Grumble, grumble, grumble

So mumbled John throughout a slow night here at the T & G Sports Desk. Why? Beause he's John - he doesn't need a reason to grumble, it's just inherent to his nutty nature. I suppose you'd have to work here to see the humor in all of this, but on a rainy night when drumming up a means of mental stimulation proves a painstaking process, it's enough to keep me entertained.

But anyway, I digress...Still not running, but slowly making progress, or at least I'm trying to convince myself that I am. I saw Dr. Sjogren again this morning, who says structurally I'm back in good shape but mechanically I'm a mess. He attributes a lot of my problems to a weak right side, particularly the hip area, and believes this has caused various degrees of overcompensation which likely led to my past Achilles problems and current dilemma involving a strained muscle or two in my arse - specifically the gluteus medius and/or piriformis. This most recent calamity may also be contributing to a pinching of the sciatic nerve, which would explain the stabbing pain in my right cheek which radiates down through my hamstring. Doc performed some ultrasound today and more of the same is in order for Friday. Hopefully we've nipped the problem in the bud early enough that I can return to normal forward progress by this weekend.

Speaking of progress, I made some today by going for a walk this afternoon before work. Of course, I got a little testy and supplemented my leisurely strolling with some light running and was puzzled by how much less it hurts to run and walk uphill as opposed to going down. Descending proved a horrific affair complete with shooting pains down my legs but the ups were surprisingly, but uncomfortably bearable. The leg itself feels pretty much dead, so I was more or less just dragging it behind me anyway. Walking around afterward wasn't too bad but I popped a few ibuprofen with dinner just to be safe. Like I wrote yesterday, one day at a time right now, so I guess we'll just have to see what tomorrow brings.

And that'll do it for tonight. John's done grumbling so I'm taking that as my cue to go home. Take it easy.

Quote of the day:

It seems that people's pain thresholds aren't very big and if they're pushing (limits), they feel like the pushing is bad. But the pushing is actually good. But then you get the crazy runners that push too hard. I feel like I'm pretty smart about resting. I don't think that a lot of people are very good about resting. I think a lot of people who say that they've overtrained or thinking that they're overtraining are just underrested. If you rested a little more, your body can handle a huge amount of work — a high level of quality, and a lot of mileage, once you can adapt.
- Deena Kastor

Training Log (7/2-7/8)

Current status: On the shelf with a lower back/butt injury which has been nagging since after last Saturday's tempo but flared up like a California forest fire this past weekend. I could barely walk Saturday afternoon but foolishly attempted to run anyway on Sunday morning at West Hill with A-Ten. An 'attempt' was all I could muster, as I didn't even last a half-mile at a pathetic 9-minute-per-mile pace before having to hobble back to the car. First thing Monday morning I called my chiropractor, Dr. Sjogren, and luckily he was able to get me right in. After 30 minutes of testing this and that, he surmised that my SI joint was jammed worse than Boston traffic on a Friday afternoon, thus throwing off my overall alignment and causing any attempt at forward mobility to resemble that of a cripple. A few awkward contortions and a couple of well-placed 'pops' later I was standing straight again and walking without a hitch. Unfortunately, my ass feels like its being stabbed with a machete anytime I attempt anything remotely resembling running, so I'm not completely out of the water just yet. Dr. Sjogren thinks I likely pulled a muscle in my glute by overcompensating on my right side and should rest it for at least a few days, so that's what I've been doing. He's fixed my biomechanically-challenged ass three times now so it's probably in my best interest to listen to him. Hopefully this is only a small bump in the road and I'll be back to the grind sooner than later. With that out of the way, here's how last week looked:

SUN - AM: 93 minutes, 13 miles. On the trails in Hudson with Ryan, Christy, Hodge, Driscoll and about 500 deer flys. PM: 34:10, 5 miles. Quick run before work, finishing with 6 Driscoll strides once I was able to shake-off the post-nap/pre-work sluggishness around mile 3 or so.

MON - AM: 62:30, 8 miles. Easy does it with Hodgie at the Rail Trail. Slow but sluggish. PM: 27:20, 4 miles. Some more of that pre-work sluggishness thing going on.

TUES - AM: 8 miles. John Carson 2-Mile in Chelmsford. Ugly. You can read about it here. PM: 65:45, 10 miles. Rail Trail solo after spending the afternoon lounging in the Carrara's pool. Got pissed at this morning's case of pussyitis and started hammering on my way back down the trail. Clocked a 5:13 last mile on the trail before wisely pulling the rip cord. Very tired, need to get some good sleep tonight.

WEDS - AM: 60 minutes, 8 miles. Solo and slow at West Hill. Not feeling too peppy this morning. PM: 28:30, 4 miles. Legs are flatlining.

THURS - AM: 2:09, 20 miles. Solo from the Stone Church, started off with an easy mile on the roads (7:39), then Rail Trail 10 (64:14 - 6:52, 6:36, 6:23, 5:58, 5:47, 6:09 on the marked miles), right into 8-mile loop (50:17 - hilly), then slowed it down and finished with the same road mile I started off with (6:50). Fastest I've run either of these loops in almost two years, nevermind both on a single run. Felt like a million bucks after about a week of Chapter 11 bankruptcy. It's amazing what a couple good nights of sleep and under 70% humidity can do for your body.

FRI - AM: 46:25, 7 miles. Solo on the roads from home, finishing with 5 Driscoll strides. Legs feeling a bit heavy 1/2-way through. Right hip a bit out of whack. Stupid roads. PM: 60 minutes, 9 miles. Ran with Old Man Willy on the bike path/roads in humid Hudson. Finished up with 4 strides; hip/back still annoying.

SAT - AM: 40:25, 6 miles. Sterling Rail Trail; first 4 miles easy with Hodge, last 2 miles solo progressing down to 5:20-30 pace. Felt flat, couldn't open up my stride. AM: 53:30, 8 miles. First 1-1/2 miles real easy on the roads, next 5 progression on the trail (6:37, 6:14, 6:00, 5:48, 5:12), last 1-1/2 miles real easy back to the car. Felt quite good considering the quick turnaround, not to mention breakfast, between runs. Hip/back flared up pretty bad the last mile, forcing me to shorten my stride and crawl back to the car. Not good. Limped around all afternoon and almost called into work but sucked it up and went in anyway. Really hope this isn't anything serious.

WEEK TOTALS: 110 miles, 13 runs. In all honesty, this wasn't a good week. On one hand, the volume was where I wanted it to be but on the other I...1. raced like a chump, 2. didn't get nearly enough rest and to top it off 3. injured myself to an unknown extent. I'm not sure the direct catalyst of said injury but I'm willing to bet that it has more than a little something to do with my own stupidity (Tuesday-Saturday, failing to recover properly, etc.) than anything else. I was due for a down week heading into Stowe this coming weekend but as of right now it's probably gonna be a lot lower than originally planned. The race itself is still very much up in the air right now depending on how the next couple days play out. That's it for now. Take it easy (perhaps I should learn to take my own advice sometime).

Quote of the day:

Man, when you hurt yourself, you don't mess around.
- Hodgie

Weekend reading list

If you've got some free time over the next couple days, I suggest giving the following a read:

* Dick Beardsley's 1982 Boston Marathon Training Log. Wanna know what it takes to run 2:08? Click here to find out.

* Fernando Cabada's Training Log. Leave it to me to find this shit.

* Alistair Cragg interview with mensracing.com, which can conveniently be found here. I know the author pretty well - a fine bloke if I do say so myself.

* Floyd Landis feature from Outside magazine, which was brought to my attention by this fine fella from Minnesota. Don't wanna spend the 5 bucks for the print version? Well, today's your lucky day. You can access it here for free.

* Lowell Sun recap of this past Tuesday's John Carson 2-mile in Chelmsfuhd. This temporarily-not-in-training teammate of mine even managed to get a little ink for his noble efforts.

And that's gonna do it for now. Take it easy.

Quote of the day:

Floyd Landis: There's only one rule: The guy who trains the hardest, the most, wins. Period. Because you won't die. Even though you feel like you'll die, you don't actually die. Like when you're training, you can always do one more. Always. As tired as you might think you are, you can always, always do one more.

Dave Zabriskie: I hope some 16-year-old doesn't read this and then go kill himself on the bike.

Landis: That was what I did. I read something like that, and I trained like that, and, yeah, I was pretty damn depressed for a while. Then it got better.

Race report

And I use the term "race" very loosely, but it was a piss-poor effort on my part yesterday at the John Carson 2-Mile in steamy Chelmsfuhd. In a nutshell: the field was great, crowd was wonderful, weather was less-than-ideal and I ran like a big pussy. Please pardon my French.

I finished a disappointing 8th in 9:52 behind a quality crew that included Nephi Tyler, Casey Moulton, a few token Kenyans, teammate Ryan Carrara, former teammate Chris Volante and a host of others. The race went out hard as it always does and I failed to commit from the get-go, which is a mistake when the finish line is a scant two miles away. I settled into a small chase group, came through the mile in a slow 4:55 feeling like garbage, packed it in for 3/4 mile and mustered enough of a pathetic pretty-boy kick to hold off an out-of-shape Pat Morasse and two guys who are old enough to be my dad. No excuses, basically gave up like a heartless chump. This sort of shit is unacceptable. I will be going up to Stowe with a vengeance.

