Ryan Hall gets a new coach!

Ryan Hall gets a new coach!

About damn time.  Hall will undoubtedly benefit from one of the better coaches out there.  Excited to see what next year brings from him.  Canova coaches some pretty high Kenyans such as World Champion Abel Kirui and Chicago Marathon Champion Moses Mosop.  He has written a few articles for Running Times that detail his training philosophies - very aggressive stuff, and he pushes the hell out of his athletes.  Like I said, can't wait to see what happens in the next couple years.

Thursday, December 7th - 6 miles.  Met up with Crystal, Colby, Joe, and Justin at the Forest Park Visitor's Center for a FP loop.  Started out with the group, but wisely backed off after 2 miles - was already waaaay under pace and with this Saturday trail race coming up, didn't need to run an impromptu tempo.  Goal pace was 8-8:30, but a couple 7:20's and Justin and I broke off and ran easy the rest of the way.  Ended up hitting 7:44 average, so a little faster than I would have liked but still felt pretty good.

Friday, December 8th - 4 miles.  6 a.m. run with Crystal on the trails.  Out and back towards Home Depot, and it was pretty foggy and dark outside.  Leisurely pace, but my legs were definitely feeling the tough week.  Over dressed for this one, and was sweating pretty hard at the end.  8:40ish pace overall.

Looking forward to tomorrow's race, although all the blogs and pictures I have seen today have scared the bejesus out of me.  But the weather looks good, and running with a few friends so will enjoy it.  Because of the narrow path through Pere Marquette and the amount of people running (capped at 625), we will be going off in waves.  I looked up the wave starts/times, and saw I am starting 6 minutes back which puts me right in the middle.  The aggravating part is I am starting behind the Clydesdales (200+ lb. runners), which is very irritating and pretty much eliminates any decent chance of competing.  Not that I was running this race all out, but maybe if I felt good I would really push it.  Regardless, enough about my complaining, but plan on thoroughly enjoying my experience and getting a great hill workout while I'm at it.  Happy Friday!