollefson who did a terrific job! You can still find many of these videos HERE.

After the race they even had a video of Haile Gebrselassie’s press conference where the greatest runner ever shocked the press corp. by announcing his retirement. I find it hard to believe that we won’t see him in another race. If you watch his pre-race press conference with Paul Tergat, he talks about coming back to NYC until he wins the event. Hopefully, he was just caught up in the heat of the moment after DNF’ing.

I know there’s a lot of debate as to whether he is the greatest ever or not. To me, it’s no contest. This guy was setting world records when I was in college in the mid-90s. Then he set the marathon world record a couple of years ago. There’s like 18 year between his first and last world record. Unbelievable!

Here's a video of the last 2 laps of the 10,000m in Sydney. When Tergat makes his move at about 1:30 into the video, watch Gebrselassie's teammate. I think he says something to Geb about Tergat making his move because Geb starts picking it up before he ever sees Tergat.



Quote of the Day;

“Without me, there’s no Paul Tergat. Without Paul Tergat, there’s no Haile Gebrselassie.” - Haile Gebrselassie

STILL INTACT

Back on October 14th, I challenged myself to become more consistent with my running during the rest of the month. I think I did a pretty good job. During the first 12 days of the month I took 5 days off, but during the last 19 days of the month, I only took 4 days off – and none were back to back. My weekly mileage jumped from 36 MPW to 49 MPW. After a bunch of months where I averaged about 140 miles, I ended up with 192 in October. All of this means things are heading in the right direction and I’m feeling pretty good lately.

I’ve mentioned the importance of being consistent with my training in order to improve. For me, that means getting into a routine that involves running before work. As the seasons change, I’ve noticed that the number of people exercising in the mornings has decreased significantly since the summer when there was much more daylight. That has me wondering where all those people went. Do they go indoors, switch their exercise schedules, start hibernating, etc.?

I should mention that the thought of rim-2-rim-2-rim (which be referred to as rim-cubed from now on – at least on this blog) has me more fired up than anything else I’ve done lately. I like the idea that it’s a new and exciting challenge that would take place in a part of the country I’ve never been to. Plus, it’s not a race, so my retirement would still be intact.

Quote of the Day;

“The day I retire is the day they drop me into the fire or bury me.” – Ron Hill

DING, DING, DING

After this post two weeks ago, I decided to break out a calendar to see when the 2011 Winter Carnival Half Marathon occurs. It falls on January 29th, which, at the time, was 15 weeks away. Then I cracked open my copy of Road Racing for Serious Runners to look at their half marathon training plan. It turns out that it’s a 15 week schedule.

Ding, ding, ding!

They have two programs; one is between 30-50 MPW while the other is between 50-72 MPW. I laid them both out and for the first two weeks, I’ve been right in the middle. I’m not sure what will happen once the snow flies and skis start calling my name, but at least having this running race on the horizon should help keep me motivated.

The other day, my neighbor posted some thoughts that I can easily relate to. Although he’s a biker, we’re the same age, have the same number of kids that are in the same age range, both work full-time, etc. So I often find that we ponder the same issues. Anyway, he wrote that he’s always envied those folks that can race and compete in those epic events that are out. And he knows that he can do it too. The real question is does he want to?

That’s where I find myself a lot of the time. I’m envious. I know I could do those things. But do I want to?

One such case came up during this morning’s group run. One of the things on my bucket list came up. It turns out some of the guys are heading to Arizona in May and running rim-2-rim-2-rim, which is roughly 42 miles. Perfect, since I’ll be 42-years-old next year.

Now I just have to decide if I really want to do it.

Quote of the Day;

“Roger Bannister studied the four-minute mile the way Jonas Salk studied polio – with a view to eradicating.” – Jim Murray

PIGEONHOLING

I get the whole concept that we’re really only competing against ourselves in this sport. However, I can’t help but look through the results to see how well other people are running. Then, immediately after that, I remind myself that so and so isn’t married, that person doesn’t have any kids, his wife is also a runner, that guy is only 28-years-old, and so on.

Of course, if I try hard enough, I can pretty much pigeonhole everyone that’s faster than me into a finite group of categories – even if I have to use the all-encompassing “genetically gifted” category the majority of the time. It’s kind of like coming up with an alibi, there’s always one there, you just have to dig a little.

