Sweet Victory

Though my overall mileage isn't much higher this time around than my last marathon, my 25:12 four miler has me feeling great about BQ-ing in May. Why is that? Thanks to Hal Higdon, my miles have been shuffled quite a bit. Here's three ways I'm training differently: 1) Not being afraid of the long run. In the old days, I was scared enough of my long runs that I'd rest the day before and after them. Hal's got me running 8-10 miles the day before the 17-20's, and many of those mid-long runs are at marathon pace. While I don't like running both days on the weekend, there's no denying it's made a big difference. I will say, though, that Hal wants me to cross-train on Monday's, and I'm making a slight concession to my age there and resting, instead. 2) The mid-week, mid-long run. I've always felt this was lacking in my plan. For previous marathons, I rarely went beyond six miles during the week, but Hal has me going 8-10 every Wednesday. Thou...

The Triabetics were at camp last week. This group seems like a lot of fun, though I have little interest in hopping in the pool or on the bike at present. Running running running seems to be working the best for me right now. At any rate, one of the non's (non-diabetic counselor) wrote a good story about the experience. Check it out here . If doing an Ironman is a little insane, here's something that's off the charts insane. I received an e-mail last week about Søren Lilleøre, a Danish man with type 1 diabetes who is competing in the Marathon Des Sables - a six day ultra-marathon across the Sahara Desert , which sound a little warm. At any rate, the race was supposed to start yesterday, but massive storm delayed it until today. You can keep up at Søren's website . And finally, regarding this diabetic athlete, I'm looking forward to Friday, when I switch endocrinologists about nearly ten years. I'd chosen my current group out of sheer laziness -- the office is ...

In other words, a post that's about so many things, it's about nothing. 1) For the first time in a long time, I'm sick... slight fever, head stuffy sick. I would've taken the day off but I had a conference call an hour ago. However, I will be going home this afternoon and crawling under eight blankets in the darkened basement. I am a remarkably healthy person - coming down with stuff once every year or two, partially due to the fact that I am a Zicam freak. However, this bug was un-Zicam-able and I'm on the ropes. And the problem - I think - with being a healthy person is that when you get something, you've forgotten how bad sick can be. 2) Before all of this, running-wise I was hanging on splendidly. In fact, just 24 hours ago I ran 17 miles @ 7:57 pace, and 24 hours before that did another 8 @ 7:47 pace. 3) In last week's Run4Luck, I beat my PR by 45 seconds, giving myself a VDOT of nearly 52 , my highest in years, so I'm in good shape. 4) In shape for...