NYC 1/2!

Mo Farah is a stud - won the NYC 1/2 with a ridiculous kick down the stretch to take out the NYC Marathon Champ Gebre Gebremariam. Caroline Rotich conquered the women to take the title in a course record, and the lovely Miss Kara Goucher finished 3rd, only 11 seconds behind. Ritz just had surgery, the McRunner ends up PRing and also has a clean bill of health!, Shalane finishes 3rd in the World XC Championships, Zersenay Tadese runs 58:30 in Lisbon (7 seconds off the world record!), Markos Geneti wins the LA Marathon, a cool running article in the NY Times (thanks for forwarding along, Marc!), and a brief chat from Runners World with Kara Goucher.

Just some quick commentary - I think Galen Rupp's performance was extraordinary, and even more crazy that he ran 1:00:30 despite falling down during the race! It was his 2nd road race ever (he ran a 5k last year, I think), and the sky is the limit for this runner. Not to mention, he and Mo Farah and training partners, and are both coached by the great Alberto Salazar, so it will be interesting to see how he develops and how he does should he take up distance running someday.

Wednesday, Mar 16 - 14 miles (2 up, 2x (20 min easy, 3 mile tempo), 1 down) All of this done on the track, so 56 grueling laps. Met up with Crystal on a cool day, felt pretty decent starting out but was dreading the tempo portion. Traded off every half mile, but hit great, even splits and was very pleased about this workout. Legs were tired starting out the 2nd rep, but worked through it and finished really strong. Wind was a bit of an issue, but battled through it fine. Lots of stretching afterwards. 3 mile split 1 was 6:32, 6:31, 6:30. 3 mile split 2 was 6:32, 6:30, 6:29.

Thursday, Mar 17 - 0! Switched rest day because of dead legs.

Friday, Mar 18 - 3 miles. Took the day off of work, ran 3 easy in the morning on the trail. Legs felt like poop. Afterwards, watched a billion hours of basketball with friends, prob a little too much fun.

Saturday, Mar 19 - 6 miles. Felt like death from the night before, paid for it on a windy run on a cool, overcast day. Out and back on the trail, very slow. Knees were killing me.

Sunday, Mar 20 - 17 miles (~8:20 pace). 1 up to Pat and Crystal's house. Garmin was dying, so shut it off 4 miles into the run. Mike, Crystal, and I hit the trails on a very sunny, warm morning for our longest run together in a while. Successfully negotiated with Mike to run the entire way (he was only wanting to do 12), and had a fun time the entire way through. Felt pretty good, although started to tire slightly on the final 3 miles probably from the lack of sleep from waking up early to watch the NYC 1/2 streaming online. Pace felt great, could have went faster with no issues, nice to get that over with. Regretting (yet again) not putting on any BodyGlide, as my legs feel like they were burnt from the chafing.

A solid 56 miles this week with some solid workouts. Another killer week to follow, but time to get in some work with Boston less than a month away! 4-5 easy tonight...