That’s where I’m going to lump my college teammate, Jim, who I eluded to here. He’s married with 3 kids, his wife doesn’t run, he works full-time, and he’s 39-years old. So I can’t really use any of the standard categories - although 39 IS different than 41. : -)

Why do I lump him in the “genetically gifted” category? Well, he hasn’t been competitive in the last 15 years, yet last weekend he proceeded to run a sub-37 minute trail 10K off of minimal training. That’s faster than anything I’ve run in peak condition during the last 15 years. Given that he ran roughly 30 seconds per mile faster than me while in college, it shouldn’t be that big of a deal. However, you’d think 15 years of little-to-no exercise would help close that gap.

I guess it would have if he’d been racing 40 pounds ago.

Quote of the Day;

“The first 75 guys are professionals, so you have to throw them out. The next 75 guys are 19-year-olds living in their parent’s basement, so you have to throw them out. That means you were in the top-100, which is pretty impressive.” – Scott’s friend after he was a little bummed with “only” finishing in the top-250 at TCM

GIVING BACK

I’m not sure it’s a conscious or subconscious decision, but during the last few years I’ve seemed to be searching for ways to give back to the sport that’s given me so much over the last 30+ years. I’ve been writing for the MDRA newsletter for probably 4-5 years now. Then I started my interview blog back in October of 2006. There was the year of writing press releases for TCM in 2008 before working on the Yearbook last year.

This year the opportunity arose to become the program director/coach of the Eastview Athletic Association cross country program which is geared towards 3rd – 6th graders. The previous program director emailed a very long list of duties, and to be honest, I was a little reluctant to take over the program. However, cross-country is one of those programs with a high likely-hood that no one will take over and the program just fades away.

I agreed to do it as long as I could find another person to help with the coaching duties. Luckily, Val was eager to jump in and give coaching a shot even though she’s never run cross-country. Given that we had no idea what we were getting into, it’s safe to say that we were pretty darn scared before the season started. Then we had our first practice and 30+ kids showed up. Now we were really scared!!! Somehow we were able to muddle through everything.

Before we knew it, the season was over. We had our final practice last night, a time trial, followed by an ice cream social while going over each kid’s improvement during the season. In the end, it was an absolute blast. And it’s actually sad that we’ll have to wait 10 months before we get to do it again.


I wish I could go through each kid’s season here and talk about the highs and lows, but I won’t. I will say that we had one girl in tears after the first couple of meets. She was super fast when it came to sprinting, but she had no concept of pacing. As a result, she spent a lot of time walking and ended up with mile times around 11-minutes. Once she figured out pacing (with the awesome help of her coaches, of course), she dropped her PR to 7:59. I don’t think I’ve seen anyone more excited.

That’s what it’s all about and that’s just one example that I think made the season a huge success. We sent out a survey recently, and luckily, the parents seem to think the same way as Val and I have received some high marks.

Quote of the Day;

“Positive, friendly atmosphere was wonderful--it seems good running stems from kids being willing to both succeed AND fail in front of their teammate and coaches, so they can take the risks to do their best. Starting out too fast is a lesson, leaving too much energy at the end is a lesson, and the kids seemed to trust in this learning environment.” – Survey response

NOT FOR ME

I’m starting to think that this “recreational” running is not for me. I just can’t find any motivation when there’s not a race on the horizon – even a distant horizon is better than nothing. After a solid start to October for the first 8 days, I “decided” to take the next 4 days off. I wish I had a good excuse, but the best I can come up with is that I travelled over the weekend and then I stayed up late Monday watching football.

In any case, I may have to consider putting a race on my calendar just to “force” me to train, er, I mean run. Heck with “training” I need to start by “running”.

However, I have been thinking about the whole “training” vs. “running” issue lately. Steve had a great post the other day where he compares being UN-coached to being SELF-coached. If you’re not familiar with Steve, he spent the end of the season focusing on breaking 60-minutes for the TC-10. He hired a coach, followed her workouts religiously, and proceeded to crack off a 59:05.

That’s great, but like me, he finds himself not willing to pay a coach on a long-term basis. Now he’s trying to apply what he learned from his coach in hopes of moving from un-coached to self-coached.