Quote of the day:

If you think you're beaten, you are;
If you think you dare not, you don't;
If you'd like to win, but think, you can't
It's almost a cinch you won't.
If you think you will lose, you're lost;
For out in the world we find,
Success begins with a fellow's will,
It's all in the state of mind.

If you think you're outclassed, you are;
You've got to think high to rise.
You've got to hustle before
You can ever win a prize.
Life's battles don't always go
To the stronger or faster man,
But sooner or later the man who wins
Is the one who thinks he can.
-Walter D. Wintle, "The Man Who Thinks He Can"

Training Log (6/25-7/1)

SUN - AM: 1:52:25, 16 miles. Middle 7 miles easy w/Hodgie, otherwise solo. Threw in a few surges of 1-5 minutes at various points. Good run. PM: 29:05, 4 miles. Solo before work. 4 strides at HC track mid-run.

MON - AM: 72 minutes, 10 miles. With a beat-up Adam & a gimpy McKay @ West Hill. Easiest I've ever run with these guys, which is a good thing cause I felt like dog shit.

TUES - AM: 36 minutes, 5 miles. Sunday's run apparently kicked my ass. PM: 12 miles. Track workout @ Bentley solo. 2K in 6:08 (3:30 recovery), 1200 in 3:35 (3:00 recovery), 2 x 800 in 2:21, 2:20 (2:15 recovery), 4 x 400 in 69, 67, 68, 66 (1:30 recovery). Very windy and very tired. No pop in the old legs.

WEDS - AM: 63:30, 10 miles. Hilly road run in Lowell with Nate and Jay Beausoleil. Felt better once it started raining. PM: 36:40, 5 miles. Awful tired now boss. Dog tired.

THURS - AM: 1:31:20, 14 miles. Ran into ex-UNH/Georgetown guy Steve Meinelt mid-run and joined him for two quick miles back to the lot. Progressed the last mile of the run in 5:35 (2:55/2:40). Solid effort after having trouble getting out of bed this morning.

FRI - AM: 59 minutes, 8 miles. Solo and slow at West Hill. PM: 43 minutes, 6 miles. A little quicker than this morning, but not by much. Legs aren't happy.

SAT - AM: 13 miles. Almost-10K tempo run w/Greg Ward @ Worcester State in 32:20. Official measurement clocked in at 6.1 miles, so 5:18 avg./mile. First loop (3.05 miles) in 16:18 (5:20 pace), second loop in 16:02 (5:15 pace). Goal was to start at 5:30 pace and work down to 5:15s on the second loop. Opened up with a 5:20 and it felt easy so kept that rhythm. Having Greg to share the load with for 4 miles was a huge help. Solid workout.

WEEK TOTALS: 103 miles, 11 runs. Good week although very tired for most of it. I'm sure the intensity/volume of this current training cycle has something to do with that, combined with the fact I've been very busy at work of late and will be until sometime in mid-July. No complaints - I just need to focus on getting better quality sleep at night and resting when the opportunities present themselves. I may also scale things back a bit more before Stowe than originally planned and really try to nail down a good race there before segueing into the marathon-specific cycle. On the whole, I'm happy with how things are going and am confident the hard work will pay off at the right time.

Dark, not-so-sunshiny day

Pretty much the opposite of yesterday with no sun, stronger winds and humidity levels hovering on the uncomfortable side of things. I just got back from a little trip up to Lowell where I ran a nice hilly 10 on the roads in 63 minutes and change with Nate and UML senior-to-be Jay Beausoleil. Given that I was on the track roughly 15 hours earlier, I expectedly felt a bit sluggish for the first few miles, but once the skies opened up halfway through it was like a breath of new life in my clinically dead legs. At that point we were clicking along comfortably at a good clip and all of a sudden I felt great. Funny how that works. I made the mistake of running with a t-shirt on, however, which proved a rather uncomfortable decision by Mile 5 or so and was good for about five extra pounds of water weight on an already soggy day. I seriously could have filled a small bucket while wringing it out afterward.

But enough about me and matters of menial importance. Moving on to more pressing issues, our old pal Pedro takes the hill at Fenway tonight for the first time since leaving town a little less than two years ago. I wish Petey well, but hopefully the streaking Sox can send him back to New York with a sour taste in his mouth. Personally, I'd like to see a Papi vs. Pedro showdown in the bottom of the ninth with the bases juiced and the game on the line, but I don't think our old pal from the Dominican will make it that far. If by some chance in hell he does, however, well, we all know what the result will be. Papi power, baby!

Speaking of Sox/Mets with a game on the line in the late innings, check out this little clip if you have a spare minute or two. It's rather painful to watch but a work of pure brilliance at the same time. And no, you won't get fired for watching it at work.

And that's gonna have to do it for now. Pardon me while I go perform a rain dance in hope that they get the game off tonight. Take it easy.

Quote of the day:

Once a Red Sox, always a Red Sox.
- Saint Pedro

Bright, sun-shiny day

Nice one out there today with sunny skies, a light breeze and less-than-oppressive humidity. This morning was an easy 5 miles from home in 36 minutes just to loosen up for tonight's workout in Waltham. Originally I had planned on heading up to Keene this morning for a mini three-day training camp with old BAA pal Mark Miller, but due to circumstances beyond immediate control, those plans fell through yesterday. We've rescheduled for a few weeks from now for what promises to be a rousing good time, complete with some monster mileage, varying degrees of debauchery and more than a few games of high-powered Wiffle Ball (two words, capital B - John C. said so).

In other news, keep your eyes open for an Alistair Cragg interview soon to appear on mensracing.com. This lad is perhaps second fastest white boy in the world at the moment and was one of the more enjoyable interviews I've done recently, so be sure to check that out as soon as the fine folks over at NYRR deem it ready for public viewing.

Well, I've got a little over an hour before battling the imminent Route 95 traffic that will inevitably extend my afternoon voyage, so I'm gonna go cut me some watermelon and catch the first half of French and Spanish war before I head out. Hope all is well with everyone out in blogland (Jorge, I think this is one word, but perhaps we should check with John to be sure). Take it easy all.

Quote of the day:

The hills did not beat me, Brian Sell beat me.
- John Korir

Training Log (6/18-624)

SUN - AM: 15 miles. New England Championships 5K at MIT, 1st, 15:53. Basically, I won the battle of attrition at the humid hellhole otherwise known as the Steinbrenner track. Not a bad effort really coming off a Mayall-like episode of insomnia. See last week's exclusive post for a more detailed recap.

MON - AM: 2 hours, 17 miles. 93 degrees, 85 % humidity and due to various circumstances I was forced to run at 11:30. Finished with enough salt caked on my hat to season a small steak.

TUES - AM: 42:15, 6 miles. Solo from home, starting off at a snail's pace and working down to that of an excited turtle. PM: 60:25, 9 miles. Headed out to Holyoke to run with Matty-Mulv at the Ashley Reservoir. Nice run with a good pal and fellow Sox nut on a pleasant (albeit humid) evening in Western Mass. Never short on drama in towns west of my neck of the woods, a toothless local lady offered us an extra Big Mac for dinner while we were stretching in the parking lot after the run. Luckily, I remembered what my mom told me about taking food from strangers and we wisely settled on grabbing some grub at Friendly's instead.

WEDS - AM: 35:15, 5 miles. Felt like total ass from the time I rolled out of bed until Mile 1 or so, at which point feelings of anality thankfully subsided. PM: 12 miles. Meat-n-potatoes workout of 3 x mile w/3:30 recovery at Bentley. 4:50, 4:53, 4:47, followed by 4 x 200 w/1 min recovery in 33.38, 32.42, 31.57, 31.73. Pretty easy workout given the copious amounts of recovery. Closed the last mile with a 69-second final lap, which was encouraging.

THURS - AM: 46:40, 7 miles. Out in 24:30, back in 22:10 w/Adam Ten out at my beloved Rail Trail. 5:58, 6:02, 5:58 for the last three miles. PM: 95 minutes, 14 miles. Easy run in the Lincoln Woods with Terry, Matt Ely, Voce, Greg Ward and a fella named Eric. Probably a touch under 14, but the AM run was just over 7, so it all evens out.

FRI - AM: 67:55, 10 miles. Solo to start, then picked up Adam and McKay for the second half of the run. PM: 27:45, 4 miles. Solo from home before an unexpected late night at work. 6 Driscollesque strides to spin the wheels a bit. With the apocolypse apparently approaching outside, I headed out a little earlier than planned, just to make sure I got my run in if this was indeed the case.

SAT - AM: 79 minutes, 11 miles. Concurrent mileage and intensity increase, along with recent lack of sleep and accompanying fatigue are proving to be a potentially lethal combination. This brilliant revelation led me to wisely scratch this morning's tempo in favor of an easy run on the roads with Voce and Pat Callahan. Good run, albeit a tired one. I'll push it a bit tomorrow.

WEEK TOTALS: 110 miles, 11 runs. Good week with a decent race on Sunday considering the conditions. I got through Monday's long run as best I could and I'm happy with Wednesday's workout for this stage of the game. Things are slowly starting to click and my confidence is growing each week. 110 marks a new weekly mileage PR and although tired, I seem to be handling the jump well. The plan is for another couple weeks of building strength through higher mileage before bringing it down a bit for Stowe on July 16th.

