Ramble on....

Robert Plant once said it's been a long lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely time...but he also tried to convince us that D'yer and Mak'er were real words, so I'm not sure how much he can be trusted. But yes, been along time since I've posted....blah, blah, blah....I'll backdate some entries and it will be like I've never left! I've got a few drafts I need to finish off....but hope to be back at this more regularly.

I'm Robert Plant...and I'm cool enough to use the word lonely 5 times in one sentence.

Dangerously close to 2 weeks to go till Charleston...and I'm putting all my stock in my training plan. Definitely some things that I've never done before are raising some internal questions, but at this point, I'm just locked into the plan. I could open my spreadsheet, see a 24 mile tempo run 2 days before the race, and shrug my shoulders, and say, "well, it has worked so far....". I'm in the sort of blind loyalty phase that causes people to join cults or become Cubs fans.


Anyways, here are some of the "sure, why not" new piece of training so far...

• Fast-finish 22 miler (14 @ 8:25 pace, dropped the last 8 all lower than 7:35) 2.5 weeks before the race. Quick recap: This was for sure one of the 'signature' runs in training so far. Really had a terrible day of prep, perfect for holiday laziness (what, a serving size of chili cheese potato chips isn't 1 bag? Well if I had one beer, what's a 4th going to hurt? ), but not running focused at all. Started at the VaBeach convention center, headed out to Seashore State Park and got a few miles on trails and found a water fountain (really couldn't have done logistics worse on this run), back to my car by mile 13 for water, Accel gel, and back to the boardwalk. More than any other run, this sent off the "it is going to hurt" alarm for the marathon, as the last 4 miles were just keeping my cadence and managing my mind and the pain. A few more stops than I wanted on the run, but turned through the last 8 pretty much stop-free....so hopefully this pays off.

• 10 miler @ MP pretty late in the game (this upcoming Tuesday) We shall see. Last decent effort run before race day.




• Track workout 2 weeks before race day....
  
  

So the last bullet is next on the agenda. If I really stopped and thought about it, I'd probably be like..."really? 20 x 400m 2 weeks out?". But so far, so not-injured.....so far, so feeling pretty confident....so far, so seriously, if you want me to join your "Order of the Mystic Comet" Cult....just sneak it on my marathon plan, and I'll see you at the compound.