Raven Runner/Weekend Recap

I was watching Sportscenter last night, and came across this interesting piece on Outside the Lines about a streak runner residing in Miami Beach named Robert "Raven" Kraft. I thought I knew people that were obsessed about running, but this guy tops it all. He has been running 8 miles a day since January 1, 1975. Every day, a different group of runners joins Raven for the run and to share stories about life in South Florida. Runners who run all eight miles on one of Raven's daily runs earn a nickname from Raven himself. Raven catalogues all such runners (more than 500 as of this writing) by number of runs, partial runs and swims completed. On March 29, 2009, Raven ran his 100,000th mile - an absolute absurd number. I think last year, I came close to 2,000 miles while running a pretty considerable amount, but never will I get remotely close to 100K!!! Another interesting article about Raven here...

Weekend running ended up being pretty good. Saturday morning, woke up to do a long run with Pat and Crystal. The original plan was to hit 10 miles with even splits, but that goal completely fell apart. Did our typical Glen Carbon route, only we modified it as an out and back rather than a loop, so first half was downhill and coming back was uphill. Weather was cool and overcast, but became sunny and a little humid as the morning went on. Was feeling a little groggy starting out, and we did the first three miles with Pat at a pretty comfortable pace (he did 6). Picked up a little on the next couple miles, and started to get into a good rhythm. Last 4 miles, picked it up big time and pretty much tore it up coming home. Legs felt ok overall, a little tired, but handled the aggressive pace fine. Total run: 10 miles in 1:19:05; splits: 8:56, 8:51, 8:59, 8:16, 7:49, 7:33, 7:15, 7:17, 7:09, 6:56. Our easy 10 became a 3-1 run, oops!

Sat. night, ended up going out with Barrel and Trisha in St. Louis, and needless to say it was a long night. I parted ways with them around midnight and ended up at a local bar in town with some other buddies - fun times. Sunday morning, woke up a few hours later to stumble on the golf course to play an impromptu golf match, albeit on an absolutely gorgeous morning. Played pretty inconsistent, and we pretty much got our butts handed to us by one of the teams, but still a great time and had absolutely perfect weather conditions. I had obtained permission to skip the group Sunday morning run from Coach Crystal, and ended up going with them to my running store, Big River Running Company to get new shoes for Crystal and running apparel for Pat and I. Crashed on my couch all afternoon/evening in complete exhaustion, and dragged myself out around 10 p.m. to get in my run. Was kicking myself for procrastination, but was pleased to have a beautiful night to run - weather was 58, cool breeze, great conditions. When I trained for the New York Marathon, I did almost 90% of my training runs at night, and there is something about training late at night that I absolutely love and seems so much easier for me. Did 5 miles sans watch in a flat loop around town on the roads in ~36-38 minutes with what felt like minimal effort, and felt really good. Strides afterwards and stretching.

Overall week, ~33 miles, a lot of runs at weird hours because of aggressive social activites, but didn't miss a run :) Diet was a bit messed up though, and slacked off big time on core work but will get back on it this week!

Pics from the weekend: