I don't have any good excuses as to why I haven't been able to keep to my weekly schedule posting to this blog, but at least I have been able to stay 90% faithful to my training routine, even slipping in a couple of yoga classes this past week to keep me loose.
I just got in from 9 miles of random hill work around Somerville at my tempo pace. I feel pretty good except for some slight twinges in my calves that I expect are the result of partial dehydration and excessive pounding on the asphalt roads up and down these hills in the dark. Oh sure, just because it is going to be about 30-degrees warmer on Sunday for my race in the desert at about 5000 feet more elevation than I live and train is no reason to think that maybe I should rethink my goal time of 3:20. Actually, my goal is to finish in the top two places of my division (light civilian male) to bring home a medal to show my disabled veteran father upon my return. Based upon prior results I will have to knock out an awesome personal best finish to achieve that goal, but you never know what you are capable of until you try.
I must thank New Balance (and the Miami Marathon) for the shoes I was provided in exchange for leading the pace group in January. Those NB 1223 shoes have been great for me on my long runs, on these technical runs, and even for mile repeats on the track. By using these shoes I have been able to stretch the life of my other shoes by rotating through them more often, which means that some shoe retailer is going to be very happy with me sometime around August or September of this year.
Okay, time for me to wrap this up and try to get at least 6 1/2 hours of sleep tonight. I am so glad that I am not crazy enough to even attempt to catch any of the Red Sox opening day game from Japan at 6am tomorrow. Nope, I'm only crazy enough to try running 3 marathons in 7 weeks, when my previous minimum recovery time had been 4 months between races. At least I am smart enough to delay donating blood until after that third marathon.
