Pain and suffering anyone?

After a workshop at Fleet Feet Boulder I collared former world marathon record-holder Steve Jones and asked him my burning question of the time: how did he handle the pain involved in running a world-record performance? I mean, what strategy does he have for red-lining and being able to keep going?

I was expecting some revolutionary secret tip. Instead, Jonesy looked at me as if I was a bit crazy and said, "Well, it's got to hurt!"

The problem is that when every race hurts, you rapidly lose your appetite for racing. Gabino has taught me a little bit of what it means to suffer like a Mexican in races. He's passing on what he had to go through to beat the first wave of Kenyan runners arriving in the US hungry for prize money. "The Kenyans will go out at 4:02 pace", he told me. "They are in pain from the first mile and they are dying until the end -- that's why you see the fast times".

But who can race like that all the time? Certainly not the elites like Jonesy, who picked his races very carefully; nor the Kenyans, who were usually burnt out quite quickly. So I don't believe any more that racing is always about huge amounts of suffering: it doesn't have to hurt -- unless you are going for a world record or doing whatever it takes to win. I agree with Ahmee's comment: "Yet, a PR isn't nearly enticing enough to forgo a beautiful marathon venue or to push through barely tolerable pain (there are limits to my masochism). "

Lately I've been experimenting with running some low-key races and keeping my effort on the easy side of my pain threshold. As a result, I am able to focus on staying relaxed and looking good! I can monitor my form, my cadence and my breathing, and talk-feel my way into an ideal rhythm. I like it! In a 5k at the weekend I took it easy; with a mile to go I was still relaxed and waiting to be caught by the guys behind me (I was in third), but then realised I was actually gaining on the runner in second place. I caught him and went straight past, feeling strong and fast. I didn't suffer at all. Amazing!

Meanwhile, back to marathon-bashing... and Ahmee's comments. No, you don't have to have gobbets of pain and suffering to be racing, but you do have to be pushing your limits in some way, surely? Otherwise, why race? Why make an exhibition of yourself in funny clothes on pubic roads for hours on end? In fact, the scenes of carnage at the end of the average marathon (and even half-marathon) are not to do with the fact that running 26.2 miles is hard, but because people don't prepare for them properly. For most of the people at the back end of the field, it will be the first time they have got anywhere near the distance. That is no way to train for anything, but I guess it helps them with the charade that it is some sort of unbelievable challenge.

Here's a guy who says it all better -- and more strongly -- than I can. The aptly named "The Rage" of www.10ktruth.com has been ranting about John "The Penguin" Bingham, a man who seems to thnk that finishing a 5k (that's just three miles), let alone a marathon, at walking pace, is a Very Big Deal.

"The key problem I have with Bingham in the context of running is that I don't see him interested in testing the limits of what he as an individual can really physically do…what it's like for Joe Average to really explore the boundaries of his comfort zone once he has committed to put down the channel changer, the pack of smokes and strayed more than 20 feet from the fridge. He overdoes 'the courage to start' thing to an extreme, almost as if a little anaerobic breathing might scare someone right back onto the couch again. I wish he would do more to encourage people to push themselves to another level. I believe this is what the human spirit is all about...not about making excuses like "...it was not comfortable, so I quit…"

"The Rage" concludes: "If mediocrity is his thing, fine. He can still encourage his followers to finish a marathon. Just leave out the 'run' part and I'm OK. Just to set the record straight, I didn't run my last marathon, either. I walked part of it. Of the six I have completed, I have run four…but I am still proud of all six. And I also admired every one of the people in the race, too. Runners, walkers...and joggers."

* Read the full Rage on the The Penguin here.

Marathon disease.. and those 'less athletic' runners

Ahmee posted some great comments about my rant on the marathon 'disease' (click on the comments button at the end of 'A nice cup of tea' section below to see her full post). She took me to task for being too hard on "less athletic" runners.

"I think that you just don't "get it" about why less athletic runners enjoy running, and not racing, for 26.2 miles. Masochism for its own sake is only part of enjoyment. Planning to run a marathon in five hours provides a sense of adventure, a domain where I can push my own humble limits, and a goal race that allows for many months of sociable training, plus an incentive to stay fit, strength train, eat right, and obsess about something not too disturbing", she said.

