Chicago Marathon goes lottery, Nick Symmonds switches to Brooks, American Elites New Years resolutions, Shalane/Ritz headline US Boston squad, new Arizona elite running, Bekele to marathon debut in Paris, not so fast, Mo, we need more sleep, Galen Rupp runs 13:01 indoors, and the lovely Miss Kara Goucher.
Not surprised to see Chicago go lottery, but was happy to see they were giving guaranteed entry to men who had run 3:15 or faster, and women who had run 3:45 or faster. You shouldn't penalize those faster runners - they should be rewarded for hitting those fast times.
Sad to see that the Bekele/Farah matchup in London fizzle, out, but I understand the economics and politics of racing. But hoping we see good debuts by both, and somewhere down the line their paths will cross.
Thursday, January 2nd – 6 miles
Friday, January 3rd – 6 miles
Saturday, January 4th – 0! Travel day to Pasadena for the BCS National
Title Game! I had made it to the Rose
Bowl in 2008 when Illinois made it, but we got slaughtered and wanted some
redemption with Florida State (one of my favorite teams) in the championship
game! Early flight to LA, then off the
golf course for the first round of the year, where I got in plenty of hill work
walking up and down the heavily sloped fairways!
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| From hotel balcony |
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| Pasadena |
Sunday, January 5th – 6 miles. Ran to downtown Pasadena and back, then
headed on some side streets towards the mountains. Very cool to watch the city taking down all
the stadium seating on the Rose Bowl parade route, and even more cooler to be
running in sunny and 75 degrees while St. Louis was getting slammed with 15”+
of snow! Enough of the bragging – was a
cool area to run around, and anticipation was growing higher for the big title
game on Monday night! Got to go check
out a Lakers game at night in downtown LA – very cool experience! 33 miles this week, 24 miles in January, 24
miles in 2014.
Monday, January 6th – ~5 miles. Ran out towards the mountains from our hotel,
and looped around the area for as much as what 45 minutes could get me. I know Pasadena isn’t at altitude, but it
sure felt like it the way I was breathing!
Outside of the uphill going out, the terrain was relatively flat. Awesome weather (70’s and sunny), and crazy
nervous for the big game later on that night!
Fast forward to the end – one of the craziest games of all time, and
definitely amazing to watch one of my favorite teams win a national title with
a comeback for the ages and the game winning TD with 13 seconds left!!! We partied like it was 1999! (coincidentally
last time FSU won a National Title).
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| The Rose Bowl |
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| FSU - National Champions! |
Tuesday, January 7th – 0! Travel day back, and some much needed sleep
from the crazy weekend!
Wednesday, January 8th – 6 miles. Ran Forest Park with Kyle and Mike. Because of the awful trail conditions, we
were forced to run the roads instead of the trails. The roads were wet and had some slick spots,
and we jumped on part of the trail on Skinker which was still lightly covered
in snow/slush/ice. Didn’t feel too hot
starting out, but made it through ok.
49:17 is what I had on my watch total.
Thursday, January 9th – ~5 miles. Ran in Forest Park with Kyle, Hatcher (for
one mile), and Matty D (for one mile).
Drills beforehand in front of the VC to loosen me up. We kept running into people on our run, so
was nice to have some company. The
trails were still covered, so we looped around the roads once again. Nice and easy pace, and felt pretty
comfortable the entire way. 42 minutes and
some change.
Friday, January 10th – 4 miles
Saturday, January 11th – 4 miles. Ran easy with Kyle who was in town. Village Circle a couple times, and my legs
felt like complete crap. A little windy
outside, and cold, but it got done. 30
minutes or so total.
Sunday, January 12th – 6 miles. A sorry attempt at a long run turned into
many Village Circle loops. I won’t give
the ghastly details, but it was ugly.
Lucky to finish under an hour. 30
miles this week, 54 miles in January, 54 miles in 2014.
Monday, January 13th – 6 miles. Ran Big River group run with Kyle and
Tim. We did an improvised route, since
River Des Peres is still closed, and picked it up a little after Tim broke off. 49 minutes for a little over 6 miles, but
felt pretty good in the process.
Tuesday, January 14th – 6 miles. Forest Park loop with Craig, Justin, Crystal,
and Kyle. What started out as an easy
run got a little faster as we progressed forward. Because of the high winds, I tried to tuck
in, and started getting really tired as we made our way closer to the zoo. Initial plans were to run Crystal in for her
4 miles, but she wanted to finish out the loop so we trudged onwards. There was some separation in our group, and I
picked it up to catch Kyle and Crystal and we flew in to finish the run. Having the Skinker downhill and tail wind
helped tremendously J 45:27 on my watch, low 13’s for the last 2
miles.
Wednesday, January 15th – 8 miles. Lovely track night at SLU with Crystal on a pretty
cold evening. 20 degrees with a slight
breeze, but much better after we warmed up. Crystal had a 50 minute steady state run, and
I volunteered to jump in for part of it before I did my first speed workout of
the year (2 minute on, 1 minute off fartlek).
We started off at low 7 minute pace, but then the lights went off (much,
much, much easier to do speedwork with light) and Crystal ran to text Coach
Bradley to turn them back on so I finished up my warmup. Did 2 miles with Crystal, before starting my
workout, and aimed more for a hard effort feel for my mentality versus being so
focused on time. So did 8 repeats (didn’t
want to push with the harder 2 miler, and being so early in this block), and
felt relatively good in the process. 1
mile cooldown to finish it out. 2 mile
splits were 6:48, 6:38, 400 meter splits on my fartlek were 92-96 seconds.
Thursday, January 16th – ~6 miles. Did a South City loop with Fenley after
work. We ran north (I think) on the
roads and looped back, hitting a lot of areas I had run around before. The roads in south city confuse the heck out
of me, but I’m getting better at it.
Terrain was rolling hills, but was nice to do an easier pace as my legs
were pretty tired. Fenley had 6.25 miles
in 53:40 or so (8:30ish pace).
Hill workout tonight, and some basic running over the weekend. The long road back begins…
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