Monthly totals and KD's inspiratinoal video

Monthly totals for August...133! That is lower than I hoped considering there was 5 full weekends in the month. I did not run again today to rest my leg and I am pretty sore from my core yard work session yesterday. The back yard is looking good though.

U.S. 800m runner Khadevis Robinson is always good for a quote but in this interview he is truly inspiring and would be an excellent public speaker. Enjoy!

Track and Field Videos on Flotrack

Sergio Reyes Race Results PR!

Local Palmdale elite runner Sergio Reyes was 10th at the Spirit of Columbus Half Marathon in Ohio today. He ran 1:04:05 (a PR by 12 seconds) with good competition in preparation for the Chicago Marathon in October. That is equivalent to a 2:14 marathon on a flat course....like Chicago! Good luck Sergio!

14 mile fast finish group run!

We had a group of 8 (Me, Andi, Dawn, Clay, Dale, Chuck, Michael, and Dan) out on Saturday morning for our 14 mile fast finish run on the aqueduct at Ave. S. Well it was supposed to be a fast finish run, and some people did a great job (Dale, Dawn, Andi). I was not feeling it today from the beginning. My left calf was very tight and bothering me the whole time. I ran with Dan Ham and we did pick it up after 10 miles but not as much as we would have liked to. We averaged between 8:20 and 8:30 for the first 10 miles and then Dan and I ran 7:14, 7:21, 7:22, 7:25 for the last 4 miles slowing down a great deal on the last half mile where Dale pushed it in and caught us. Clay ran with Andi for the last 4 miles and Dawn (who ran a hard 10 with us) got on her bike to help pull Andi along as well. Their last 4 miles were 7:44, 7:54, 7:32, 7:19. Andi wasn't understanding that just because we are hoping to run 3:45 at Twin Cities that doesn't mean that 8:35 is her marathon pace. I tried to explain that based on her July 4th 5k 21:19 that her marathon pace should be 7:45 and that she did her fast finish run today perfectly, finishing with a mile at threshold pace, but I still don't think she understood. Her VDOT predicts a 3:23 marathon but she doesn't have the base mileage to pull off such a time. Also we are on vacation for the week after the marathon and would like to be able to walk around fairly normally afterward. That's ok, she is progressing beautifully. I on there other hand required two ice baths and stretching the rest of the day on my left leg. I completed the 14 miles in 1:54:10 (8:09 pace).

We are scheduled for 18 miles next weekend and are talking about driving down to Santa Clarita on Saturday and running on the Paseo for something different. Well see how my leg feels by the end of the week.

It is a good thing we ran on Saturday morning because by Saturday afternoon this was the view from my front porch.My sister in law was evacuated last night from their house in Acton, CA!

We did not run today, we were pretty tired and feared poor air quality. I also thought it best to give my left leg an extra day to recover, so I got a good core workout doing yard work!

In the National track news Dathan Ritzenhein broke the American Record in the 5k on Friday with a time of 12:56! He was third in the race behind the best in the world. Amazing! Look out Ryan Hall, that time gives him a VDOT equivalent of 2:04:13 for the marathon!

Track and Field Videos on Flotrack

Track and Field Videos on Flotrack

Intervals canned for easy run

I planned on starting an interval session at Joe Walker Middle School on Wednesday mornings. But I knew after about 1 mile of my warm up that it was not going to happen today. My left calf was tight from the get go and did not loosen up. So I jogged a mile around the track and headed back home for a total of 4 miles, and it was SLOW. I think I am still recovering from that 10k last week and then pushing through 16 miles on Saturday and then my two killer hills in Acton on Monday. They were not hard efforts after the 10k last Wednesday, just all in combination are taking their toll.

ATTENTION READERS: Saturday August 29th at 6:00 am we will be at Ave S and the aqueduct for a 14 mile fast finish run (first 10 at 8:30 pace, then last 4 at marathon pace or faster). All are welcome. You can come and do as much as you would like but that is what we will be running (Andi and I). Hope to see you there.