If nothing else, his post has me thinking about my own training. My extent of being coached is copying a marathon training program out of a book and following that. I can’t think of the last time I did a speed workout or the last time I really focused on anything other than a marathon. Maybe 2011 should be the year of speed for me. It’d be interesting to train for races between 5K and half marathon, instead of just throwing them into the mix during a marathon build up.

Of course, that doesn’t mean that I’ll hire a coach, but if I want to make those races worthwhile, I should probably put a little more focus on speed work – and possible locate the nearest track.

In either case, step one is to get consistent. Normally it takes me 3 weeks of training before I can feel myself getting into a groove. So I'm challenging myself to build up my consistency through the end of the month. After that I'll think about putting a race on the horizon - however distant it may be.

Quote of the Day;

“Don’t run hard till you can run easy.” – Ron Daws

HERE THEY COME

As the years have gone by, it seems like fewer and fewer of my college teammates are still running. That’s understandable as work and family commitments take up more time over the years. I’ve always felt that once these guys turned 40 that’d experience some mid-life crisis that would either lead them to buy a motorcycle or start running again. If they did the latter, I “feared” they’d whip themselves into shape faster than I could say “once a runner” and they’d begin to tear up the local racing scene.

We’ll it appears that process has begun. Within the last two weeks I’ve talked with two former teammates who’ve both started training again. Each has lost 40 pounds recently and they both have races on the horizon. One looks a smooth as he did 15 years ago and is already kicking my ass during our Friday morning group runs. At least the other one is in Madison, so I won’t have to experience an ass kicking from him very often.

It’s great to hear these guys are back at it and I’m sure it’s not the last I’ll hear from old college teammates.

Here a team photo from my freshmen year of college.

I had a great weekend. Saturday morning the family ventured to Elm Creek Park for the Autumn Woods Classic. They had a 1K event that the girls signed up for, as well as some of my cross-country kids. It was super-fun to see the girls in their first running race. I doubt this will be their sport of choice, but it’s still nice to see them give it a try.

Afterwards I made a solo trip to Ashland to partake in the post-Whistlestop Marathon festivities. Since I grew up there, I still have some friends in town as well as friends that ran the race, so I didn’t have to party solo. While this is probably not a race that everyone wants to run every year, I think it’s one that everyone should try once. It’s just a great time of year to drive up north and check out the fall colors. The course is on crushed limestone, so it’s different than most races. I think the town does a great job supporting the event. The post race activities are fun. And there’s a great brew pub/restaurant and a great coffee shop in town. What more do you want?

Quote of the Day;

“I can't complain about third place when I'm beat by a three-time Olympian and an American record-holder." – Katie McGregor after placing third at yesterday’s U.S. 10K championship

DEAR OLD DAD

If you’ve ever read my bio it basically reiterates what I wrote yesterday; "I'm a runner at heart. I followed my dad out the door when I was 10 and have been at it ever since."

As I was digging through all my old stuff, I found a bunch of photos of my dad running that I thought would be fun to share.

1981 - age 41

1986 - age 46

1991 - age 51

1997 - age 57

1968 - age 28

Just kidding, of course that last photo is Steve in a Speedo wearing his famous “bowl full of sunshine” shorts. Little did he know that my dad actually started the trend of wearing yellow short-shorts. And if you look close enough, you’ll see that my dad was wearing black socks before it was ever cool – long before any NBA player ever started wearing them.

While I don’t think my dad is wearing the same pair of yellow shorts in all of those photos, I wouldn’t doubt that it’s the same pair in 1991 and 1997. Those 2 photos crack me up because he has on the same shorts, same socks, same shoes and he even has a tissue on the right side of his shorts in both photos.

I don’t know if he’s raced since 1997, but at 70, he still gets out every other day whether he needs to or not.

I definitely have him to “blame” for getting me wrapped up in this crazy sport. I still have the card my parents gave me after my Ironman and his note is today’s QOD.

