I ran my 9.24 miles today and p.r'd again. I came in at 1:16:40, that is not including a 20-second detention when a pickup truck turned in front of me and I stopped, turned around and walked back to the sidewalk to allow him to continue. No other interruptions. I hope that by May, I can run these three-a-week tempo runs consistently at a time of 1:10. My friday tempo run has a steeper hill and is slightly longer in distance, but I should be able to reel that in to about 1:10 as well.

                                                                                Paul

Sierra, imagine you are that pack of African men and women, and you "know" you are going to win.  The women allowed the tall American to lead and drafted after her.   You could see how smoothly the winner was running.  Poor Kara, and into a headwind too.  But she is new at this distance.  I thought the Americans were valiant and put it out there.  Good for them!  We have a lot to be proud of, two 3rd place finishes in each sex, way better than we have done in ages.  But oh how my heart went out to them both.  This performance was very encouraging for American marathoners.  I loved watching the race today.

SimonR, more on our recent topic, a Lydiard observation from Letsrun, a poster named Nobby.  Fred, you know him:

"When Lydiard first came to the US, most people were interval-trained. He told them that his runners did 100 miles a week of training. Some people tried it but, because they weren't as well-conditioned as his runners, did it slow (just to survive). They figured running this slow would not make you a fast competitor. So Lydiard training is no good. For decades, Lydiard had to fight against such thinking by telling them also that "Snell and Davies did 20X400 in 60 seconds or faster. How much speed to you need?"

Marathon conditioning, or aerobic base building phase, is merely prerequisit to more exacting training phases. Because his runners were so much stronger than others from all the miles that they ran, they could do much more faster or more race specific training than other runners. This is the whole principles of the Lydiard program that has been applied to other sports like rugby or kayaking--those who have developed their stamina can do more competition-specific training than others. While others might practice "passing of the rugby ball while running as fast as you can" 20 times, if you developed adequate stamina, you do that 40 times."

Fred made this same point the other day when I asked him about mechanics.

Spareribs

Paul, what happened was that they ran back to town okay (it was 30K or about 18.6 miles, not 20 miles and it was early morning, not 110 degrees) And after this lesson they never asked to get back on the bus again.

11 miles on the track, with 4 x 800 and 1 x 400 in the middle, 200 meter recoveries.   Spareribs

I got my cross-training in today, a six-mile road ride on my mountain bike. It was raining a bit, but it was actually nice to be out in a warm rain.* *

My May race ( a 10K) is going to be out in the Berkshire Mountains at an elevation of 1,200 ft. That'll be the first race with any elevation for me. Here's a snippet of Dalton, MA, from wikipedia:* *

Much of the rest of town is dominated by the Berkshire Mountains,

with the north being on a plain between the peaks of North and

Western Mountains, covered by the Dalton Wildlife Management Area.

The south is dominated by Tully Mountain, whose peak is just over the

Hinsdale line. The Appalachian Trail winds through town, passing between

Tully and North Mountains through the downtown area.

I'm looking forward to it.* *Paul

Hi K.S! Welcome back to the land of mortals!;) Listening to you talk about your Boston Marathon experience reminds me of how much we, as runners, are subject to the changes and extremes of nature (unless you live in Hawaii). Have you ever run as long with a headwind, before?

I ran my 13.16-mile long run today and did just fine. Not meaning to, I came in a few minutes earlier than last week. I left at 11:00 a.m. and came in at 1:03:45. Everything was fine. The weather was beautiful and I had plenty of energy. I brought two 20 oz bottles of water, but only drank about 10 oz (at mile 10). 53 degrees and mostly cloudy. Recovery day tomorrow.

                                                                                Paul