BECOMING APPARENT

During last Saturday’s group run I was talking with Tim about his training for the Austin, TX marathon. He started describing his training; he completed 6 weeks of high mileage, now he’s adding speedwork and then he’ll add in marathon-specific workouts. I’m thinking, “That sounds really familiar.” Sure enough, he’s following this plan from Running Times which was debated on a few blogs about 3 weeks ago. It’ll be interesting to see how the plan works out for him.

At the end of this same run I was talking with Tom and he mentioned that he was a friend and runner partner of Ron Daws for about 12 years. I “discovered” Daws’ writing about a year ago and immediately became a huge fan. Sometimes you hate to hear stories about people you admire because they don’t live up to the hype. But I was happy to hear Tom say that Ron was the kind of guy that, no matter what kind of mood you were in, you were always in a better mood after hanging out with Ron. That’s cool.

One thing that’s becoming apparent is that I don’t have enough time and energy to run 80 mpw, blog daily, interview people for my other blog and write other running articles. Something is going to have to give and it’s probably going to be daily blogging. I think my blogging and running are on opposite ends of the spectrum. I foresee running more quantity with less quality, while blogging less quantity but with more quality. Maybe.

As for running, I ran an easy 6 on the treadmill last night while trying to figure out why it was snowing in Seattle, but raining in Minnesota. This morning I ran 11 miles, including 9 at 7:38 pace. That’s a little slower than I’ve been running these types of runs lately. I’m not sure if it’s due to fatigue from the increased mileage, lack of concentration or something else. I’m not too concerned about it, but I’ll keep an eye on it. I believe Andrew has done similar training in the past and has mentioned that his “fast” and “slow” paces sort of merged together when he got tired. If that starts to happen, I’ll back off of the pace a little or add in another easy day.

I'm sure I've used this quote of the day before, but it seems appropriate for this post. Besides, it never gets old;

“When you reach the 20-mile mark of a marathon feeling utterly spent, but finish somehow, you suspect you can conquer other seemingly unbearable events in life. After you discover you can set tough goals and prevail, you realize you can accomplish almost anything you put your mind to. You don't have to look to the marvels of the Benoits, the Coes, the world-class to find your heroes; look inward to your own struggle and discover yourself. What you find may startle you, it may expose you to a whole gamut of emotions, but it will never bore you. And, as Theodore Roosevelt promised, your place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”- Ron Daws, from Running Your Best, Epilogue