HAPPY 4TH!

I have a whole bunch of things to get to today, let’s see how many actually make it into this post.

First off, Happy 4th Birthday to my daughter Katie. She’s so funny. You know how kids like to say they're either, for example, 3 or 3 ½? Well I’m pretty sure that even yesterday Katie thought she was 3 ½. She’s a day away from turning 4 and still claiming to be 3 ½. I thought that was cute, but I’m biased.

During my last training cycle, I think it started to sink in that I respond pretty well to long tempo and marathon-paced workouts. That got me wondering if more is better – can I add another such workout into my weekly mix and make better gains? How many similar workouts can I mix in? Would I be better off with a longer MP workout and a shorter, harder tempo effort? Of course, given TCM’s hills during the last 10K, I need to start working those back into the mix. If I do all those things, I’d be basically following a hard/easy routine with less emphasis on speedwork this time around.

Anyway, with all this in mind, I decided to run another long tempo run on the treadmill last night. I managed 12 miles with 8 of them at 6:50 pace. I think I should probably call these "progression" runs, instead of "tempo" runs. After a 2 mile warmup, I started out at 7:00 pace and gradually dropped down to 6:35 pace, by the end of the run.

While I was on the treadmill I was watching le tour. There’s nothing like watching the top-4 riders in the race, including the yellow jersey, duke it out on the final hill of the race – only to see a “Breaking News” scroll across the bottom of the screen saying that the guy wearing the yellow jersey has been kicked off his team. But what I find most annoying is listening to the announcers talk about the shame Vinokourov brought to himself and his team in one sentence and then in the very next sentence they say something like, “It's too bad because he's one of the all-time greats.” It's like they think this is an isolated incident when in reality, I highly doubt it was his first time trying something like that. These guys don’t just wake up one day when there 28-years-old and say, “Boy, this tour is making me tired. I think I’ll blood-dope today.”

Yesterday I ripped on the Twins. The responded by giving up 11 runs – IN THE 6TH INNING!!! As someone on the radio said, if you take away the 6th inning they would’ve only lost 2-1. Talk about a silver lining. In their 101 games, they’ve scored 2 or less runs 28 times. I mean, 28 times!!!

Bart asked if I’d heard anything about the Pan Am Games being televised. No, I haven’t. And this morning I realized that the 16-day Games have been going on for 13 days already. Nearly 2 weeks in and the only thing I know about the Games is that a bunch of Minnesotans did very well in the junior competition.

Alright, enough negativity. I’ll end with a link to my latest interview. If you’ve ever wondered what happens to young stud runners as they age, check it out. Hint: they become old stud runners.

Quote of the day;

“I get amused when young runners talk about “burnout” because I can say that I don't feel I have ever really had burnout in all my years of running – maybe just some injury ‘delays’” – Bruce Mortenson.