35 years old + 1 marathon, 2 trophies, 3:16, 12 athletes, 1 dog + >/= 10 great friends & family - Birthday Angst x (4 hamburgers) = Awesome Weekend

I wrote this blogpost during the marathon that I won Saturday. Ask Jim, I told him about it. How did I get here? Let me back up.

I turned 35 this weekend, kind of a lame birthday in the birthday spectrum. First, it means I can now be POTUS according to the US Constituion and I am not. That troubles me. Second, it means I am in an older age group. Third, I feel that I am now 100% officially out of the "Young Adult" category. Four, I don't have a wife and kids (that I know about, wink wink). Five, it was sort of novel to have grey hair when I was 17. At 35 I just look haggard. So for those five reasons I decided early in the week that I would run a marathon on my birthday and I found this one. I breakfasted with Jim last week and seeing the state I was in mentally he didn't hesitate to jump in with me.

So we sign up, have a few drinks Friday night and meet up at the wee hours of Saturday morning to head down to Huntington Beach. Mind you, neither of us is trained for this thing, I haven't run more than 13 miles since August and he is just coming off the World Championships for ITU Long Course in Perth, AUS. The whole point was to finish, nothing more.

Then we showed up at the "race site". It was a neighborhood park. And no one was there except for a dude in his van with 2 Gatorade jugs and some chalk. I am not making any of this up. Then a woman shows up and I roll down the window of Jim's creepy van and ask her if she is here for the race, in spite of the fact that she is holding cash and a registration form. She says yes but I tell her the race is sold out, too many people. She freaks out, I laugh. No one ever laughs at my jokes. Anyhow, by now it is 6:15, the race is scheduled to start at 6:30 and a few more people show up. Jim and I get out of the car, go to the "start line" (chalk on the ground) and the race director says "which one of you is Brian and which one is Jim". It would appear that we were in the right place. It's 6:25, there are 11 of us by my count and we seem ready to start. That is when he announces the race course. 10 laps of 2.62 miles. Again, I am not kidding. None of this is a joke. Jim just got back from the Elite Long Course WORLD Championships. We are both wearing TNS running shirts, racing flats, warming up, and here is this race. And I cannot stop laughing. This is 100%, exactly what I had hoped for. It was so laid back, so inexplicable, so different and fun.

And then I realized I could win. Well, more specifically podium, lest I forget who I was running with. But we couldn't start the race until Rob showed up. Who is Rob? The race director's buddy who supposedly runs a 3:01 who would be running with his dog. So we waited. When is the last time you did a race that was delayed so you could wait for a racer? It was pretty funny. Rob finally drives up, then takes forever to get out of his car and I say he may be fast, but he needs to work on that car to start line split. Rob lines up with his dog and we are off. The first loop was Jim, Rob, the dog, a guy named Sam and me. And we are all evenly matched. The course is so "grassroots" that those guys missed a turn and I called for them and we slowed down to wait for them to catch back up. We were all together for the first loop (19:00) but Jim and I ran sub 18 for the second loop and lost them. There were a bunch of turnarounds so we could see our lead growing, but at the 5th and 6th loops my IT band really tightened up and started tugging on my knee and our pace slowed considerably. The guy named Sam started to close the gap a bit so our last 4 loops were fast. Our last loop was sub-18 and we pounded.

Now before we get to the big finish, it needs to be said that Jim would have been sub-3 hours. It also needs to be said that my fastest marathon time was last year at Ironman Arizona, 3:39. It became clear when we crossed the halfway point of this race at 1:34 that we would crush that.

So back to the big finish. My body was shutting down at this point. I hadn't gone to the Ipod for 95% of the race, but I put it on with 2 miles to go. The aforementioned crazy lady was in our sights and we tried to catch her so we could lap her but it was obvious that she wasn't having any of it. She kept doing that move where she would turn around slightly to see where we are and then run faster. Jim tried to push me to run faster but I didn't have any more to give. I have to guess our last mile was 6:30. I was getting dizzy and everything was closing in so I just turned up the music and gritted it out. We were side by side and I suggested that we confuse the race director and cross the line holding hands but we just sort of approached the line and at the very last second Jim stopped and said happy birthday. It was pretty cool. I could slap a dozen asterisks on this race, but at the end of the day, we ran a race really fast and we won. That is pretty cool.

More than anything, it was a reminder that I have some great friends.

