THE FAIRHAVEN FROSTY

The farihaven frosty is this weekend. This is the race where I will be shooting for my sub 17. I say this because I have been training fairly good so I want to through in a all out effort and see where I am at with my training. I have been doing a lot of tempo like runs so it has gotten me dialed into a fast pace even when I am not at 100%. On Wednesday I hope to do some 800s up at the western track. Hopefully at 5k race pace. Other then that I want to continue to do what I am doing.

20:05

The race on the morning of November 24, 2011 was a good one. It started at a little after 9 am, the race was  three laps around Cornwall or about 3.6 miles. As the voice command start sounds I jump to the lead. But not for long, all of the local studs overtake me within 100 yards. I try to hang onto them. As we approach the first lap I look at my watch. it is in 6:16. pretty fast. The second lap is way slower as my two lap time is in 13:20. I start to get my mojo back by popping a 6:45 for my last lap and finishing in 20:05. After the race I am thinking to myself, i have just hit another level. by the way that is equivalent to a 17:00 5k.

6x800

Yes the assigned workout was 6x800. I start out at a 2:50 and then slowly work my down during the course of the workout.  My second 800 is a little bit faster at 2:39, but today I am felling well so I want take a little more off of that. The third one is more of what I wanted. I hit it at exactly 2:30. My fourth also feels just as good as I continue a good tempo at 2:32. I slow down to a tempo pace on the last two. I run 2:45 and 2:50 for them. I felt that I am finally finding my groove again. That I can pump out these speed workouts’s like this. I am grateful. 

The city meet.

5:09.02 was my time for the middle school city meet at civic stadium today. I had expected a onslaught of rapid 8th graders taking it out super hard. But nobody did and  I was left all alone to fiend for myself and the fast time. I pass the first lap in 1:16 a little bit off pace put I am still going to crank it. I look behind me and there is no one in sight. At 2 laps I pass in 2:35, I am slowing. No turning back now though. I struggle through the third lab keeping a even pace. At the bell I see my time as 3:53. Now is time. I keep relaxing until 300 to go and there I start to unleash the pit bulls. I keep upping my pace until I hit the max setting. I keep pushing. Now I look at my watch and see that I have ran a 5:09 flat closing in a 1:15 for my final lap. I was happy, but enough of that, time to get back to work.

A new wave

Yes My friends there is a new wave coming through. And boy is it a tsunami. Jerry Schumachers training group has over taken Salazar's for the top in the U.S. Jerry lured in Kara Goucher to come on in and train with top U.S. runners Shalane Flannagan and Lisa Koll. Right there that is huge. You got three of the best 10k runners in the country right in one place. Training together to push themselves to the next level. This is what I think is the  power of the group. There is no slacking off, you are held accountable by your teammates. It is good to see Salazar's group getting whittled down to a few runners because he has held dominance over U.S. running for much to long and I think it is time to just pass the torch down to the up and comers. So I wish all of Shumachers runners the best of luck in there journey to the top.

Finally a breakthrough

Wait a minute let's back up a moment, it was  not what you call a breakthrough it was more of a good and solid race. The first annual race of the Whatcom Tesseract XC invite was a good one. I ran the youth boy's race and won in a time of 14:14. It was a course record for that course. It felt good to have a good race for once because it has been a long road back from my ups and downs so like I said it feels good to have my hard work and my patience pay off. As I have emphasized in some of my latest blog entries is that I want to work hard and just see what I can accomplish.

The Cornwall park race

Today on october 22,2011 marks the race day of the Whatcom Tesseract XC meet at cornwall park. The race that I will be doing is the youth boy's 4k. It is raining outside right now so I am not expecting a great race but I just want to get out there and run hard. I miss running all out I have not that in a long time so today is a opportunity for me to do that. Leading up to this race I have had a good week in training, making every run a easy tempo run so I can build up my strength to run longer faster. I do not want to say that I have been slowly down since I was in sixth grade but my times are no where near they were two years ago. So I just want to put in the work and see what happens.

