NEW HAVEN 20K

Why race, why. 2:11. Just got going at 5 miles in 47 something and WHAM. No body but me bonks at 5 miles.

NEW HAVEN 20K

Labor day closes in, I'm not ready, Sept 25 sprint Tri ....... More not ready....

Jamaica was a great vacation and at least I know I can swim a half mile.

I CAN SEE IT NOW

AUG 2 2021

San Juan Pirate (formerly the Pittsburgh Pirates) GM Manny Ramirez
announces the signing of Alex Rodriguez in order to pursue his 600th
home run. AROD is 0 for his last 3208 with 2752 strikouts all major
league records but says, "I really haven't been pressing and I feel good
about helping this team win their first game of the decade, its not
about the personal records".

S F MARATHON - NO MO

Well, as they say,
"it ain't the marathon that's tough its the training". I just broke down. More than anything it was the long runs that I just couldn't do. I never got past 18 miles and anything over 12 was really tough. Could I finish?, yeah, but why make it a survival test. For now, I'll run less and try and regain a little speed, I'll see how it goes. Oh and marathon training in 90 plus weather ain't no picnic either.

ADD BACK

The foot is still bad, the legs are deader than dead, and now my lower back is gone. All I can do is rest a few days and see what happens, today will be day 2 of no running and tomorrow day 3. On Saturday or Sunday I'll try a long run and if I can't do it with something better than a survival test San Fran is out.

RUH ROH

To quote the great Scooby.

As always happens to me in marathon training a foreign substance is in the fan blades. The long runs have gone bad, the speed work has gone bad, and I can't hold weekly mileage. My biggest problem right now is pain in my left foot. It has all the traits of Morton's Neuroma but who knows. Too date my longest run is 18 which isn't bad if I can get back on track, but right now, THE FOOT and the dead legs need to recover.

RUFF

TUESDAY SPEED WORK

1ST GOOD TRACK SESSION IN 2 YEARS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

1st of the long prep runs for SF

Dead legs from the start, heat, phew. I was OK for 13 or so but the last 5K wow. I hate to more or less bonk on a training run but things happen, particularly on the first long run on a hot day. Bless my hydration pack or it would have been worse. The rest of this week will be one speed session, a couple of recovery runs and some days off to regroup. Then Sunday a 10K,and back to building milage for 3 weeks.

Training

Now I remember, its not the marathon that's tough (B.S.) its the training. Actually its all hard for me, but I'm still on track. My long run is now 14 1/2 and speed sessions are 3 miles of work (5 800's & 2 400's). I want to get up to a 20 miler and be able to do a Yasso 800 workout with 9 weeks to go. If I can end up with a few 20's and Yasso workouts by game day plus some 40 - 45 mile weeks I should be OK.

Danbury 1/2 - April 11,2010 - Kaboom

Didn't feel good, should have stayed home. Oh well. At 6 miles I though about picking up the pace and shooting for sub 2 hours. At 8 1/2 I was dehydrated and headed toward a bonk. Call it a bad day and move on.

Bunny Boogie, Darien Ct, 04/03/2010

24:47; better than the 25:12 disaster of last year and a minute off the 23:45 of 2 years ago. I ran on fairly dead legs so not a bad effort, things are looking up. Sunday I did a hilly 13.35 from the house and it was a struggle the last 2 1/2 but not monumental. Next Sunday is the Danbury 1/2 and then the training starts for real for San Francisco