Quote of the day:

Life is pain princess. Anyone that tells you differently is selling something.
- Dread Pirate Roberts, The Princess Bride

Planning ahead

This morning marked our training group's much-anticipated marathon meeting with Kevin in an effort to introduce and coordinate training schedules for the big day on October 22nd. In short, I believe it went quite well.

Our program was developed a few years back by the original Reebok Boston maestro, Bob Sevene, and from what I understand it's the same basic schedule executed with great success by a lot of Sev's marathoners, including Blake Russell, Rusty Snow and a host of others. This 12-week plan more or less emphasizes a weekly PMP (proposed marathon pace) run, long run and occasional longer intervals. On the whole, the thing seems pretty sound and obviously has produced some outstanding results. Some minor tweaking will inevitably take place to account for individual differences and preferences, but I more or less plan on following the it to the T in my quest for a Trials qualifier.

Along with my (Insert Sponser Here) Boston teammates Ryan, Brad, Pat and Voce, there's a large local contingent gearing up for the annual Windy City waltz and training for this sucker with this motley crew promises to be an exciting time in itself. There's a great deal of enthusiasm amongst us here in New England and above anything else I'm just pumped to be a part of it. The energy is contagious. I know deep down that if I can make it to the starting line in one piece, the result I'm looking for will take care of itself.

And that does it for tonight. Time to head home and get my tired ass some much-needed rest. Take it easy all.

Quote of the day:

Don't count the days. Make the days count.
- Muhammad Ali

By Jorge!

First time was apparently the charm for Jorge Torres tonight in his 10K debut at the U.S. Track & Field Championships in Indianapolis. Delayed a day because of inclement weather, the diminutive dynamo from Boulder blasted away from a couple of Olympians to post a tactical win in 28:14 and some change. Word on the always-informative and ever-accurate letsrun message board had him at a 58-second last lap, putting him 4 seconds up on marathon-minded Meb and 5 seconds ahead of a resurrected Dan Browne. Simply an outstanding race on many fronts. Hats off to Senor Torres for earning the win and the other two folks for an apparently fine race. Some good stuff right there.

As exciting as the 10K looks to have been, the men's 5K appears to be the race of the night, however, as the top four finishers were clustered between 13:14 and 13:20 with Kenyan transplant Bernard Lagat taking the cake. The great equalizer here appears to be the lanky one's middle-distance background as he edged out Matt Tegenkamp and Dathan Ritzenhein, both of whom ran significant PR's despite being edged out at the line. Old-man Goucher wasn't too far behind in fourth, as another one of Alberto's Oregon Project experiments had himeself a fine evening. Impressive race on a number of fronts, but particularly for Teg who has quietly lurking behind the scenes for most of the spring. Hopefully this is a sign of some good things and fast times to come later in the European summer for American distance runners.

Lastly, a notable result from the men's 1500 meter heats was the rousing return from the dead of former national champion Gabe Jennings. The gnarly one ran 3:39, by far his best race in six years better spent riding bikes across South America, reaching never-before attained levels of personal spirituality and playing around with a 2:19 marathon debut. He catches a lot of shit for his wacky ways, but good for him. Whatever hallucinations he still has of himself being successful at the highest levels of this sport apparently haven't faded yet. Rock on with yo' wild self.

And that's gonna do it for tonight. Late night here at work and an early morning workout on the horizon don't leave me a lot of time for much else at the moment. Take it easy all.

Friendly reminder

A well-respected teammate of mine politely reminded me while we were cooling down from our workout Wednesday night that I haven't been updating this sucker too much of late. Well, it probably doesn't take a mechanical engineer to realize that he was dead-on in his observation. With that being said, I've decided to make yet another valiant attempt to get this blog back on track, but it will have to wait until this evening. I'm running (pun intended) a wee-bit late for a little run-dezvous at West Hill with my good pal Adam Ten, who is hoping to be the top Mzungu finisher at this weekend's Fairfield Half Marathon.

That'll do for now, take it easy.

Quote of the day:

Awful tired boss. Dog tired.
- John Coffey, The Green Mile

Exhuming the enigma

To my fellow aspiring runners out there, this is a great interview. I suggest reading it. That's it for now.

Quote of the day:

It’s such a lonely singular closed off life. I wanted to be in the big races and be where the best people were. I never felt intimidated by it. If anything, I was more intimidated by my training and that piece earlier when we spoke of me not being able to triangulate and nail the day through my training. But, I was never intimidated. I was always eager to get into races with big names and the best.
- Mark Nenow, former American Record holder, 10,000 meters

Training Log (6/12-6/18)

SUN - AM: 53:55, 7 miles. Very easy from home with Oscar and Carrie who are taking up temporary residence in my basement for a few days. Legs feel just fine and dandy after yesterday's shit show at Bentley. Closing in 81 will have that effect. PM: 71:20, 11 miles. My guests headed back to Beantown for the afternoon and I was well short on the day's mileage quota so I booked it out to West Hill to run with A-Ten before work. Hit a few 6:10's on the canal before calling it a day. So much for recovery.

MON - AM: 67:20, 10 miles. Hit up the Rail Trail this morning and took it pretty easy. 4 short hill charges and six strides were about the only thing even remotely strenuous about this run. By the time I got home I was pretty wiped however, but then I checked out Terry's log for last week and realized I'm just being a huge pussy and have nothing to complain about.

TUES - AM: 28 minutes, 4 miles. Slow to start then sub-7's for the last 3 miles. I can't remember the last time this happened before noon. PM: 10 miles. Workout at Bentley, as follows: 3 sets of 400m/400m/800m with 1:30 recovery after the first 400, 2:30 after the second one-lapper and 2:30 between each set. Kevin said to start off at 72 and work down to around 70 if feeling good. Actual: 71, 70, 2:22; 70, 69, 2:21; 68, 68, 2:19. A little fast on the last set but pretty much hit this one dead on. More importantly, I felt good doing it, which is certainly encouraging.

WEDS - AM: 66:30, 10 miles. 6:32 first mile, 2:55 for the last 1/2 mile. Judging by those splits, take a wild guess who I was running with. PM: 28:40, 4 miles. Knee hurts, plantar/heel are sore and quad is tight, but otherwise I felt just dandy.

THURS - AM: 5 miles. 15 min jog up to HC, 6 x 200 meters w/1:10 recovery in 31.12, 32.78, 32.12, 32.41, 31.97, 32.12, 10 min back home. Those times were certainly wind-aided. PM: 85:30, 13 miles. Self-inflicted double-dose of the 6-mile loop (40:30/37:40) at the Sterling Rail Trail + 1 mile easy (7:20). Nice night, solid run.

FRI - AM: 71:40, 10 miles. Out in 36:45, back in 35-flat. Quite possibly my slowest Rail Trail 10 ever, and I'm OK with that.

SAT - AM: 47:10, 7 miles. Solo from home with 6 Driscoll strides thrown in there to stretch the legs out a bit. Hopefully I can salvage a decent race tomorrow. Closing in anything faster than 81 will be considered 'decent' at this point.

WEEK TOTALS: 91 miles, 11 runs. Good week of training, last one below 100 for a while. I think I've acclimated well to the past few weeks of increased mileage and feel good about the direction I'm heading in right now. I'm going to race the 5K on the track at New Englands tomorrow, then plan on packing away a few good weeks of high mileage before racing the Stowe 8-Mile on July 16th. Hope these early days of summer are treating everyone well. Take it easy.

Quote of the day:

Distance running at an elite level is a bitch. It is hard work. You have to enjoy being tired all the time. If you expect to achieve at a level that is truly elite, then you can not live like a normal young adult in their 20's. Why? It requires abnormal behavior in order to achieve abnormal goals.
- Kevin Hanson

Running on fumes

Three-and-a-half hours of a humidity-induced lack of sleep last night, a scorching 5,000 on the track this morning (the weather, not the time, believe me), an hour sitting in traffic on the way home from MIT this afternoon, and unneccessarily late NBA Finals/Sox games tonight find me still at work in front of a seemingly brighter-than-usual oversized flatscreen monitor, clinically useless yet somehow still functioning, albeit in zombie-like state. This will likely remain the case until A. my head hits the keyboard from shear exhaustion or B. we reach our appropriately named drop-dead final deadline of 1:30 a.m. My best guess is the actual outcome will likely fall somewhere in between those two proposed scenarios, but perhaps that's just me starting to hallucinate. Who the hell knows for sure. All I do know is that although the air outside still bears resemblance to Hades, I'm confident that I'll sleep like a wintering bear when my head hits the 'ol pillow sometime in the wee hours of the morning. Tomorrow's proposed long run, however, is still very much up in the (humid) air at this point.

All complaining aside, the aforementioned race turned out pretty well this morning. I won a watered-down (given the conditions, perhaps that's poor word choice) 5K this morning at MIT, although I nearly called Kevin at 8 to scratch my tired, sorry ass. But alas, at 11:15 I found myself on the starting line of the New England Championhips with a handful of other poor bastards for the start of a steamy 5,000 meters.

Kevin advised our 5,000 meter triumvirate of Mark, Erin and myself to forget about any pre-race plans of running for a fast time and simply try to finish in one piece. With temps already over 90, that amendment was just fine with me. Mark and I traded off laps for a mile or so before he fell off pace and I ended up running solo the rest of the way. From there I just tried to keep a fast enough pace that would allow me to escape with a win. My time was a relatively slow 15:53, but a win's a win and I'm not gonna complain too much about those. They're few and far between these days.