Highs, Lows, Middles and such

Stick around the world of endurance sports long enough, whether on the recreational or professional level, and you see the same things.

You see people who inspire you, you see people who frustrate you. You see people who dig deep and excel and you see people who defeat themselves.

I have seen it this year and what a year it has been.

This year I have coached, raced or observed the Desert International Tri, Oceanside 70.3, Boise 70.3, Bulldog 50k run, Malibu (Olympic & Classic distances) and this past weekend - Soma 70.3. I have coached over 250 athletes of all levels, with all goals, and have seen some very high highs and some very low lows.

In March a group of us spent a training and racing weekend in La Quinta, a heavy training weekend geared towards prepping for the Oceanside 70.3 but also racing the Desert International Tri. Interesting lesson in the strengths and weaknesses of the human psyche. Jim was still an amateur and was battlng a nasty, bloody, disgusting saddle sore inside his leg. I watched someone completely overcome any doubts, tolerate incredible pain and finished a 25 mile bike course in under an hour, on his way to crushing his age group. Amazing what the mind can do. On the flip side, Max and I were out there solely to train for Oceanside and were to treat the race as a training day. We rode 90 on Saturday and ran 10. In the heat. We told ourselves it was a training day and the race meant nothing. Yet we both beat ourselves up after the race and needed Sofia to stop the slippery slide into depression before it got worse. Lesson learned - HTFU. Harden the f up. Be grateful for what you have, don't sit around and be upset about what you don't. If you set a goal, if you have a plan, stick to it. Targets cannot be floating and arbitrary and you can't change them in the middle of the game.

Oceanside 70.3 was another lesson learned. The lesson learned here was - be fair and realistic in your goal-setting and again - don't change the rules as they go. This would be the first 70.3 for Max with me as his coach and for no good reason I placed unrealistic time goals on him the night before the race. Lesson learned - don't change the rules and also - be realistic. Know that the things you say can have a profound effect on the people you say them to.

May brought the Boise 70.3, with Max and Jim toeing the line. Lesson learned here - progress, not perfection, but also that near perfection is possible. Max crushed his previous time on this course by an hour and Jim would find himself in the hunt (at least near it) for an overall victory. For 2 guys on totally different paths, the result was the same. The picture was starting to come into focus. Max COULD finish an Ironman. Jim COULD go pro.

June was a pretty lame month for me personally and I almost found myself at Ironman France. I can just say this - thank God for unanswered prayers.

July was the breakthrough month. Vineman was a breakthrough on many, many fronts. The lesson learned here was - always keep moving forward. Vineman was the first race where I truly began to believe 3 things - one, I am an actually good athlete, two, Jim Lubinski is not a human being and three, TNS was going to make it. I should just say now that Vineman was hot, pushing 100. And you think wine country, so maybe you think moist, lush conditions, but nothing could be further from the truth. That run course was exposed and hot as Arizona. Joanna and Lesley both surprised themselves with their times. My favorite post-race memories are of a deliriously ecstatic Joanna taking shade under a table in the middle of a field and Lesley committing immediately post-race to doing another one, much faster. Jim? Not normal. My start time was sufficiently staggered from his as such that I should have seen him at about my mile 2/his mile 11 on the run. I did not see him. Maybe he's having an off day and I will see him around this corner, or this one. Never did. Either he is off the charts fast or I am. Turns out both were true. He CRUSHED that nasty run course and so did I, both of us shattering our PR's. Oh, and for what it's worth, I rode the last 5 miles of the bike on busted wheels. Double flats with no spare. I gritted it out. Anything is possible. And as for TNS? It was an amazingly gratifying experience to see our uniforms out on that course, especially after all the trouble we went to just to get them. Running towards Lesley resplendent in TNS teal at mile 8 and giving her the biggest bear hug was an awesome feeling. I knew right then and there that we were on to something that no other coaching company could match.

August was the Bulldog 50k run, a bone-crushing, 2 lap sufferfest. Each lap meant a climb over a 1,500 mountain. This is going to sound odd, but it was really easy. My final time was around 5:00, but between having friends like Sofia and David out there supporting me, having hundreds of training miles in my legs and to be honest - to not have the stress of a swim and a bike beforehand, the miles flew by and I finished in the top 20. I say this not as an ego boost, but more as a surprise. It was really easy and I did well. There is a big part of me, the part that likes the reward of numbers and stats, that could easily slip into ultramarathoning if for no other reason than the ego gratification.

September was Malibu. Malibu was a mixed bag. Personally, I was tired and a bit burned out and as an athlete just couldn't get fired up. Both of my shoulders popped during the swim and still don't feel right as I type this but I did manage a run PR. As a coach with over 200 CHLA athletes out on the course, though, it was great to spend a day just watching, learning and talking to people. To be a part of raising over $1,000,000 was more than just icing on the cake; it was the cake.

And most recently came Soma, this past weekend. This weekend I saw some pretty amazing displays of what we can do. I have to start with Charrissa. Out on a training ride pre-race she laid her brand new bike down and it died. Charrissa is intense, like most triathletes. She also has mad untapped potential, also like most triathletes. But what I saw in her this weekend was a mad display of selfless and kindness as she stuck around Sunday, put on her strongest game face and cheered her fool head off for everyone out there. For that I will be forever proud of her. TNS is taking up a bike replacement fund. Any little bit helps; if you want to donate, send a Paypal to max@grrhss.com, label it Charrissa's Mulligan and Max will make sure she gets every red cent. And speaking of Max...Max is a thinker, an over-thinker. We are good friends, but we could not be more opposite in our decision-making processes. This guy overthinks and deliberates and weighs and measures. Me? I just act and don't think. Ever hear the phrase measure twice, cut once? I cut twice, never measure. Max? Max measures 6 times, blogs about it, researches it, makes the shop give him 4 measuring demonstrations, then cuts a great deal to have someone else cut for him. In my humble opinion, he could stand to be a bit more like me, and I could benefit from being a lot more like him. Which is why when he hemmed and hawwed all weekend about maybe not racing because his head hurt, I had my doubts. I worried about the psychological effect quitting a race one month before IMAZ. BUt I am learning and I listened and I realized it was more than a headache he was facing, it was a serious chemical distrubance rattling around his head and there was nothing he could do. He was really struggling. And for this fact alone, finishing a 70.3 was miraculous. But to hammer out a 5:27 on a blistering hot day? Unbelievable. Beyond the physical tools I have tried to help the guy develop, I would like to think I have squeezed more psychological strength out of him than he knew was there. It isn't that I personally did anything great or gave him something he didn't already have, but I safely say that my coaching has pushed him further than he ever thought possible. I realized at some point this past weekend that when I look back on 2009, I can feel pretty good about how I have helped him.

With one last small race on the books - Ironman Arizona - I could not ask for much more than what I have had the chance to see this year. It has been an amazing year of ups and downs. People have been asking me - so what are you going to do next year? In the triathlon circle, this means what races are you doing next year? But for me, my plans next year extend beyond races. 2010 should be a banner year - I should be engaged this time next year - something I never thought I would say out loud, much less on my blog. I should finally be back on a financial track that doesn't have me waking up in the middle of the night stressed out, and I should have TNS running with a life of its own. New coaches, experienced athletes like Charrissa and Michael stepping up and taking roles as mentors, destination races, better uniforms (because I don't like my undercarriage torn up after every bike ride or run), stronger relationships and a wider array of athletes under our umbrella.

Which is not to say I will not be racing. I have to put out there on this forum something Max has pointed out to me for some time. I think I have been afraid to train at 100% and lay it on the line at the 70.3 distance. I banged out a 1:28 half marathon Sunday, 4th in the relay division. Last year I banged out a 2:14 bike in the same race, 2nd best in the relay division. The point is this - I have been afraid to train 100% and succeed or fail, whatever that means. Maybe I compare myself to other people too much, maybe I don't know what. But I would love to go to Vineman next year and see what I can do. So next year? Whatever I do, I am going to do it 100%.

Running In The Rain, Ready to Race, Shameless Sponsor Plugs and other forms of alliteration

This blogpost is a bit all over the board. There were bits and pieces of things floating through my head the past few days that I figured might be blog-worthy, but nothing meaty enough to hold its own weight. I will be firing off my thoughts rapid-fire style, in no particular order.

1. I had the best run this morning that I have had in months. Max and I came up with 5 goals for his Ironman training and 1 was a 1:35 half marathon. I had wanted to do that with him today, but the schedule didn't work so I figured I would just do it myself. I ran all over Santa Monica and Venice in the pouring rain. I felt like a little kid. I wore the iPod and I had accidentally stuck the damn thing to Japanese as the default language and worse set it so that one song just repeats, so I listened to one AC/DC song, one Death Cab for Cutie song and one Jay-Z song over and over again. This is crazymaking. It also made for a great run.

