sixty- fourth

7 miles. 56 min.

Staying with the 8 min miles. Woke up with a sore right foot/foot arch. Perhaps it's the 24 miles in 3 days that I am definitely not used to. We'll see.

Not bad so far. By the end of training I will be averaging 9 miles a run, so these past 3 days were a good practice. Not that I think it is good to put all your mileage in one part of the week, but I had to this week, so as long as the foot is not hurt, it'll have to do.

You should watch Ryan Hall on Nissan's Master the Shift site. Short videos. A lot of information that most people know, but still cool.

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...