It was a good day on the whole for the (Insert Sponser Here) Boston team, with Erin taking top honors in the women's 5K, Joe mowing down the field in the 800 and Roland winning the 1,500. It was fun to be a part of it all and exciting to watch my teammates run so well. That's what it's all about.

Quote of the day:

I feel like doing something cerebral tonight. I think I'll go see Nacho Libre.
- Kevin Curtin

Face-lift

Pardon the fluctuating appearances while I experiment with making a few renovations to this place. No major changes to speak of, just a little cosmetic work really. Feedback/suggestions are always welcome.

While I'm at it, here's a few things worth noting:

* A nice little article here on fellow Philosophy major turned running writer, Kenny Moore. He's by far the best wordsmith that fans of this crazy sport have ever read, and for a young buck in the business such as myself, the quality of his work is certainly worth trying to emulate. In fact, at this point in my journalistic running pursuits, it seems Mr. Moore and I have followed a pretty similar path, which is both eery and encouraging to me at the same time. Now I just need to make an Olympic team.

* Speaking of my own journalistic running pursuits, in addition to my current editing duties at work, I'll be taking on a twice-a-month running column for the T&G, which I'm looking forward to immensely. Hopefully, I can help stir up some new excitement in what has become a relatively dormant running community in Central Massachusetts. It will certainly be no easy task, but I'm looking forward to the challenge.

* For all the mountain goats out there, I enjoyed this article on your boy Paul Low from Amherst. Say what you want about these ultra-distance mountain running freakazoids, but the bottom line is that this guy trains hard. Very hard. I met him last year after he thoroughly whooped my ass at the Mt. Wachusett Road Race and enjoyed some good conversation as we descended the mountain on an easy cooldown. He's a quality bloke if I do say so myself.

* If you ever happen to find yourself in the Worcester area, visit this place for brunch and be sure to devour an order of pattecakes. You won't be disappointed.

* My latest project outside of the whole running/writing/working realm of things is teaching myself Portugese. I just picked up a book from my neighborhood Barnes & Noble and plan on expanding my linguistic horizons during my post run/mid-morning crash-on-the-couch sessions. The language isn't all that radically different from Italian and Spanish, both of which I already speak, so hopefully I can pick up on things fairly quickly. Who knows, with a little luck maybe I'll be able to charm a beautiful Brazilian girl in the near future. OK, make that a lot of luck.

* I'm not usually one for watching soccer at any level, but this year's World Cup has piqued my interest. Upon collapsing on the futon after my morning runs this week, I've giddly flipped the remote to ESPN and ESPN2 to take in the day's futbol action. I'm fascinated with the passion displayed by the players on the field but perhaps even more so by the fans in the stands cheering for their home countries. They're absolutely nuts - these people truly live for this stuff. Hell, as I was driving home from my run at West Hill this morning I passed an SUV adorned with Brazilian flags and other wacky paraphernelia. Now that's awesome. The games themselves, in my rather uneducated opinion, have been phenomenal thus far. Even though they just squeaked by Croatia in their opener, the boys from Brazil really impressed me with the fluidity of their play. I felt as if I was watching a well-choreographed dance. It was beautiful.

And that's gonna do it for now. Time for some tea and dessert while I watch the Sox attempt to bounce back from last night's 12-inning backbreaker. Take it easy all.

Quote of the day:

On some days the rain falls hard, on other days it falls gently, and on some days it does not fall at all. But in the final analysis, the process cannot be rushed, and we must wait patiently for the natural order of events to run its course before we can admire the finished product.
- Legendary Japanese coach, Kiyoshi Nakamura, as paraphrased by John Kellogg in Kemibe's Run Strong (with that being said, buy the book)

Training Log (6/4-6/10)

SUN - AM: 1:57, 17 miles. First run from Ryan's new pad in Hudson and it was a doozy. Good company, comfortable pace and nice trails that aren't nearly as hilly as those at the old stomping grounds. Ran the last two miles or so on my own, finishing up with 6 Driscollian strides on the roads.

MON - AM: 57:10, 8 miles. Solo jaunt on the roads from home on tired legs. 7:26 to start, 6:40-ish pace by the end. This loop is a touch over 8 miles, but I'm guessing yesterday was just south of 17, so it all evens out. PM: 27:45, 4 miles. Loosened up after a stiff first miles. 3 sets of short skips-n-bounds on the grass afterward.

TUES - AM: 28:20, 4 miles. Nice morning for a run. Woke up somewhere around Mile 3 or so. PM: 10 miles. Track workout with the team at Bentley, which I didn't butcher nearly as bad as last week although I still have some work to do on hitting pace. Tonight's assignment was 4 sets of 800 meters-100-meter jog-300 meters with 3-1/2 minutes recovery between sets. Kevin said to start at 2:28/50-ish, see how that felt and go from there. Hit times of 2:26/50; 2:27/49; 2:23/48; 2:22/47, so a little fast on the whole but managed to remain in control throughout. The 800s felt smooth and the pace on the 300s didn't feel nearly as awkward as last week. Mark, Brad and I took turns sharing the pacing duties, which seemed to work out well for the three of us.

WEDS - AM: 72 minutes, 10 miles. West Hill was so washed out even Adam couldn't run fast today, which was of course good news for me. PM: 28:30, 4 miles. Still raining, and a hard rain at that. And to think I actually wanted to live in Oregon.

THURS - AM: 79:10, 12 miles. Double dose of the Hodgie-San Saturday morning 6-mile shuffle, only on Thursday, slightly faster than a shuffle and sans Hodgie. First loop in 40:35, second in 38:35 w/4 Driscoll strides at the end of each one. Solid run.

FRI - AM: 68:50, 10 miles. Rail Trail 10-spot all by my lonesome....out in 35:05, back in 33:45. Legs are rather tired. I wonder if they know what they're in for tomorrow night.

SAT - AM: 30 minutes, 4 miles. Abbreviated Hodgie-San Saturday morning shuffle, actually on Saturday this time, with Hodgie and seriously no faster than a shuffle. PM: 9 miles, Boston High Performance Series 3000 meters. First outdoor track race in a lil over 2 years and boy did it show. Ran 9:03, which is the slowest 3K/2-mile I've run since high school. Goal going in was 8:45/70-sec pace and while we weren't hitting those splits, I was running pretty steadily in the lead at 71-point per lap for much of the race. With 600 meters to go business started to pick up, so I tried making one last-ditch effort at a big move but I was out of gear changes by that point. Everyone and their mother went by me at the bell, closing in 64-66 while I tied up like a tight shoelace and finished my last 400 meters in 81 seconds. Yes, you read that right, 81. And believe me, it hurt like hell. Winning time was 8:48 and I staggered home in 9:03. Yes, I lost 15 seconds in one lap. Yes, that's fucking embarrassing.

WEEK TOTALS: 92 miles, 11 runs. OK, so I scaled things back a little this week, more just to let the last few weeks of heavier training set in than to actually freshen up for Saturday's 3K. I have no plans to taper or rest up for anything until the Philly 1/2 on September 17th and Chicago on October 22nd. Everything up until then is just a means to those ends.

Although I'm not too thrilled with how the 3K turned out this past weekend, there are still a few positives to take out of the experience. My strength is improving every week and I felt strong clicking off 71-72 second quarters, so those were both good signs. I obviously can't change gears right now, but looking back at my last few weeks of training, I probably shouldn't expect to be able to. A few well-timed workouts from Kevin over the next few months should change that. I'll be concluding my abbreviated track season this coming Sunday with a 5K at the New England Championships at MIT and despite the recent shit show, I'm feeling pleasantly optimistic.

Yaaaaaaaaawn

Coming soon (I swear):

* Last week's training log.
* How NOT to race a 3K.
* A few paragraphs of outspoken opinion and witty banter.

Not that any or all of these supposed forthcoming entries will make up for my infrequent posting of late, but they'll have to do for now. If anyone is still checking in regularly, I sincerely apologize. Outside of running in and around 100 miles a week, I've been too tired to do anything else that requires more effort than crawling back into bed after my daily toil. And lately, even that routine act has become a gargantuan feat of strength. With that being said, I'm shutting this sucker down and crashing at my current location here on the 'ol (well, new actually) futon. Goodnight.

Quote of the day:
I know I'm getting into good shape when I wake up tired and go to bed very tired.
- Brendan Foster

Did you ever know that you're my hero?

OK, forgive the corny title of this long overdue entry, but while I was running back and forth on the 'ol Rail Trail in Sterling Thursday morning I got to thinking a bit about heroes - what constitutes one, why we have them and more specifically, who mine are. It was a quick way to kill 80 minutes - an enlightening 80 minutes at that - so enlightening, in fact, that I feel those thoughts are worth sharing here.

So what is a hero? Well, I suppose it depends on who you're asking. For me, a hero isn't necessarily some super-human being who is capable of out-of-this-world accomplishments with the snap of a finger. In fact, most of my heroes are just the opposite - everyday Joe Schmoes who believe in themselves, work hard, refuse to take no for answer and despite the odds stacked up against them, go on to accomplish extraordinary things. And these aren't necessarily just running heroes, although they take on a great number of these qualties as well. These are life heroes too. So who are these people? More on that later.