2. I have been hitting Core Performance Center 3-4 times per week for the last 6 weeks. It admittedly feels weird to focus so much on strength and core work as opposed to purely aerobic, but I could really feel the difference in today's run. My back is healed, my shoulders are getting there and I have a power back that I haven't had in years. As you progress through the CP program, its intuition takes power and builds more and more challenging programs based on your strengths and weaknesses. It is exciting to see where it leads.

3. Infinit - I have been using Infinit for years now and have turned quite a few people onto it. You design your own formula based on your race, your preferences, etc. My formula is here: http://www.infinitnutrition.us/productcart/pc/viewPrd.asp?idproduct=16&idaffiliate=184. Check it out.

4. My next race is the run leg of the Soma Half Ironman next weekend. After that - 100k (that's 10 10k's) in February 2010. More to come...

What to do after the noise is gone

Went for a run last night at 4:30. Sometimes a run is a real grind, everything is tight or achy or sore, maybe just slow to respond and maybe you click somewhere around 20 minutes, maybe at 30, maybe you never click. Other runs, everything flows from the gun. Your joints are lubed, your head is right, even a headwind can feel ok, because you are in a good place. That was last night. Sunset run Manhattan to Hermosa, through Redondo towards PV, turn around, hill repeats for a spell, wood chip trail for a bit, mainly on the Strand, dodging sand piles after a windy week. But it felt good and more than anything purposeful, something sorely lacking from my runs of late. It is during these times that I write things in my head or sort things out. I don't listen to an Ipod much anymore, mainly because the ringing in my ears started to worry me last year but also because I simply have yet to find the right headphone/earbud/headstrap combination that will actually keep the things in my ears. But I sorted through some things.

It is the fall now. It is getting colder, days are getting shorter and this basically signals the end of the triathlon season. Except for Max. Sucker. TNS has one more race - Soma - in 2 weeks but really for all intents and purposes, the season is over. The past 2 weeks have been conversations with clients about the year that was and the year that will be. So this got me to thinking about coaching, my place in the lives of these people, how I/we got here, and where we go from here. So to start at the beginning of me as a coach and why/how I do what I do...

I graduated college in 1999. Lots of people take 7 years to finish college. They are called doctors. But I graduated college in 1999 and the day after my graduation was my first day as Operations Director for the Los Angeles Galaxy. I worked for this man - Sigi Schmid - who was and is two things. A real cantankerous SOB to work for and also the greatest influence in my development as a coach and a leader. His tenure as head coach began the same year as my employment with the Galaxy. He led UCLA to National Championships before coming to MLS and probably had more influence on developing American soccer players than any other coach in the country. He basically took a good athletic program and turned it into a dynasty, but not without bumps. If you were to talk to any of his UCLA players, they will probably all tell you the same thing - they would take a bullet for the guy, but there is a chance that they fired the gun themselves. As a man, he is one of the most empathic and intelligent people I have ever worked for; as a coach and boss, an overbearing pain in the ass. He micromanaged everything from the game schedule to the painting of the field to where everyone parked. It spilled over to the players' lives; what they ate, when they trained, what they did in the offseason, etc etc etc. It has its advantages and disadvantages.

I bring all this up because I didn't know much about coaching when I met Sigi. And through 4 long years of working for him, travelling with him, enduring the downs of reaching the championship twice only to lose it to the ups of finally winning the thing in 2002, my last year with the team, I learned some things. I learned a bit of what I don't want to be as a coach but a lot about what I do.

I do want to take an active interest in my client's lives.
I do need to have boundaries therein.
I do want to create a sense of team, even family amongst our members.
I do not want to be heavy-handed or force something that isn't there.
I do want to push people hard, as hard as they can go.
I do not want to try to apply a training plan that applies to everyone, since every one of us is different.
I do not want to lead with a stick, but a carrot. Fear of disappointing your coach will only carry someone so far, especially an adult.
I do want to win, but not at any cost.


TNS has had a hell of a first year. Several podium finishes, 2 overall victories, multiple PR's, a profitable year in our first year of operation, a buzz and a presence in the community and more than anything - a lot of good, like-minded people working together towards common goals.