Maybe I wasn't as clear as a I should be. My "irritation", if we can call it that, is with people who think that being able to run 26.2 miles is special. So special, that if they do it they deserve a medal. Not to mention a t-shirt, a commemorative glass, a bag of freebies and a post-"race" celebration. Running 26.2 miles isn't special. Any more than walking it is. It's what our legs are there for.

Anyone planning to finish it in five hours, to match their friend's pace, to beat a PR -- and I don't care how slow it is -- them I can respect.

I do apologise if the tone of my post was that I think "less athletic" runners are a waste of road space. I didn't mean that at all. What is a "less athletic" runner, anyway? In my book it's someone who has not got the time or the inclincation to do enough training; that's all.

That reference made me laugh out loud. When I first turned up at a Bobby McGee drills session with a 27-minute 5k and a 48-minute 10k to show for myself, I certainly rated as a "less athletic", mid-pack runner. One year on, having improved those times by 10 and 11 minutes respectively through a year of hard, hard training, suddenly I am, what? "More athletic", I guess! I've even had thrown at me the priceless, no-brain comment, "It's easy for you, you've got talent!" That one had my coach Gabino Toledo almost on the floor with laughter. He was the only one with me when we trained in the dark at Centennial, heaving around bags of sand until my back went out; he was often the only one running with me in the snow and ice on those winter mornings, when the "less athletic" were tucked up warm and cosy in bed. Ha!

Ahmee also makes a great point about suffering and masochism, which I'll get to in the next post.

Congratulations if you ran today!

It doesn't matter how far or how slowly; well done for getting out and doing it!

This isn't one of those "we're all winners" spiels ("we're all whiners" is probably more accurate anyway), but just a recognition that we regularly manage to overcome inertia and that, once again, we truimphed: we actually got out of the house!

The thing is, this running lark takes so much time. I am writing this at 3.40pm, a point at which I can just about claim that the day's run is over and done with. But I started preparing for it at 7.30pm last night. That's when I started negotiations with my nearest and dearest for an early night instead of going out for dinner.

At 6am I was up and brewing the first of 3 cups of tea and preparing breakfast. OK. two bananas and some raisins doens't need much preparation. But I did have to prepare my drinks -- one for the run, one for after the run. Get the various bits of kit together, get in the car, get myself up the road to meet Dwight and Kari five miles up Magnolia at around 8,000 feet for a 7.30am start.

Two and something hours later, it's time to start the recovery process. Feet up while drinking the recovery drink (sometimes the most difficult part of the day). Then off the mountain for breakfast and lots of it. Ater breakfast, more tea, plus ice cream, then a nap. Massage legs. Ultrasound hurty bits. Apply DMSO. Cat decides it's time to sit on my chest and have a 20-minute wash while I laser other hurty bits. Pinned on the sofa by the cat, more tea, before reluctantly getting myself together for the ice bath. Hungry again. More food. OK... ready to go. "What shall we do today, sweetie?" Hmm. 3.50. There went Sunday.

A nice cup of tea...

I drink a lot of tea. It's part of my British genetic make-up. It's also about the only physiological thing I have in common with the Kenyans.

I've been drinking tea for 50 years. Well, OK, maybe a few less than that -- I wasn't actually weaned on the stuff. But during those years I've seen tea go from the Englishman's spirit-of-the-Blitz staple to a caffeinated drink that the health police said we shouldn't be drinking, and back to prized status as scientists discovered it is packed with antioxidant that are really, really good for us (especially runners).

One last drawback remeained to be cleared up. As a runner, hydration is very important. And tea, they told us, is a diuretic.

Now I know this is a bit extreme, but I like my tea. So I did a little experiment. I collected and measured my output of urine over two 24-hour periods with and without tea. I compared the quantity coming out with the quantity going in. There was no difference. Conclusion: tea is not a diuretic.

Today I was pleased to discover that scientists at Kings College London agree. "Tea not only rehydrates as well as water does, but it can also protect against heart disease and some cancers", reported BBC news. And lead researcher Dr Carrie Ruxton actually said that the idea that tea was dehydrating was an urban myth.

"Studies on caffeine have found very high doses dehydrate and everyone assumes that caffeine-containing beverages dehydrate", she said. "But even if you had a really, really strong cup of tea or coffee, which is quite hard to make, you would still have a net gain of fluid.

"Drinking tea is actually better for you than drinking water. Water is essentially replacing fluid. Tea replaces fluids and contains antioxidants so its got two things going for it."

* Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk. Paper: EJ Gardner et al, Black tea – helpful or harmful? A review of the evidence. European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 2006, advance online publication 19 July.

Marathon disease....it's getting worse

Marathons. People are obsessed with them. Not with racing them, just with finishing. As if putting one foot in front of another for 26.2 miles is the equivalent of climbing Everest or something.

Don't they get it? Humans are designed to cover long distances on foot. There's nothing special about it.

Those that have done a few soon get to realise that. They're left with two options: train like a proper runner and do a marathon in a decent time, or run longer: run 50 miles, or 100 miles instead. In the context of a world marathon record of 2:04 -- that's 13 mph for two hours -- the second option is a lot easier and much more likely to get you noticed.

Ultra-runner Dean Karnazes has got himself on Oprah following this strategy. His latest gimmick is to run 50 marathons in 50 states in 50 consecutive days, for which feat he has already won a ton of sponsorship and full-colour 8-page (yes eight) advertising spreads in the running glossies. Amazing. The hype, not the performance. It's already been done.

" 'Normal Guy' Thompson Finishes 51 Marathons in 50 Days" headlines Runner's World news service this week. "Sam Thompson, hoping to raise awareness of Hurricane Katrina victims, finished his quest with 26.2 miles in Bay St Louis, Mississippi on Saturday, after 26.2 miles in New Orleans the day before. He even added the District of Columbia to one of his one-marathon-per-state days. 'He's a totally normal guy', says Thompson's girlfriend. 'He's just very driven. He's got a great deal of passion and intensity.'

Meanwhile, Chuck Engle, a 35-year-old from Columbus, Ohio, is running 52 marathons in 52 weeks -- at a decent speed. So far he's done 34. "The fastest was a 2:31:34 in Sarasota. The slowest was a 2:54:54 at Gateway to the Pacific in Elma, Washington, which was good enough to win. Last Sunday, Engle won the Silver State Marathon in Nevada in 2:44:52; the hilly course, a 5000-foot altitude, has a five-mile stretch of sand. 'It's such a euphoric feeling you get when you finish a marathon', states Engle. 'You cannot explain it to someone.' "

But never mind all that. The monks of Japan's sacred Mount Hiei run for seven years. In one 100-day stretch they cover 52.5 miles a day. This is while dressed in hand-made straw running shoes, with hat and stave, on mountain tracks as well as on roads. Kind of puts in perspective.

* Picture: "Ajari Sakai Yusai, veteran of two 1,000-day marathons, on the Imuro Valley Course". From "The Marathon Monks of Mount Hiei" by John Stevens (Rider, 1988), now out of print.

Exactly...

Henry sums it all up again:

"Old in the body, young in the heart, rich in the spirit and that adds up to today training."

How not to run a mile race

5th in 5:14. Not what I wanted, but not too bad.

It all went a bit wrong.... I went out too fast and three of them sat on me for the first 400m. (Picture shows me going to the front right from the gun.) I had to practically start jogging to get anyone to come past me. When they did, I was trying to recover and settle in when at 800 metres ex-Olympian Colleen De Reuck looked round at us all and then attacked. I had nothing left and just had to hang on.

Scott Hajicek (51), a demon trail runner and 2:45 marathoner, passed Colleen to win in 5:05 (he is the white-haired bloke in the white vest about four runners behind me in the picture); Colleen ran 5:08; Kyle Hubbart (50 -- he won the 2-mile Sunrise Stampede in June in 11:08), got third; then Patty Murray, a former NCAA 10,000m Champion and Olympic Trials marathon qualifier, came hurtling past in the last 150m.

So.. I am not happy that I got so caught up with what Bobby McGee calls the "need to frantically reach for performance" that I lost awareness of the important stuff like rhythm, form, cadence, breathing and so on. Everything that would have let me be fully present.

Funnily enough I had worked out that 5:14 would probably win it, but this year's race was faster! Gabino said the big mistake was the start and that if I hadn't been the rabbit for the first 400 I would have had a better race; it's a question of experience. Because I was out front too early I never got settled in, and I switched to desperate survival mode.

Boulder Race Series Pearl Street Mile Beauty and the Beast Wave August 17, 2006 Results.

Any last words?

"You have the mind, take the body to the finish line. Good luck!!!!!"
Henry Rono

Missing Henry

There was an outside chance that The Man himself, Henry Rono, would run the Pearl Street Mile in Boulder tonight, but he was on his way back from a training camp for kids, and could not divert.