Finally, starting Friday August 28th REI is having their super clearance sale for a week. 50% off many of their already reduced clearance items! Take a look! It is a great sale!

7.5 mile run in Acton

We stayed at my sister-in-law's house in Acton last night. I took the morning off work while Andi had a meeting to attend. I snuck in an hour run before she left on my Acton loop (7.5 miles). It starts at the near the park on Crown Valley, cuts over to Soledad Canyon, then a right on Aliso Canyon, a right on Y-8 (yes I said Y-8, I didn't know that one even existed), then looping back on Briar Glen/Indian Oak/Country Way (the road changes names often). There are two killer hills. I have yet to check the grade on the Garmin but guess it is at least 15% (it may peak out around 20%). It took me an hour at a fairly easy pace, but it also took me about 3 miles to warm up.

P.S. I am also a "pro" on Wii Golf as of last night! I shot -2 on the 9 hold course!


Late addition: Andi also ran a 16 miler on Sunday. Her friend Dawn ran the first 10 with her and then biked the last 6 with her. They had a good run on the aqueduct, finishing in 2:20 (8:45 pace). Good because I recommended that she not run more than 2:20 no matter how far she had run.

16 mile long run

I left about 6am this morning with light spitting rain and cooler temps. It was great weather for a long run! I on the other hand felt awful. My back was sore, my legs were tired, and I just couldn't get into it today. I actually felt like stopping early but remembered that I wasn't running tomorrow so I continued on. Andi and I are watching our nephew for the weekend and don't have child care to run together.

I ran my regular Rancho Vista loop but added on some mileage by circling Marie Kerr Park four times (1.25 miles per loop) and then extended the end by going up N to 60th, then down to M and back home. I finished the run in 2:06 and change (I haven't uploaded my Garmin yet, but my average pace was 7:55). My last six miles were SLOW. I feel like I just ran a marathon. Better get more sleep.

Clay, Dale, and Chuck (among others) ran the Jet to Jetty 10k in Los Angeles this morning. Read about their trip on Dale's Blog.


Finally the men's marathon was this morning at the world championships. I know we didn't have our best out there but come on! Our first finisher came in 24th! We had 5 entrants, 4 started and only 3 finished (only 2 were under 2:20)! There is a team award for each country's 3 finishers. We barely even had 3 finishers! Kenya, Ethiopia, Japan, Brazil, and Portugal all had their 3 runners finish before our first runner! Disappointing! We should have sent Sergio Reyes instead!

4 mile recovery run (34:50) MORE BOLT

I was planning on going farther today but the pace was slow and the legs were stiff so I cut it short. I was also extra tired today. The plan is to get a good night sleep tonight and then run 16 in the morning.

If you haven't heard about Usain Bolt, you must live on another planet. He did it again winning the 200m in world record time, skipping the 19.2s and running 19.19! Shawn Crawford of the US was 4th in the race and said he was, "waiting for the lights to flash 'game over,' cause I felt like I was in a video game." Here is the video.


This weekend has some great finals to watch with both men's and women's marathons, women's 1500m, men's 800m, and men's 500m.

For a good laugh, check this one out.

10k aqeuduct time trial (37:33)

One of the reasons that I developed a love of running in school was that I enjoyed crunching the numbers. I have always broken down workouts and races, taken splits, predicted times. I love disecting a race to find out where I can improve. I am a numbers guy.

After my run this morning I told Andi that I was less than a minute off my 10k PR! She said, "How do you remember that," and I said, "it's what I do."

So here is a disection of my time trial this morning. I arrived at 5:40 and did a good 10 minute warm up. I wore my addidas tempos (a performance stability shoe). Clay met me at 60th and the aqueduct at 6:00am and he paced me on the bike. We went south so we would have no gates to cross and could just run hard the whole way. It was little windy up there which was a cross wind most of the way but a head wind at some parts on the way back. I had to dig down deep to grind out the last 2 miles (mental toughness).

