Weekend Update

Saturday I ran the greenbelt with Karma around9am. Except for one turn to extend the run a little, I let him choose each and every trail we took. He's an expert in there, and knows where he's going almost all the time, so whatever direction he took on an intersection was the route we ran.

Once we got to the top of the end of Powerline, he veered towards the cars, while I told him to take Bologna loop back to extend the run a little more. He loved it, and kept up real well as I kept picking up the pace. Ran about 6 miles for a little over and hour total time, including his desire to go hang out down by the dam for 5 minutes or so. What a great run!

Sunday, Muz joined me for a loop out at Bastrop State Park. I love that park, but I really struggled through the run as my Cedar allergies were really kicking my butt and depleted all energy. Still a grea 8 mile run over there.

Ended up with 55 for the week, which felt much better than the 45 I ran the week before.

Only 5 days till the big race, of which I'll take Monday and Friday off, but run something on Tue, Wed, and Thursday. Not sure how much, but it looks like roads for tomorrow. Also have a pre-race massage on Tuesday and I'll have Lisa give me her opinion on an issue I've been having with my right knee.

Have a great week, and happy running!

More Bandera 100km trail videos

Mom,

Per our conversation, here are some more videos of the race course in Bandera. As you can see, it's not all horribly rocky and dangerous! hahahah

During this run, I helped take down direction markers from the prior day's run, in case you wonder what I'm doing.

Only distance runners might understand this one…

Preface: I somehow have lost my ability to do simple math, because my goal was to run 80 to 85 miles this week; most importantly running 15, 30, 20 on the weekend as my final hard weekend. I cut Friday a little short, but realized on Saturday during the run that with the 20 on Sunday I’d be at 95. I recounted many many times in my head during those 5.5hours, to make sure I was right about that.

After yesterday’s 30 miles, the plan was to run 20 miles on tired legs to continue strengthening them. (At least that’s my theory for my training. And since I'm my own coach, it's a correct theory. Ha!) The plan was to run 2 miles with Karma, then 5.5ish over to meet Damon who wanted 10, then 2.5 back to my car for 20 miles. 20 painful miles.

I ran the 2 miles with Karma and my legs were absolutely dead. Amy and Mark were finishing up their run and first thing Amy said was: “You look so tired”, and boy was I. I had already decided to just send a text message to Damon telling him I was calling it a day. When I told them I had no idea how I was going to get my run in, she said: “It will pay off later”. And that was all I needed. Amy’s awesome and super inspiring to me and always has great words of wisdom. This time, all it took was 5 little words to irritate me... to cause an itch... A good irritating itch!

I left Karma in the car, and took off figuring I’d at least run over to Damon’s gym and then tell him in person that I was not going to run with him. That would get me 10 miles, half of what I intended, but better than 2! And since I was already 10 miles over my weekly plan, it was fine.

“No one cares if you skip a run. No one cares if you cut a run short. No one cares if you hit your weekly mileage. No one cares if you hit your time splits on workouts.But what you are doing is cheating yourself, and you are only betraying the commitment you made to yourself when you started your journey and chose your goal.” MW 12/20/09

That’s the newest quote I came up with for myself in the first mile after leaving Karma and Amy. You got in my head, Amy... damn you! ; )

So as I’m running a turtle pace listening to mellow U2 songs, I ran into Muz who was going the other direction. His plan was to run 12-15 miles or so, meeting Damon for 10 as well. He joined me in my direction, an we both quickly realized that even by snailing along, we’d be very early to meet Damon, so we added 2 miles to our run. I told him repeatedly I would be cutting things short because my legs were dead and I was exhausted. He acknodleged his legs were dead from yesterday too.

We met Damon, and I informed him I was going short, and slow. I then told them that even cutting my run short would have me reach my intended goal of 80-85.

About 5 miles into our little run and a long water break at Rogue, I finally started to feel a little better. I told Muz and Damon a little more about my inability to do math and how I was flirting with 100. “Can I really end my week so close to 100?” was one of the many things I said! Long story short, next thing you know, Damon’s intended 10 miles turned into 12, and Muz’s intended 12-15 or so, turned into 20!

And my 2miles, turned into possibly 10, then into 12, then into 20, then into 25! It was painful, but I kind of had to do it!

I got home, mapped out my mileage (http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=3373700 ), and realized I had run 0.79miles short of 100! Oh hell NOOOOOOO!

