Running Strong & Loving Life

I was talking with a good friend at work the other day and he was wondering about my next race, and he was still puzzled about how I could run such long distances. He had no idea that humans could run so long and thought the marathon was the ultimate distance. I asked if he had done any running and he replied just the one mile sprint back in high school. He would run one hundred miles a week (10 in the morning and 10 at night) just to get conditioned for one mile all out. I was in complete amazement over his training. 100 miles a week to run a one mile race – WOW. He was a sub 5 min miler, but never took it past HS. Looking at him today, I would have never guessed he was such an incredible runner some years ago. Never judge a book by its cover - People amaze me.

For those who have been visiting my blog for the last year, you noticed I put the cross in the upper right corner of my blog. Now for the rest of the story: Last year about this time I was talking about Christmas but used the word X-mass for short. My oldest sister (Kate) replied to me with an email questioning why would I want to exclude Christ by using X-mass. I really never thought much about it, but it made perfect sense what her message was. Since, I’ve included the cross on my blog to remind myself not to take shortcuts and risk loose the real meaning. This applies for a lot of things in our lives. Thanks Kate.

You know you are raising your kids right by what they do and say. Tonight after picking my son Josh up from wrestling practice, he told me about how some wrestlers shave their arms and legs, and apply a light lube to make it hard to hold onto them for a pin down. He said this was cheating, but some do it to get an advantage over you. He then said “Dad, winning a match knowing you cheated would not be nearly as rewarding as knowing you won because you did it right and earned it”. I was one proud parent.

As for the training: The first week of another 3 week cycle went well. Besides, after taken a really easy training week, and eating a ton of food all Thanksgiving week, I needed a hard week to remind myself I have a race in just 9 weeks. My mileage for the week was 78 miles including a 33 mile (5 hour) long run. I felt strong on all my runs which tells me I’m recovering smartly between runs and taken advantage of the easy week. Cross training has helped a lot also by strengthen related muscles without getting burned-out or injured. When I got done with my cold long run, I felt good considering the conditions (muddy again from the rain), and could have easily ran more if not short on time (Christmas party commitment that night). I was listening to a local radio station which plays 24hr / 7 days a week Christmas music from the day after Thanksgiving to the end of December. Not to sound like a scrooge, but after 5 hours of this on my long run, I was saturated.