Here are the mile splits:
6:19
6:06
6:08
6:02
5:57
5:50

First 3 miles 18:33, second 3 miles 17:50.

I don't think I could have paced that any better. If I had dropped a 5:50 earlier in the run it might have been too much to maintain. I hit the 5k in 19:10 and came back in 18:23! I ran an open 5k in 18:20 last year! Total time was 37:33 (avg pace 6:03). My PR is 36:36 on a downhill road race in 1997 before I left for college. I honestly have not raced many 10ks in my life.

VDOT for my time today is 55.9 and predicts a marathon of 2:53:25! I would say I am on pace with my training. The VDOT calculator gives me training paces of 5:45 for intervals and 6:15 for threshold runs. I was hoping for 38:30 today and ran a minute faster. Thanks to Clay for pacing me on the bike. It helps so much to have someone just a half step ahead to try and keep up with and draft off of.

I weighed myself after the run...167.

I may do another time trial in 6 weeks or so. We'll see how the training progresses. I plan on starting a weekly interval session for the next 6 weeks. I need to start practicing what I preach.


There have been great performances at the Track & Field World Championships this weekend. In the morning you can get a live web feed at Universal Sports. Dathan Ritzenhein was 6th in the 10k and also negative splitted (he ran 13:50 and 13:30). See his interview here.

Jenny Barringer was 5th in the women's steeplechase and she also has an excellent interview here. She has an amazing love of the sport. After her race she says, "cross country starts today!" She red-shirted last year to train for the Olympics.

Local Quartz Hill High School graduate Michelle Perry did not make it out of the first round of the 100m hurdles but raced with a pretty serious knee injury. See her interview here.

Check out World T&F results here.


Finally, a Hansons/Brooks athlete Clint Verran (2:14 marathoner and physical therapist) had surgery on his hip this past week. My P.T. readers might get more out of this one.
Here is his pre-op post.
Here is his post-op post.

Here is an interesting article on Kara Goucher and her training with Alberto Salazar.

Easy mileage the rest of the week and the weekend.

Fartleks, Fast Finish, and Usain Bolt!

First, the running clinic on Saturday was successful. We had a group of about 15 show up to listen to us ramble on about interval training. I had a hard time making some of the science understandable for everyone but I received some very nice comments and had some very good questions afterward that I felt I was able to answer and explain. If you were there, feedback is always appreciated an helpful.

The training this weekend was great. Saturday morning Clay and I lead a workout for the Desert Christian cross country team and had about 10 runners come along. After a 2 mile jog, I took the kids through a dynamic warm up of drills. The workout was 3 x 2k with a fartlek type format on each pushing up and over a the short hills and bridges. I lead the A group and we ran about 7:37, 7:20, 7:20 with mile splits around 6:15. Including a 2 mile warm up and cool down the mileage for the workout was about 7.5-8.0 miles. They have some good young runners on the team and should continue to improve over the season. I foresee some great performances this year. See Clay's blog for more commentry and a picture.

Sunday morning Andi had scheduled a 10 mile fast finish run again. This weekend was a down week for her as far as mileage but she had a great effort today. We met Dale and Chuck on Ave S and the Aqueduct for our now standard 10 mile fast finish course. One of my friends and blog readers, Dan, attended the clinic on Saturday and then stayed for the Sunday morning workout. I don't have my Garmin ready for exact splits but, based on Dale's blog, we ran our first 5 miles in 42:37 (8:31 pace), I then increased the pace with Dan and Chuck to 7:20 for 2.5 miles and then brought it home with a 6:30 and 6:00 for the last two miles, total time of 1:17 and change.
I was about 2 minutes slower in total time compared to last time we did this workout, but the last two miles today felt much easier than three weeks ago.

Everyone ran hard and finished within the next two minutes. Andi finished the run in just under 80 minutes meaning she came home on her last 5 miles at 7:25 pace, awesome! Last time we did that run she averaged 7:40 over the last 5. Chuck continued for at least another 5 miles after we stopped!