But 2010 will only be better. There is a fine line between striving for more and being happy with what you have; my task as a coach and a person is to find that, to help define it for others (when they ask) and to remind them that goals cannot be floating. Just because you achieve a goal does not mean it is proper to immediately set a new one, or worse set a new one before you achieve it just because it becomes obvious you are on pace to smash it. We do this for fun and that is a great goal in itself.

Many mountains to climb

So it's been a few weeks since I posted - an eventful few weeks. Malibu came and went, I sold my road bike and the 2009 season is grinding to a halt. Left on the docket are 2 TNS-focused races - the Soma 70.3 and Ironman Arizona, both either scheduled by, for or with Max. Soma will be IMAZ race prep for Max; we will head out on Friday and spend Saturday previewing the bike course. There is a huge psychological benefit to knowing exactly what a course is like. We will head out at the same time that we will be out there on race day so he can feel the weather, the wind, the ups and downs of the course. Sunday's race takes place on the same run course as IMAZ so being out there on that lake front boardwalk, feeling the heat bounce back at him, engaged in the monotyny that is that boring run course, all of it will help him on race day.

Me? I am living vicariously through him right now. I ran 7 of the miles he ran in Manhattan Beach last week and then got the text when he was done. I am excited for him, but would be lying to say that there isn't a part of me that wouldn't rather be out there with him.

But there is a much bigger part of me that is glad for the time off. It was on the Malibu bike that I realized for sure, 100%, no questions, that I need a break. The only word to adequately describe what I felt out there at Malibu is impotent. I just had no power, no next gear, no anything really. I started at the same time as a few friends and finished 10-15 minutes behind them. These are the people I train with, that are not supposed to beat me like that.

But I am learning something here. I can do anything I want, I just can't do everything I want. Or at least I can't do everything I want well. I can train with the best of them, I can sell plastics like Alec Baldwin sells real estate - "brass balls", I can be the best triathlon coach ever, I can settle down, get married, have a kid and be the best dad ever, I can write, I can lift weights, I can tell jokes, I can add numbers in my head, I can be a good uncle, good son, good brother, I can go to USC football games and try to hang on to the glory of my youth, I can get a new car, one without a dent in it, I can scale the mountains of Malibu Creek state park, I can be a Republican - or a Democrat, haven't decided yet, I can go to Dodgers games and eat too much, I can make mistakes, I can fix mistakes, I can do anything. But I can't do it all well.

I am entering into a new phase here. And for the first time in my whole life, I don't know what that means. But where as I have always been to get by on a few jokes and charm and some good ideas and fancy words, it isn't working any more. I haven't figured out how to balance everything. Because I have responsibilities that extend WAY beyond getting out and going for a run or designing a training plan or 2, beyond a Saturday night date or a couple phone calls to a couple friends. No, life has gotten really real, really really fast. And that's fine after a few days to soak it up, digest it and compartmentalize things into neat little boxes. But I haven't had those few days until now. This is probably how I havebn't written for so long. But now I am ready. Moving forward, I will focus on my relationships, TNS (looking forward to a 6 hour "mini-retreat" tomorrow to get focused with Max, Sofia & John), my new relationship with Core Performance (6 months of intense core training) & running (100k in February), and mainly trying to make as much money as I can selling as much as I can.

A good friend said to me a few weeks ago that money cannot be the only measure of success, or worth we use. And of course it cannot. But that is an overly simplistic sentence that doesn't account for a lot of things. It definitely doesn't account for the 4 months I took off in 2008 to train as much as I could and to learn as much as I could about coaching triathletes. This was one of the most rewarding times of my life, but as much as it left me internally wealthy, it left me externally broke. So, as has been a prevailing theme in my life, I dig a hole and come back better for it.

So that's my story - more to come.

Race Week: Malibu

So it's Malibu race week; 5 days to the Olympic, 6 days to the Sprint. Somehow I didn't realize this until I was on my way to run this morning. Oh yeah, there is a race Saturday. It isn't that I don't care, it's just that I don't really care. OK that's not accurate entirely. I am excited about the race, I just don't care that much about race - ING. See, it's like this. As the coach of the Children's Hospital team, I have helped guide 200+ athletes to the start line of this race. I have helped a few more in my private coaching life. That's cool. That's gratifying. But as an individual athlete, it's just a race. That's all. I have been asked a few times before - what's your favorite race? The answer that immediately comes to mind is Ironman Arizona. As a race "experience", that was my favorite race. I have been out there to spectate, been out there to race and this November I will be back there as a volunteer. It is a great race experience and will always hold a place somewhere in me. But my favorite race, year in and year out, and the only race that I will have raced 4 times is the Malibu Triathlon. It's just a cool race. Why? Here are a few reasons.

