Today was gorgeous out! The warmest day in boulder in 2010. I decided to explore a little in the high country and see where the dirt roads take me. I ended up just parking and running up hill for 25 min and back down again. Not the best route but something new. I came home to grab a bite to eat before a massage with Mr. Austin Baillie. He worked on me for a solid 90 min making sure the muscle fibers fired smoothly. The legs are starting to feel very nice with a nice ice bath afterwards.
I've never been the type of person to sit and rely on my god given talent. I have very little talent and I exhausted those resources years ago. It seems I have really put in the work for this marathon but I know from past experiences that 2:12/2:13 is no walk in the park however all my other PRs would indicate that 2:12/2:13 shouldn't be too much to ask! I just know if I walk out of Holland with a 2:16, I'm going to be depressed.
The taper has begun and Im using a 3 week taper starting with a 20% decrease, 35% decrease, 35% decrease respectively. So I was at ~140mi/week in the buildup and last week I hit 115 and this week just 95ish. Im already feeling lazy and enjoy going to the gym just to look at the weights makes me feel emotionally secure. Yesterday was my last long run before the marathon. I initially went out to coot lake and the wind was blowing a gale. I was solo since everyone else went on Sunday but I wanted to give myself one more day of rest from Fridays workout. I didn't want to run in a hurricane so I went over to what I now call the Fernando loop in Gunbarrel. Its a 5.6mi loop. I jumped on the pace pretty quickly and completed the 20 miles in 1:50 min, a 5:30/mi average. The last 10 miles or so was probably about 5:20 pace and I was doing a very unstructured fartlek. I would just take off and sprint for 30-60 seconds then back off to 5:35 pace until I felt somewhat recovered then go again. I did start to feel the effect of the fartlekking about 17 miles deep into the run. Hopefully this calluses me to the rigors facing me in 12 days. Tom Ratcliffe (T-rat) called today and indicated a dutch athlete is looking for 65:30-45 at halfway in the race and will have 3 pace makers taking him to 30k. Its a little faster than I was looking for but perhaps easier than going it alone.
I've never been the type of person to sit and rely on my god given talent. I have very little talent and I exhausted those resources years ago. It seems I have really put in the work for this marathon but I know from past experiences that 2:12/2:13 is no walk in the park however all my other PRs would indicate that 2:12/2:13 shouldn't be too much to ask! I just know if I walk out of Holland with a 2:16, I'm going to be depressed.
The taper has begun and Im using a 3 week taper starting with a 20% decrease, 35% decrease, 35% decrease respectively. So I was at ~140mi/week in the buildup and last week I hit 115 and this week just 95ish. Im already feeling lazy and enjoy going to the gym just to look at the weights makes me feel emotionally secure. Yesterday was my last long run before the marathon. I initially went out to coot lake and the wind was blowing a gale. I was solo since everyone else went on Sunday but I wanted to give myself one more day of rest from Fridays workout. I didn't want to run in a hurricane so I went over to what I now call the Fernando loop in Gunbarrel. Its a 5.6mi loop. I jumped on the pace pretty quickly and completed the 20 miles in 1:50 min, a 5:30/mi average. The last 10 miles or so was probably about 5:20 pace and I was doing a very unstructured fartlek. I would just take off and sprint for 30-60 seconds then back off to 5:35 pace until I felt somewhat recovered then go again. I did start to feel the effect of the fartlekking about 17 miles deep into the run. Hopefully this calluses me to the rigors facing me in 12 days. Tom Ratcliffe (T-rat) called today and indicated a dutch athlete is looking for 65:30-45 at halfway in the race and will have 3 pace makers taking him to 30k. Its a little faster than I was looking for but perhaps easier than going it alone.
Very nice site!