Quote of the Day;

“You have truly raised the bar with your recent Ironman efforts. It must be inspiring to you and help you better deal with all of life’s endeavors. I think of you starting out on your marathon after the swim and bike and find it difficult to imagine going that distance. I see that in a much different way now after seeing the efforts of you and your fellow participants. It is inspiring.” – Ed Austin

BILLY OR JOHNNY

As I was watching TCM on Sunday it really hit me that I am a runner. Of course, I’ve known this all along, but for some reason it really occurred to me during this race. While I may jump in a mtn. bike race once in awhile, ski in the winter, think of doing another triathlon – deep down I’m a runner. When you’ve been doing this for as long as I have, there’s really no denying it. And while there may be days when I wish I could change it, I think doing so would be nearly impossible.

And it’s not just about the running itself. I just relate best to other runners. It didn’t matter who I was talking with or cheering for on Sunday; old friends, new friends, Olympic Trials qualifiers, quiet friends taking photos, loud friends shouting into a microphone, multi-time state record holders, people hoping to qualify for Boston, etc. They were all cool – and I can’t imagine my life without running or my running friends.

Of course, I didn’t know all this 30 years ago. At that time I was probably thinking more about being the next Johnny Bench than I was about being the next Bill Rodgers.

10-year-old Johnny Bench wanna-be.

Running a half marathon at 12 - finished in 1:53:20.

Quote of the Day;

“The marathon can humble you.” – Bill Rodgers

IN THE BEGINNING

I love running during this time of year for a lot of reasons; the cooler weather, the changing colors, it’s cross country season, and there are a ton of great marathons in the fall. I also like the fall because it’s when I started running 31 years ago. I’ve lost track a little over the years, but I think the actual anniversary is like October 3rd or 4th.

What’s a 10 year old supposed to do a week-and-a-half after starting to run? Jump in a race, of course.

If you flip open the jogger’s diary that I posted yesterday, you’ll see that the first entry is from a 4 mile race I ran on October 13, 1979. I’d like to believe I ran 34:36 for 4 miles, as a 10-year-old. However, I realize they probably clocked this course by driving in their car.

I was actually able to find a photo that my mom took too. For some reason it’s a photo of our back. In case you can’t tell, I’m the short one. While it’s not a very good photo, believe it or not, she got everyone entered in the race in one shot. Yep, there were a total of 4 people in this race. If I remember correctly, I ended up losing a sprint and finishing 2nd. I sure hope I beat that guy that’s blatantly cutting the course.

Speaking of photos, be sure to check out Evan’s photos from TCM.

Quote of the Day;

“I was really ready and didn’t get the breaks. That’s life… you work hard for just a few chances.” – Steve Prefontaine

JOGGER'S WORLD

The good news is that the juices are flowing again. The bad news is that the 2010 season is over.

But that’s alright. I always love wiping the slate clean at the end of a season and starting fresh the following year. It doesn’t matter whether I have a great year or a crappy year – wiping that slate clean is always part of the process.

The spectacular conditions at TCM probably helped get those juices flowing. If I had to pencil in perfect marathon weather, it’d have been what the runners experienced yesterday; 40 degrees at the start, calm and sunny with temps rising to probably 50-55 degrees during the race. Maybe I’d choose “overcast” instead of “sunny” but that’s about my only change.

Congrats to everyone who ran – whether you met your goal or not. And congrats to Katie McGregor on winning her third U.S. title in 2010. Maybe she’s so successful because she posts videos like this on her facebook page.

After watching the marathon yesterday, I ended up going through a bunch of running stuff I’ve collected over the years; medals, news paper articles, log books, bib numbers, etc. I thought it’d be fun to start sharing some of that stuff on here. With that said, here’s a picture of my first-ever “jogging diary”. I guess back in 1979, “jogging” wasn’t a four-letter word.

If you look very closely above the “ing” you’ll see a little stick figure that’s running. Fortunately, my running and writing has gotten better over the years. However, my artistic abilities have not evolved in over 30 years.

Now that the juices are flowing, maybe I’ll even post here more than once a week.

Quote of the Day;

“Thank you everyone for all the support! It was so great to win at home and have so many spectators cheering for me. Congrats to all the weekend's finishers. A beautiful day for running in the Twin Cities!” – Katie McGregor

CARBO LOAD

What runner doesn’t like pasta? Recently I heard Mario Batali promoting a free downloadable Celebrity Cookbook. I just downloaded it, so I haven’t tried any of the recipes yet, but they look great. There are 12 in all. If you try any, let me know what you think.

