You're faster than you think!

Randy!!!!!! so nice to see you are back. I hope all is well with you.

Hi Bonnie! Thanks. Nice to be running again. The blog looks different. It's like a billboard and I can't find anyone's site.

How is life in UT? Do you ever see Melinda? Or is she a "lost sheep" too? Is Greg McMillan still coaching you? How is that going?

Yes, there are quite a few new people on the site! I have not seen Melinda, but I know she is doing ok (she does not blog much) - a friend of mine ran the Wasatch Back relay with Melinda and her family's team.

Things are good here in Utah, although sadly we will be leaving and starting new positions at U of Arizona in November (long story best told over a beer). Greg is still coaching me and I think we have a good set of short and long term goals. I had a good buildup in mileage over the winter and then did not run the race I had planned because of weather ... I then got some weird "blah" thing (couldn't hit my workouts and every run was a struggle). Took a couple weeks down (just ran easy as I wanted) and am feeling really good now. Greg is great about modifying my training to find what "works". I have not missed a day of training from injury in the 4 years since he has coached me, and to me that is a really big deal! I am running 2 times a day 3 days a week now and it is great because I can increase my mileage without losing my job (and my legs feel better). Are you still being coached by Demetrio? I have wanted to touch base with that group, but our workout days are off a little.

I am glad you are back and running strong!

I can only imagine the tribulations of academic life... Suffice it to say, that is why I took a job at a lab. Though it has its own issues. Anyway, I wish you the best in your move. There is a lot of good running AZ! Look for Abdi!

Oh yeah, the coaching question... Although I say on my blog that Demetrio is my coach, it is hard for him to get me workouts and stay up with how my life is going and how I am feeling on a daily or even weekly basis. So I mainly use my old logs as guides and go with what has worked in the past. I think I learned a lot from my results last year. There is really no big surprise, my best results correlate very well with high mileage (110+) and solid tempo runs at least every other week. So that has been my focus. Given that I really was at ground zero, it is taking me a while to get back up to the mileage that I want. So I guess the answer is that I am really coaching myself, but using Demetrio's workouts as a guide. It's funny though. I think people put so much worry into workouts and the main thing really is just to get out there and not to over do it. The mileage is the first-order effect... and being healthy is the zeroth-order effect :).

ha ha ha -- so very true, I like it and may steal the analogy (with order effects). I like having someone else worry about both effects then I can just put my shoes on and go!

I am hoping to run into both Abdi and Bernard in Tucson. Abdi trains up in Flagstaff and stays with Greg's elite group sometimes so it is likely we will cross paths some day. He seems like a character and I am looking forward to speaking with him. Have you seen that video of him last year? If not I will have to get it to you, he gives a tour of his house - it cracked me up.

Welcome back Randy - good to hear you are healthy and back running fairly solid.