Easy run with Ted in the morning. Dragged my feet along through 10 miles in 1:16:24, felt sleepy, avg. HR 113. We did run really early - 5:00 AM. Ran with the kids in the afternoon plus some more. The hamstrings felt a lot better. Now some pictures from the Ogden Marathon with comments. First, this one: 
Steve Ashbaker is finishing ahead of Joe Wilson. I have known Steve for 8 years. We've had many conversations. Steve has had a lot of struggles. I believe aside from Steve himself there is not anybody there who can truly appreciate better than me the significance of the event that this photo captures. Thus I feel responsible to provide a bit of background to help other appreciate it as Steve is too modest to do it himself. Steve always wanted badly to be in the Joe-class, doubted that he could, and agonized over his inability to be there for years. Now here it comes! The seemingly impossible happened, and there was even a photographer to capture it. Joe runs the best marathon he's ever run in Utah in my opinion. Not timewise, but quality wise. Ogden course it not fast, and it was hot. I believe the only other time he ran a better race was his 2:21 in Austin in 2003. Joe ran for Weber State and rocked the boat. Steve was as far away from running at college age as one could be. And now as Steve turns 36 thinking a few months ago that he does not have much of a running future we fastforward through a few months of thorough training to see the dream come true: Joe gives it all, runs one of his best races, and yet Steve pulls away from him. Now another picture that Ted pointed out to me - some food for thought:
You see myself next to Steve Ashbaker and Mike Dudley. The interesting part here is the size of my quads next to two runners that eventually beat me in that race. As Ted said, this definitely explains why I get no soreness in the quads. I cannot complain about that, but the mystery is how in the world they got so big. The obvious answer is this is a peculiarity of my running form. I do not do any weight lifting or special strength work with my legs other than running. I do not even run uphill very much. But I guess that is enough. I do not have to run uphill. I take uphill with me wherever I go. I suppose my form makes me work as if I were running uphill even when it is flat. Can I fix it? Yes I can. I do not quite see the end or exactly how, but I have faith that eventually I will. Faith is to believe in things which are not seen but are true. We have seen some things already that were not seen at first and were very easy to question, but proved to be true. I need to be patient and wait for my time. I've had one breakthrough already a few years ago which happened just like that - through faith. There is another one coming.
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