So, an hour after finishing my painfully long, unplanned “25” mile run, I had to go out for 0.8. I mapped out a silly 0.8 around my house and hobbled on dead, cold, and sore as hell legs to get to 100! One of the most painful but necessary 7 minutes of running ever!

But hey, not only did I prove to myself that it was possible to run the distance and more. (and actually even feel better for the middle miles, cranking out several 7:20min/mile paced miles, and even 1 under 7 mins!)

Now it’s time to celebrate the end of hard training and welcome the arrival of my taper for 3 weeks!

Did someone say Sunday night Beer and Homeslice Pizza?! Oh yeah!

Just one more day...

I just need to do one more thing I asked of myself 6 months ago, and that's to go long again tomorrow for my final hard weekend of training for Bandera. I can't tell you how "unsad" I am that taper is about to begin! My legs are TIRED, and my brain is RUN-TIRED.

I can't begin to thank Muz enough for consistently stepping up to run with me on my long runs to keep me company. Sure, he's also doing the 100k, but he didn't need to join me. Bruce, Dan and Mer deserve huge props too, but Muz has been joining me for the longer sessions and I couldn't have done them the way I have without him. It's just so much easier to spend 5 or 6 hours with someone else out there than on your own, even if at times we spend several miles without saying a word to each other.

This morning I took off at 5am for "a 6 hour" or "a 30 mile run" (which ever was reached first).

It was a little chilly but not too bad, maybe high 30's.

I ran for an hour and 15 towards Barton Springs and ran into Muz who started down there as he "only" wanted 5 hours worth! Felt like shit for the first couple of hours. Then again, I've realized i hate the first 2 horus of any trail run, as I just don't get into a groove until about then.

Returned back up to the Hill of Love after an 11 mile round trip, then reloaded on food and dropped headlamps and head beanie, then took off for a fun 13 mile loop. We returned to my car to yet again reload and dump gloves and took off for another different set of trails for 5 miles. A little disappointed that his GPS claimed 29 miles for me as we walked to my car, we decided to drop all gear and go run an out and back on the roads for the last painful mile to make it to 30.

Final run time for me was about 5 hours 35 minutes or so. I'm not exactly sure, but I do know I started at 5:08am and got to my car at 10:52, and I'm being extremely conservative on downtime during our 2 reload stops and our several pee and refuel breaks during the run.

I'm happy with this run. My legs were pretty much dead by the end, but overall I felt good and strong which is quite a different than how crappy I've felt towards the end of the last 4 weekend runs. Then again, I went back and looked at the 23 weekends since July when I started this training in earnest, and I haven't really been taking it easy.

Won't bore you any longer with this. Bye bye.

Happy running.

One last thing... The creek water is super cold these days. To the point where both Muz and I felt like our toes were going to fall off during the 6 crossings.

WOO HOO!!!!!

I ran 9.5 miles in light drizzle this morning.

More importantly, it's 3 weeks till the Championship game, and the first of what I assume will be many TEXAS videos has appeared!

walkig the dog vs running the dog

The cold winter weather really doesn't bother me for my runs. After a couple of minutes, i'm perfectly adjusted and can run in the chilly, freezing temps with no problem.

However, taking Karma out for a walk in this weather is quite miserable. So just for that reason, i'm ready for the next 60-75 days to be over with so I don't have to dislike my walks with my pup.

Today a few of us met up, and when it was all said and done, my run was 11 miles long.

25 for the week so far, with 50 or so left to go.

14.25 today, and update on new trail shoes.

Ran 14.25 miles with the road boys today. We kept it light and easy paced for the most part. It was a little chilly running into the wind comgin from the NNE. Websites claim gusts of up to 29 mph, so it was probably about 20mph constant when we ran early this AM, with at least half of it into the wind.

Anyway, the pace overall was around a 7:25 with several of the last miles under 7. They were easy to do as we ran towards townlake so overall downhill, and the wind was finally on our backs.

Several of you have asked me for a review of my new trail shoes... the New Balance MT 100.

It's too early to write a fair review, since I've only run in them 1 time,and that was for an hour and a half at a very relaxed pace. I'll give them much more time on the trails this Saturday when i plan to run a good 2 - 4 hours in them. Why only 1 time? Well, Bandera is no place for the MT100's. They are not made for such a rocky place. At least not for several hours on these beautiful, but highly technical trails:

This is a video of one of the small descents down in Bandera. I was lost at the time, so not sure what hill top i was at.

