I am in Carlsbad for work this week. I was last here a few years ago to run a half with KZ. I got out early because I had to start at the client site early, and while it was dark it was still good to hear the waves crashing.
It is not hard to be motivated to run in a place like this. Or at least it is a lot easier than trying to do it in a cold, wet, windy, dark place that is adjacent to a highway. Of course the body does not care, but when the mind is happy the body will follow.
I have the privilege of working with the coaching staff that work with the distance kids at the local high school. There I get to have fun with all sort of athletes – from the kid who is just getting into running to the kid who is making a run at a state title and everything in between.
Right now though we also have the Mooney twins – Madison and Michael. They live just up the street. And they are national class runners. On Saturday night, Madison took second in the Arcadia mile (she won it last year) in a 4:49.
In his third run at 3200 meters, her younger twin Michael ran a US leading and amazing 8:50.96 to take second by 1/100th of a second to a Canadian competitor.
All the kids are fighting to be better and improve. But it is really special to see these two compete on the national stage. They are hard working and great people. Kids that make you feel good about the future. I am lucky to know them and to share a little part of their journey in this sport.
It is HS track season and so Saturdays as of late have been spent at a track oval with the team, cheering and coaching distance kids.
The day starts actually the night before with me prepping out some breakfast burritos – a large flour tortilla packed with egg, chorizo or Italian sausage, cheese, potato and pepper. I also prep a large old school Thermos of coffee. And then there is the packing of the bag of gear. Colorado weather in March-April-May can be a t-shirt and shorts affair where you slather on sunscreen, a bone chilling wet and cold snow event or anything in between. I pack an old Air Force duffle with a variety of options and usually some extra stuff as kids tend to have the wrong stuff when its cold.
I am usually up at 5 on Saturday morning as the bus to the meet is typically scheduled to head out around 6 or 6:30. After the ride to the meet, it then pretty much chatting up the kids to assure they are ready for their event. Track meets seem to never run exactly on time and so there is some educated guessing as to when a kid should start their warm up for the 1600 based on how many heats of the 100 and 110m hurdles there are.
Other stuff comes up – the boys team shows up in different colored shorts for the 4 x 8 relay (that will get you DQ’d), spikes have to be changed and end up stripped out in the shoe, the 3 heats of the 3200 get combined into one, etc. Then it is down onto the infield (when they allow that) to go back and forth to dial a kid in during their race, call splits, motivate them, etc. A countless number of little things to manage the day …
I love it. It is an all day affair where I end up not running, not taking care of myself with hydration, and I’m on my feet all day. It is tiring but it is that kind of thing where at the end of the day I feel good even though I am knackered.
This weekend’s track event was all that and more. Four of our distance kids made the trip with the head coach to the prestigious Arcadia Invitational. We had a squad of state meet contending athletes over at the loaded Mullen Invitational. And then we had a good contingent of kids at the Caviness meet at Hinkley High School. With three meets going on at the same time, the back channel chatter of text messaging was high. And when I got home at six from the Caviness meet, it was then tuning into the Arcadia livestream to watch that and to see how those kids were doing while updating the results from the day into the roster database.
So I basically did track all day. I really enjoy this but there is a bit of guilt in recognizing how much time I spend on something I enjoy so much (when I could be accomplishing other things in that time if I geared it back a bit). But these are my Saturdays for now.
I got asked today by JT is this blog was dead. TZ asked me the same the other day.
It is a fair question as this blog had been updated on nearly a daily basis for more than a handful of years and I had not updated it for a month.
I stopped blogging because I recognized it had become a simple and uninteresting training log. And while training logs are not necessarily boring, training logs of near 50 year old men going through the motions of exercise without significantly interesting training bouts are definitely not worth posting. I have other logs where I can put that stuff (yes, a spreadsheet, the insidious and evil at times Strava, etc).
In other words, my writing every day something of how I slogged through an hour regardless if that hour was an amazing gut wrenching eye popping anaerobic session where I was flying or if it was a slow slog with a dog just didn’t seem appropriate or interesting to post. It is something I was doing, but I do lots of things and I don’t post them. I recognize that I was posting just to post but not really saying anything worthwhile.
The blog is not dead. I’ll post when I feel I have something interesting to post. Actually it might not be interesting to anyone else but it might be something I feel could be worthwhile for me to look back at someday.
I am in the Chicago area this week for work. I got to see some of this stuff up close.
While not a true picture of what I was looking at, it is fairly close. Cobalt blue, or the Cherenkov effect. Pretty amazing stuff.
Regarding running – it has been less than great. I am trapped in the clover leaf of highways, hotels with little to no sidewalks, and few street lights. Add in 30 mile an hour winds and rain or snow. And add in that my times to get out have been either early in the AM, or in the evening (as I am at work throughout the day) … and it has been mostly a treadmill week. Frankly I am just not going to risk running on some state highway shoulder in the dark in those sort of crappy conditions.
