EXTREME TAPER

I finally got around to registering for Whistlestop last week. The next day I woke up with a cold. Luckily, it only lasted about 3 days.

Last week’s taper was a little extreme – at least on the running side of things;

Sunday – mountain bike 75 minutes with Rick
Monday – tri bike 50 minutes
Tuesday – run 62 minutes with Scott
Wednesday – roller-ski for 60 minutes (30 min. w/o poles, 30 min. double-pole)
Thursday – day off due to cold
Friday – tri bike 90 minutes
Saturday – day off – drove to WI Dells

While the folks at TCM seemed to have ideal conditions, things for Whistlestop look a little chilly. Right now they’re calling for a low of 30 and a high of 42 with rain/snow showers. I’d take those temps, but adding precipitation on top of that would not be my first choice.

Friday I took the day off of work to attend the TCM press conferences. While I was there I got to see Olympians Abdi Abdirahman, Colleen De Reuck, and Carrie Tollefson up close, along with a bunch of Team USA Minnesota runners.

Unfortunately, I missed race day, but congrats to all those that ran. Special congrats to Josh for battling Abdi down to the wire. 46:38 – damn! And to Lehm. Although he “only” finished 4th, his 47:16 was 32 seconds faster than in 2007 when he went on to run 2:12:54 and place 5th at the marathon trials. Hopefully these results bode well for both of them in NYC. Nice debuts by Luke (2:15) and Kristen (2:35). Of course, 67-year-old Jared never ceases to amaze – running 3:01:52 and winning his age group by nearly 28 minutes. Nas kept his Grandma’s/TCM streak alive with a stellar 3:21. And after not racing seriously for years due to back problems, training partner, Scott, kicked out a 2:57 – less than a minute from his PR which is probably nearly 10 years old.

In non-TCM news, congrats to Ryan for winning the Lakefront Marathon in 2:24:53 and to Finchy for winning the Portland Marathon in 2:24:13. If you don’t know the story, these two were high school teammates, along with 2:16 marathoner, Mike.

I found today’s Quote of the Day uttered by both the men’s and women’s runner-up at TCM;

“I got tired.” - Colleen De Reuck and Augustus Kavutu Mbusya