I made some additional videos, and i'll post them over the next few days to not overwhelm you.

Dissecting the year.

I could spend hours looking at statistics. Not standard deviations and useless statistics stuff you learn in college, but sports stats, etc.

One of my favorites, is grabbing my running log and dissecting it to see what's going on.

I love looking at graphs, because they tell you a whole lot.

For instance, here's my weekly mileage for each week of 2009, along with the races I've run. (Austin wasn't really a race, but it was a hard effort run)

**The weeks preceding Bandera from 2008 were 27, 35, and 25 as I was simply resting up after my big marathon in early December. I finished 7th in Bandera with a couple short runs during the week and a 15-20 miler on the weekends on the trails.

**Austin had no rest leading up to it, and I still did well on my workout, then didn't even take a down week, as I still posted almost 60 miles.

**Boston was an "a" race that had a nice taper. It was also on a Monday, so that's why the total for that race week is 30. I think i ran about 4 miles that Thursday or Friday to test the legs.

**Stockholm was a crap-chute-training to try and do well(sub 3), and thinking back this should have just been a leisure marathon.

**June was a much needed rest month after 8 marathons+ in 9 months, followed by the official start of endurance buildup for the Bandera 100km in July.

**Got 2nd place in the Inks Lake 60km (37 miles) which at that point was the farthest I'd ever run. There was no rest before it, jsut a run through race to get mileage. Took a week recovery, then training to load up to 80km (50miles) started in earnest for September and October.

**I took a week to rest after Cactus Rose, which again was not a race, so no rest leading up to it, and now it's the stretch run to Bandera. 4 more weeks of hard work before 2 real taper weeks like I did for Boston.

This morning was chilly 37F, and I ran 10 miles at an easy pace in shorts, long sleeve, gloves and beanie. Tomorrow I have 15 on the road on a day that's supposed to include some light snow flakes. We shall see if I get that lucky! Saturday's another 20 miles on the roads, then Sunday calls for a recovery trail run for an hour or so, followed by an hour of hill work, putting me at about 75 miles for the week.

I make my own training schedule, so that sounds good enough to me (for a rest week).

Thanks for reading, and happy running

Testosterone Tuesday - Part II

If you recall, last week the pace picked up for our Tuesday runs, and at the end there were only 3 left standing after they called me a Slow Ass Trailrunner.

Today, the anticipation had been brewing for a week, other trail runners catching wind of Testosterone Tuesday, other runners talking smack about how they were going to drop the hammer, put me in my place, show me what 5:45 pace would be like for the final few miles etc.

The clump of runners that joined in on the frenzy was certainly larger than last. Ken changed his weekly trail running schedule to fit the Tuesday runs in, he dragged two more with him. We had a couple more ladies that were going to supposedly help their star runner take me/us down and rename the run "Estrogen Tuesday". And a few other men joined in for the relatively fast paced intial miles. 7:30's became the easy pace from the get go, then slowly got faster as the run progressed through the maze of the route.

All the contenders kept together flexing their muscles from time to time, taking a few dozen feet leads, taking off early at water stops etc. But by the time it was all said and done, contenders quickly removed their veils and showed their pretender faces as some dropped off to run the shorter Hello Kitty distances, some purposely dropped the pace as they're tapering for races, and then as soon as we hit the rolling hills west downtown, the rest were simply put in their place as they fell apart one by one as the pace picked up on the climbs.

That's right. Eventually, there were only 3, the "slow ass trail runner" and two roadies... then Ken heroically fought his way back to our front group for the final 2 mile push.

The pace had steadily been around 6:30 for a while, and stayed that way till about 1/2 a mile to go when i told the guys it was time to go. We flip flopped the three and the zero, turning the pace into a 6:03 until we called it a day to get a nice few minutes of cool down.

So now we have 2 "slow ass trail runners" up front, waiting for the day that the roadies step up to leave us in the dust. It's lonely up front, guys.... Time to add some hot sauce to your diets, or maybe you should come run some trails with me?

14 miles

7:20 average pace

6:03 final pace

BOOM!

Bandera Practice Run

How can you not enjoy running out here? it's rough, it's tough, but the beauty ot the Texas hill country is second to none. Especially this time of year, when the Texas red oaks are changing colors.