On the flip side, doing the treadmill does provide for some fair heat training. The hotel exercise room is locked in at 72 degrees and there is not a fan in site. This is what that looks like at 35 minutes of running. 
It ain’t pretty. TZ thinks I ought to never put myself on one of these devices in a public setting because it is scary to other people. She might be right. As I finished a five miler Monday AM – even before I got off the mill – the woman on the one next to oh so politely pointe out where the wet wipes were for me. I thanked her and did the wipe down as she did her run and provided an eyeball of oversight.
Maybe it is the Beck thing. Maybe it is that we are not that pretty in the movement anyway. Not that I care exactly as he does because I think the alternative is a much greater problem.
I think somewhere on the run that I had this AM … which was an outside run (not snowing, and I found enough of a road to work with in rising lite of the dawn) … that I nearly came to a 95% conclusion that I am not going to do the Pikes Peak Marathon. While I am getting some 9 miles and change on average a day, and getting in some workouts, and I have plenty of time before Pikes … I just can’t see how I am going to effectively put in the training that I think is necessary with the other life choices I am making right now to set up for the proper preparation for that race. Again, I am not bemoaning that or feeling bad about that … it is just what it is.
I recognize there are some who might say “hey run it anyway” but that does not feel right. I don’t want to run it just because I can. I understand that is a bit taking something for granted but I can go run the hill anytime. It is a race and when it is a race, especially that one, I feel a need to properly address that.
I still have to Saturday to figure that out but that is about where I am with that.
Monday AM – 5.1 miles treadmill
PM – 5.1 miles treadmill
Tuesday PM – 10 miles treadmill
Wednesday AM 5.3 miles (OUTSIDE!!!)
PM – 5.2 miles treadmill
Saturday – laid an egg at the coaches mile. We got out in 78-79 and I knew that was a bit quick but it was already out there. Greg had a few yards on me at this point but he started to come back and I was in his hip pocket from 400 to 600. At 600 though he pulled away and I’d never recover. I came through 800 in 2:41 and it got worse from there. 4:05 at 1200 and 5:35 for the finish. Greg finished nearly a full straight away ahead of me at 5:15.
Ugh. It was fun to race and have the kids get into the coaches competition but getting walloped like that was an eye opener. I thought I’d be under 5:30 for sure, but I had nothing in the second half. Back to work.
The race is one of several points that has me thinking if Pikes is a smart thing for me to sign up for. I recognize my fitness, but more importantly I recognize what I can / am willing to do to prepare for that event given my life choices right now. And when I look at that, I am of the mind that I’d only be signing up for a 5 plus hour shelling that I am not well prepared for. It might be better for me to truly take the shorter focus for a bit (mile, 5k) as it might just all fit a bit better at this point. This is not a “woe is me” sort of thing, rather it is a practical look at where I am at, what I’d need to do, the likelihood of me doing that and assessing that all.
Obviously I need to figure that out this week.
JZ had a nice opener at the time trial. Really looking forward to seeing how his season plays out.
Saturday ended up as a 12.3 mile day with the race and a longer slow jog.
Sunday AM – a mile with TZ and then 8 on the loop before heading off to the airport.
Goofy week so far. Work has been hip deep and so I have not got out as much as I like.
M – 8.6 in the AM with Greg, moving pretty well.
2.6 in the afternoon as the kids started their warm up for a workout. First official day of track season.
T – I got this crazy pain in my neck now … right side starting on the shoulder and coming up behind my right ear. Meh.
8 miles, again moving pretty well
W – did some track work with Greg in the morning at mile pace. He and I have talked up racing in front of the kids on Saturday. Saturday is an “scrimmage” where we will have the kids do some events to get an idea of where they truly are for the track season. The kids have got pretty into the idea of Greg and I going against each other in a mile. Four weeks ago I’d have easily beaten Greg but he has amazingly come on quick. When not smack talking each other we both think we are in 5:20 to 5:40 shape. If it comes to a kick he will have a step on my for sure. Doing sub 40 second 200 today seemed okay but stringing 8 of them together seems to be a lot more than what I am capable of right now. 8 miles in the AM and then 2.2 with the kids on their warm up in the afternoon.
Th – I felt like C-R-A-P and I could not stop doing that. My guts fell outside of me for most of the afternoon. 7.5 miles with Greg on the Ridgeview Lac Amora loop in under an hour.
Saturday – cold and windy – a very easy 11.2 miles, with the first half being with the XC boys.
Sunday – 10.1 miles. Mid run I got word that KZ’s singing group, the ISU Women’s Choir was doing a webcast of one of their concerts there. I listened in during the jog (and windy again!).
