Friday 082710

So at 1:45 PM I had written this … The big race today of course is UTMB.  Irunfar has lots of coverage, including interviews.  I got back after a short run in the afternoon and I had a half dozen mails, and saw on various blogs that the whole thing was cancelled because of weather and mud.  That just sucks.  Latest according to Bryon is that the top runners will go to the Skyrunning Marathon World Champs on Sunday.  Given there is a chain next to the get in the picture, I am assuming it is pretty steep.

Justin poked me for a new poll … look on the blog to the right.

Peter Fain, who I conversed with a bit post race in the finish /med tent, has a quick article up on PPM.  Oh, the other day I wondered about drug testing at Pikes.  It appears there were such tests for the winners.

Tony has a great Pb retrospective up over on Running Times.  Failure provokes us to question, a practice that is all too easy to dismiss when one has recently experienced success and fulfillment of expectations.

All day running podcasts on Itunes. 

This is all too familiar to me:

Leadville reports I have been trolling through (I read a bunch on Monday and these are ones I catching up through now):  Don B, PittBrownie, Wyatt, Shad, Rod B., Chris.  Basic theme seems to be “I started too fast, started to fall apart, but then gutted it home very painfully.”  I had just begun to think that I could handle one of these but reading these reports, seeing how tough it was on some folks like Brandon, Lucho … and feeling how pissed my foot / scar tissue is this week … I still have internal doubts about this dance.

AM – easy four miles.  I am certainly not running for some sort of fitness thing at the moment.  I am running because it is good for my head, my soul now … it makes me feel good and clear.  I had this thought this AM that when I run, since my heart pumping faster, blood is moving through my brain more quickly.  Which means oxygen is going through there more quickly.  Which means, I am getting that oxygen from the world around me more quickly.  All because I am moving more quickly.  So yeah, it is a drug.  Movement is my drug.

PM – 4 miles easy.

I am certainly taking a break, and I confess, some of my diet stuff slipped this week – but I have not really worried about that stuff as much this year.  I, however, am not slipping my diet by increasing my food intake by 70 percent.

Buried in this podcast are some great gems from tri legend Mark Allen.  To be able to do it, there has be part of you that is just willing to go out there and just take whatever happens.  Sort of like motivation, desire, drive … that get’s you 99 percent of the way there but that last 1 percent that allows you to have it, comes when you say ‘hey whatever, my life is going to go on regardless of how this race turns out.  The sun is going to rise tomorrow morning.  My family and friends are still going to love me whether I get first or completely blow up.’  And so it is a paradox because part of you has to have that tenacity and part of you has to be able to completely surrender and hand it over and see what happens.

A preview of the World Mountain Running Championships course: