9/22 to 9/28

A good week, I guess. It started off with Monday Night Football. Go Bolts! Work is very busy and the family is good. My wife's birthday was Friday, so we've had some fun this weekend. I bought some flowers . . at a wholesale joint, so I did some cuttin' and arrangin' myself. I had to include a pic. Plus, check-out my game face before Monday Night Football and my Oakley collection. Of course I'm sponsored - I'm their main main, call me prime-time! It's all about the game face!

As for the training, a pretty mellow week, I mentioned to my coach that I was still recoverin' (cuz i'm cuttin' n arrangin'), but I'm not worried. I have about a month before my next race (finally!!!), and then a month until the last race of '08 (tomorrow I book the trip with the travel agent!!!). And I have been running a lot the last 5 months. Now, I'm running hard, so the work-outs will keep me fit and get me really race ready. The naps, the days off here and there, not a big deal in my book. I'm such a competitor, I know I'll eat a lot of dirt when the day dawns. I'll satisfy my appetite. I will not wear a fu*kin' dress. And, I'm nailin' the workouts starting this week!!!

Monday off.

Tuesday off.

Wednesday off . . .(remember, I took last Sunday off, too).

-- Keep in mind I do a fair amount of walking with a pack. Perhaps 2 miles a day, lots of stairs, lots of standing, talking, walking, etc.

Thursday 8 miles pretty hard (with hills).

Friday 8 miles pretty hard (with hills).

Not really part of the plan, but just getting back after my "days off"

Saturday some speed drills on the trainer. I set it up in the garage for the first time in a long time. I went hard. I simulated the Caveman hill work-out. I felt great after wards; my hip/legs felt so loose and fluid. Expect a lot more of this, Matt!

In fact, I came to a very solid (tentative) conclusion about my training. Starting this week and continuing until the end of the year, I will base almost all of my weekly training on two Caveman days (tues thurs) and one long run (sun). Everything else is whatever I want (more hills, tempo, recovery, trainer, sleep). Most of my runs will be hard unless it's a short recovery on an off day. I've done a lot of big runs. I think my aerobic engine is good. Two races to go and a lot of race-readying training is coming my way. After all, that's what Trevor has suggested and he's a World Champ. Literally.


To summarize, Lucho got my aerobic engine tuned-up (wait until next year!!), speed is the order of the day, and cross-training rules, so my bikes will again see the light of day. Oh yeah, and I'm going to crush two more races this year.

Sunday 12 miles of very rolling, pretty hard running. Never even close to too hard except for the final .75 miles, a little descent where I went about 5:45 pace. Lucho, I'm coming (ha ha ha)! It was funny. I imagine Lucho running like that everywhere and can only think that people must look and go hmmmmmm. It's moving. So, a solid run.

As for the races, a little description and a scare! It looks like Jack and I will be going to a race just outside of Vegas. We're meeting-up with some friends I've been running with. Should be a great time. I'm going to run the 25K. Hal Koerner's among the 50k entrants, but I'm not up for 6 hours of massive carnage. I want to hammer what should be a very legit 25k and have an awesome time with my kid and some good friends. As for the scare, my friends Jeremy and Kara whom I'll be doing Vegas with did the Noble Canyon 50k this weekend. The official results aren't up yet but I think Kara did fairly well. Jeremy had a bad day according to him. A miserable day. And Kara passed out at the finish due to heat exhaustion. They were considering a cancel of Vegas. I was prepared to take it like a man, though bummed. But Jeremy sent me another email and said after a couple of beers and some reflection the race is back on. I'm stoked. Very very stoked. For the racing, yes, but the travel will be epic. My kid and I will carve Vegas. Awesome. Super stoked and I have the training to dial this in.

As for the second race, it's the Xterra Worlds on Oahu two days after my 40th birthday. Yes, that's all I want for my 40th. Not a lame surprise birthday, but an age-group win, a cold drink, the trade-winds in the tropics with the family. Since this is the inaugural year of the race it's open to anyone. Starting in '09 I think you have to qualify; my age-group win at Vail Lake does the trick, makes me feel a little better about the whole thing. Either way, it's a race in the islands and it should be epic however it turns out!

Monday Night Football

Yeah, my friend got me a couple of tickets so I was there. And we kicked their ass.
The first score of the game was in our face. We had field level seats in the corner of the end zone. A Jet DB took an errant Rivers pass to the house and it was 0 - 7. Then it was all Chargers. Between watching and waiting in line for BEER, I witnessed a true romp. It was great. My wife and I went with my buddy and HIS NEW FIANCE. He popped the question before the game. We were all stoked!!! We sat in the seats of his fiance's friend's seats who's a Charger Girl. Yeah. And there she was in the 3rd quarter looking at us struttin' her shizzle. Great stuff. We spanked the Jets. JW, I wish you were there!

9/15 to 9/21

First of all, my knee-jerk reaction to the bail-out was, well, knee jerk. I still think this country has a lot to address. I know, pretty vague. I guess I'm pretty sold on my superficial understanding of the parallel people have made between the fall of Rome and the troubles facing America: Our greatest threat comes from within, not from some kind of external enemy that's going to win some military engagement. Of course, I suppose a "take-over" could occur economically from some foreign threat. That would be ironic. I just think the general excess we've come to associate with America is very very troubling. The bail-out is probably much needed on some level, but the damage has been done. The government, now, is, literally, a giant hedge fund.

As for training, a great week! I have adopted some high intensity work. Trevor Glavin is the source of this approach. I am so grateful for this guy's generosity and knowledge. I have felt the same about Lucho and JW and GZ and anyone else I've "talked to" in this sick endurance blog community. As long as everything goes according to plan, I will be racing Trevor in Hawaii this December as part of my first big family vacation. Once I book the tickets, etc., I'll post that excitement/plan.

As for the training, Trevor was nice enough to give me some ideas on how he would be approaching this little 12 week build-up. My initial response was along the lines of is that enough hill work, so you're looking at about this much weekly mileage, etc. He was quick to say because of the quality of these work-outs, mileage is not a problem. I guess becaue I've been doing a "just run" approach for months now, I was a little skeptical/unfamiliar. Tempo has been my speed work. A lot of hills, just going up and up, putt putt, strong, but not blistering.

I'm calling this an "introductory week." Last week's training culminated with a 20 miler in the Mt. Laguna area. An outstanding run with outstanding people. I hit, I think, around 50 miles, my usual. But now, I'm going to get specific. This new approach is really specific. I suppose because of the big decrease in mileage I'm thinking of this as introductory. Also, I didn't hit each and every work-out like I was supposed to. Besides that, in terms of energy level, this turned-out to be a recovery week. Which gave me all the more time to discover how stoked I am about this plan. Geez, when I look back over 2008 I'll have a lot of cool training experiences to draw from. All I need now are a couple of nice results from my last two races of the season.

The plan in a nutshell: basically, Monday is recovery run, Tuesday is hills (hard/fast), Wed. recovery, Thursday hills(h/f), Friday off, Saturday tempo, and Sunday long run.

My week shaped-up with Monday off, Tuesday 6 miles of the hill w/o done INDOORS? Felt great, but INDOORS?. . . . Wednesday 4 miles recovery in some new shoes!! Thursday another hill work-out though I still didn't nail it - 8 miles - then lifted a lot of weight for me!! My arse still hurts from the lunges!!! Friday off. Saturday I did a killer tempo/hill work-out, about 8 miles in an hour and the little 2x2min hills followed by 5 minute LT (which is more or less the hills but these build week by week) kicked my arse! And today I . . . . .took a 3 hour nap!!!!!!!!!!

I think the intensity is great. I have some work to do this next week that simply consists of nailing my work-outs! Thanks again, Coach!

What a shame

I sure hope the American people can handle the blow brought by this government's economic bail out. However one wants to view it, it's a disaster. Our kids' kids' kids will be paying for this, not to mention our own immediate future has to carry around this trillion dollar life preserver. If you're in real estate, you're a dip-shit. At the very least, you're guilty by association. Go to hell. Take it from someone who admits that the financial world is pretty much greek to him: Rome is burning.

Drink up!

9/8 to 9/14 total: The Broncos are Goons. . ..Er . . . Lucky!!!!

Monday: I hit the gym because someone dragged me there. I hit the bike and the stair-stepper only because I had to. 1 hour. Nice and easy.

Tuesday: Nada.

Wednesday: I hit the gym again and did around 8 miles and lifted. I am buff. Actually, I'm fat. But the mind can be a beautiful thing, especially when it pictures a beautiful body!

Thursday: Another 8-10 miles. Elliptical and treadmill. Nice and easy. But I sweat like a pig. I'm not sure what's going on: since becoming the running beast that I'm becoming, I stink and sweat a LOT. I'm about to take JW up on his suggestion to purchase some of those stuffits. I stink.

Friday: 15 miles. Ten mile tempo run that kicked my ass. No HRM, no watch, no nothing. 5 miles at the gym in the afternoon. A two a day? Watch out, GZ!

Saturday: Nada.

Sunday: 20 miles. I ran with some ultra folk through Noble Canyon, along the PCT for a little stretch and finished things up on the Big Laguna trail. The Garmin charted the run between 4000 and 6000ft. elevation. We went up over 4500ft. It was fantastic! Last week was the best trail run ever. It got run-over by this run. I have some insight now. I have some loops to jump through whenever my heart desires. Absolutely the stuff.



My fellow Hobbits had everything dialed-in. We had a car parked at the 10 mile mark (baked potatoes w/kosher salt, pretzels, fruit and all the fitness nutrition refills, etc.). Wow. I was actually kinda eager to hit the trail. But the food, drink was solid. Then there was a cooler stashed a mile 15. More cold drink. Nice.



The final 3 miles were tough in that my feet were pretty sore, not to mention my quads were pretty toast. Besides that, I had had enough of this 20 miles.

The only draw-back was that I wanted to fly!! My peeps were tapering? a little worked from the day before? There was some hiking going on. I am climbing well, feeling pretty good on the trails. However, I'll take the comraderie and soul (friendship is underrated!). I just need to get out there and push myself. I have found the gear. I can climb almost anything. Anything. I feel strong. Jeremy tells me "you need to race, man." It's coming.

First race of the fall looks like this.

Then, it might be aloha. But I'll confirm that later.

Just some pics

My html(???) is preventing me from doing much in a textual blog so here are a few for the "journal."

9/1 - 9/7 total: ? miles

I took Monday (Labor day) off. Relaxed. The good running feedback I've had along with a cleaner diet has managed to keep me looking-upper and not as "worried" about such worklessness. Besides, I'm glad summer is done. It was fairly long, hot and uneventful. I shouldn't complain so I'll stop. Bring on the SoCal fall/winter "program!"

Tuesday school started. I wore shoes. It was the first time in three months or so that I've worn anything other than running shoes or flip-flops. I'm in culture shock for sure. Now I'm set to scramble around and teach 7 classes until December. Yikes. I'm trippin. But the first week is in the bank and I'm ready to roll.

Wednesday a little first week jitters/stress. No exercise. I'm a loser. No I'm not. Yes I am. I'm not.

Thursday I was going to sit on my ass again but read GZ's blog and got inspired. Ran. Did 1.5 hrs. of work. Solid.

Friday was another little run, etc. 1.3 hrs. of work.

Saturday was simply epic. We traveled to Malibu, CA to participate in a little annual camp-out with some friends. On Sat. morn, Jack and I went and scouted up the coast; I wanted to verify the grand potential of Sycamore Canyon and La Jolla Canyon. Sycamore looked great, but I actually bumped into a trail runner finishing a run in La Jolla Canyon. Here is one site. Here is another. I followed his advice to bypass Sycamore and run La Jolla. And he said, take the Ray Miller trail up and have a go from there. I ended-up doing 11.5 miles, climbed a little over 2000ft. But the Ray Miller trail consisted of 1000ft. the first two miles. It was simply epic. I started at about 2:30, the heat of the day settled in nicely. But having hydrated well, I didn't even make it through one water bottle of half water/half gatorade. I ran very well, strong. The climb was, well, sexy. The trail perfect. The runner I'd met mentioned that the Ray Miller was key (La Jolla in general) because no bicycles allowed. They were coming out of Sycamore. I don't have a problem with mtbikers necessarily, but I took his advice and ran with it. BTW, I will have the mtbike up there one of these days for the sheer climbing work. Perfect single track and really nice fire roads that just go steady up. The views will make you go hmmmmmm.

Probably the best trail run I've been on ever. At "the top" I was able to look back into the Point Mugu State Park towards the backside of Boney Mountain where I ran my first trail race, which was a beast.

The Malibu area is truly special. Some pure coastline which happens to be just north of a very noxious place called L.A. Point Mugu is the shit.

Sunday was some hiking with the family. 1 hr. Great stuff. Even a little trail running with my 4 1/2 year-old.

Total for the week: about 6 hours of work and one terribly key work-out. This coming week I'll be getting back to my 50ish mileage. The main focus now: consistent work with very key work-outs. I think I have a group run at Noble Canyon for next Saturday - I want to say 20 miles or so?

We'll see. . .