Quote of the Day;

“Once you’ve put your groceries in the car, the quality of your dinner has already been decided.” – Mario Batali

AGONY & GLORY

Not much is new, but I have some time over lunch so I thought I’d try to blog a little bit. After averaging just over 40 MPW for the last 3 weeks my left arch flared up. Not sure if it was plantar fasciitis or not. Since I’ve never had PF before, I doubt that it was – especially considering my low mileage. Unless PF can be caused by biking an hour longer than you’re used too – but that seems unlikely. Anyway, I wore the sock for 4 nights in a row and it feels better.

I ended up taking 3 days off from running, but dusted off my tri bike to help maintain some fitness. Sunday we had a great group ride that was nearly 50 miles. We were greeted by perfect conditions, sunny, calm and crisp. It has me thinking of some duathlons for next year.

On Saturday there was a meet for the kids I’m helping to coach. While they only run 1 mile these meets are bringing back a ton of memories for me. It’s fun to see the older kids jogging the course in a big pack before their race and seeing them throw a football around as they try to kill time. There’s also the sound of spikes on concrete and the smell of wet grass and mud that remind me of high school and college cross country. And the look of excitement on their face after running a PR or beating someone for the first time is awesome. Too bad the season is so short.

Quote of the Day;

“We told our guys to hold on for 30 minutes of agony for 12 months of glory.” – John McDonnell, Arkansas coach after winning the 1993 NCAA Cross-Country title

FAT & 40

Over the weekend, I did my first race since Grandma’s Marathon. The Fat Tire 40 was actually my first mountain bike race ever. The course follows much of the Birkie trail between Hayward and Cable, along with some gravel roads. While I had fun, it wasn’t nearly as fun as skiing – maybe not even as fun as running. In any case, I’m glad I tried it.

Running is picking up a little, as I’m averaging about 40 MPW in September. Recently, I’ve done a few things that are starting to get the juices flowing.

First, the weekend of Ironman Wisconsin I happened to be the Wisconsin Dells with the family. The morning of the race I decided to get up early, drive to Madison and watch the start of the race. I’ve done this a few times and it’s always cool. The energy radiating from the fans and the participants is amazing. The Monona Terrace is the perfect set up for the race and this year the weather couldn’t have been any better. Wish I could have stayed longer, but I had to leave after the swim.

Second, the youth cross country program that I’m helping out with is in full swing. We have 34 kids ranging from 3rd and 6th graders. So far we’ve had a time trial, a dual meet, and ran in a larger invitational. The invitational had 8 races in all and a total of 2000 runners. Again, the energy these kids put out is amazing. And seeing a kid go from 15 minutes for 1 mile, down to 10:40, or seeing someone run the entire mile for the first time without walking is inspirational.

So while I’m not blogging as often, things are still good.

Quote of the Day;

“There’s a lot of b.s. that goes down in that race. It’s unavoidable. But the race also offers a lot of people the chance for self-knowledge, and nobody’s immune to it, from the guy who finishes last to the guy who finishes first. That’s the big draw for people.” – Scott Tinley

AN ABSOLUTE JOKE

9 of the last 10 weeks have been below 38 MPW. I ran a whopping 138 miles in August this year. The weather has turned the corner (at least temporarily) and hopefully my attitude has too (at least temporarily).

For awhile I felt like a kid again – at least in the sense that I wanted to achieve great things without working for them.

Now I have just enough time to train in order to get in shape for… winter!

But when you’re retired from racing, I guess that doesn’t matter.

Lately, I been watching a bunch of survival shows of the Discovery Channel like Man vs. Wild (Bear Grylls is the craziest man around), Man, Woman, Wild (the girls even like this one), and Dual Survival (I like Cody’s dry sense of humor). Perhaps the most interesting is Surviving the Cut. As the website says, “Surviving the Cut takes viewers into the intense world of military elite forces training. From divers and snipers to para-rescue men and bomb specialists, the elite and how they earn a place in the coveted units are the focus in this compelling all new series.” Basically, they take all these military personnel that want to join different elite forces and they try to break them physically and mentally.

