SCALPS.....

Dickie took down a big one today in Jon Brown. There aren’t many 4th place oly runners in this world and to take one down irrelevant of distance and conditions is huge for Dickie. I hope it becomes a springboard for future successes. No runner will admit it but when they take down a really big named scalp it creates a sense of both confidence and uneasiness. It's kinda like you won the lottery, but what are u going to do with all the money.

I hate running races when I am not in really good shape. It’s one of those things over the years I have seldom done and that is run a race when I am not really ready. Some guys have the ability to simply go out and roll. I often wish I was one of those people, but I am not. It’s always taken me a while to really get going and then when I do things really ‘click’. Today wasn't one of those days.

I can’t say I was disappointed with my time today, as I had no real expectations except to run a ‘masters race’....in other words I had no real goal of being competitive in the open race, and it showed in every sense of the word. I knew I wasn’t physically ready to have a good one, but I also knew my lack of racing focus and having really not hurt in practice was more of an issue. I simply ran with little focus except to get out there and see what happened.

I sometimes wonder if I need more of these types of races to just get ou there and get motivated, but I also know that I don’t like to race at a higher level unless I am in somewhat decent shape.

I also ran as it was my club that was putting on the event and it is heavily influenced by Bob Reid. If there is anyone who is owed to in this sport it is Bob and since this was my first official masters race I figured why not open it up with a race that he helps to organize.

Race review: simple...... to simply finish in one piece. In the end I ended up pulling former training mate Sean Chester around the course and then letting him go. I have no idea if I could’ve even outkicked Sean, but in the end it didn’t matter. I had done what I had set out to do around 25 mins earlier and that was simply beat every other ‘old guy’. It may be the only time all year I think like that this year, so why not get it out of the way early.

Training week: I accidently fell asleep on tues and didn’t run so that meant i really trained thru this moreso than planned...oh well right now it;s all training...

Monday: 66mins...nice and cruisy
Tues: sleep...
Wed: a really nice run....82 mins
Thurs: I ran over to Riverview but there was black ice and I was went down on my warm up so i changed things to hills I did a sort of monfartlek on hills so 3 x 90sec, 4 x 60 sec, 4 x 30 sec and 4 x 15 sec hills off jog back down. I ended up taking 28mins to do this when if i did a traditional monfartlek I would have done just under 26mins
Fri: afternoon 70mins
Evening 35mins
Sat: AM 45 mins nice run
PM 28mins
Sunday: AM race 8km 25: 42
PM 30min run