Go West, young man

And tomorrow I will, for 5 days in fact. I'll be heading to Oregon with my good buddy Oscar and his fantastic fiancee, Carrie, for some good 'ol R & R (running and relaxation). After arriving in Portland tomorrow evening, I'll board a bus on Thursday morning and retreat to Eugene for a few days. Ultimately, I'll end up back in Portland late Saturday, partake in Greek Easter with the Zografos clan on Sunday, and drift back to the right coast on Monday afternoon.

The original motive for this little adventure involved a 25-lap tour of Hayward Field on Friday night with my pal Ponce, but an untimely and slow healing Achilles strain inconveniently nixed those plans. Luckily, I have some family and a few friends in Eugene, and since the plane tickets were bought way back in February and time-off from work was graciously granted, I decided to go ahead with my plans. The meet itself will be fun to watch with some great races on tap. Along with Oscar in the 10K, one of my Reebok Boston teammates, Erin Dromgoole, will be racing in the 5K. I'm pretty bummed that I won't be lacing up the spikes myself, but I'll be glad to cheer those two on. And besides, a little sojourn away from here might be just what I need right about now.

Anywho, I'm not sure yet of my internet availability on the left coast, but I'll make every effort to sneak a post in here and there. If access is limited or nonexistent, I plan on keeping an offline blog which I'll post when the opportunity presents itself. That's gonna do it for tonight. Take it easy all.

Training in a group works. Training by oneself works. The common tie is: TRAINING works. Training has nothing to do with what you see on this message board day-in and day-out, which is "how do I train for the marathon on 50 miles a week." There are no shortcuts.
-Malmo