Local runner Sergio Reyes was 4th today at the America's Finest City Half Marathon in San Diego, CA with a 1:06:03 (about 90 seconds away from his person best). Three guys from New Mexico came out and took the first three spots. Five of the top seven were from NM.

The other big half marathon was the New York City Half Marathon in which Ryan Hall was third in 1:02:35 (he is scheduled to run the NYC Marathon in November), and Paula Radcliffe (running her first race since bunionectomy) won the women's race in 1:09:45. If she recovers quickly she may still run the World Championships Marathon in a week (August 23rd).

Finally, the Track and Field World Championships started this weekend in Berlin, Germany. A 19 year old Kenyan woman, with legs up to her neck, won the 10k. And who ever predicted that Usain Bolt could run 9.5 were correct. He finally ran through a finish (he even leaned a little) won the final today world record time 9.58! He bettered his own WR from Beijing by more than .1 seconds (9.69)! See the race video below! Second place was won by American Tyson Gay who set an American Record with a 9.71! They did not disappoint.

Track and Field Videos on Flotrack

8 mile easy run (62:30)

Today I did an out and back on the aqueduct from my house. It was one of those runs where I look down at my watch and it reads 3.2 miles, then after what seems like 5 minutes I look down again and think, "I should be close to 4 miles by now" and my watch reads 3.4 miles! 8 miles seemed like 14. It was a little windy on the aqueduct and I had to push harder than I should have to, to maintain an 8:00 pace. I guess you can't have a good run every day.

I am looking forward to a workout with the Desert Christian H.S. cross country team on Saturday morning and then a 10 mile fast finish run on Sunday morning with Andi. I am extending the invitation to any of my readers to meet us at the aqueduct and Ave. S at 5:30 on Sunday morning. We have a graduation party that morning for my brother-in-law (he is finishing his MBA) and need to be back early to help out. Hope to see a few of you out there.

Here is an interesting article about a study in Austria on the overall health of runners knees. They did an MRI study before and after a marathon with these results. Then 10 years later got the same people back to rescan them again and found these results. And another study here. They are doing some cool research out in Vienna.

Basically, they found no damage after a marathon other than mild joint effusion (swelling). There was no "adverse long-term consequences" 10 years later "regardless of pre-existing damage at baseline." They go on to hypothesize that running may have a protective effect on knee joint health. I tend to agree.

8 mile Quartz Hill long hills run

It took me about 3 miles to loosen up this morning after my 2 hour run yesterday, but after that I felt really good. I did my 3 x half mile hill run in Quartz Hill. The loop is about 7 miles but I tacked on another one for cool down and made it 8 in 1:02:40 (avg 7:50 pace). I am feeling stronger up the hills. 22 miles for the weekend. Last time I did this workout, July 25th, I did it in 1:02:10 (pretty close and I was more fresh last time).

Next Saturday, August 15th, is our next FREE running clinic at Valley Physical Therapy Group. This time the topic is on interval training! The show starts at 11:00 am and will run for about an hour. Come down and check it out. You might learn something. The title is "Get Fit, Get Fast, Loose Weight (Maximal Metabolic Disruption)."

This is post number 250 by the way!

If this video doesn't inspire you then you may be hopeless.

14 mile run with Andi in Acton, CA

The only way to get in a long run with Andi is if we stay at her sister's place in Acton, CA (about 20 minutes away) so we can get up early and the boys can stay with her. We did that today, leaving for our run at about 5:45. I had mapped out a 7 mile loop that looked pretty flat on google earth but turned out to have two killer hills. We did the loop twice for a total of 14 miles. Total time was about 2:04 (avg pace 9:00). Our first loop was slow but we picked up the pace on the last loop and ran the last few miles at around 8:20 pace. We got back to her sisters house and everyone was still asleep!

