What ever it takes!

I woke up not wanting to deal with traffic this morning and went down to the Hotel Gym, got there at 5:00 and it wasn't open, waited 10 minutes and it still never opened, called the front desk and they told me it didn't open until 6:00.  I have no idea why it opened at 5:00 last week and not this week.  So I headed back outside for my loop, again, and again.   Didn't have my Garmin cause I thought I was running on the treadmill today, 4 laps in ??:??:??.  Not terribly slow cause I kept feeling like I was running behind schedule from not getting started on time.  I almost got hit by a Taxi crossing the road, I had a green man and I don't even think he slowed down coming around the corner.  Other than that un-eventful.  Tomorrow is my last run in Vegas cause I just found out I get to fly out to New York for an emergency meeting tomorrow. 

6 loops around the Golf Course.  Last day, so glad to leave Vegas today.

15 miles in 1:52:15 7:29 avg pace.  Legs felt good but I was kind of lacking energy today.

So, funny story. The President of my company called and told me I need to fly to New York for a meeting with him and a bunch of big wigs from Marriott hotels at the New York Marquis.  I told him I didn't pack any dress clothes so he told me to just go buy some and expense them.  I seriously don't buy dress clothes,  I hate shopping, my entire wardrobe is marathon T-'s and nerdy tech t-shirts from conferences.  Oh, and polos that have my company logo on them.  I am in the most expensive place to buy clothes anywhere probably, so I went out shopping last night and spent over $400 on a shirt pants and belt.  I still don't have shoes.  I'm totally sick to my stomach about the whole thing.  If I wanted to spend that much money it definitely wouldn't be on clothes.

6 miles on the hotel treadmill before my meeting today.  5 X speed intervals the last mile just to get the legs moving.  Anything faster than 5:30 pace really felt like I was going to pull my hamstring again so they were relatively slow for speed intervals.

I hate talking in front of people, in general I hate talking to people, except virtually, then I talk to people a lot.  So I was very nervous about my presentation today, almost as nervous as talking in Church, except I actually know what I'm talking about here.  But once I started talking about RF frequency, Co-channel interference, and 802.11n, and MiMo,  the General Manager of the hotel was totally getting into it and asking me all sort of questions, I got really comfortable and it went really well.  This is really one of my favorite hotels, and I have spent a lot of time here so I hope my company keeps the contract.  I think it will after today.  Anyway, as I already commented, they all came up to me after the meeting and told me how much they liked my shoes, I thought that was pretty funny, usually shoes don't bring that much attention but I think it was perfect that I was the Technical guy, the only one without a suit coat on, and flashy yellow shoes really paid off.

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P.M. 6 miles on the hotel treadmill in 49:30.  I'm surprised how much these easy afternoon runs actually help me on my next day long run.  Instead of making me tired they actually make me less sore.

I kind of wanted to just wake up and get on the 7:00am flight outa here, but I said I'd run Central Park so I did.  I didn't think to pack any dress clothes, but at least I packed running tights, so you know I've got my priorities straight.  I thought to myself I'd just get my 20 miler done today instead of Saturday if I felt good, unfortunately I think this trip is finally taking it's toll.  My throat is scratchy, the Central Park Rollers were bugging my hamstring, and my stomach is a bit of a mess.  It's .75 miles from Times Square to the park and then exactly 6 miles around the big loop.  I ran the big loop twice since it was the only exact distance I knew and my Garmin didn't want to wake up this morning, it was still on Vegas time.

Even though it wasn't a great run, I really enjoy the park every time I go there, it's so amazing how many people are out running and biking at 5:00am in 25 degree weather.  I'm sure I'll be back soon.

I sure hope this scratchy throat doesn't turn into anything worse, I really don't want to deal with sick again.

Back to the Lifetime treadmill today, running on roads must have taken all my speed away, either that or all this travel has zapped my energy.  Had a really hard time getting it all going this morning.  Eventually was able to get up to marathon pace for the last 2 miles of the run.

I finished Tyler Hamiltons book on the plane home yesterday, I was actually really into it and had a hard time putting it down.  I used to think that maybe there were some clean riders in the Tour De France during the "Lance Era" but after reading this book it only made sense that everyone had to be doping, that's the only way they could get away with it for so long.  The ICU didn't care, the Tour De France didn't care, the sponsors were making tons of money, the riders were making tons of money, Cycling was getting more world wide attention than ever, all the viewers were eating it all up.  The only thing Lance really did wrong 'in my opinion' was being a huge jerk, it's not like he started the whole doping problem, Spain didn't even have laws against doping, Germany's government probably sponsored Jan Ulrich's whole program, so really in European cycling you pretty much had to do it to compete. I was pretty surprised to find out they were doing transfusions.  I thought that was total 70's and that EPO had replaced blood doping.  The other thing that kind of struck me was that the doping really controlled their entire life, dodging testers, smuggling EPO and Blood Bags across borders in Dog Kennels, flying to Spain every 2 weeks for transfusions.  I kind of pictured it being, well less dramatic.

Anyway, I really enjoyed the book, it was really facinating to read what a glamorous life these guys were living, living in villas in little European villages, riding bikes around the alps everyday for a living, flying on private jets, and then for it all to come crashing down around them. Pretty amazing stuff.

Sometimes ya gotta do what ya gotta do. And this morning what I had to do was run 20 miles before the kids indoor soccer games.  It was pretty horrible to tell the truth.  Well actually the first 7 miles were really awful, and the last 4 miles were pretty bad,  those 9 miles in between that were pretty, umm! forgettable I guess.  I was thinking 7:00/mile average would be a pretty good goal but I was actually able to pick it up towards the end, never faster than 6:30 pace.

20 miles in 2:17:32  6:52 avg pace.

After I was done a couple came up and said, wow you run a long time on the treadmill, are you training for something.  I said Boston, they said Ooooh!  Funny how training for Boston is for some reason more impressive to people than training for say Ogden.  No offense Ogden trainer people,  I think your training is very impressive.