Doing some work out at the track

Yes Sammy g nation I went to the western track tonight to dial into some serious speed work. Although it did not go as planned I was just happy finishing the dang thing. My workout was 4 800's then 4 400's and finally 4 200's. I have not been doing very many speed oriented workouts so I was not disappointed with my rather slow splits. All I want to do is to work hard and let the times that I get to race speak for themselves. On another note my Spikes the Nike zoom matumbo's have been feeling weird lately like they are really built up. But I am just glad I have a nice pair of shoes. So that was how I ended up working out at the track.

Cleaning up the oregon project

The tide is turning, runners are starting to move away from the master Salazar. Two high profile runners Kara Goucher and Amy Yoder Begely both left Salazar's training group last week. Goucher said she is moving to colarado and is sighing with sketchers. Sketcher's I mean what runner wears sketchers? Thats right no one does. After thinking about it awhile it occurred to me that Sketchers must have offered Goucher a possible contract with 7 figures. Oh, did you hear about Meb also sighing with them. That is a Olympic silver medalist and a world championship bronze medalist. So you got two of the top runners in the world running for you, imagine all that new business that will potentially bring in, yeah lots. I don't know if any of you have heard about the new shoe that Sketchers made for Meb. It is a 6.9oz racing flat that looks to be mimicking the Nike free. Personally I don't like Salazar for various reasons do it is good to see people turning against the big man and doing it them selves.

Wisconsin Invite

The Wisconsin Invite was yesterday and today Flotrack posted videos of the races on there website. I watched the mens 8k race and thought that the race was amazing. There were so many runners and they all finished in dense packs. I was suprised to find that the race winner Lawli Lalang only runs 50 miles per week. That is nothing. That means he is running for about 45 minutes to a hour a day max. No long runs? That just seems that when you are running at a high level like him you cherish those long runs. So I guess that is pretty amazing if he can do a 23:10 off of very minimal training. My dad and I had a nice slow long run at cornwall and at lake padden today. I like those long runs they can get you more connected to your surroundings because if you are going to fast you notice nothing but if you go at a pace where you can soak in the nice trail you are running on and the sounds of nature around you, you can enjoy running for hours instead od dreading it. Try it.

Chicago Marathon

Yes my friends the Chicago Marathon was this weekend and it in my opinion did not live up to the hype. Moses Mosop won in 2:05:37, but the plan was to go for the world record. A post race article did say that he was only 80% to85% due to a sore Achilles. Mosop's run was not the only good on. American Ryan Hall ran 2:08. At first that seemed slow because I remember seeing Boston and he ran 2:04:58. But then I thought how many Americans run a sub-2:10 these days nobody except for Ryan.

The secret ingredient

I may have found the secret ingredient of training. I have noticed that doing striders after my workouts and long runs it leaves me feeling so much better. Now that I think about it this has probably been discovered before but I am just exited that I have been able to train at a very high level for the past three weeks. I have been putting in about xx and xx miles a week. About a month ago I was not doing any running at all. It feels good to be back.

Chuckanut Runs

Yes the ever so famous chuckanut runs that weave through the scenic trails of Chuckanut moutain. Last weekend my dad and I went out there and did a stellar 8 miler then poped back down to the iterurban trail and did some 30 and 40 second pick-ups. Man I have not done those in a long time and it felt good to be at 'em. That I would have to say is the power of the chuckanuts.

Back To work

I have had a long hiatus of not blogging so I am back at it. Yesterday I had a great run at cornwall park. I did four laps in 30:25. four laps arounds cornwall is about 5 miles so i was going about 6:05 pace the whole way. I t felt good to be back and having good workouts again, it has been a long time. One of the things that motvated me was that I was kind of getting impatient becuase I was not having any good runs but being patient paid off and I am glad that I had waited.

RUNNING HALF MARATHON ON MAY 7 2011

I WILL BE RUNNING A HALF MARATHON