WSSAC - 4 Miler - Jennings Beach, Fairfield,Ct

Threshold races at this time of year are not something I look forward to running. After a long winter with no speed work and limited anything else intense I'm just not ready. Add in some extra pounds, reduced mileage, paranoia,the other usual excuses and I was really dreading the rescheduled Warren St. race today. Since I'm slow to begin with I can get pretty dark in the low expectations department, so today an 8:50 pace would have been good enough to keep me off the ledge. I was around 25:30 at 3 miles and even though I ran out of air in the last mile I finished at 34:22 (8:36), 4 whole seconds better than last year's 10th place in age group finish. I grabbed a bagel, shot the breeze with a friend, hopped in the car and drove to Westchester with Ray Davies doing "Kinks Choral" and Amy Winehouse saying no to rehab. Later when I saw the results I found out I was second in age group. Obviously with these kind of times I don't get many trophies and I had just left one on the table, literally. All in all (I did another 5+ in the afternoon) I feel like things are looking up for S.F. Got the Bunnie Boogie 3 miler in 2 weeks and the Danbury 1/2 in 3. Long runs, some tempos, speed work, and a few races that's the plan.

WARREN ST 4 MILE CANCELLED

Sunday was to be a test of aerobic fitness at this 4 miler I've run the last few years, but the massive windstorm Saturday forced it to be cancelled (today it was rescheduled for next week). So I did an 11 1/2 mile long run dodging fallen trees and downed power lines everywhere. What a mess. Temp was high forties and it rained the whole time. All in all a good training run, at least on the mental side. Check out the storm at one of my favorite spots to run, Rye Play Land.

Am I really gonna run San Francisco

The worst of winter is over and I'm thinking more and more about 26.2 in San Fran in July. With no long runs in ages I tried a little 11 miler today and that seems like something I can build on, so far so good. I also tried some speed work last week before snow covered the local tracks and while I only punched out 4 x 400 the workout had a decent feel to it. Add in a few tempo runs with some decent pop and maybe I'm on my way. BUT, lest I forget I'm also slower and fatter than I've been in a long time. AND OLDER

Let the games begin.

Running ain't new no more

I had lunch with a couple of guys from way back when today and we rehashed High School sports, who we knew, where we were, what we did, and of course now. Nice day !!! I had a 2 hour ride home and somehow I began thinking about how simple play is when its new and and how it changes as time passes and we complicate the game. Some examples:

- Play as a kid is running around and maybe inventing a game or two, play as an adult involves buying lots of stuff and making a ton of plans.

- The first time I sailed a boat ( Sunfish) was simple and easy. Owning a cruising boat was a lot of work, money and time, eventually it owned me.

- Skydiving was a big thrill the 1st time, got scared, looked down, jumped (static line jump). Later it was how many people on the jump, how many formations, who funneled the dive, etc.

- Hunting!!, cool but you can only shoot one gun at a time and squirrels as a kid were probably the most fun.

- Skiing, were long drives to Vermont or flights out west really any better than just driving to Camelback and getting a morning pass?

- And then there is running, in the 60's it was gym shorts, cotton socks and a tee shirt. Now its tech shirts, tech shorts with liner and just the right pockets for whatever, road shoes, racing shoes, trail shoes, ice shoes, lots of pairs to rotate and a sock collection that's just plain shameful. Oh! and winter gear, rain gear, 2 to the 3rd power times pi pairs of gloves, hats, balaclavas, ear warmers, Gu, sport drinks, Cliff bars, 3 watches, and I'm on my fourth GARMIN. An Excel spreadsheet for a log and lest we forget a BLOG, gotta simplify now.

I didn't dwell on winning here but if you have to win it can be rewarding, fulfilling, satisfying, blah, blah, but it ain't PLAY.

No 20K

I passed on the Boston Buildup 20K today not because my knee was bothering me, but because the cutback in miles has been offset by an increased caloric intake. I've been trying to drop 12 - 15 Lbs for years, now I can just make it 20 some. On the bright side I ran the OCA from Croton Dam with Mike and Michelle Saturday and it was fun. Just slick enough to make it interesting and the only time in history that just one person fell and it wasn 't me. We all hadn't run together for a while so I was also able to dump the sarcasm file over 5 1/2 miles. Today it was the 7.1 loop around Titicus reservoir, slow start but a lot of pop at the end which is good. My plan now is to get training for some as yet unknown spring races and see if I can have one good showing. Then in April train for the San Francisco Marathon. Right now I feel I have as good a chance of running a marathon as I do of an out and back to Peru. The memory of my bonk at mile 17 of the "Run for the Red Marathon" after my bypass a couple of years ago and my inability to do long training runs lately are my current wall of fear. So the challenge is defined and put up time ain't that far away.

