Wednesday 082609

• AM – idyllic morning. Cooler. That slight fog haze just over the ground but clear from the waist up. Sun rising. 6 miles with strides over at BHS track. I am going to try to be more regular with doing strides and so I will measure these to see if there is any improvement over a couple of months. (18.8, 17.9, 17.7, 17.4, 16.9, 17.0, 17.3 – and I missed the last split but the same ball park). Took a 300 jog around the track to assure full recovery. Strides less me feeling good … 46 minutes. Musical choices included Green Day and Miley Cyrus (damn you Brett)
• Brownie’s first part of his Leadville RR. Tim Parr’s Leadville RR is up … Currently, I’m resting up and preparing for the World Mountain Running Championships, in Italy next week. I’ll be ready. Duncan has an detailed race report as well. If these don’t scare you off of Leadville, maybe this will …

• PM – six miles. 46 minutes.

Sunday 082309

Tim Parr’s win at Leadville is amazing. Winning PPA last week and then LT100 in his innagural century run. Not much to say about that than wow. I only expect him to get stronger now that he will need to hitchhike with that winner’s ore cart.

Tony obviously had a tough day, with word being via the Twitter community that he pulled with cramping quads near mile 75. At least one person I know said he was running for the record and when that slipped out of sight, the motivation finish, particularly after winning two times before, waned. The hundred seems like a bit of a poker game for me. When I play Texas Hold ‘Em with folks, the people who are still playing at the end of the night are those who were conservative at the begining of the night … and got a bit lucky with the cards they were dealt. I give a tip of the hat to Tony … you could argue that he should have run differently and run for the win. And had he run more conservatively at the front end, maybe he’d be hauling that ore cart around in the roost today (along with the other two). But he had a goal of the CR, gambled and went for it. And it did not work out … as has been said in this sport a bunch of times … you don’t know your limits until you reach them.

In the interim, Mr. Carpenter’s record remains intact.

A few weeks ago, I hopefully gave positive feedback about the LT100 site changes. I say hopefully because I had hoped that it was a start of a shift on the site. As it turned out, itwas mostly front page window dressing, and advertising to sell you stuff. The site seemed to struggle yesterday under the load of users wanting to get information about the racers. I get that results there may not be posted quickly or completely accurately given race logistics, but 405 errors?

Congrats to Pittbrownie on a great run at Leadville – particularly after doing the PPM last week. And according to the site this AM, Brownie finished twice.

I have not looked at the logistics of the calendar next year between Leadville and Pikes – but if it works out, I think I’d like to be doing some pace work up in Leadville next year.

10 miles in the AM before it got too warm. 78 minutes. Didn’t worry about HR. Month stats update … Over the last two weeks, with taper, racing and recovery I landed 89 miles (53 and 56) with that being good for 13 hours and 37 minutes (817 minutes). This puts me 177 miles on August with four days off, 2274 miles on the year, 20207 minutes