twenty-ninth

Well...I have to say that that Sammy Wanjiru is impressive. That was an understatement. I can almost not comprehend someone so young just going out and running the races and times that he has been running for the past year. 

The Evolution Running dvd compares the east African runners and their efficient strides to other runners around the world and their often (although very slightly) less efficient strides.

Point being, yes. These top marathoners that keep running high 2:04 to 2:06 consistently have the most fluid stride. It is beyond me how they can make a 4:40 mile look like brisk jog. So smooth.

I need a stride like that. I hope to make some sort of make-shift camera mount for my bike so I can take turns with my wife riding next to each other and getting video of our strides. I don't know how it will look, but if I get anything cool, I'll put it up on here.

I ran 6 miles today. A warm up mile in 8 min. 4 miles in 26min. and a cool down mile in 9 min.

My hip was hurting a bit towards the end. Since I am trying to run flat footed, with shorter strides, I know that the hips are doing more work (the work that the thighs used to be doing). Hopefully the pain is just from that transition. That would make sense, with a hard workout today and only 2 weeks of trying to change my stride.

I'll have to respond to my sweet tag tomorrow. I a little tired and have to work early. But I look forward to sharing lists of 8. Wonderful lists. I will try not to disappoint.

twenty-eighth

4.5 miles. 35:30

Since I am the running scientist, I pushed through the extra half mile (4.5 instead of 4) just so that I could say on my rest week that I reduced my weekly milage by 30%.

Is 30% the right number for a good rest week? I don't know, but I didn't run yesterday, and I didn't feel up to a 7 miler just to get the weekly mileage up to 20 miles for this week, so I settled on 30%.

The run felt fine after I got out there. Actually, I'm not sure if the run felt good or if I was just excited that I made it out there for one more run and didn't flake out and rationalize a 13 mile week when I was originally aiming for 20.

London marathon. Gotta love the major marathons. Sammy Wanjiru is hoping to run world record pace. Ritz is trying to PR by 5 minutes. Martin Lel is trying to won his 4th London in a row. 

With 1/10th of the hype that Boston got, this race is sure to exceed expectations.

Hopefully Runners World has live coverage like they did for Boston. 

twenty-first (treadmill tempo run, Nuggets, and Dathan Ritzenhein)

5 miles. 35min.

3 in 21, 1 in 6, 1 in 8 for the cool down. I'm not in good enough shape for it to really be a cool down, though. I was glad to be done.

I watched the last 30 minutes of the Nuggets loss. Few people are in the workout room at 10:30pm, so I had the channel selection all to myself. I just doubled the amount of basketball I have watched all season. 

Anyone else notice how the Nuggets became a decent team just as the Avs started going downhill? It's a perfect little cycle for those of us who only watch the exciting games (the playoffs, and even then, not the entire game). Talk about fair weathered fans. 

Runnersworld.com posted their interview with Dathan Ritzenhein today. Ritz is running the London marathon (only his 4th marathon ever) and will be trying to run fast. As in, take his 2:11 PR and lower it to 2:07ish.  "To tell you the truth, I'd be a little disappointed with a 2:09."

That's some serious ambition. 

It will be exciting to see how he performs at London considering Ryan Hall's performance there last year was a 2:06. I can't decide which marathoner I'm a bigger fan of. If it wasn't for Ritz going to CU Boulder, it might not be a difficult choice. 

The book I have referenced several times in this blog "Run Faster" is written by Dathan Ritzenhein's current coach, Brad Hudson. The interview includes talk of Dathan's injuries/injury prevention/aerobic base/running volume over the past 5-10 years and other elements of training that I have learned about in the book. So far Hudson has kept Ritz pretty injury free, which is a real improvement compared to past years (Before Hudson began coaching him and introducing more hill running/hills for strength training, etc).

I wish I could find other books by various current elite running coaches to compare and contrast the techniques. Considering that I haven't really looked, yet, it might not be very difficult. I'm sure I could find a lot on Alberto Salazar's coaching style.

Just to be the last person to officially say it: It's encouraging/exciting to follow the young US distance running talent (not just the marathoners, either). Plenty of faces to keep track of. If I didn't have to work, I'd be watching every minute of that Boston coverage...