I'm disappointed, but also a bit relieved, as fit or not he would doubtless have run in his usual fearless, take-no-prisoners style.

All credit to the Kenyan maestro: he spent the last few days inspiring -- and being hammered into the dust by -- 7-12th graders at a Five-Star Cross Country Camp. It is great to see the Camp organisers make the point that Henry not only stunned the world by settng four world records in 80 days in 1978 (10,000, 5,000, 3,000 metres and 3,000 metres steeplechase), but that he ran without pacers and for two of them with hardly any spectators.

Henry, on the world record trail again, continues to inspire me and other masters athletes by publishing his daily training and sharing wisdom on a lets.run thread here.

Into the Danger Zone

With a race looming, my thoughts go to mental preparation: what's the best way to get wound up, but without over-doing it?

Should I go into a Zen-like trance, or stay relaxed and chatty; or go cold, seething and furious, like Olympic champion Peter Snell was said to do?

I just found out how Michael Johnson (above) handles it. The world's greatest runner ever over 200 and 400 meters, five times Olympic champion, nine times world champion, had this to say in an interview with former team-mate Todd Copeland:

"You're famous for your stare, or scowl, when get on the track and right before you get in the blocks. I've read that mindset sometimes starts the night before a race. You get into the "danger zone." Could you tell me what that mindset means to you. How do you use it? Is it something you work on?

MJ: That whole thing started in 1992 at the Olympic Trials when I faced my first really tough and difficult assignment, running in lane eight in the 200. Carl Lewis is just talking all kinds of crap, saying I'm not going to make the Olympic team. Basically, I knew that at that point I needed to get into a mindset where I'm so focused on running 200 meters as best as I can and not thinking about what Carl is saying, not thinking about the fact I'm a heavy favorite and I've got Mike Marsh running fast now and Carl is talking all of this stuff and on top of that I've been dealt lane eight. I need to get myself into a tunnel-vision mindset where I look at this and go, "Hey, it's 200 meters whether it's lane one, lane three, or lane eight, and I run 200 meters better than anyone else out here on this track."
It just happened where somebody after the semifinals - Carl's talking a lot of noise, and one of the reporters asked me about it. And I was like, "Hey, I'm in the danger zone."
That has always been a position for me where, basically, I just focus on what I've got to do at that point instead of thinking about what's going to happen if I lose this race, what are they going to say, what are the headlines going to say tomorrow after the race?

Just total concentration.

MJ: Yeah, just total focus on what has to be done over the next nineteen seconds.

Eliminating the whole world except for me and my lane.

MJ: Exactly. It starts usually when I go out to the track to start my warm-up because I need to be thinking. It's a very difficult thing to go out and sprint. People think it's easy, but it's not easy to do it well. It's not like when the gun goes off you just start running as fast and as hard as you can. There are different strategies involved. You've got a lot of zones to go through. You've got to concentrate on trying not to make a mistake. You're trying to make your body do something that's really not very natural. You've got to focus on that and think about that."

Found at Todd Copeland's Unofficial Michael Johnson Page. (now offline)

Is there embarrassment all round at Reebok?

No, they probably haven't even noticed.

Their super-duper, full-color, fold out, three-page advertisment for shoes designed for heel-strikers is illustrated by a fantastic picture of an athlete -- blatantly NOT a heel-striker.

The ad is in September's Runner's World magazine and is for their new "breakthrough" shoe the Trinity KFS...."the shoe that moves with you". Yeah, right.

This shoe is so special, apparently, because it incoporates the absolute latest technology that "manages the forces of impact" and is designed to "follow the foot through" heel impact, mid-foot stabilisation and toe off. Only...er... my foot doesn't land on the heel first. Neither do the feet of any elite runner I have ever watched.

The running shoe industry is obesessed with heel strike, as it is with "over-pronation", because they are problems that sell shoes. Reebok, like all the other manufacturers, keeps quiet about the fact that 90% of elite runners are midfoot/forefoot strikers, while 90% of slow runners are heel strikers. Wouldn't the industry better serve its customers by preaching proper biomechanics, gait and form?

Heel striking is braking. It's what you do when you want to slow down. Heel striking is biomechanically inefficient and leads to injury. Especially when shoes are padded so much that they allow runners to (temporarily) get away with heel striking with locked knees.