Met up with several other to run down in Bandera yesterday morning. Muz and I decided on 30 miles or more, with a time cutoff of 6hours. We ran all over the place trying to hit every hill on the Bandera course. Below is a photo of Ice Cream hill, which in my opinion is the toughest climb out there. It's not as steep as some of the others, but it's longer and has more step ups. And for some reason, they always put it at a difficult time in a race.

The day went fine until 20 miles in where i got really light headed and felt like i was going to faint if in continued on. We had been running at a pretty fast rate all day, but that was not the problem. We had just finished a loop, and I had reloaded with calories and fluids.

I'm pretty sure the whole Thanksgiving thing was the reason. I hardly ever eat sweets, and over Thursday and Friday I ate many many sweet things, including several servings of pie, and sweetpotato/marshmallow dish. Pretty sure that's what killed me.

We ended up with 25.5 miles, so I'm not going to call it a failure as this week has been loaded.

Running up Sky Island

Running along a trail at my 'cruising speed". Seeing Muz' leg turnover gives you a good idea of what we're doing.

Decided to not run this morning, and just call it a week with a hard Tuesday 13 mile run, a 10 mile wednesday, 24.5 miles on Thursday, then 25.5 yesterday.

73 miles total.

Next week is a rest week, then another hard week next week capped off with a 40 mile run in Bandera on Saturday.

The 12 Creek Crossings of Thanksgiving.

I opted to cut my run down from 30 miles to about 25 miles yesterday so that I'd be a little fresher for Saturday's run.

I met up with Gordon and 2 of his friends for a 2 hour out and back from Barton Springs at 5am, then started out again with Muz, Ken and Steve for what was to be about 3 hours of running up to the Hill of Love (Life) and back. It was a great run for me. The sunrise was fantastic and the creek crossings were great fun as the water has settled down to crystal clear and no crossing was any higher than up to my shorts. The water was icy cold which made the legs feel great on every one of the 12 crossings.

Overall, it came out to about 24.5 miles over 4 hours and 40 minutes of total time, including a few water breaks etc. Good stuff!

Today is a rest day, may take Karma out for a few miles of fun on the greenbelt to loosen my muscles a little before another 30 mile run tomorrow down in Bandera with friends, but then again, maybe not. I'm feeling awfully lazy on this non-work Friday, and it doesn't help that there's pie in the fridge, carbo loading to do, football on tv, and all the pay movie channels are free this weekend!

47.5 miles in 2 days, with at minimum another 30 tomorrow. Should get to about 85, maybe 90 depending on how I feel on Sunday.

My knee is still bugging me, but on the trails, it's only on downhills, not all the time like on a road run. Downhills are not rare in Bandera. Hope it survives!

So many advantages it's almost a no brainer!

My water heater went out last Thursday. The repairman fixed it on Monday, and it went out again immediately thereafter. I'm starting to get used to these cold showers, and am realizing with every shower that the advantages are enormous.

• Gas bill is lower
• Time spent in shower is dramatically shorter
• Water usage is therefore decreased.
• I am much more awake after the shower.
• I look forward to putting on warm clothes.
• I don't think the cold air during my runs in the AM is bad.
• I prepare my body to withstand a potential fall into a frozen pond.
• Not feeling my toes or fingers for 30 minutes is actually fun.
• Shampoo and Soap lathers up much better in cold water.
• I now have a use for my utlra thick wool socks.
• Leaving the windows open all day and night is not a big deal anymore.

the list really goes on and on. I strongly considered cancelling the repairman order, and putting my broken water heater up for sale, but I just got the call from the repair company that the repairman is on his way, so I guess it's too late. Bummer.

In other news, I ran 10 miles this morning with a huge group of people. I think at one point there were 13 or 14 of us running.

My knee continues to bug me. It's especially bad for the first few miles, but not any worse than yesterday I don't think, so just need to make it through 2 more runs and I get a rest week to hopefully recover a little. If I knew any knee excercises to help it, I would to do them, but not sure there's anything you can do when it feels like a ligament or tendon or something is just loose and jiggling.

And then he called me a "Slow Trail Runner"

Second Tuesday in a row that I've joined my road running friends. These Tuesdays are shaping up to be some highly contested runs, instead of an easy run to get miles in. Today the pace got a little hectic right from the start with nothing but sub 8min miles. (Usually, the first two miles or so are in the mid 8's to warm up). We really pushed the pace, and since i'm kind of "all in" for 1 speed run a week, i figured these long tempo runs are just what the Doctor ordered.

