~10 minute casual conversations with The Chosen One while strollin' across the Great Wall of China the day after his 10th place finish in the men's marathon.



I mean, it's not Bob Costas sitting in a posh studio inhaling Michael Phelps' jock, but it's not bad for a little upstart organization.

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Ran another iteration of 26.1 miles this past Saturday as my long "long run" of the training session. These past few marathons have always called for long "long runs" of 23 miles after a few weekends of 20 miles, but I figured I'd switch it up a bit and focus more on time spent on my feet this time around, and make sure I exceed the amount I'll be on my feet this coming October. It was run very easy (7:47 pace) and I finished at around 3:23. That being said, I felt like garbage at the end, with another life-altering side stitch creeping up in the final 1.5 miles.

That said, I equipped myself much better this time around. Last time I tried this (before the Northface 50k), I only had one freakin' gu with me and no fluid...and I ran a PR pace. I'd only drink when I could find a fountain somewhere. This time I had two packs of Clif Blocks and three Clif Shots as well as a bottle of mildly watered down Gatorade (red flavor!). By the 20 mile mark I'd finished the bottle, so I filled it up w/water and had the 2nd (and final) Clif shot (mango flavor...revolting).

Upon getting home and entering the distance into my log, I found out I barely eclipsed last week's mileage PR, bumping my record from 70.45 to 70.8 miles. Now I *really* get a little R&R time, with tonight's 16x400 being the only real workout of note. I was successful in getting back out there Sunday, if only to stretch the legs out a bit and aid recovery, doing an easy 6.25 in Discovery Park, and then did a little under 7 (also easy) w/Bender last night in Ballard. Aside from tonight's workout, the rest of the week up to the SJ&J Half on Labor Day is a smattering of 30 minute easy jogs. Estimated mileage all told will only be around 30-35. Then it's back to the grind for another 2-3 weeks, and then it's time for a real (and deserved, if I say so myself) taper.

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I realized...I don't think I've mentioned what the hell I've been killing myself for these past couple months. I'm running the Portland Marathon. It's going down October 5th. I officially signed up the other day.

My goal time is whatever I end up running.

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After the marathon 400m session Tuesday night, I felt relatively ok on the cooldown job back to the car. Better than I typically do after the past month of 800s at least. But the next day I was tight and hurting. My left glute and left quadricep added a bit more misery to the usual pelvic soreness. I hobbled around at work, not exactly looking forward to the 75-90 minuter my schedule was calling for. Especially since Thursday would mark the return of the always brutal 4x1 mile. I wasn't sure my legs could handle consecutive nights like that after a 16x400m session where some random Swedish guy pushed me to my limits.

About 3/4 of a mile into the run that night, I said "Fuck it" and turned around. Wasn't worth it, it'd be better to feel stronger for the Thursday workout I figured. As I climbed back up the hill towards my apt, I started getting ill at the thought of a mere 12 minute run. So at the last second I veered right and figured I'd add a little roundabout to make it a solid 15 minuter. Instead of making the final left turn to my apt though, I found myself continuing straight towards Kinear Park. "Just do a loop at Kinnear," I asked of myself. "That will give us 25 minutes probably." I relented and did it.

One thing led to another and I finally stopped my watch at about 45 minutes. Not quite 75, but better than the 12 I almost did.

Feeling better the next day, I got in a respectable 4x1 mile workout at the Greenlake track. Here are each rep's time, with the tune that carried me through it (I opened up my running playlist and went with the first 4 songs that were over 5 minutes long...just hit play on each one, sit back, relax, and picture me running 16 laps around an oval track):

5:37


5:32


5:24


5:16


Kind of a big gap there, as I'm wont to do it seems, but I really wanted to take it conservatively in the first two in case my body just fell apart. Last one had uplifting 400m splits of:

80-80-80-76

And now my glutes are sore again...at least I don't feel any strain in the quadricep and tonight is a real night off (while sitting on ice). Which is good since tomorrow is a 23-25 mile trip through hell. If I can just make it over this hill, the following week is a mini-taper before the SJ&J Half Marathon on Sep 1st that my body desperately needs.

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16x400 was last night's responsibility, and despite being a little under a mile less distance than our previous weeks of 10x785m, I was a little intimidated by the "16" portion of the workout. Really? 16? Ugh.

In my mind, the only way to combat this is to a) run in a group and b) change leaders throughout the workout. This keeps things relatively fresh, rather than running 16 laps all by your lonesome. It can get dicey though if you're working in a group of guys/gals who aren't exact matches in terms of fitness. The "slow guy" has to lead a couple times, perhaps compromising the faster guys' workouts, or the "fast guy" leads a few and the slow guy falls way behind and/or kills himself trying to keep up.

A month ago I would have had to run this whole thing by myself. But with Dutch making leaps and bounds in his fitness over the past few weeks, and our successful attempt to convince the Swede to come on out for some speed work*, last night I had a group. And it was great.


The only hiccup in the workout was when Andy led #7 and #8. He's not quite as fast as we are, and he can't really pace a speed workout very well, but we wanted to include him and figured we'd have to do so in the first half of the workout, or else he'd quickly fade and he'd be leading us to 84s or 85s in the 2nd half. 77s and 76s though were perfectly fine.

We led blocks of two reps apiece up until the final two, in which it was "every man for himself."

Final splits for me (leader)

75 (me)
74 (me)
73 (swede)
73 (swede)
73 (dutch)
73 (dutch)
77 (andy)
76 (andy)
70 (me)
72 (me)
71 (swede)
71 (swede)
73 (dutch)
73 (dutch)
68 (EMFH)
66 (EMFH)

(72.4 avg)

The Swede technically led the "Every Man For Himself" final two, blasting 65's to wrap it up. Like on the hills, he'd start way faster than us and then hang on. On the 2nd to last rep, I was probably 3 seconds behind him at the 200m mark but kept it at that. On the final one, I was reeling him in on the backside and then he dropped the hammer in the final 50m, leaving me no hope. My 66 though was the fastest I've ever gone in a 400 workout, not counting high school because I have no memory of my track splits back then. I probably didn't even wear a watch. But last night, finally, with a guy to chase, I chopped off two whole secondz. PRs like whoa.


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Four and a half years into my Seattle sojourn I finally made it out to Tiger Mtn despite it only being like a 25 minute drive from the city. Good times. Tackled it with The Swede and Dutch; did who knows how many miles in a little over 2 hours. My legs were fried and my groin wouldn't let me do anything of note on the unending downhills aside from grimace and watch my companions leave me in the dust, but it was good.

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70.45 miles in 506 minutes (7:11 pace). Schedule called for 17 today, but my little route wound up being 17.4, giving me a bit of cushion I didn't know I would need.

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10 more 785m jaunts in and around the Greenlake track. Legs were a little weathered from the weekend's 31 miles (13 of which at race pace), so the times at the track were a hair slower. Not as slow as I feared it would be though.

2:43
2:41
2:39
2:39
2:38
2:37
2:36
2:32
2:30
2:28

All equal or negative splits, groin/leg behaved as it does during all these workouts...little weak out the gate, gets warmed up in the middle, and then starts whining towards the end. No prob...for now.

Monday was nearly 9 miles at 7:20 pace, tonight was nearly 12 miles at 7:05 pace.

45 miles so far this week, outside shot at topping 70 by week's end.

I'm tired.

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