My first full day in Bend (the day before the big trail race) was a busy day. To start off my day, I went on a mid-morning run up to the West River part of town to get some breakfast with my Aunt, Uncle, and Dad. Following breakfast, I ran through Drake Park then up to the FootZone running store on Wall Street to pickup my race packet. Needless to say, it’s always an exciting experience to check out all the goodies in the race packet and the free t-shirt (for this race, we received red shirts with a cool Xterra design on the front). In additional, at the packet pick-up, you have the great opportunity to meet runners from all over the place and this race was no exception in that I met a couple from Los Angeles and a group from Philadelphia. Following the packet pickup, I headed over the Old Mill District part of town to check out where the race was going to start and finish.
After talking to a couple of Xterra employees who were helping setup some tents about the layout of the course, I jogged back to the FootZone to attend the Xterra University with last year’s defending National and World Champion, Max King. It was an educational experience not only to get Max’s insights on the course, but also to learn about how he trains; that is, he’ll be logging 110 per week in preparation for the NYC marathon (his first real marathon), at times he has logged 130-140 miles per week (while working full-time as a chemical engineer), he stressed it’s import to give the same effort--not speed--when running up hills (so you do not slow down after you have competed the hill), and he’s also a big believer in minimalist shoes.
Following the Xterra University session with Max, I ran over to my Aunt and Uncle’s place on Hawthorne for some pre-race carb-loading before biking back to my Great Uncle’s house on Cumberland. The total distance of all of this running around was 5.1 miles and with the exception a single mile that I ran at marathon pace just to test out my legs, I kept the speed to an easy pace.
In regards to my non-running workout, besides the 2.1-mile bike ride back to Cumberland, I was able to get in 200 sit-ups and 25 push-ups. | 