Here's how we did according to Damon's GPS:

739

746

714

715

710

716

721

711

702

721

712

608

703

Did I mention it was a hilly course? Here are miles 2 - 9...

We spend these runs giving each other a hard time ALL RUN LONG. Everything is fair game, the jokes, the mocking and even the sailor mouths running rampant at times.

We had all joked about how the last three miles would be easy paced, staying at what we were currently running, and we all pretty much agreed to be done with the hard running for the day until a) damon and Andrew decided to take the lead, then B) Jason called me a "Slow Trail Runner".

Slowly the pace picked up between Damon and Andrew, and then that little comment simmered in my head until it boiled over and I dropped the hammer. 6:08 for that mile, so ... "Slow trail runner, my ass!"

Then an easy cooldown mile back to Rogue.

Total run: 13.15 miles in 1:34:34 (7:12 avg)

Not too shabby!

My hamstrings did better today than last week, but my knee is bugging me since last week's fall. Today there was definitely some discomfort throughout the entire run. It's not broken, but hopefully next week's easy schedule will help it some. If not, hopefully the 2 weeks of taper before my race will heal it. If it gets any worse than what it is doing right now, i'll go to the doc. If not, i'll just let it work itself out.

Tempo Tuesday

Titanic Tuesday

Testosterone Tuesday

Hammer Tuesday

... still looking for a good name for these runs...

Muddy Saturday fun

My friend Muz and I ran for 5 hours yesterday on quite a few muddy trails and what i thought was perfect running weather: overcast, 55 degrees, and a constant threat of rain. Above is the elevation chart of our run per his fancy GPS watch. He sent me a link to the details that his watch gathered, and I was pretty amazed with all the stuff it spits out. Almost made me think about considering buying one just for the pretty graphs, but I think i'll hold off for another few years. (Incidentally, it also claims Muz burned 3,107 calories, and climbed almost 4,200 feet)

We ended up with about 25.5 miles. It rained so much over the last 24 hours that the creek we usually cross was uncrossable. We tried in 4 different places, but the currents were too strong and it just wasn't worth doing something unsafe. Usually 25 miles can be run on almost without running on 1 trail twice, but this time we were limited to the north side of the trail and couldn't take advantage of all the fun to be had in the green area.

Not the end of the world, but quite a bit of overlap.

Picked up the pace towards the end before we did 4 Hill of Love repeats. They sucked, but it's a necessary evil if you're going to get tough. And tougher is what I need.

After the 5 hours adventure, I eventually made it home for a 45 minute nap, and then an hour of just lazing around in my warm bed, I ate a giant bowl of pasta and some chips (salt craving) and plenty of liquids. After that, it was time get up off the couch again to head down to meet friend for pre game fun at 4 before the 7pm game. We won the game and i surprisingly managerd to stay awake for the whole game. Got home, a 15 minute walk with Karma, another big bowl of pasta and finally dove into bed a few seconds before the stroke of midnight. Literally.

Now it's up again to eat something, walk Karma which serves as loosening up my legs, then off to meet Dan and maybe someone else at 8am for another 1.5-2 hour run.

If you think I'm doing anything but eat, lay on my couch, and nap to football or recorded television this afternoon, you've lost your mind!

After today, Bandera 100km is 7 weeks away, which means 5 weeks of solid training left to work on my weaknesses, and increase trail toughness... because I'm certainly not going out there to take pictures and nap under trees for 62 miles. What would be the point in that? ;)

Falling behind, gotta catchup

Just couldn't apply fingers to keyboard to type up the last few runs, so here goes a summary.

Saturday - marked 2 weeks since the race. I took Thursday and Friday off, so decided to give 3 hours a shot to test the legs. Ran the first hour with Karma, then met up with Jason, George and David for another hour and a half at a mellow pace, then left them as they headed back to their cars and ran a crazy fast pace for 25 minutes along the bottom of the greenbelt up towards the Hill Of Life and raced up the hill of life as hard as I possibly could. My legs were in serious distress (as i reached that left turn), but I kept fighting through the lactic acid attack and got it done. I pronounced my legs back to 80% bounce.

