G'day out there in cyber space. I just woke up and felt the need to
finally do a quick update. It's currently just after 9AM here in Los
Gatos, California.
For my body it means it's really just after 10AM
(Boulder time). I got into town late evening on the 1st, so I have only
really been here one full day thus far. It's a very very nice area,
ridiculously wealthy. I won't go into too much details about that
(that's what google is for), but let's just say that the only 3 car
dealerships I saw in town only sold cars that were in the six figures.
I'll recap last week (not in the typical fashion though as I'm pressed
for time). Last week's training was overall a good one. Lorraine wanted
to experiment with my peak or rather finding when I'd peak in a mini 4
day cycle. So last week's mileage was VERY low for what I'm used to.
Last week = Week # 42, March 23rd - 29th
I woke up on Sunday and felt very sore from the previous day's workout
(really the 6 x 150m fast sprints). So my Sunday long run was rather
short @ 11.50 miles or so. Monday was an easy hilly run of 11.50 miles
or so as well. Tuesday (while still sore) we headed to the track and
did a light workout of 3 x k. The pace wasn't supposed to be fast and
thus I avg about 2:51. Lorraine asked me to take Wed off and I did. I
felt way to full of energy on that day though, but I knew that we were
experimenting with a day off in the middle of the week to see the
results. I like that Lorraine can think that far ahead and experiment
now for things that we'd like to have completely nailed down later on
in the summer/year.
Thursday itself consisted of an easy 7
miler and 6 x 100m strides on the grass. I was far too sore (STILL!!!!)
to do anything too quick w/ them and just ran them at about 15 sec or
so. Friday I was allowed to run more of my typical daily avg and ran an
easy 12 miler @ South Boulder Creek Trail. After that I ran 3 x 200m on
the track where I was told to FLOAT the 1st 100m and then pick up the
last 100m. I ran 27,26 & 26 seconds.
Finally on Saturday we
had planned a quick workout. Just 1 x 2 mile in a time trial type
situation. The goal was 9 mins. I felt pretty confident that I'd be
able to run around 9 mins and if all went well -without killing myself
for the effort- be able to run anywhere between 8:50 - 9:00. Well that
was not to be the case. We (we as in BOULDER) had unreal winds.
Lorraine and Harlan would later go on to tell me that they thought I'd
call it quits somewhere before (or maybe after) the 1st mile, when I
was already behind the pace and visibly struggling against the wind.
The thought never crossed my mind, instead I kept thinking, "Well I'll
have to run the next mile in xyz to get this time." Later with 1/2 mile
to go when I saw I'd need to run a 1:56 or at least sub 2 mins I
thought, "Well why not I haven't gone this fast yet but let's give it a
go..."
Needless to say I came home in a 9:30 and it was the
toughest 2 miler I had ever run. We found out later that we had 46 mph
wind gust, and I felt every single mile per hour of it. I was very
upset by the time (not effort) and thus Lorraine decided that we better
try another one, since the time didn't reflect my true fitness. I
didn't really think I could do another because (A) I was tired from
battling the wind (both physically and more importantly MENTALLY) &
(B) I just flat out felt frustrated by the effort and wanted to call it
quits for the day.
Lorraine drove me up up and a ways out of
town (between Lyons, Boulder & Longmont) to do the next repetition,
where I'd follow her car and stop when she stopped along a looong
stretch of dirt road. I got pretty stiff in the car while driving with
her and could barely keep up with her at first when we got out and were
warming up. I kept trying to push the negative thoughts out of my head.
She sent me off and told me to just stride out the 1st mile or so and
see how I felt. To be honest if it hadn't bee for Lorraine I would've
def called it quits. Eitherway it went much better than the first. I
ran a 9:15 for that 2 mile and the effort didn't feel anywhere near as
tough as the 9:30 fist effort. I also ran it rather evenly through 1
mile. The splits were 2:20, 2:20, 2:23 (I stopped because I thought
Lorraine said I was done, and didn't realize I had 1/2 mile to go) and
2:12 last 800m. So there you have it that's basically the training
from last week. I hit 65 miles and felt rather sore for the 1st part of
the week. Now I'm in California and looking forward to getting in some
training down here as well as lacing up the spikes and starting my 2008
Olympic Journey.
I'll try and do another update soon. My good
friend: Steve Sherer (who I'm training and staying with) can't remember
the password for his wireless internet, so I have to use his lap top.
Meaning that for the time being I've brought a lap top that's
essentially a giant paperweight in my bag pack. The guys are still
sleeping now but when they wake up (hopefully soon) we'll go for a nice
run in the Redwood Forest in Santa Cruz. I'll definitely take my
picture as it's truly a beautiful place. I was there once in 2001 when
my then college team and I came this way for the Stanford Invitational.
Well I must get going. Thanks for stopping by and having a (hopefully) quick read of things.
Peace & Love
-Rob