Congrats Adam!!!

Moses Mosop sets Chicago course record, Paula training in Kenya, more Moses, Shobukhova three-peats, Hall finishes 5th, tragedy, crazy story of one of the Chi runners, great article on combo workouts, and last but certainly not least, Big River runner Adam MacDowell qualifies for the U.S. Olympic Marathon trials!!!

Thursday, October 6th - 7 miles (1 up, 4 mile tempo, 4x200, 1.5 down). Dreading this workout for days, and kept pushing it back. Met Crystal at the track on a kind of thick-aired night. Goal was to hit tempo at 6:15 pace, but I was thinking more 6:20ish. Made it through 1.5 miles or so with Crystal before falling off a little to conserve some energy. Felt really tired through 3, but found my second wind and pushed through. Legs were a bit trashed for the 200's, but made it through ok. No turnover whatsoever, and the left part of my groin was hurting bad at the end. Tempo splits were: 6:04, 6:02, 6:14, 6:02. 200 meter splits were: 37, 34, 36, 34 (can you tell which ones Crystal led?). Posted my workout on Garmin Connect, which I recently started using - pretty cool.

Friday, October 7th - 0! Travel day to Chicago for the marathon, and needed a day off anyways to recover. Legs felt like poo, even just walking around.

Saturday, October 8th - 10.5 miles. Lakeshore long run with Pat, Crystal, and Tim. Pat wanted to get in a pace run, so we ran with him on Lakeshore past Navy Pier and back. Ran ~3 more miles with Crystal to finish it out. Weather was 80's, and just uber-sunny - not good conditions whatsoever, and didn't help that my legs felt like complete crap. But still fun nonetheless, and got in a 90 minutes at roughly 8:40 min/mile pace.

Sunday, October 9th - 4 miles. Chicago Marathon day! Woke up to watch the start of the marathon on tv, then headed outside to set camp at the 15K mark. Watched the elites zoom by, saw Ben and Adam trucking along, then Gabe, Gibbs, Carter (who was pacing his friend), and my buddy Andy. Warm and very sunny morning, was intentionally standing in the shade since I was burning up. Watched most of the sub 4 hour marathoners go by, before retiring back inside to watch the elites finish and track everyone. Got to watch Adam on t.v. for a while running with Shobukhova (eventual female winner), and sat for an agonizing few minutes to see if he hit the trials qualifier, which he did!!!!!!!! Tracked everyone else's finish, then jumped out to Lakeshore for a quick run. Legs were still garbage, so opted for 4 miles with Pat and Tim instead of 6 with Crystal. Headed out at a pretty easy pace, then turned around. Saw a runner that really looked like Desiree Davila, so we all went after her to see if she was. Dropped it to high 5/low 6 pace for a couple minutes and realized we weren't making any ground, but luckily she turned around and granted us some reprieve. Confirmed it was indeed her, and all of us were pretty geeked to see arguably the top American runner out there on the trails with us. Dropped a few surges coming in for fun, then long stretching before calling it a day. Football, then a long late night train home. Exhausted. Total time of run was 35:24.

39.5 miles this week, bah

Great weekend up north! Congrats to all the runners that ran this weekend, and a big congrats to Adam for his qualifier (see you in Houston!). Awesome to see the Big River jersey so prominently displayed around Chicago :) Exhausted from too much fun over the weekend, and will opt for much sleep and slow running, other than my scheduled workouts. Running the GO! STL Halloween 10K for a workout this Sunday - this will be a good indicator for the 1/2 next weekend, so we will see how the pace feels.