Sunday - Muz and I headed out to run a hill workout. Total time was 2 hours and 25 minutes for approximately 15.5 miles. That doesn't sound incredibly fast, but if you consider that about 7 of those miles were uphill, it's a pretty decent pace. I refused to walk a single portion of the climbing and pretty happy about the workout.

Ended up with 48 miles for last week, which isn't half bad for the second week after a race. Should have been 58 miles, but technical difficulties impeded my ability to run on Thursday morning.

Tuesday was back to the roads and ran a ridiculously fast pace run with the guys i usually run with out there. It had been a long time since i decided to run with them, since our schedules have been off and they raced a marathon in October, so it was nice to laugh and chat with them for the run. They're fast, and i'm determined to at least once a week run with them to keep some sort of turn over going to not lose too much speed and have a real shot at a sub 3 in Boston. The pace was fast and furious for the first half or so till some of them (the Hello Kitty crew) cut off for a shorter run. (bunch of pansies, if you ask me). We slowed it down to a more comfortable fare yet still ended up going an average 7:22/mile for 11.6 miles. Hadn't run that fast of faster for that long since Stockholm marathon on May 30. That's 5.5 months ago!

Here are the splits according to Bruce's Garmin:

1 8:06

2 7:31

3 7:26

4 7:18

5 7:12

6 7:31

7 7:07

8 7:32

9 7:22

10 7:19

11 7:01

0.62 6:42 pace

11.62 miles - 7:22 overall pace

Wednesday- ... i went out and ran some hillwork on my own. My calves were really unhappy with me, which is precisely what I want. I love the little workout i've invented. I did 2 sets of it. Next week, I'll go for 3. About 7 miles worth of running. Karma joined in for my warm-up. He had a blast in the cold weather, flying around the corners of the warm-up trails! The TV highlight of the day was when I was lighting up the trail ahead for Karma and i missed seeing a root at my feet, which my left foot caught a hold of. Usually I'm one of the best at avoiding a fall (due to great footwork abilities) but this time, the root hooked my foot and i couldn't bring it around fast enough to stay upright. I performed a better flying act than Superman ever did for the half second i was airborne, then landed pretty hard on my left side as I turned in the air to avoid some rocks on the right side of the trail. Jacked myself up pretty good, but I had a workout to do, so I continued on like anyone not wearing Hello Kitty socks would.

Today, yet again, all the boys except for Charles were wearing their Hello Kitty socks and opted for lower miles, so eventually it was Charles and I running around town for about 14 miles. The pace was nice once we left team Hello Kitty. I can't believe they even bother to get out of bed on a cold morning for the short distances they run. ; )

Tweaks: After the Tuesday run, I could feel aches and pains in my legs. Specifically on my right leg in a small outside muscle about the "ankle egg". It's really sore, but only when i'm not in action. Once I'm running it's fine - it's no injury. In yesterday's superman fall, i tweaked my knee and my shoulder pretty good. The shoulder shows no sign of pain, but I could feel something going on in the inner-upper-side of my left knee today on the downhills today. A day off tomorrow should do it plenty good, especially since i don't return to the hard pounding of asphalt until next Tuesday.

I'm taking full advantage of Thanksgiving weekend with my training, so coming up is possibly the toughest week of training in my career, (rivaling the 3 successive 100 mile weeks from 15 months ago). Definitely the toughest trail running week, with 30 miles (48km) this Saturday, again on Thursday, then again on Saturday (down in Bandera) with possible prep and recovery runs on Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Hopefully I find a friendly face to join me for a few of those miles on Thursday morning. Regardless, I can't wait to take on the challenge!

rain brought life back!

The best part about my 80 min run was seeing water flowing healthily over the dam again! I even saw a half dozen fish down there, including several nice sized ones which means they survived the ridiculous drought which turned their world into a murky, swampy ever-decreasing pond for 4 months.
Happy dogs, copious amounts of mud on calves, and great company wasn't that bad either!

2000 miles and counting.

I crossed the 2000 mile mark with this morning's rain run. It's been raining so much, i ordered scuba gear for tomorrow's run.

I'm going to have to run at least 333 miles every month to reach 3000. We'll see what happens!

I have 13 weeks left of high mileage available to build for my 100km race, and then i'll 3 weeks of taper where i'll gradually reduce the mileage to some unknown amount.

920 miles / 13 weeks = 71 miles per week. (why 920? This assumies that i run 80 miles total, for the final two weeks of December as part of my taper) I think this may be possible!