Watching this show makes running a marathon look like an absolute joke. The show has definitely made me stop and think about things. Of course, I feel like a candy ass for not wanting to run TCM because I haven’t trained properly. There’s no way these guys/gals could train properly for their elite forces training, yet they’re out there doing it – pushing themselves to their limits and beyond. Check out an episode before your next big event and see if it changes your mindset.

Finally, I was writing an article about running in the ‘90s recently. I was in college during the ‘90s and I can really only remember 2 great U.S. runners, Bob Kennedy and Todd Williams. They were head and shoulders above the rest of the U.S. runners. Of course there were other greats, like Bob Kempainen, but he didn’t race a lot due to medical school. Anyway, as part of my research, I came across a great interview that Duncan did recently with Williams.

Quote of the Day;

“Jujitsu is a wrestling art. It’s more grappling-based. I didn’t take it, because I wanted to be an ass kicker; I took it, because I wanted something else in my life that could fill the void of the competitive side of me that was outside the job I had in sales and marketing with Adidas. As far as the drive, it’s been awesome. It’s been a great replacement, because I started in a lower level. I didn’t know anything, just like I didn’t know anything about running when I started out.” - Todd Williams.

SOUTH DAKOTA PHOTOS

I finally got around to uploading some photos from our South Dakota vacation.

Here's the family at the Badlands.

Do not try this at home!

One more shot of the Badlands.


Custer State Park.

Objects may be closer than they appear!

Buffalo.

Big buffalo!

Sylan Lake.

Kinsey saving Katie's life.

Katie saving Kinsey's life - with just one finger!

Another photo of beautiful Sylan Lake.

Tunnel along Needles Highway.

Mount Rushmore - of course.

This was the best deal around. $10 for then entire carload.

PERIODIZATION

Hmm, I got accused of “pulling a Favre” after my last post. I know we have a lot of similarities; we’re both 40-41 years old, incredibly athletic with rugged good looks, and we both make about $17 million a year. And we’re both divas. But other than that, we’re totally different.

As much as I’d like to retire from racing, I’m not sure it will happen. You know “old dog – new tricks” and “leopard changing his spots” etc.

What I really need is a good periodization plan that lays out what I should be focusing on the entire year. Scott and I talked about this on a couple of runs and here’s what we came up with;

July and August – do whatever makes me happy (run, bike, roller ski, lift, etc).
September and October – transition to running and enter a few late-season races
November – transition to roller skiing
December to February – peak x-c season
March – transition to running
April to June – peak running season

I figure most people around here lay low in the winter. I’d rather ski in the winter and lay low when it’s hot and sticky. Not focusing on running in July and August would open up options for other events; bike races, tris, etc. Plus, family vacations would probably be more enjoyable.

One issue with not running much in July and August is that it would make a fast fall marathon difficult, unless I travelled somewhere for a November race. But maybe one marathon per year is the way to go. Running Times had a nice interview with the Brooks-Hanson coaches and they basically limit their runners to 3 marathons every 2 years. They said anything more than that and their not developing, their just moving from one marathon to the next.

Quote of the Day;

“I can make a comeback if George Foreman can. He’s 11 years older than I am, and none of my rivals is trying to punch me.” – Said Aouita

I MEAN IT

I “borrowed” this image from Steve in a Speedo because it’s true.



If you flip the image upside-down, it basically represents my weekly mileage – the huge dip representing what happens when I go on vacation.

We had a great time in South Dakota. We didn’t do all the tourist stuff, but we must have been close; Badlands, Wall Drug, Custer State Park, Needles Highway, Sylvan Lake, Bear Country USA, Reptile Garden, Storybook Island, Cowboy dinner, Mammoth site in Hot Springs, Jewel Cave, and Laura Ingalls Wilder site in De Smet. Good times – I highly recommend it.

On the running front, I’ve been considering retiring from racing – again. This time I mean it. I’d still run 45 to 60 minutes a day, but I won’t have to worry about getting in long runs, running some arbitrary amount of weekly miles, or being fast. As long as I can keep my “killer body” I’ll be happy.

This is different in years passed, as I’m not worn down from training. I actually feel fine. I just don’t have any desire to race. It’s even more than that this time, as there’s not much desire to blog, write articles, or interview other runners.

Maybe this will pass, along with the hottest week of the year, but I’m not so sure.

Quote of the Day;

“I never retired… I just did other things.” – Edwin Moses