The HDR summer cross country championships was this morning and I went over to watch. The conditions were awesome and that lead to some fast times. It seemed like everyone ran a course best (Neil, Zac, and Dale all did). See Clay's blog and Dale's blog for more commentary.

One of my readers and friends, Dan Ham, was interested in my training plans and how the Twin Cities Marathon fit in to the schedule. It actually fits in perfectly. Andi and I are running the TCM together this year. We haven't run a marathon together since Los Angeles 2005 where I paced her to a 3:38! This will be her first marathon since having Matt and Micah. We are excited. I wrote her a 3 month training plan building up to the marathon and so far she is doing great! She is scheduled to run the Big Bear Half Marathon on September 12 this year with a girl friend and she will use it as a training run as it is only 4 weeks before the marathon. There isn't enough time to taper, race it, and recover, as well as get in all of our scheduled long runs. Plus the altitude is not the place to run a fast time. We are hoping to run around 3:45 in Minnesota. So for me the Twin Cities Marathon will be more like a training run in preparation for California International Marathon, December 6th. Similar to my 30 miler a month ago. My plan, make the speed (6:40 pace), not the distance (26.2 miles), the limiting factor.

I would like to do a 10k time trial in two or three weeks and then again a month after that to use as a fitness guage. I may do a half marathon time trial (1:25ish) in early November. I don't think I can afford to do any other races. After TCM I will have a two month build up that will consist mostly of marathon pace, fast finish long runs, and down hill tempo runs to get my quads used to some hard pounding (there is a net downhill at CIM) all the while maintaining a fairly good mileage of 40-45 miles per week (it would be nice to have a few top out at around 50!). I have never had 6 month training block with this much base work to build on for a marathon so I am excited about my current fitness level. Right now I can recover from a 2 hour long run in about a day. I have not broken 3 hours for a marathon since Grandma's in 2006! The goal this year is 2:55 (6:40 pace)! I will spend the next 2 months doing some hill training, some faster stuff (10k pacing), and helping Andi with her mileage build up.

Dan, I think your idea to run the Long Beach Half Marathon on October 11th is a great idea and it won't disrupt your training at all. I would race it and use it as a fitness guage to help you set your final goals for CIM. I know you were thinking about a Boston qualifier (3:10). You would need to run your half in about 1:30 or faster for an equal effort. You would definitely be on track with a time like that. After the half in October make sure you give yourself about 10-13 days of recovery before the final ramp up for CIM. I would hope your long run before the half would be at least 16 miles, and then after Long Beach you would have time for 3 other runs longer than that, topping out at 20-22 miles.

Thanks for asking Dan!
It was great to see you and run with you in July.
Good luck with the training.

Finally, I have been commenting on a blog post from Coach Jay Johnson's blog out of Boulder, CO. We have had some great dialogue going on and I thought some of my readers might be interested in it. Coach Johnson is a smart coach that has a very similar philosophy about how to train runners to reach their maximum potential and prevent injuries using strength training to supplement their running. He also has some great videos on his blog. Read all the comments here.

6 mile recovery run & Karl’s RANT

It was cool out this morning. It felt like fall! There is no way this can last, its only August 7th. I got in an easy 6 miler in 48 minutes (8min pace). The route was from my house to Lane Park, three loops, and back home. I was a little stiff from my hard effort Wednesday night.

So here is my rant. I was reading Dick Beardsley’s blog the other day and was amazed to find that he was now up to 50 miles a week running on his total knee replacement. If you don't know who Dick Beardsley is google "1982 Boston Marathon" (he is also the Grandma's Marathon course record holder). “Good for him”, I thought, "that is awesome". He is about 7 months post op now. Then I went on to read that he had been having some back pain at night and had tried a new mattress but it wasn’t helping, so he went to see an orthopedist. In Dick’s words, the doctor told him he had no other options but surgery and wouldn’t you know it, the doctor had an opening for surgery the next day! So he went in for his second lumbar fusion (he was in a bad farming accident and car accident many years ago) this time with disc replacement.