So you might be wondering, why are these yet-to-be-named ordinary people I mention above so appealing to me? Well, for exactly that reason. They're ordinary. Just like you and me. My heroes keep me motivated and give me something to aspire to. They instill a sense of hope yet keep me humble at the same time. My heroes help me to realize that anything is possible if you want it bad enough. And work hard enough. And sacrifice enough. Their examples are worth emulating. They might not always succeed in what they're doing right away, but that never stops them from coming back for more. See where I'm going with this?

Well, if not, let me get a little more specific. Most of these people I know personally, some of them I don't. But regardless, I've taken at a little something from all of them as I make my way through this journey called life.

Stefano Fraioli. My nonni (grandfather), my main man and best friend. I've never met a more sincere soul or harder worker. If I can live up to be half the man that he was, then I did pretty good for myself.

Mario Fraioli. No, not me, but the original - a.ka. my Dad. He taught me that nothing ever gets handed to you. If you want something, you gotta go out and get it yourself.

Bernarda Fraioli. My Nana. This woman just won't quit. At anything. Whenever I feel like giving up, I just think of her and my attitude changes quickly.

Bill Gaudere. An all-around great guy who took me under his wing when I was just getting started in this crazy sport back in high school and he's been there for me every step of the way for since. Bill's as ballsy as they come and sports some pretty spiffy PR's despite having dealt with diabetes his entire life. A true inspiration.

Hodgie-San. My running mentor/all-around good friend who answers all my crazy questions and most importantly enjoys a good brunch. Hardworking and as humble as they come until you meet him on a starting line somewhere. Then he just turns plain nasty, as one should when it's time to butt heads.

Karen Boen. My college coach and one of the toughest people I know. She'll not only make you a better runner, but a better person as well. If she told me to run through a wall, I'd do it.

Bill Rodgers, Steve Jones, Frank Shorter, Emil Zatopek, Joan Benoit Samuelson, Rob De Castella, Ron Hill and Buddy Edelen, just to name a few. The list certainly goes on. Old school running heroes baby. These guys (and gal) just threw it out there, pushed their bodies to the limits and enjoyed doing it. Better yet, all of them were pretty unheralded in their earlier years and then ran on top of the world after years of consistent hard work. My kind of crew.

Teammates, past and present, and anyone else that I've ever had the privelege to run with. I try to take something from everyone I've ever traversed a mile with and use it in some way to help improve myself as both a runner and a person. These are the people who truly keep me motivated. Not to exclude anyone, but when ordinary guys and gals like Nate, Casey, Pat, Ed, Terry, Adam Ten, Driscoll, Katie G., Carly, Brendan, Oscar, Carrie, Miller, Ben, Matt and Brett Ely, LaRosa, Ryan, Justin, Paul Ryan, Roland (and a bunch of others I'm unintentionally forgetting, sorry!) go out and pop big races, nail down qualifiers, set PRs and the such, it gets me pretty fired up unlike anything else. We're all molded from the same tissue. We all help each other out in one way or another. I just keep thinking to myself, "If they can do it, then I can sure as hell do it too."

Quote of the day:
So somewhere in lap two, with the pace starting to slow some, I surged a wee bit to take up the lead. It was like 'Hi, Molly (Huddle), number one 5k runner in the nation! Hi, Cack, All-American 50 million times over! I’m Katie Gwyther, and I'm just going to go in front of you two now if you don’t mind! I know I will see you guys again in the future, but for now I am just going to pretend you aren’t there.'
- An email update from Katie Gwyther, describing her mindset during her 5,000-meter prelim race at NCAAs last Wednesday. Some good stuff in this quote, learn from it.

Training Log (5/28-6/3)

SUN - AM: 1:49:10, 16 miles. Probably closer to 17, but whatever. Met up with two of my West Hill cronies at the usual gathering spot for some tempo and long running all rolled into one. Likely the most painful way I can think of to kill two birds with one stone, but I successfully managed to do both. After 27 relatively tame minutes the three of us started rolling along on the canal, covering the next 5 miles in a brisk 27:15 before Driscoll and I threw in the premeditated towel. We dragged our sorry asses back to main loop while A-Ten silently laughed at us and ripped off another fast 5 miles. Yep, he's a showoff, and a fit one at that.

MON - AM: 59:15, 8 miles. Met up with Hodge and Greg Ward at the Rail Trail this morning, anticipating an ugly deathmarch in a humid hellhole but escaping with what equated to little more than a steamy stroll. I'll save my complaints for another day. PM: 5 miles. 2-mile joggy jog up to the turf field at Holy Cross, 3 sets of drills-n-strides, 2 miles back home. First foray into this little routine and wouldn't ya know there was a fairly attractive female making her way around the track as I was frog-hopping my way across the field. I think it's fair to say she was more amused than impressed.

TUES - AM: 34:40, 5 miles. Drove out to West Hill to get a few miles in with Driscoll and A-Ten before heading to Hopedale and attempting to conquer the Uncommon Common for brunch. Due to a number of extenuating circumstances, all three of us gave up before we started. This is unacceptable behavior and will not be tolerated in the future. PM: 11 miles. First track workout with the (Insert Sponser Here) Boston crew since way back in February and boy did it show. The black and white of it reads like this: 2,000 meters in 6:11; 1,200 meters in 3:31; 4 x 400 meters in 67, 66, 68, 66. 3-1/2 minutes recovery before and after the 12, 90 seconds between 4's. See this entry for a more complete rundown.

WEDS - AM: 83 minutes, 12 miles with Driscoll. Back to West Hill for the first, second, third, FOURTH day in a row! If it weren't for the world-class training partners and close proximity of quality post-run brunch spots, I'd have been sick of this place way back in April. PM: 44:50, 6 miles. 29 miles in the last 24 hours if I did my math correctly. Took this one nice-n-easy and did some serious thinking, which isn't too hard when you're running this slow.

THURS - AM: 55:20, 8 miles. West Boylston Rail Trail - where you're likely to find me running when I'm not traversing the trails at West Hill. Took it pretty easy this morning but finished up with 6 snappy strides and 4 hill charges to work on my form a little bit. PM: 35:45, 5 miles. A not-so-quick jaunt before heading into work. Legs had about as much life in them as the dead bird I saw in the middle of the road.

FRI - AM: 70:30, 11 miles. If you guessed West Hill as my run of choice this morning, then you guessed right. I was having A-Ten withdrawals and needed a third fix this week of no slower than a 6:30 per mile pace from the first click of the stopwatch. As usual, I wasn't disappointed. PM: 28:45, 4 miles. Managed to out-run the approaching monsoon, which is no easy task when moving along at the leisurely clip of 7:11 per mile.

SAT - AM: 12 miles. Met up with Brendan Prindiville at Fresh Pond for some longer strength work. My plan was for 3 miles @ 5:20-25; 2 miles @ 5:15-20; 1 mile @ 5-5:10 w/3 minutes recovery between all. However, a miscommunication between myself and Mr. Prindiville led my workout partner to believe that we were doing a straight 6-mile cutdown tempo, so needless to say when I stopped at 3 miles and he kept going, it threw us both for a loop, literally and figuratively. I blame the rain. Anywho, after hurdling canines and swimming through puddles at at a metronomic 5:18 clip over the first 3 miles, things went awry. Baffled, I jogged for two minutes before deciding to give chase to New Haven's next great oral surgeon, covering the last 1.7 miles of the loop in a quick 8:40. I ran through the finish line to the 1/2 mile mark and after a brief break, booked it back to the start/finish line in 2:26. A bit of a clusterfuck, but when all was said and done I still got in a touch over 5 miles worth of solid work.

WEEK SUMMARY: 103 miles, 12 runs. Very good week on the whole. Managed to mess up both workouts to a certain degree, but I guess as far as mistakes go they weren't all that bad. I'll be racing the 3K on the track at the High Performance Meet on Saturday night - my first outdoor track race in a little over two years - but more than anything I'm just pumped to toe a starting line again and finally let one rip. It's been a while.

Quote of the day:

I ran 29:06 for 10K and wasn't even the fastest guy on my street. None of us knew how good we were. None of us knew how bad we were. We just all thought, 'If he can make the Olympic team, so can I.'
- Steve Flanagan in a great article from last week's Denver Post

Back on track

Last night marked my not-so-triumphant return after a nearly three-month, injury-riddled hiatus to the weekly Tuesday night gathering of my Reebok (soon to be who-knows-what) Boston teammates to take part in the collective ritual of self-masochism at the oval-shaped structure commonly associated with breakneck, lightning fast, it-will-kill-you-if-you-don't-have-it, speed. OK, that was a bit long-winded - not to mention mildly overdramatic - and to be perfectly honest, this potentially morbid affair didn't go all that bad.

Kevin's assignment for the evening was a relatively light one: 2K, 1200, 4 x 400 with 3-1/2 minutes recovery before and after the 12 and 90 seconds between the 4's. My mission was to hit 75-second pace on the 2K (6:15), 73's on the middle segment (3:39) and 70 for the one-lappers. Suffice to say, I failed miserably. Well, maybe miserably is the wrong word, but let's just say I didn't hit the agreed upon pace. Actual splits were: 6:11; 3:31; 67, 66, 68, 66.

