9 mile week?

I decided I needed to just rest the leg more. I didn't run at all last weekend. I did have a good time being the lead bike at the AV Fair wave race though. I started the race with Roger "Woody" Wood in the 70+ age group. We stayed together for 1.25 miles until Alan Brown (60+ AG) caught us. I then continued on with Alan for another 1.25 miles until we were caught by Steve Brumwell (50+AG) and I rode with him until 14 year old Vanessa Lopez caught us and won by 8 seconds. It was a fun race, I hope to be able to run next year. In decent shape I think I could have cracked the top 10 (I would have a 14 minute disadvantage)!

I ran 5 miles on Monday and my right calf said that was enough after about 4 miles.

I ran 4 miles today (Thursday) and again I was done after 4.

As I rested last weekend I started to wonder if maybe I actually have some small tearing in my soleus. Fortunately, it has been feeling better all week. My 10k on September 12 has turned into a "hope to finish without pain" run.


There has been some great articles and blog posts this week, that I would like to share.

1. A world record in the men's 800m last weekend by David Rushida of Kenya by .02 seconds. Watch the video here. Amazing!

2. A great interview with Alberto Salazar on getting through hard workouts!

3. A fun interactive site on How Marathoning Affects the Body.

4. A very intersting article from the USATF on stretching and injury prevention. If you read one part of the article read the discussion. My take on stretching is just like my take on running shoes. There are so many factors involved that to make a generalization like "running shoes prevent injury" or "stretching prevents injury" is hog-wash. Running in different shoes or daily calf stretching would not have prevented my calf strain. Does that make stretching bad, no, but it doesn't make it good either. It has to be specific to the athlete and their needs. Also, when you read an article about running injuries make sure you find out what the author classifies as an injury. Their definitions will vary.

5. Deena Kastor is 3 months pregnant. She will not be running the NY Marathon this fall. I didn't pick her to make the 2012 Olympic team anyway. Now she will only have 9 months to recover and prepare for the trials. I don't think it is enough.

6. Both Chicago and New York Marathons are shaping up to be very exciting races. Maybe a morning marathon party is in order. I will let you know when the races get closer.

7. Nick Arciniaga, one of the top US marathoners with a PR of 2:11:47, wrote a good blog post on the mcmillanelite athlete blog page on August 16, 2010. He talks about his coach Greg McMillan's mantra "Go for it," meaning to go into every race with the ambition to run a breakthrough performance. I think what we mid-packers can take from this is that when you are in good shape don't let your watch limit your pace. Yes, run within your own means, but if you have been training hard and you never push it just a little bit harder, then you will never know what your true potential could be. If you are close but you never go out at your Boston Qualifier pace, you will never "break through." Sometimes when you try this you will not make it. This has happended to me twice in marathons. I went out in the 2006 Las Vegas Marathon with a half split of 1:25, hit the wall hard, and scrapped together a 3:04. In 2008 at the Boston Marathon I had a goal of sub 3 hours again, went out in 1:28, blew up again, and walked in the last 5k to finish in 3:14. But if I had not run these races, I would not remember what this feels like to go out that hard, and may not have run 2:57 at CIM last December.

8. Coach Jay Johnson also had a great blog post on August 23rd titled The Uncarved Block. The part I like is the 8 points listed for the high school coach when training runners. My favorite is number 8 because so much of coaching and training runners is trial and error. He writes, "Volume. I know – wait, I think – two of the athletes I work with need to run more. But maybe they don’t. Maybe they need to run more of their current volume hard. Or maybe they just need to run the hard volume they were running harder." What does each individual athlete need? More overall volume? More hard volume? More intesity? There is no right answer. My pal Ron said it best in an email to me recently (I hope you don't mind me posting this Ron): "It seems like that fine line is where all the gravy is. I mean too easy and there isnt enough stimulus to change, and too hard and you invite trouble."

Enough time-wasters yet?