Last week the travel sort of set me back. This week my lame-o excuse was work and the weather. I got a fair number of miles (66.7) – although not great. I got some workouts in, but also not great. Sort of felt like a week where I was treading water versus moving forward with the training.
Another cold day. It didn’t snow until later though so we had that going on. 7.1 miles with some hill work
Afternoon – 7 miles. Easy plus. Felt pretty good. Snowing and cold again.
It is Girl Scout cookie selling season and with that, I was reminded by some friends from my past about my rant about people selling cookies at their offices.
I don’t tend to rant like that on this blog anymore. I still hold that feeling on cookie sales – that parents selling cookies for their kid defeats a good number of the goals of the program – but ranting about it here on the blog seems unnecessary. Maybe because it is I am not in such a corporate environment anymore and I don’t have that sort of thing in my face.
Then again, I do travel enough, and through airports, that I see ridiculous self absorbed unware about anything but me behavior. But ranting about that is sort of like fishing in a bucket … it has been done and it does not lead to anything positive in my head space – just being disgruntled. So I try to rant less (although TZ might disagree). So it is probably a combination of trying to be more positive, a bit lazy to blog about that stuff, and recognizing that I am not drumming on any great material.
10.2 miles … on the treadmill. I decided that rather than slog around in the snow and cold again today, I’d take advantage of access to a treadmill and get some work in. In the run, I did 3 at 10% grade, and I finished the last 3 miles sub seven. No biggie, but I did have that reminder that I sweat like I am in Iowa on a summer day when on a treadmill.
Treadmills … sort of like Strava for me: a tool that can be useful but one that I went a bit too bonkers in. When I owned a mill, I ended up doing things on it that I could not replicate outdoors and hence building some false confidence, as well as pushing potential injury. ‘Mills ain’t the problem … my approach to them was. Properly used (similar to Strava) they can be useful.
Anyway, the climbing was not so bad. Climbing on a mill is not the challenge that an outdoor trail is because I have yet to find a trail that climbs as cleanly as a mill (think rock step ups) but it still gave me a touch of some vertical work.
Not snowing today, but cold and with the snow down, humid. There was definitely a bite in the air.
10 easy miles.
I found myself slightly amused and annoyed on my reliance on Strava. For decades I ran without knowing a true number of miles I ran. I knew I ran some amount of time and I made a guess at how many miles that was. I typically guessed it at 7:30 a mile pace and that was probably a fair guess. There were days certainly slower than that, and there were days that quicker than that.
But then came the foot pods, and then the early GPS watches (that did altitude off of barometric pressure). And then Garmin. And Garmin Connect, and then Strava. And with that I became a bit addicted to making sure I got some number of miles a day. That is not the fault of Strava, it was a construct I made up in my head.
I have enjoyed Strava in using it to find routes in locations, or even to create some effort workout based on someone’s FKT. It has caused me self induced angst when I have seen a segment fall to someone’s bike ride, or a legit performance but that performance is in a geography that I won’t get to for a while. And I have even had someone specifically look to “roll down” any and all local segments I “had.” I’d love to say that didn’t bother me but when I saw four days of “GZ segment takedown” emails come in, it was a bit of a tweak to my ego.
I’d say Strava is a fine tool for simply tracking and occasionally motivating but it seems one in ten my runs are not accurately captured anyway (GPS error, my error, gremlins, whatever). So I sit with mixed considerations for GPS watches, and sites like Strava. Amused and annoyed.
Afternoon – cold and snowy. 7 miles easy.
Later afternoon – still cold and snowy. 4 miles. Wind chill at –2.
Not an ideal weekend for running or training … Friday we headed out to Ames to visit KZ.
When we got there I thought we’d be able to run at the field house but after much to do to get prepared to go there, we learned JZ – as a minor – could not run in the field house after 6 as a minor (even with us present) (but he could the next day from noon to five). We went to dinner. 
JZ showed more discipline than me by getting on treadmill for 35 minutes at 10 at night. I made my way to the bed instead.
We did make it back to the field house (Leid) on Saturday. The big 300 meter oval was tied up with folks shooting hoops, so after a warm up, JZ and I went to the upper track (yes, there are two tracks on top of each other in the building). The upper is a touch smaller (5.5 laps to the mile so 292 meters ish versus 300 meters) and not as well curved but it was very nice (given the pretty cold and icy temps outside).
There are something like 36k students at the university. Amazingly I ran into the one from Colorado that broke Brent Vaughn’s state all comer’s record for the 3200, Tanner Norman. It was good to chat with him for a bit.
JZ and I got in a tempo (25 min) and I felt pretty good about managing 6:20 pace through that. We spent a good chunk of the day walking around the university.