So, I was a bit fast on just about everything, which has both its positives and negatives. On the plus side of things, the actual effort was akin to what I thought the prescribed times would feel like, so I'm encouraged by that. I was never straining at any point - 2K got the legs going, the 1,200 actually felt great and the 400s were more awkward than anything else - which to me was a mild surprise, but a welcome one nonetheless. On the other side of the equation, it's very apparent that my inner-pace clock needs to be recalibrated. I attribute it to a minor case of track rust, much like a boxer suffering from ring rust after a lengthy hiatus from the squared circle. I pride myself on having a fairly metronomic sense of pace and hopefully I can correct the problem fairly quickly as I readjust to running around in circles. Actually, I'm confident that I can, so I'll stop my speculating. Just gimme a few weeks.

But enough about me. Congrats to good pal and loyal blog reader Katie Gwyther who received a well-deserved at-large bid and is currently 13th on the depth chart for the women's 5,000 meters at the NCAA Division I Track & Field Championships that get underway next weekend in Sacramento. Bravo! After never having previously qualified for an NCAA Championship - cross country, track, individually or otherwise - this gal went 3-for-3 her senior year and pulled out an All-American certificate in the process. And she's not done yet! Word on the street is she's been beating on her training partner this spring as if he were a red-headed stepchild. Poor Driscoll, he had to come home and run with me for a week because he couldn't take it anymore. Those girls as Michigan don't stand a chance next year.

And speaking of not being able to take it anymore, I've been staring at this screen longer than I've cared to. But before I go, take my advice and check out this interview with Casey Moulton. Good stuff! Take it easy all.

Quotes of the day:

For me, running's my cup of coffee in the morning. It gets me going, gets me focused and puts me in a mood where I'm much more productive.
- Joan Benoit Samuelson

Running isn't really complicated to me. It's just about getting in consistently high mileage year in and year out, as well as having the drive to keep at it, especially during the tough times.
- Casey Moulton

You know the drill(s)

Today was my first foray into a few alternative exercises that I've been meaning to incorporate into my training routine for some time now, namely form drills. I've never consistently used form drills in the past, although KcoachB made a few unsuccessful attempts to have us do them back in my Stonehill days. My own naiveness, not to mention laziness, led me to conclude that they were nothing but a waste of time, so I just didn't do them. Simple as that.

Since graduating waaaaaaaay back in '04, however, my own training observations and subsequent research have led me to the conclusion that there just might be something to be said about the effectiveness of devoting just a few minutes a week to improving running form, with the results being an increase in power, speed and overall biomechanical efficiency. Despite my revelations, however, I again fell victim to my own laziness and never actually attempted any of the drills that I spent more than a few hours, researching, analyzing and more than anything else, contemplating. Until today that is - thanks to Matty Mulv for the kick in the butt. Here's how the initial undertaking went down:

* 2 mile warmup, 3 circuits, 2 mile cooldown.
* 1 circuit = 100-meter stride/5 squat hops/100-meter stride/25-meter "A" skips into 25-meters bounding/100-meter stride.

Notes: Strides were run as buildups, ie. 25-meter acceleration/50-meter top-speed/25-meter deceleration. I like doing strides this way and believe they're good for practicing a relaxed running form while building speed. The plan is to eventually alternate the strides on an every-other-week basis with 60-meter hill sprints while I'm still in my buildup phase and not focusing on any specific races. About a month before Chicago I'll likely cut out the hill sprints and keep things on the flat side to let some life back in my legs. The squat hops were a failed experiment in themselves and did nothing but make my knees achy and sore, so I'll need to make an adjustment/replacement there. The skips and bounding addressed a knee-lift/power deficiency and with practice I'm confident that I can make great improvements in both these areas. All in all, I'd say it was a pretty good first day. Eventually, I'll increase to 50-meters worth of skips and bounding and a complete drill session will total five total circuits. As with anything and everything else, it's subject to some tweaking, but overall key will be consistency. The idea is to do one drill session a week - no more, no less.

So where did I get these wacky ideas? Good question. The short answer is from a variety of coaches and athletes, including Arthur Lydiard, Renato Canova, Bob Sevene, Brad Hudson, Arturo Barrios, and Nate Jenkins. I've dissected logs, interviews, e-mails, books, message board postings and personally held discussions with some of the aformentioned coaches and athletes that have all contributed in come way, shape or form to the development of the above personal drill package that I hope will improve my running form, speed, strength and overall efficiency. I'll try to update any progress with my new endeavor on a quasi-regular basis. Any other additional insight, comments and/or questions by any informed minds are greatly appreciated.

And that's it for today. Hope everyone enjoyed the holiday weekend.

Quote of the day:

It's a mistake to only do distance, distance, distance. If you don't do things like stretching and bounding drills, eventually your style is going to change and that's going to lead to injury.
- Arturo Barrios

Top-100 reasons to get excited

Not too much excitement to speak of as we round out the last full week in the greatest month of the year, other than the fact that I just found out my recent entry into the Top-100 corral at this fall's Chicago Marathon has been confirmed. The 40,000 runner field filled up rather quickly, so needless to say I was quite pumped to see that my application had been accepted. With that out of the way, the focus shifts towards sub-2:22 and a Trials qualifier on October 22nd.

On the training front, I tucked another good week under my belt as I continue to build aerobic strength and get my legs back under me for the long haul to Chicago. I totalled 102 miles on 11 runs, my first time over the century mark in '06. I got in a solid faster mid-week effort and ended the week with some up-tempo strength stuff, but neither is worth going into painstaking detail about. A pleasant semi-longer-than usual jaunt through the Lincoln woods on Thursday night with Terry Shea, Carly Graytock and Brendan Prindiville is also worth noting. This coming Tuesday night will mark my first workout back with the team now that the High Performance meets have resumed their normal Saturday structure for the summer. I can't wait.

And that does it for tonight. Time to hit the road. Take it easy all.

Quote of the day:

Him running the 5K is like an 800 (meters). He was born to run 4:45 (per mile) pace.
- Brad Hudson on Dathan Ritzenhein

All hail the King

I can't believe I forgot to mention the recent retirement of arguably the world's greatest middle distance runner, Hicham el Guerrouj. The guy rightfully went out on the top of his game, complete with countless world championships on the track, a still-standing world record in the mile and capped by double-Olympic gold in Athens. Sounds like a pretty complete career to me.

* I turned the ripe-old age of 24 this past Wednesday. Oddly enough, I'm feeling a bit on the old side these days. It's kind of disheartening. And as my good pal Tim pointed out, "hey, as of tomorrow you'll be closer to 30 then 18". Thanks, asshole.

* Consider this a shameless plug for a little road race in Portland, Maine on June 18th which was brought to my attention by Scott. It's called the New England Mile and it promises a fast course with plenty of good competition and free Friendly's ice cream afterward. Five-grand in total prize money doesn't hurt either if you've got some wheels and need to pay next month's rent. Go up there, have some fun, eat some ice cream and get a PR while you're at it. C'mon, after all it's in Maine, where life is how it should be.

* Check out Matty's Mulv's blog for some good stuff from Renato Canova. Not that I advocate everything that this introspective Italian preaches, but if you're as much of a running dork as I am, it's provides for some interesting reading. Some good stuff there.

And that's it for now. I'm getting up there in age and running quite a bit these days, so as a result I'm rather tired. More tomorrow, hopefully. Take it easy all.

Quote of the day:

There is a big difference between TRAINING and RUNNING : the first has the goal to stimulate your body, AND THE ANSWER OF YOUR BODY IS THE TRAINING. The second is something good for your health, but forget that you can improve with this mentality.
- Renato Canova

Monday mumblings

*A few changes have been made to the general layout of this here blog, albeit small ones. I've added a few new links to my reading list, so make sure to check those out, and also condensed said list into one general category, which will hopefully make things a little easier to navigate. I'm still dumbfounded as to how to load a photo into my profile...for whatever reason its not very easy for me to do. Consider this a plea for assistance (hint hint). I may also change the background tempate up a bit if the itch arises, so stay tuned.

* Speaking of site-related issues, it seems I've been getting a lot of SPAM-ish comments lately. Any idea how this happens and how to put an end to it?

*Barbaro, Kentucky Derby winner who pulled up in the Preakness, has a 50-50 chance of surviving surgery on his shattered ankle. They just showed him hanging in a gurney with a big-ass fiberglass cast on his hoof. Doesn't look promising you say? HA! I'm going to go out on a limb and say Barbaro comes back to win the Triple Crown next year and make Lance Armstrong's comeback from cancer look like an everyday achievement. The latest rumor on www.letsridehorses.com is that once he's stablized, Barbaro will head out to Portland, Oregon, where he will spend a majority of his days in an altitude-sealed stall, get a few special shots in his backside from Alberto Salazar and haul ass on a giant horse-sized underwater treadmill until he's able to transition back to land. Come Derby time next year, those other high-strung equines won't know what just blew by 'em. Remember, you heard it here first.

*I've been highly amused by all the hoopla surrounding the recent release of the Da Vinci Code, particularly the criticisms, boycotts and all-around rage from the diehard Catholics who find the film blasphemous. Wake up! It's a f*ckin' movie, it's meant to be entertaining. And IF, just IF, some of Dan Brown's claims regarding the lineage of Christ are true - which, in my opinion, would be nearly impossible to prove anyway - what are these so-called faithful so threatened by? Relax people.

And that's it for today. Time for me to get some shut-eye, take it easy.

