my makeup may be flaking

Really wanted to do a long run today but I thought it would be wiser to take it easy. I feel better than I did last Sunday, but even though it was slow yesterday took alot out of me. Running around Liberty Park I kind of laughed at the thought that I ran a half marathon yesterday with legs as tight as they are. I know I've said they have felt better each successive day, but they were INCREDIBLY bad to begin with. I could barely walk after I was done. I can definitely still get mileage in but that's about it. We'll have to see how this goes.

Did 4 in the morning around Liberty Park

10.5 in the evening around Sugarhouse. My calves are still tight, it's getting rather boring. I'm still working hard on my runs though and I'm sticking to the soft stuff.

Did 4! loops of Sugarhouse park on the grass. I wanted to keep my long run on a softer surface.

AM Did two loops of Sugarhouse. Threw in some good surges as the run went on and found my legs complained much less than on Saturday. I think I'll do a more organized fartlek type run this evening. Plus there's going to be some good pontificating!

PM Did seven miles with about 3 of them at a faster pace. My calves felt fine but I felt pretty tired overall which is completely understandable given my mileage the last couple of days. I can run reasonable fast (like sub 7) everyday if I'm under 90mpw pace I think, but I have to start measuring my effort when I log 46.5 miles in three days (which I just did!).

Now for the pontification, I'm not sure what my point is...

Anyway I was reading the responses to Jeff's Provo half-winning race report and specifically what Sasha said about the American collegiate system.  I am one of the few on here (I think) who actually ran for four years in college (plus 4 years in high school) and took no break after graduating aside from the break I would normally take after the end of a season. I have continued to improve at pretty much the same rate so far. In fact, the longer I run the more 'talent' I seem to discover.

When I look at how I did in high school cross, it's kind of laughable. I ran 18:04 at the WA state meet my senior year for 110th in 3A. My college coaches for a while thought I was a headcase because I seemed to fold in big races, they cited that state meet as an example. I told them that at the time it was a good race for me and they were floored. They couldn't believe that I could have been that slow in high school. Was it for lack of effort? NO! Because I had no talent? Apparently not, as I am now faster than probably 100 of those 110 guys. Because the coaching was bad? I don't think so, we were a very succesful team.

Maybe the point is that you can't tell who is going to be good and who is not based upon how well we do in High School. I watched footlocker this year, I decided I could have been competitive in that race and finished in the middle of the pack judging be the difficulty of the course and the times. So what? High schoolers aren't that good in the 5K in general and so it's difficult to see what someone's potential is because everyone is so far from being maxed out. However the people who show promise as freshman in HS get more attention and thus run more so they'll most likely be the best sophomores and so on. People who are the best in high school go to the best colleges and put in more miles and make a bigger commitment. Those who have made it by the time college ends go on to become professionals.

So essentially you will have no reason to push yourself to uncover your talent or be able to justify the time it takes unless you've already come pretty far. This doesn't just apply to running but alot of things. The difference with running is that it necessarily takes alot of time. You're not going to peak at age 20, but if you've only run, say, 14:30 at that point then you might not think you'll ever amount to much if you run D1. There's this kind of false assumption that the running is limited to within the scope of the 4 years.

I'm not sure any of this makes sense. Maybe I'll write more tomorrow and it will be coherent.

AM tried to run this morning but my toe was hurting just a bit. I knew that i wouldnt be able to ice so i just walked home. It was good because I was really tired all day.

PM I felt very tired but my foot felt fine. I tried to run hard and was mostly sucessful, but again I was very tired. Did i mention im tired.

Two loops of Sugarhouse in the morning.

I wanted to do two runs today but I woke up extremely hungover, which was surprising to me as I'd just had one glass of wine with my dinner. The headache got worse as the morning went on and was accompanied by some nausea. I don't often drink, but clearly I have to be careful when my mileage is getting high. My roommate also kept me up talking on his speakerphone at 3am and was very angry at me when I dared ask him to turn off the speaker. This combined with last weekend has me certain that I'm moving out at the end of the semester.

Anyway, I ended up doing a slightly longer run in the afternoon. I did three loops of Sugarhouse at a pretty brisk pace. Probably around 5:50s to start, I think i slowed a little on the uphills when I got to Sugarhouse. I ran slower on the way back but really picked it up the last half mile.