Sweet Victory

For the past couple of weeks, I'd been feeling a bit cocky about my marathon plan. I'm up to 45ish miles per week, and the long runs are getting faster each time. I had zero - ZERO - pain. Good stuff. But then I started to worry because my plan still doesn't have speed work for 3 more weeks. While this will give me 8 weeks of speedwork, it didn't seem like enough (considering I did FIRST last year, which had 16 speed workouts, nevermind the fact that I failed at MANY of them). So I did 6 800's today w/ 90 second rests. The fastest was 3:08. The slowest was 3:10. And now - like a good marathoner-in-training, I hurt. Everywhere. And I need a nap. And I'm already dreading my next speed workout. Good news? Weekend after next, I'm running a half marathon, so next week will be a mini-taper/cutback week. Gee - I guess I won't be able to fit the speedwork in. :)

The negative : Dropping a baton isn't bad luck, it's bad execution. Responsibility for the relay debacle lies with many people and many groups, from administration to coaches to athletes. That's why, when these Games are completed, we will conduct a comprehensive review of all our programs. It will include assessments from inside and outside the USATF family, and included in the assessment will be the way in which we select, train and coach our relays. BTW -- the fact that the USATF has a blog is cool. The fact that there is no feed is not. The positive : My Olympics four years ago when I had to drop out of the 10,000 doesn't compare to this at all. I carried that memory with me for four years. Dropping out was never an option today. If I had to sit on the side of the road and drink my bottles until I could get going again, that's what I would have done. I wasn't going to drop out again. Now there are more Olympics ahead for me, I hope. I've got to just keep...

To thank me for coaching her to her first 5k (this weekend), the wife got me a pair of Nimbus 10's. Since my current pair had 280 miles on them, timing was perfect, as I go through the outsole in under 300 miles. But here's the cool part: she ordered the just-released bright yellow and black color. I friggin' love them.

Check it out, yo: I work for one of the fastest growing companies in the US . Even better: there's a shower so I can run over lunch there.

As always, when there's a lot to write about, I'm too busy to write about it. The two weeks since returning from England have been mondo-busy - work is busy, running takes time and the the wife (and kids) go back to school next week, so the little bits of free time have been full of summer shoving (getting stuff done that we intended to get done two months ago). The marathon training has been going extremely well... 24 hours after returning from England, my buddy Dave and I did a 17 miler together, and we followed that up with our first 20 miler last weekend. In between, I had my finest marathon pace run to date, with 5 miles @ an average of 7:14/mile. The day after that one, I did take an unplanned rest day as my calf was tender, but it healed up perfectly in one day. The marathon pace run was great for me, mentally. My tempos last summer were supposed to be faster than marathon pace, but I struggled with them big-time. I'm encouraged that I'm hitting the marathon pace...

If you tell somebody in Manchester that you're going to be running in their town, they'll likely tell you to run along the canals. Canals, after all, are filled with water and when people tell other people where to run, they like to tell them to run in places in close proximity to water, be it the ocean, a lake, a river, etc. It's worth noting that because most people don't run, when they tell you where you should run, they're not really telling you where they have run, but rather where they would run if they did run, which they don't. At best, they might have walked where they think you should run, but more likely they've only seen it from a a tram or a car. While these are decent vantage points, there are many things a non-runner won't notice. In the case of the Manchester canals, for instance, a non-runner won't notice the following: *The terrain includes a multitude of cobble-stone and brick pathways. *The parts that aren't cobble-stone ...

Commenter Jenny asked about what I wear to run with all of my diabetic supplies... For me, the only choice is RaceReady . Lots of pockets and lots of styles. While not cheap, they're perfect.