There should be red faces at Reebok. The runner in full flight bursting across their advert is about to land... and one thing's for sure: she is not landing on her heel!

Tucked away in RW is an advert for Velocy, a shoe brand actually designed to encourage runners to run "with gravity" and get off their heels. This shoe is not included in the issue's fall show review, despite the fact that it is the only genuine breakthrough we've seen all year.



I went to the Velocy website and got suitably excited. "Conventional footwear technologies focus on the heel. That's why virtually every major running shoe company focuses on 'cushioning' and 'shock absorption'. But what if heel technologies are not the answer? What if gravity is actually a friend and not a foe?" Yes Velocy! Thank you! At last.

Velocy are so new they are still finding their way to stores and are not even available on the Net yet. So instead of buying a pair unseen and untried, I found an application to be a Wear Tester. VP Angela Talbott told me today that they're appointing me one of their testers for the month. I should get the shoes in the next two weeks. Can't wait! Check 'em out on the Velocy website.

Run like a kangeroo?

Two Dutch coaches and scientists have come up with a way of teaching running technique that draws not only on their knowledge of anatomy and biomechanics, but also on the study of the natural motion of animals.

Surprisingly, one of their models is the kangeroo. Many runners spend a lot of time trying to eliminate "bounce" in favour of straight-line power transfer. These guys suggest this might not be helpful.

Most people think that running itself is a "natural" activity and we don't need to be taught how to do it. Wrong! We may start out running efficiently and gracefully as children, but soon lose the skill. I've been privileged to learn from great coaches such as Bobby McGee and Dr Nicholas Romanov, the originator of the Pose Method of running. Adapting my style according to their precepts has sliced whole minutes off my race times without any additional effort.

So, I am open to the idea that running should and can be taught. But kangeroos? I took this up with Functional Training guru Vern Gambetta, who is recommending a DVD on the new technique -- called the BK Method -- on his website.

I asked him why he was so enamoured of BK. "Apart from the fact that I'm not convinced the kangaroo is a particularly apt model for human running, I can't see anyone in middle/long distance running of any note who is using this method -- for example Gebreselassie, Tergat, Kosgei -- you name it", I told him.

One of the runners the Dutch coaches identify as being one of their stars is Ellen van Langen. Well, she won the Olympic 800 metres in 1992 and retired in 1998 after having been "plagued by injuries" (to quote Wikipedia). I don't think these guys had even thought of their method 14 years ago. What's more, Holland is not exactly a world leader in distance running. So why does Vern like BK so much that he is championing it in the US?

Vern replied that the blokes behind BK -- Frans Bosch and Ronald Klomp -- have also written a book on running, which seems to be what convinced him.

"The Kangaroo and animal locomotion are great sources of information for bettering human locomotion. (Read Principles of Animal Locomotion by R. McNeill Alexander). I recommend you read the book before making further judgment", he said.

"Here are two coaches, who are also sports scientists who went out on a limb and looked at running a bit differently. The whole issue of stiffness is explored quite. Also the mechanics that they speak about are what great runners do. They have put this in context. After you read the book and have questions email them to me. I am going to meet the authors in Holland in October. Also a further affirmation is when someone like Gary Winckler, the greatest sprint and hurdle coach in the world, thinks there is something there I listen."

OK. So I ordered the book (see link below -- I got the last one on Amazon, but they must be getting some more in!). Then I went to Bosch and Klomp's website on the DVD: beautifully produced, with loads of fascinating clips and some stunning visuals. Well worth a look. Of course, I had to get that too! So, I'll be reporting back.

Meanwhile, I don't think I'll be bounding down Pearl Street next week... but maybe afterwards I'll experiment a little.

'But it's only a mile....!'

Ah yes, tell people that your next race is the Pearl Street Mile and they can't understand what all the fuss is about.

"Oh! I could do that!" says Pam, the massage therapist.
"Could you do it in 5 minutes?" responds Emily, the chiropractor lucky enough to be treating my groin at the moment.

Racing one mile is hard. There is no room for error, no time to ease yourself into it, no possibility of clawing back a gap if your concentration slips. It is "be here now" stuff and I am desperately trying -- in a completely not-attached-to-outcome way, of course -- to access the Zen state necessary to be totally present, ready to suffer and so reach enlightenment: ie, win the thing.

"To be willing to do all that it takes -- deep desire -- requires the element of suffering", writes Dr Jerry Lynch, PhD, in "The Way of the Champion", the book I always read before a race.

