Bye Bye Oprah

Farewell to Oprah - as much as I quite honestly am not broken up like many others, she did promote the marathon through her own efforts which is very commendable. A hell of a run regardless (no pun intended), and much congrats to a legendary career. Ryan Hall comments on runner's amnesia, Sammy Wanjiru's legacy, what ever happened to Daniel Komen? (only sub 8 minute 2 miler), Kenenisa Bekele on the comeback trail, interview with the Pittsburgh Marathon winner rabbit, and a preview of the new Brooks line (PureConnect) coming out later this year.

Tuesday, May 24 - 7 miles: 2 up, reverse ladder (5:50 - 1600, 4:33 - 1200, 2:54 - 800, 1:25 - 400), 3.5 down. Recruited Mike to pace me through some of this workout. Nice evening, a little muggy but very tolerable. Legs were dead from drills, so had some concerns going in that I wasn't going to hit good splits. Didn't want to push it (this being my first real speedwork this summer), but also didn't want to flame out either. Quick 2 mile warmup on the roads before jumping into this workout. Mike paced me through 2:56 at the halfway point of the 1600, and finished 2:54 solo for a 5:50 mile split. Pretty decent considering on tired legs, and quite honestly a tired mental state. Don't know what happened on the 1200 - felt tired, but not bad enough to dip over 6:00 min/mile pace. Went through the 800 in a 2:59-3:00, so figured I should have broken 4:30, but I guess I wasn't paying attention to my watch. Ran a comfortable 800 and 400, never really pushed it but made it through ok in decent splits. Did Megan's speedwork as a cooldown (4x800), then tacked a little more at the end.

Wednesday, May 25 - 4 miles (~8:10 average pace). Reoccurring theme this spring/summer has been awful weather, and last night didn't fail to repeat. Storms, storms, and more storms postponed Crystal and I's early morning attempts, but it eventually cleared out by late evening and gave us a small window to get in some mileage and do drills. Met up with her at the track, did 3 mile warmup on the roads, quick bathroom break at the Y (not smart to have eaten a fried egg with my chicken for dinner (I was craving an egg for some reason), and my stomach rebelled after our warmup, thus the emergency pitstop), then a session of drills. Drills felt good but leg strength has definitely dimished, and lunges never felt any worse. 1 mile cooldown to finish the evening, and I owe 3 more miles at some point during this week to catch me up.

On a side note, 8 year old boys are the worst. When I made my Y pitstop, I was unfortunately next to a kid who was taking his talents to South Beach in the stall next to me. His nasty friends proceeded to pound on the door, kick the side of the stall, and heckle him relentlessly until he had finished up. I seriously wanted to stangle each and every one of them. Nasty little critters...