Don't leave your blood sugar meter on the plane. You'll have to buy one in England and then Google how to convert mml/L to mg/dl. At least, that's what I had to do. While nobody in Manchester seems to have One Touch Ultra Smarts, the concept is similar to how it is in the US: sell the meter cheap and kill you for strips. So, I had a bright idea: I bought 2 meters for 10 pounds each, netting me 20 strips total, enough to get through my trip for only pounds. Sadly, 20 pounds is 40 bucks these days, but it still was cheaper than buying 1 meter and a bottle of strips. One thing that was funny - the local pharmacy asked where I was staying and offered me the option of coming by and having my blood tested there. Why completely unreasonable for a diabetic on a pump, the offer totally cracked me up. :) Running-wise, it's 20 degrees cooler here, which means running when I get home will be brutal, but is wonderful for the time being. Despite the jet jag, I managed six nice miles ...

Like a Ryan Howard home run, July is 'outta here. According to the log, I ran 168 miles. In all actuality, it's more like 190, but I don't put the wife's C25k miles in the log. Honestly, I don't know if I should or not. They're about 4 minutes per mile slower than my regular pace, but they are miles. I think of it as kind of doing a poor-man's double. Even at 168, July's my biggest month ever, just nudging out July of 2007. This was due to good mileage on long runs, more mileage on recovery runs and only 2 missed workouts. For August, I'm expecting similar mileage for the month. The long runs will get longer and I hope to boost the recovery runs a bit, too. However, that will be offset by a trip to the UK, which I figure will cost me 2-3 workouts. For that particular week, I'm considering the 3 core workouts to be critical, but will have to go easy on myself for the recovery runs while I adjust to jet-lag and do the work that needs done.

I rolled out the current version of this blog around two years ago with the tagline, "A Type 1 diabetic endurance athlete, unable to find any good blogs about how diabetics handle endurance sports, decides to write his own. Here it is." The thing is, two years ago, I was one of the only diabetic endurance athletes to regularly blog. I'm not anymore, and that's a great thing. Now diabetics can choose from Jamie , Jerry , Erika , Missy and even Sarah (the newest diabetic athlete blog I've found). Now when I read my old tagline, it reads as if I'm disrespecting these writers. Truth is, I don't miss anything any one of them writes and if you're a diabetic athlete, neither should you. So, I've changed my tagline to be "A Type-1 diabetic marathon runner blogs about running, diabetes and life, in no particular order," not because I've changed, but because the world and the Web has changed, which is a wicked cool thing. While I'm wri...

Here's a button that predicts whether you are a dude or a lady based on your browsing history. According to the button, there's an 82% chance that I'm a girl. It must be all the time on the Oprah site...

Hey, I kid because I care . Hey, A’s fans! Don’t forget to show up a little early for tomorrow’s 12:35 p.m. game against the Royals - ’cause it’s MUG Root Beer Float Day ! For the past eight seasons, Oakland’s AL club has scheduled a day to serve up the frosty treats - complete with $15 commemorative mug ($25 for one with a Mark Ellis autograph) - to raise money for a worthy charity. And this year’s beneficiaries of the selling of the sweet treats? The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, of course. What better way to show support for diabetic children than by slurping up a delicious beverage they would so desperately love to enjoy, yet could kill them if they did. *Disclaimer: Root beer floats will not kill diabetics. If this were true, I would've been dead about a bagillion times now. However, I do think there's a bit of a disconnect between the cause and the execution on this one.

So the day after I returned from the beach was the Xterra Xduro 21k Trail Race in Nottingham, PA. I chose this race for several reasons: 1) With marathon season underway, I try to make sure most (if not all) of my tune-up races are 1/2M or longer. 2) I love trail racing and believe that once the Boston monkey is off my back will do most of my races this way. 3) It sounds cool to say you did the "Xterra Xduro" last weekend. All of that being said... 1) I'm deep into training so I didn't taper for the race at all. 2) As mentioned, the day before the race was hectic, with returning from the beach. 3) The day of the race marked the 4th straight day of 90+ degrees. There was one of those you're-a-moron-if-you-go-to-the-mailbox warnings. Also, the race had a 9am start time, so by the time we finished, it would be hot. 4) I'd never run in Nottingham Park before and had no idea about the course. I showed up at the race early, after getting about six hours of sleep. It...