"It is through suffering that you connect with your deepest athletic and personal self and have the vision of your ultimate greatness".

I wish I'd read that this morning before our final hard track session: 4 x 800 metres at mile race pace. Training for the mile hurts! No wonder most old gits like me drift towards the longer distances. Sure, there is an element of suffering in training longer and slower, but it is nowhere near as sharp.

Races that take between one minute and five minutes to complete take athletes into what sports physiologists call "the mystery zone". Elite performance in the mile requires both aerobic and anaerobic power.. So even although it's only a mile, you've still got to keep up your normal diet of steady running at distances from 5-15 miles or more, but on top of that you've got to do the eyeballs-out, fast fast fast stuff, too.

Nobody can tell you what the exact mix should be.
You get there by trial and error and, if you're lucky,
expert asessment and feedback from someone
who's been there and done it. Only a mile, but so hard to get right.

You can do the extraordinary -- Roger Bannister

Just found this great quote from Roger Bannister in a commencement address by Dr Steven Gabbe, MD:

'When I decided to speak about Roger Bannister, I wrote to him and asked what message he would want me to convey. He directed me to a quote and to his training schedule. First, the quote,

"However ordinary each of us may seem, we are all in some way special and can do things that are extraordinary, perhaps until then even thought impossible.

"When the broad sweep of life is viewed, sport, though instinctive, physical and ephemeral, illustrates a universal truth that most of us find effort and struggle deeply satisfying, harnessing almost primeval instincts to fight, to survive. It gives us all a challenge, a sense of purpose and freedom of choice. It is increasingly difficult to find this in our restricted twenty-first-century lives.

"The particular target we seek may not be important. But what is important is the profoundly satisfying effort in thought, feeling and hard work necessary to achieve this success."

"Four Laps, Four Minutes, Four Years"
Commencement Speech, May 19, 2006
Steven G. Gabbe, MD
Dean, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine,
found online here.

What IS the mile record for old gits, anyway?

Current 50-54 record is 4:27.9 set by Nolan Shaheed in 2000.

Henry Rono turns 55 in February 2007, so after that will be able to go for the 55-59 record, which is 4:40.4 (set by Australia's Jack Ryan in 1977).

The fly in the ointment is the great Nolan, who is now 55!
In March this year he set a new INDOOR world mile 55-59 record in 4:42.89. I think outdoor times are usually + 2 or +3 seconds, but we will have to see what he does.

I am watching this all very closely as I was born the same year as Henry (but 10 months later)
and, as is clear from these pages, I suffer from severe delusions of talent... whatever Henry sets will be the time I aim for in late 2007 :)

Pilates - or 'What the bleep are these muscles here?'

It's in fashion, so I've resisted it.
Hell, I did Pilates 20 years ago in London before anyone knew about it.
But then... "... and what with your core not being what it should be"... came an off-hand remark by my technical advisor, world class coach Bobby McGee (www.bobbymcgee.com)... which decided me I had to do something about it.

So, off to Pilates of Boulder fror asession with Richard Rossiter. I picked Richard because a) he's a man, b) he is not a dancer and c) he has a rich life that includes climbing, running, bike-riding and much else. He has also used his own Pilates practice to rehab himself back from the brink of wheel-chairdom after a front tyre blow-out on his road bike.

Today I am wondering what the bleep are these muscles at the back of my knees -- and why I have never used them before! Yeah, I may have thought Pilates was all about flavour-of-the-month core strengthening, but no, it is about much more than that.

After one session on the Reformer, a sort of rowing machine for the legs, I know I am going to see some sensational results in my running as the routine re-activates and strengthens muscles I have hardly been using.

When it came to the wunder-chair, a spring-loaded step-up device, I nearly couldn't finish the reps -- and my quads are toughened by MANY hill reps. Besides all that, the breathing technique is different - and I'll report back on what that's doing to my oxygsn uptake. "No belly breathing here", is Richard's take-home message.


* Pilates of Boulder

Fastest mile so far

Tonight's post-training conversation with my wife Abby:

"What's the fastest mile you've ever run?" Well, I haven't run it very often - but I did 5:30 about 20 years ago on the track at Crystal Palace in a relay event.

"What do you think you need to do to win the Pearl Street Mile?" In the Beauty and the Beast event? About 5:14.

"What did you do in training tonight? You were doing a one-mile time trial, right?" 5:03!!