Quote of the day:

At the end of every discussion, the question is: What I ask to my training? [Do] I want to try to reach my best potential results, or [do] I want to be fresh every day, running only for my health and my fun ? In the first case you must use long and fast run, with a correct modulation. In the second case, run slowly and enjoy your life, but don't speak about good results in athletics.
- Renato Canova

Training Log (5/14-5/20)

SUN - AM: 98 minutes, 12 miles. Rainy run at the Rail Trail, and a damn cold rain at that. Driscoll came down for some Sunday fun and we ran for 30 minutes before picking up Hodge for our weekly weekend tour of the Quinapoxet. Fun times.

MON - AM: 66 minutes, 10 miles. All over the place at West Hill with the one and only A-Ten. Recent rains washed out our rustic route, not to mention a small skeleton in the middle of the trail. The latter of the two washouts threw us for a bit of a loop. PM: 35:30, 5 miles. Did six Driscollian strides at the end of this lil jaunt, just to stretch the legs out a bit - and pay tribute to my fantastic friend, of course.

TUES - AM: 36:30, 5 miles. Cold, wet and the purpose of the run was to warm up my muscles a bit. No such luck this morning. PM: 69:35, 10 miles. Went out to Bentley in anticipation of hills-n-drills; ran through the woods with Adam Stu instead and finished up with four snappy 200-meter strides on the track. Oh wait, 37 seconds isn't exactly snappy. My bad.

WEDS - 85:50, 13 miles. Woke up this morning to a weird light in the sky. Ancient folklore commonly referred to it as the sun, I believe. Anyway, I made my way back out to the Rail Trail (surprise surprise) and ran 23 minutes worth of good fartlek, attacking five good hills in the process. Paid close attention to my form and focused on running with an Easy Gait, just like my good pal Ryan. Solid effort this morning.

THURS - 84:30, 12 miles. Felt about as alive as that skeleton that's still making its home on the trail at West Hill. The cheering high school girls along the canal did nothing to energize my legs, but the sight of A-Ten's ass sure seemed to give them a boost.

FRI - AM: 51:35, 8 miles. Went out to Lowell for a rain-soaked run in the woods with Nate and Kevin. We managed to stay on the side of the city that remains above water, but I definitely felt like I was treading water trying to catch those two while doing some strides afterwards. Top-end speed needs a major tune-up. PM: 36:35, 5 miles. Yep, dead-on 7:20 pace. Now that's what I call easy runnin'.

SAT - AM: 14 miles. Early morning misadventure up to Bedford, NH with A-Ten. The object of our journey was to do some tempo running at the Rotary 12K Road Race - which we ultimately (and successfully) achieved - but it wasn't without some driving drama. We arrived at our destination at 8:48 a.m., a mere 12 minutes before the gun was to go off. Adam, who wisely pre-registered, secured his number and took off on his warmup, while I forked over my entry fee, took care of some pressing GI issues and started my warmup with six minutes to spare. A quick four-minute jaunt, a few quick stretches and I was on my way. The idea was to run 5:25-30 pace through 5 miles, then "go" over the last two. I'll admit my legs were a bit dumbfounded over the first couple miles, but by Mile 4 I was comfortably clicking off splits in the mid-5:20's. My pace was a little quicker than anticipated, but the effort was right where it should have been, so on the whole I was happy with how things went. A definite step in the right direction.

Actual splits were as follows: 5:26, 5:18, 5:22, 5:35 (hill), 10:42 (6-mile split, didn't see 5), 5:15 (37:40 through 7 mi) and 2:57 for the last 0.4, apparently. The course was an "unsanctioned 12K", as the original layout was altered due to recent rains. Judging by my split for the last 0.4, I'd say the new course was a smidge longer than 7.4 miles, but whatever, it served the purpose. The adjusted average pace comes out to 5:23/mile, which was good enough to place me second overall, well behind the aerobic monster who drove up both versions of Route 3 with me, Adam Ten. The young stud averaged a touch under 5-minute pace for 7 miles and change, running all by his lonesome. He's fit as a fiddle right now, thanks to his terrific twice-a-week training partner. Or not.

WEEK TOTALS: 94 miles, 10 runs. Good week of training with a couple solid harder efforts mixed in there. I've been a little more aggressive in my buildup since coming off the Achilles injury, but I'm holding up pretty well and have been placing a very strong emphasis on rest and recovery, which I'm finding to pay huge dividends. What good are the harder efforts if you can't recover from them? Volume-wise, this is about as high as I'll go until I begin my specific marathon buildup for Chicago, slated for sometime in mid to late July. Until then, consistency will be key.

Quote of the day:

The world could end while Todd’s doing a workout, and he doesn’t care. He’s going to finish that interval in whatever time he wants to run the interval in, and he’s going to be right on the money.
- Anthony Famiglietti on Todd Williams

Saving face

Quick update, considering I'm currently operating on a serious lack of sleep with yet another early day on the horizon tomorrow morning. Adam Ten and I are heading up to Bedford, NH at the ass crack of dawn for a lil 12K fun on the roads, which seemed like a bright idea until I came to the unfortunate realization that I'd be getting my rear end out of bed at the un-godly hour of 6 a.m. What the hell was I thinking!?! Eh, sleep is for the weak, that's what I'll keep telling myself. I'll just suck it up and deal with it.

I talked to Kevin about my plans for tomorrow on Tuesday night at practice and he thought the "race" was a good idea as long as I could keep things under relative control. That shouldn't be a problem. The idea is to hit 5:30-pace through five miles and then bring it down a bit over the last two. I'm not too worried about the 5:30s, but it will be interesting to see what I can do off that pace. That's the challenge at hand. Check back sometime tomorrow or Sunday if you're curious to see how it all went down.

In the meantime, check out this interview, which consequently was the first blow to my beauty sleep earlier in the week.

OK, I'm done my incessant bitching - time to hit the hay. Take it easy all.

Quote of the day:

Christmas Day, New Year’s Day, Thanksgiving Day, Saturday, Sunday…it never ends. It is a huge, huge commitment if you are going to train at that highest level.
- Bob Kennedy

A few words about respect, or lack thereof

In case I don't have time later, I just want to get a few things off my chest while I have the chance.

1. I respect self-confidence, even to the point where it might be called cockiness. Nothing wrong with that. It ain't bragging if you can back it up.

2. I also respect humility. Humbleness can be an eerily silent killer.

3. I don't respect narcissism. Trust me, the mirror doesn't always tell the truth.

4. Acknowledge those who helped you get to where you are. I respect that too.

This will have to do for now. Take it easy all.

Quote of the day:

I think your generation has found its Jerry Lawson.
- A wise man who shall remain nameless

Where do I start?

First day back at it after a brief hiatus, so let's not waste any more time.

1. Fernando Cabada. Cocky sunavabitch, but he has every right to be. Hell, I like the guy. He's confident, fearless and has been on a silent tear of late. I think this weekend's pending American Record in the 25K is gonna make more than a little noise. From what I understand, a lot of people aren't too fond of him, but his results speak for themselves. And you know what I like to say, you can't argue with results.

2. Speaking of cocky sunavabitches, get a load of a recent brief chat with this guy. The man they call "Fam" has got to be the most eccentric character in a sport thats full of them -- and that's why I like the guy. He says and does some pretty outlandish stuff, but that's him and he doesn't apologize for it. That's cool. Personally, I think Craig Mottram is gonna obliterate him - and the rest of the field at the Healthy Kidney 10K this weekend, for that matter - but I admire Fam's chutzpah and fearlessness. We need more guys with attitudes like him and Cabada on the American running scene. Just my two cents.

3. Check out an excellent interview with this affable Australian, written by this bloody bastard. Lots of good stuff in there. Get out your Hi-lighter.

4. And when you're done with that, check out this Web site, created by a good pal of mine. Kid's talented!

5. Moving on to more mobile activities, here's a brief synopsis of my training last week:

88 miles in 10 runs. Went long with Ryan, Adam Stu and Paul Ryan in the Lincoln Woods on Sunday, ran 5 x 2 minutes up Heartbreak Hill in Newton on Tuesday and got in a hilly 5-mile tempo run in 27:40 on Saturday. The Achilles problem seems to be completely behind me and my training is progressing nicely. Hopefully I'll round into pretty good shape over the next few weeks and be ready to pop some good races this summer.

6. Recently I've had the all-too-uncommon luxury of a mid-week training partner in the form of Adam Ten. Since he redshirted this outdoor season at W&M, he's been pounding out 120 a week rather than taking the post-track downtime some of his fellow Tribesmen are currently engaging themselves in. As a result, he's been wailing on me two or three times a week, which should speed the progression of my ever-improving fitness level. So far he's held back on me, but one of these days I'm sure he'll unleash his fury. He owes me for all the times I dragged him out on 16-mile slugfests when he was an up-and-coming, but unsuspecting 16-year-old HS stud. As they say, what goes around eventually comes around.

7. So it's been raining a lot here lately. Seriously, I don't even remember what the sun looks like. It's more than mildly depressing. Runs are that much more miserable, the Sox cancelled both games this past weekend and there's just an overall feeling of dampness in the air, literally and figuratively. And to think I actually wanted to live in Oregon.

8. Speaking of places I want to live, I think it's about time to start exploring a few different options. I've got nowhere specific in mind, and in all honesty I've got very few complaints about my current living situation, but I'm always up for a change of scenery. The view from my basement suite is getting old.

9. Ridiculous sign from the past few weeks, courtesy of the 7th Day Adventists in Sterling, MA:

May is God's apology for February.