Ok, I am not one to judge, and I certainly don’t know the whole story or have a full medical history on Mr. Beardsley, but if he was able to run 50 miles a week and had some bad back pain at night, I would think that surgery wouldn’t be the ONLY option. The people I have seen that needed lumbar fusion couldn’t walk 50ft! Now there may have been other symptoms that I am unaware of, but unless the doctor thought it was life threatening, why not get a second opinion or try some physical therapy. Am I way off base here? Would any of you rush into serious back surgery the next day after one doctor said it was your only option? Read Dick’s blog post here.

It was 25 years ago this week that Joan Benoit Samuelson won the first ever Women’s Olympic Marathon in Los Angeles. She was 17 days post op arthroscopic knee surgery! I have this picture autographed. Read a recent interview with her at runnersworld.com looking back on that race.

Finally, I have to mention Kara Goucher’s win at the Rock n’ Roll Chicago Half Marathon last weekend. She was the first person to finish, male or female, with a time of 1:08:03, just 30 seconds off the American Record! I think she is ready for the World Championship Marathon in Berlin.

1.5 in the morning; 9.0 at night (tempo)

My youngest son caught a nasty virus and has been sick the past two days. Consequently, there hasn't been great sleeping going on in our house. I thought I would be able to get out for a run this morning but spent half the night on the couch. I got up and thought, "I can get in a half hour." Usually I talk myself out of it, deciding that the extra half hour sleep is more beneficial. Today I guess I felt like I needed to pound some pavement and got out for what turned out to be only a mile and a half. After putting on my running shoes, I felt tired and needed enough time to get ready for work. It was just enough to get my heart beating and wake me up. It took me longer to clean up and get dressed than it did to run the 1.5 miles around my neighborhood.

Tonight, after deciding that Andi would get her run in the morning, I decided to leave the house for an hour run at 8:45pm. I picked the Rancho Vista loop from my house. I hadn't run it in a while and decided that I would push up all the hills on the course. After about 1 mile I decided that I felt pretty good, similar to last Friday in Long Beach, and was maintaining a comfortably hard effort tempo pace for most of the run. I pushed the hills and cruised the downhill and flats. I saw a few other runners out tonight and pushed to catch each group ahead of me. I ended up negative splitting the run and finished the 9 miles in just under 63 minutes! (avg pace 6:59).

Mile splits were: 7:36, 7:20, 6:58, 7:24, 6:37, 6:46, 6:29, 6:36, 6:59.

All the long runs of the past 4 months are finally paying off. That pace didn't feel too hard. Good thing becuase 6:40 is my goal marathon pace in December.

Andi has been having some ITBand tightness and Quadricep pain over the past week. It is finally resolving. She took and extra day off and cut her long run a little short last weekend. She will run easy tomorrow and then long again (14 miles) on Saturday with me.

16 miler in Long Beach, CA

The best way to see a city is on foot, especially on the run! Clay and I left the hotel at 3:55 am (Clay was up early and I said lets go for it!) and headed out on the streets of Long Beach for a planned 16 miler. I think I set a personal record for the earliest run. The weather was beautiful (around 66 degrees). We ran down the PCH until we got to 2nd street which took us through the island town of Naples, CA. Then we continued on Ocean Blvd down the heart of Long Beach, around the convention center and back up Alamitos to our hotel. We saw the Long Beach Aquarium, the Performing Arts Center, the Queen Mary, 3 different art museums, and the beach! Wild life included about 20 stray cats near a park by the beach. We could also hear the seals at the aquarium getting their breakfast. At about mile 8 we hit "Rock Bottom," ok, we didn't stop but it wasn't open either. We averaged 8:20 pace over 16 miles for a total time of 2:13. We were back to the hotel just after 6:00 am and arrived easily for our last day of the Functional Training Summit. My first lecture was on Kettlebell training and it was upstairs! Big mistake, I just watched most of the techniques, although I did work on my turkish getup!

A nice way to start off August.