After a gorgeous one week vacation, this past week nearly broke me. After a monstrous half-marathon last Sunday (race report still forthcoming), this was my week: 1) 3 company dinners. All wonderful, but all quite late. 2) 4 lunch-time runs 3) 2 late nights of swimming (one meet for the kids, one party) on the two nights I wasn't out for work 4) 2 early mornings of running with the wife (who's training for a 5k) 5) 1 eye doctor appt. that went over two hours (However - that's always a scary appt. for diabetics, and yet, I now have avoided eye complications for 24 years running!) 6) 1 blood test for next week's doc. appt. Like I said - this isn't a complaint. These were all necessary things (though I realize the term necessary isn't applied exactly right here), and they were all good things. But let me tell you: I'm wasted. Completely and totally fried. I have a 13 miler tomorrow morning, which will give me nearly 50 miles in the past 7 days (including the r...

Well, back from the beach, where we had a view of the bay and I had enough beers to keep micro-brewers happy for weeks to come. In between, there were many runs, though this one was my favorite . I had a marathon pace workout scheduled that day... I ran 1 mile to the boardwalk and then ran 2 miles down the boardwalk. At the bottom of the boardwalk, I ran into 30 coast guard recruits just beginning their two mile fitness run. By the time I turned around, they had about a twenty second headstart. I decided to haul in as many of them as I could. When I reached their turnaround, only the first three were left in front of me. The extra motivation made it my easiest marathon pace run by far. In my next post, though, you'll learn about my hardest run ever, just yesterday. But first - 200 e-mails I haven't gotten to, yet.

Probably because I'm a diabetic runner, I love learning about (and learning from) great diabetic runners. I've been keeping my eye on Brian Duplechain , who hopes to be the first known diabetic to break four minutes in the mile. Still, the mile is too much of a sprint for a long distance guy like me, so my nod to "best diabetic runner" would have to go to Missy Foy - the first diabetic to qualify for the Olympic Marathon Trials, who has since gone on to great success at the ultra-marathon distance. All of which brings me to my point: Missy just launched a good looking website and has some great insights on her blog . Be sure to check it out!

Last year, I used the FIRST method, running 3 days a week en route to a successful marathon. This year, I'm using a 6 day per week plan. Here's what I've learned so far: 1) Mentally, six days per week is tougher. With the FIRST plan, I started each run fresh. With six days per week, most of the runs involve a first mile where my legs are saying, "Are you kidding me?" 2) My long slow build over the spring was just what the doctor ordered to stay healthy. Though my legs are more tired than they were on FIRST, I'm surprised how injury-free I am at the moment. Only a year ago, I couldn't imagine staying healthy on six days per week of running, but so far, so good. 3) Even though my legs "feel" slower, I'm actually a good amount quicker. This isn't really a fair comparison, as I'd only been running a year when I did FIRST, but my tempo's are roughly 20 seconds per mile faster than last year. I found this particularly interesting becaus...

Tomorrow will be an interesting experiment. I'm off work (yay summer hours!) and am starting the day with a 15 mile run. Several months ago, the wife gave me a gift certificate for a massage at a local spa. Friday afternoon, I'm cashing it in. I was last at this spa a few years ago when I wasn't running. It was a truly glorious hour of my life, but was made somewhat worse when I could barely move the next day (which somehow seemed to defeat the purpose). Now, I'm not sure what to expect. My fitness is way beyond what it was back then. However, running doesn't exactly make you more flexible. And, 15 miles tomorrow morning isn't exactly a walk in the park either. The massage, I'm sure I'll love. But the aftermath? Stay tuned...

We haven't heard much from Halle Berry since she had her baby. This was particularly disconcerting to those of us who were hoping Halle would maybe share a bit more about how she's cured diabetes . Thank Heavens, when somebody drops the syringe-baton, somebody else picks it up. Enter Jenna Phillips and her website Mission Possible . Here's what you need to know: Jenna is Ben Stiller's personal trainer (when he's in LA). Jenna went from 50 units of insulin per day to 5. Her mission: The reality of being diabetic forever was also not an option for me. From that point on I have been on a mission to become insulin free. Come on, Halle - Jenna's going after your legacy. I smell a reality show in the works. Let's lock them in in a room with one bottle of Humalog and see who cracks first.