1. It's as close to my backyard as a race can get. I realized yesterday on my bike ride that I have ridden that exact course at least 100 times. It's to the point where I know each every rise and drop, I know the street markers and what each thing means out there.

2. The celebrities. Even when you grow up in LA it's still cool to see Andy from the Office or other people that you have seen on tv out there racing with you.

3. Being a part of it. Coaching the CHLA team and wearing their colors, having several personal clients out there, all of it lends to familiarity and a supportive atmosphere.

4. Not having to race Sunday. Although the Olympic distance race on Saturday is longer and more challenging, there will be far more people racing Sunday. Maybe I should say BECAUSE the Olympic distance race on Saturday is longer and more challenging, there will be far more people racing Sunday. And I get to sit and watch. So that's cool.

So all in all, it's cool to be racing Saturday, but that's about all I can say on the matter.

bam

Always A Runner, or Where's my 11?

Run Free.
Run Fast.
Run Far.
Run.


They say it takes 3 weeks of doing something - anything, really - for it to become habit. Further, it often takes a habit to replace a habit.

Or, more simply put, the road giveth and the road taketh away.

It is now 2 weeks post-Ultra. The soreness is gone, but what is left is a gimpy back, a few black toes, some new inspiration and little desire to jump back into triathlon.

Sure, I jumped back on the bike and dove into the water nearly immediately (swam a mile and ran 6 the day after the race), but the passion isn't necessarily where it was.

I really can't shake the good feelings I got from that race. I spent the entire time thinking - this is easy, this is so easy. And I landed in the top 25. I say that not so much from a competitive or ego standpoint so much as to illustrate how natural and comfortable it feels. It took me so many years to get 'good' at triathlon and every race is such an expenditure of mental energy.

All that said, next up is Malibu Triathlon on September 12. I haven't raced Olympic distance in 3 years, so it will be interesting. I have raced Sprint and I have raced long course, but Olympic is that special hybrid that reminds me of half marathon in the running world. Short enough to race yet still long enough to pace. .9 mile swim is a long one. That is practically a half Ironman swim. It will take it out of you. The bike - 24.8 miles - is a tricky beast. It isn't the distance, that is fairly managable for anyone. It is the lure of hammering. "Oh, it's only 25 miles I can go all out". Well, sure you can. But it will kick your ass and PS you still have that 6.2 mile run afterwards.

And the thing is when you get faster and the podium is in your wheelhouse consistently, the error margins diminish greatly. The swim is what the swim is, don't plan on losing more than 5 minutes, but that is a huge margin when the total race time is 120-135 minutes. The bike is fool's gold because it makes you want to do it in an hour. My fastest 40k is 1:00:39 which means a perfect day needs to transpire. And the run? Well sub-40 would be nice. But after a 40k? I just don't know.

So to sum up, running good, triathlon ok.

And now onto my 11. I have always had an "11". No, this doesn't mean my small tooth cog for hammering the flats (total roadie shop talk jargon). No, my 11 is an emotional 11 on a scale of 1-10. The other day it occurred to me that the 11 seems to have dropped off somewhere. I attribute much of that to long, slow ultrarunning. The road giveth and the road taketh away. Too much high intensity, speed training not only physiologically takes it toll in the form of chronic fatigue, toxin secretion, elevated heart rate and sleep issues, but it takes it toll mentally as well. Once you started spinning the legs at that high pace and jacking the heart rate up over 90% consistently, you are bound to live your life that way. It's only natural.

So in slowing down my training I find my life following suit. I find everything takes a paler shade, slower pace and a more calm outlook. It's pretty cool. Had a TNS dinner last night and one friend was talking about Malibu and his training leading up to it versus leading up to Strawberry Fields back in July. He reflected on his training and found that he was doing 2 or 3 threshold workouts a week for 20 minutes or more. Race pace for an hour or more. That is crazy-making. We can't sustain that. Well, we can't sustain that unless we are living in the Olympic Training Center sheltered from the normal up and down stresses and demands of real life. It is just impossible. You can only run an engine so hot for so long. Fact of life.

Point is, slow down. That way when you do speed up it will mean more. And maybe, maybe just maybe you will find your 11 falls away.