Sunday 062809

• Clearly Dave had a rough day yesterday.    I have not talked with Dave so I don’t know what happened.    All I can do is salute him … It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.  
• I got to give credit to Hal.  I totally overlooked him  … focusing on Dave and Scott.  Stupidity on my part to overlook the defending champ!
• I look at ultras with a bit of odd  respect … I say odd because I recognize they are a bit of a freak show.  Of course, running up 14000 foot mountains is a freak show (and running down them is just plain stupid).    In fact, I guess, running 2 laps around a track as fast as you can is its own freak show (and it probably the fastest way to incur symptoms in your body that best emulate what only the very sick might feel).  So, yeah, running is a freak show (and folly).  Ultras however are their own sort of freak show.  Kind of remind me of contests of who can smile the hardest.  In any case, I am not sure if I will do one some day … I feel my journey as a runner may not be complete unless I do, but at the same time, it scares the crap out of me (and I am not talking about the 50k ultra gig here).  In any case, when I get there, I will want to reference this checklist post.
• Brandy E has a blog.
• Up at 0430 for a long progression run.  I felt like crap.  After a cup of coffee, I got out the door around 5:10.  Jogged down to the school where I’d do my circuit (relatively flat, has a port-a-pottie, near the house), set up a couple of Gatorade bottles (did this route twice so I had plenty of water if I needed it).  This set me up through a warm up … then just tried to lock in at 144-148 for the next 6 miles.   I never felt great, but the miles were just clicking off at about the same pace, or a little faster or at a lower HR then when I did this course a couple of weeks ago.  At 10 miles, I took a quick bio break, got some fluids and a gel, and switched direction.  This direction is a little faster (as I get the riser in one shot versus taking it all the way around most of this half mile loop.  With these runs, it seems that I gain a bit more confidence with each mile.  My legs never felt zippy, but I could start to smell the barn with each mile I put away.  I started to nudge things a bit at 12 miles, allowing the HR to float to 150 plus.  When I got to 16, I turned the display for the HR monitor off and just ran.  To add in a little variety at this point, I broke away from the school loop and started running my gear (empty bottles) back to the house.   I saw that I had a shot a getting under 2:30 for 20 (a cum pace of  7:30) and went after that.  Got it (2:29:x).  Warmed down back to the house 20.5 miles
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• Week in review …
  • M – AM, 5 miles (41 min), PM – 7 miles (57 min)
  • T –11 miles, (94 min)
  • W – AM , 10 miles (82 min), PM 5 miles (42 min)
  • Th -  16 miles (131 minutes)
  • F – AM, 4 miles (34 min), PM, 10 miles (86 min)
  • Sa – 7 miles (59 min)
  • Su –   20.5 miles (154 minutes)

  • 782 minutes on week.  95.5 miles on week over 10 runs.  309 miles on June, 2534 minutes.  1666 miles on year, 14035 minutes,  2600 feet  of climbing on the week.

  • Next week … need to see how I absorb this week.  I had set out to get 80, but shot well over that.  I was feeling it a bit come Friday, Saturday and was concerned about how it would feel today but it seemed to go well nonetheless.  The structure will be expected to be the same with a run mid week that is mid long (15-17) and a long run on the weekend (20-23)  with a building effort on the end.  On whole, I am pretty stoked with how this past week went.  I think I recovered fairly well from Mount Washington, was able to stick to my focus for the week, got in some miles and I am starting to see some of those results.  The last four today were about equivalent in pace (averaged 6:30) to a typical tempo run I do  - but after 16. 

• Looking forward to see what comes out of Cranmore today.