Last year I ran a total of 2,893 miles. as you recall, that was like running from Vancouver, BC, down past Key west!

I think I have to at least beat that, right!?

By all means... I'm NOT surrendering, but I think it will be tough to beat my buddy JT in Colorado, since he's clearly running scared, matching or exceeding every run i do on his run the very next day. It's quite comical that he's so scared to get caught when he has a 300 mile lead on me. (If I fail to catch him, my downfall, apart from telling him what I do everyday, was that June was barely a little over 100 miles)

80 mile week

The high mileage weeks are starting to kick in to gear.
Nothing under 70 from now through mid December.
3 months of hard training will pay off handsomely on Jan 9.

Mon -> Sun: 8+12+10+10+0+30+10
Good stuff!!

"once you start to suffer... that's when the running begins"

That's my newest quote. Yup. I made it up on the run yesterday, and it's outstanding.

I had a pretty tough weekend of running, but i survived. Since I've been running so many miles and hours on the trails, I noticed that i was starting to drop a TON of speed when simply going out for a 10 mile easy road run with my friends. So I've made a change to my strategy, and will do more than 50% of my runs on the roads with Team Rogue making sure I still get in at minimum 2 trail runs a week, of which one must always be at minimum 3 hours.

I haven't run a pace faster than 7:45/mile since end of may.

SATURDAY

The team training for Portland Marathon in early October had a tough race simulation run.

After a 2 mile warm-up, alternate 3 mile sets at MGP and half marathon goal pace (HMGP) with a 1/2 mile recovery in between each set. Sounds pretty simply, but if you consider that it works out to 19.5 miles at faster than MarathonGoalPace it starts to give you heartburn.

sub 3hr marathon pace would be 6:50 for MGP and 6:15for HMGP. I'm no where close to that, so I chose to run with the guys training for a 3:20 marathon. I didn't have specific goal times in mind for myself, and just accepted whatever Kevin told me he wanted to do: Under 7:40/mile on MGP, and under 7:10 on HMGP.

Here's how we did:

Pace - M1-M2-M3

MGP - 7:27-7:21-7:30

HMGP - 7:21-6:27-7:08

MGP - 7:27-7:24-7:22

HMGP - 7:01-7:04-7:04

MGP - 7:37-7:56-8:03

OUCH. those HMGP's felt soo friggin' fast, I have no idea who I could hold 6:50/mile as my MGP before. Anyway, it goes to show how much speed I have lost. (but i'll gain it back before Boston 2010 in April, so no sweat)

There's a slight fade on the last 2 miles, which are attributed to me choosing to pull my friend along. Regardless, this was a huge success for me. I was REALLY hurting for the last 6 miles, but like I told Kevin and Michael on the 2nd set of HMGP's... "once you start to suffer... that's when the running begins"... and we definitely got a good suffering session in yesterday.

SUNDAY

I wanted to get 3 hours in on the trails to work on running on tired legs.

Dan had to be done by 7:30am, so I met him at 5:30am for a loop with Karma, then a big loop over to the hill of life to relaod on water at 7am, and join up with one of the Rogue trail groups. Dan took off to get home on time, and I ran mostly with my coach Steve. To make it to 3 hours, I ended up needing a roundtrip on the powerline including an up and down on the hill of death/hill of death's sister. The 0.8 mile powerline run back was pretty painful, and was probably a 12min/mile death march pace. But hey, I got it done, and deposited another 3 hour run in the bank account!

note to self: 3 sets of powerline in one run is not fun. This may be a great place to do 8-10 (horrible) repeats later on in October or November.

Total running : 19.5 road + about 15 trail = 35 for the weekend.

Solid 4

Met Ken, Jason and Dan for a 4 hour trail run this morning. Best guesstimates are between 20 and 22 miles total.

We started at 5 am, and had an hour fifteen of headlamp running in the dark, which I loved. Sure makes to fly by. We ran a solid pace but not the hilly run I thought we'd be in for. Nonetheless, I was glad to see that I had 4 hours in me of almost the pace I'd like to hold at Bandera in 5 and a 1/2 months.

Now I just need to build the fitness up by X, and I'll be well on my way to achieving my time goal I have set for myself.

It got pretty hot towards the end as we hit wide open sun spots, so cooler weather in January should help tremendously.