RUNNING - WESTCHESTER CO. NY STYLE

- Rockefeller Park, the trails up on the Eastview side, the adjoining bridal paths, Rockwood, and the OCA. Nothing is better than a moonlit night by the old cemetery, where is that horseman anyway?

- The North County Trailway & the South County Trailway

- Running home from Van Cortlandt Park via The Putnam Trail and the Bronx river trail.

- Blue Mountain and the Briarcliff Peekskill Trailway.

- The Colonial loop and adjacent trails.

- Run around a reservoir, Croton, Titicus, Amawalk, Byram Lake, Kensico all are cool runs.

- The roads in Purchase and Rye (like Mill Pond or Milton Pt.) and the Colleges too.

- Park Lane, West Harrison and North St, White Plains, why I'll never know. Maybe they're just close by.

- Cherry St and Croton Lake Rd in Katonah. Fox lane, Rt 22, Succabone, and Guard Hill in Bedford.

- Rt 128 in Armonk and Bedford road in Greenwich.

- Ward Pound Ridge

- CROTON DAM

- And the Bear Mountain Bridge, the Goat trail, and the Annsville trail. Be careful there that's where the reaper made his move.

I wonder how many times I've almost been run over on Anderson Hill Rd.

1/18/10 - DUCK HUNT

What makes a good duck hunt? Droves of mallards diving into the spread? Lots of action? Good people and dogs? Well they all help, but today was one of those really good days because with 3 grown men and a big lab in a 13' duck boat and a north wind ready to push us 12 miles or more across L.I. sound, the engine quit. Ahh, but it quit in the right place (a 200 yard row to a spot we could hunt and still get home) not far from the ramp at the beginning of an afternoon hunt. It could have been a dark morning, it could have been much colder, the wind could have been stronger and we could have been at a point where we could not row to safety.

But it wasn't any of that stuff, instead we paddled to safety, threw out some decoys, shot a couple of geese, and walked and paddled the boat back to the launch at low tide right after sunset.

It is always better to be lucky than good. Oh yeah, there was a banded bird in there too!!!

BOSTON BULDUP 15K

Well, that's out of the way. Pretty much a rehash of the 10K. I felt better after a rough time on the hill up to the turn, except my right knee still is popping on downhills so I really laid back on them. That pretty much turned this into a workout not a race, but it was fun anyway and the weather was good (cloudy, mid 30's and no wind).

The 20K is basically 10K up and 10K down, while I have made some progress in the knee dept. if it does not continue to improve I may pass it up.

BOSTON BUILDUP 10K

They say fighters can get old between rounds, for me it's between races. Nov 16, 2008 I ran the Swamp Devil 15K in 1:19 and change which for me was a good effort. That was it, downhill ever since. Today was windy and cold and I felt real good for 5k (26.54) but at 7K my knee did some funny stuff and next thing I know I can't get out of oxygen debt on the hills. Walked a 150m or so and got running again but there was no fire, just a meltdown in progress.

Now like any runner (or reasonable imitation) you need an excuse, or something or someone to blame. So who or what's it gonna be? The cardiologist!!! How dare he give me large doses of Beta blockers or statins knowing they could interfere with my ever running a PR again. Doesn't he hear my pleas for a higher max heart rate or less big muscle cramps on long endurance runs?

Or maybe I'm forgetting how these guys saved my life, fixed me up and sent me back out again with re-engineered coronary highways and a fresh lease on life. And oh yeah, his job is to keep me out of a box, not pushing negative splits in the dead of winter. Bring on the 15K in 2 weeks, make it colder, hillier (it is), and slower (probably - so what).