Sunday was back to CO. And while I had aspirations to get a run in when I got back, it was definitely one of those cases where the trip back was significantly longer feeling. Fried when I hit the door at 7:30, I was in bed within the hour.
A low volume training week but I got in some workouts. Still with Pikes on the radar, 50 mile weeks ain’t going to cut it.
Monday – 10.2 miles, easy.
Tuesday – hill work locally. 8 miles total on the run. Mix of paces but definitely faster than 5k pace on everything.
Wednesday – 10.2 miles, easy
Thursday – 7 miles outdoors. The snow began to fly and so I headed in. The weight room at the school now has a few treadmills, so I did a mile an a half on one at 15% for hahas.
Runs have varied in pace from under five pace (some of the hill stuff) to 9 minute pace.
Thursday – 13 miles easy in the afternoon.
Friday – 7.5 with Greg in the morning, jumping on 5 minutes on, 2 minutes off over four sets. It was cold with freezing fog, and I felt the slightly bigger day more than I cared to admit. I got in another three and change in the afternoon before coaching the kids through a workout. The weather had degraded enough over the course of the workout that I was seriously thinking of bagging it. JZ told me afterwards that he was glad I hadn’t.
JZ and I then headed out to Tahosa, for our fifth year at Okpik, and third year of staffing it. It was a good weekend playing in the snow, digging caves, instructing younger Scouts, and enjoying a sub zero night. The drive to Ward was pretty much a white knuckle affair the whole time and took an hour forty versus the typical hour … but we made it safely. It was worth it.
JZ is such a trooper at these events. It is truly an ass kicker of a day with the hike with the pulks at 9k feet through the snow, piling the snow, then carving it back out … dealing with the weather … and he just loves it. It is a real privilege to get to share it with him.
Of course, I get nothing for running on that day. I get some sort of workout but it ain’t running. First day off on the year.
Sunday – I always forget how trashed I am from the Okpik event when I think about what I will do Sunday afternoon. This year was no exception. 6.6 miles just to wake up some stiff legs.
A solid week on whole with a hill workout, some threshold stuff and a fair number of miles given the day off. Going to have to get back to being rigorous next week.
Mid day between calls – 6 miles.
A few hours later – 5.1 miles.
Tired.
TZ has the flu. Hoo boy.
Afternoon – the last couple of days Greg and I have been talking some smack to each other in front of the team as to who could beat who in a mile. Last night I put up a Instagram poll. The kids really seemed to have enjoyed it. While I got 68 percent of the vote that I would win in the poll, today’s workout would indicate otherwise. Short version – Greg kicked my ass.
Greg and I did hill work today – 8 x 45 second segments and he just chewed me up. I was getting out well, but about 2/3rds into the hill I was losing the drive, feeling it up in the arms, overstriding … so good efforts, but work to be done. He was striding away from me some 10 seconds in on every repeat. 5.3 miles.
Greg and I sitting at some guy at Nike’s dining table.
It is good to se Greg getting into shape. It is coming back really quickly, and the guy who I could regularly whip even a month ago suddenly has a higher end gear that I can’t touch on the shorter stuff. It is occasionally frustrating, but it is great to have a motivating training partner.
Tight day so not much running but I got some quality.
AM – Greg gave me a boot in the tail that got me out first thing in the AM. This was good because I probably would have not done that or run as quickly when I did run. Group stuff is always better. We are better together. I felt sort of crappy but it was a good 8.3 miles.
PM – jogging just over 8s with the team before the weather blew in.
Friday AM – got the buzz from Greg and we got out early for some. 8 miles.
Slow in the afternoon – easy 4 around the track as the kids headed out.
Saturday – 6.5 with strides at the end. Cut miles in prep for the Sunday race.
Sunday – woke up and everything was locked in fog. Then it was snowing. And it was icy. Around 9:30 the town put out the word that they had cancelled the race due to hazardous conditions. Bob, Shad and I agreed to meet over at the park and get some work in anyway … it would not be great but given that I had scheduled a race for the day I needed to get some quality in.
It was slick (Shad took a good digger, and I almost slipped into an on coming car) but I got around the park in the cold in 20-21 for a 5k. Not ideal, but better than slogging through ten miles easy. We tacked on another half dozen at the end to get in a 10 plus.
On whole – not a great week of training with the travel and the weather botched race.
The weekend was fun though … Friday night we got over to CU to watch the miles, where Buff athlete Perrin took the mile in 4:03 just ahead of Saarel. Dani Jones put up a powerful 4:36.1 – the fastest time in Colorado by a woman ever. On Sunday I watched 50 year old Todd Straka almost get one of our assistant coaches – Ryan Parker in a heat of the 800. Todd ran 2:06. That is ridiculous for 50. It was also really cool to see former Broomfield Eagle Ethan Gonzales post a 8:16 3k. I love me a track meet.