Well if that's the case, then He's got some explaining to do.

Quote of the day:

I have the attitude. I'm not afraid of anybody. I tried to break (the Kenyans). I looked at their faces. I thought they were weak, so I pushed them, tested them, messed with them. Then, one by one, I ran away from them.
- Fernando Cabada

Happy to be ripped off

I apologize once again for a complete lack of entries recently, but that will change starting tomorrow. I promise. Thanks to Matty Mulv for the much-need kick in the ass. I'm mildly flattered.

Quote of the day:

I never learned I was supposed to be intimidated. I always assumed when you line up, you line up to try to win the race.
- Craig Mottram

Training Log (4/30-5/6)

SUN - AM: 95+ minutes at the Rail Trail, calling it 13 to be safe. First 42 minutes solo - easy to the gate (2.75 miles) in 19:08, came back comfortably hard in 14:38 [5:30, 3:59 (3/4), 5:09], followed by 6 Driscoll strides and some light jogging till Hodge showed up. Last 7 miles or so nice & easy in 53:55 with the old man.

MON - AM: 50 min nice & easy at West Hill along the canal. Monday's will be reserved for recovery from here on out.

TUES - AM: Morning four-banger in a shade over 28 minutes. Nice & moist out, just how I like it. PM: 60 minutes at Bentley with Adam Stu, followed by six strides on the track. We'll call this one 9 miles.

WEDS - AM: Stone Church fartlek solo, 51:30. Ran the four hills pretty hard and finished up the last 5 minutes on the uptempo side of things. Displayed Hulk-like strength for the first time in a long while this morning. PM: Easy does it on the 'ol four-mile road loop from home, 28:15. 12 for the day.

THURS - AM: Bike Path out-n-back 10-spot from home, 68:15. Did not feel good, at all. Hulk-like feeling of invincibility was apparently a short-term phenomenon.

FRI - AM: 56-minute two looper at West Hill, finishing up with four Driscoll strides. 8 miles, not much more. Not as near-death as yesterday but still a pretty morbid run. Gotta resurrect myself before tomorrow.

SAT - AM: Fresh Pond 'Almost-5-Mile Jump-Over Small Dogs Tempo' in 26:40. Lived up to my metronomic reputation with a dead-on nuts 13:20 clocking for each loop. 5:23/avg. mile, a touch faster than goal pace of 5:25-30 but I'll take it. Solid effort; felt like my first tempo run in 10 weeks. Oh wait, it was.

WEEK TOTALS: 74 miles on nine runs. Bailed on Friday's PM shakeout, which was probably a wise move considering the self-inflicted ass-kicking I gave myself on Wednesday. If all goes according to plan, next week should look eerily similar to this one.

Quote of the day:

I don’t want you to leave here smashing your head against the wall. Be businesslike, patient, and methodical. Do a little head smashing every day for one hundred days.
- Mark Wetmore

I'm baaaaaaaaack

Well, sorta. I'll probably have more to say later, but for now I'd like to apologize for a complete lack of entries over the last week or so. A few unexpected things came up and a Kemibe-like blogging hiatus was one of the unfortunate results. All is well however, so no worries. Hope ya'll didn't miss me too bad. Take it easy.

Quote of the day:

I’m not going to let him get it that easy. It’s my course; I run on it every day.
- Anthony Famiglietti

State of the Running Address

Friends, family, co-workers, current teammates, former teammates, coaches both past and present, wayward runners, fellow bloggers and whoever else may frequent this space on a quasi-regular basis:

Other than a weekly summation of my daily toils, I've refrained from going into detail about my own running in these entries, mainly because I wasn't doing too much activity resembling forward locomotion and secondly, I wasn't writing about much else other than my pathetic attempts at cross training and the occasional hobble on a bum Achilles. In hindsight, I think it improved the quality of some of my general entries, but took away from chronicling my personal running journey, which is what this blog was originally intended for in the first place. Funny how things change sometimes.

Speaking of change, a lot has occurred in regards to my running over the last five and a half weeks, much of it positive. After battling a nasty achilles injury that shelved me for just about the entire month of March, I've managed to gradually work my way back into a consistent pain-free running routine during the month of April and believe that May will mark my return to the serious training necessary to ready me for a handful of track races in mid-June and early July. From there, it's full steam ahead to Chicago on October 22nd where I'll take a shot at sub-2:22 and a Trials qualifier in the marathon. Of course, this is all just pencilled in at this point, but if all goes well, hopefully I won't have to use the eraser too much.

My approach at this point is somewhat Alan Culpepperish, which is to get in as good of 5K-10K shape as possible within a limited time frame and then begin my marathon-specific preparation. I've talked things over with both Kevin and Hodgie and they seem to agree that it's not a bad route to take. With that being said, the target races this summer will be the New England Championships 5K at MIT on June 18th and Club Nationals in San Francisco roughly a month later. The idea is to get into some sort of decent shape by those dates without rushing it, if that makes any sense. More than anything, those races will give me a starting point from which to base my fall training off of. My optimistic - yet admittedly conservative - wild guess is that I can get down to 14:45/30:30 track shape by mid-July. If that's the case, then I'll be on track for where I want to be in October.

As for what it will take to get there, I think I've finally put myself on the right track over the last five weeks. My mileage totals have evolved from 29 miles of slow shuffling during the last week of March to 66 miles of relatively steady running and the introduction of some snappy strides and fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants tempo runs this past week. The plan is to gradually increase my workload over the next two months and begin incorporating a Tuesday hill workout and Saturday tempo run into my routine starting this weekend. I'll likely follow this pattern until early June and then ease myself into a few track workouts to get my rhythm back before toeing the line. Then it's time to race, ready or not.

So that's where I'm at: happy, healthy and heading in the right direction. Watch out.

Quote of the day:

We have got to have a plan. We must have a plan even if it is wrong.
- Once A Runner (thanks to Ryan for reminding me of this one)

Swinging away

Gotta break outta my recent slump with these entries; not sure how I'm gonna do it or if I'll succeed, but here goes...

1. Read this article. Comment on it. I'm interested in what you have to say. Seriously.

2. Sox got rained out tonight, which is too bad. But so far we're 1-0 on the year vs. Johnny Demon and his minions, which is the only record I care about to be honest. That leaves 18 more regular season games versus the Bronx Bungholes, and if we went 19-0 againt those clowns while losing the other 143 games, well, I'd be fine with that. OK, probably not, but it would likely be enough ammo to keep their fans quiet, which is half of my battle in life.

3. Stanford 10K. Fast, fast, fast. Not American-record fast, but when was the last time you saw three Americans in the same race around 27:30 on domestic soil? I'm not sure myself to be honest, but I believe it's been a while. A long while at that. Somebody correct me if I'm wrong.

4. I just saw on the news that there's a new musical in Boston replaying the whole Tonya Harding/Nancy Kerrigan fiasco/saga from many years back. It's mildly amusing but overly pathetic, sad and disturbing at the same time. Not to mention grossly outdated and seemingly pointless, which leads me to ask, why?

5. Back to the Stanford 10K. Did I mention that I was impressed? That Webb guy sure has some range. Not a bad 25-lap debut. It will be interesting to see if he sticks with the 1,500 or moves up to the five this summer. Personally, I'd like to see him focus on the 'ol 12-1/2 lapper and take a crack at King Bob's American record. I think he's got a damn good shot. Mottram's run mid-12:50s and I think him and Alan are pretty comparable at this point. Just my two cents.

And let's not forget about Ritz. From what I understand, he led a bulk of the way on Sunday night. This guy's an aerobic monster - the longer he goes, the tougher he's gonna be to beat. I think he's got a shot at possibly going under 27:20 later this year, but I'm not sure if he's got an American Record up his sleeves just yet. Not that my opinion matters, but hopefully he proves me wrong.

Last, but certainly not least, Fam the man had a helluva debut for himself as well. I don't think anyone saw this one coming, perhaps not even the man himself. Then again, I don't know for sure, but I do know that he opened more than a few eyes with his 27:37. I can't help but wonder if this was the beginning of the end of his love affair with the steeplechase or what. If he's gonna move up to some longer flat races though, 27:37 isn't a bad place to start.

6. Everyone take cover and watch out for remnants of broken records being shattered at a dizzying pace by the trackies over at Stonehill College. Personally, I lost another one this past weekend, as super sophomore David Metzger had a rough night at the Penn Relays on Thursday and still managed to slip under my old 5K mark with a time of 15:09. Just so you know, he ran 14:37 indoors this past winter, so that sucker is going way down sooner than later. Trust me. Also, sophomore stud #2, Keith Gill, who actually broke my 1,500 record by .2 a couple weeks back, brought that mark down to 3:52 and some change at Brown on Sunday, taking a full two seconds off the 3:54.48 I ran as a sophomore. On the women's side, Dana D. broke through in the 1,500 at Brown, popping off a 4:38 (a school record by 2 seconds) to provisionally qualify for NCAA's. Girl is rolllllllling. On the whole, these kids just keep raising the bar and dropping times like it's going out of style. It's great to see. And as always, KcoachB is doing a helluva job.

Anyways, that's all I got. Take it easy.

Quote of the day:

He eats and runs, that's all.
- Article about Budhia Singh. Read it.

Whole lotta nuthin'

No pathetic excuses today. I gut nuthin'.

Quote of the day:

Damn those milers.
- Dathan Ritzenhein