Training April 19-25

M - 10

T - AM 4, core PM 9 with Dylan, Patrick

W PM 10 - 6 by 800 with 300 jog for rest. Klim and Wiggy wanted to hit their race pace for today's Pike's Peek 10K (they ran 30:56 and 31:55 respectively). I tucked in the back; Dirk and Dave took turns in front. 2:25, 2:25, 2:25, 2:26, 2:22, 2:25. Klim and Wiggy did 5, kicked last 300 of last rep; I kicked, too -- sort of. Dave and I added 1 more for 6 reps.

Th - AM 10 easy

F - AM 13

S - AM 12

S - AM Emily cracked 1:50 at Lehigh Valley Half Marathon PM 12

Total 80

Training April 12-18

Good news: Got a late entry into the Broad Street 10-miler in Philly, so I'll head up there with some GRC teammates on May 2. The week after that I'll travel to New Jersey for my hometown race, a 5-miler. This is about getting a starting point.

Monday - 10

Tuesday - AM 3 PM 10

Wednesday PM 6 by 1600 with Charlie Ban, Jimmy D, Mike C and Dirk. I ran 5:11-12 across the board and felt like I was aerobic until about halfway through the last interval. Makes me think the edge of 5:20 pace at Broad Street is realistic.

Thursday - AM 8

Friday - AM 9

Saturday - AM 12

Sunday - AM 17

Total - 79

I planned to train more on Thursday and Friday -- and I would have liked to have done a workout on Saturday -- but I did something funny to my knee during the Wednesday workout, and this is hardly the time to roll the dice. I'm glad, though, to be able to train through something, even if it means I have to cut back a little.

Training April 5-11

Monday - 10, strides
Tuesday - AM 3 PM 9
Wednesday - 10 with 30 minutes tempo, strides
Thursday - 13
Friday - 10
Saturday - 16
Sunday - 9 with 30 minutes tempo
Total - 80

Cherry Blossom

Here is Tilahun Regassa, 20, waving to the crowd as he surged away from the field at last summer's Falmouth Road Race. The year's fastest half marathoner (he ran 59:17 in January) won last weekend's Crescent City Classic 10K in New Orleans in 28:03, and he came to today's Cherry Blossom Ten Mile Run in D.C. to compete for a winning sum of $7,500.

What a race! A pack of nearly a dozen pros from Kenya and Ethiopia set the early pace. But Ethiopian favorites, Regassa and Lelisa Desisa, 20, and Kenya's John Korir, 34 and a three-time winner, and Stephen Tum, 24, broke free (running 4:30 miles); and as they came into view from the side of the road, say 50 meters from the finish line, we saw the two Ethiopians and Tum bunched up, sprinting madly.

Tum clearly nipped Desisa at the line, but Desisa filed a protest claiming that Tum had somehow impeded his last strides. Tum nonetheless got the win; Regassa took third (and will consequently take home $5,000 less in prize money).

Tum's time was 45:43, and as Jim Hage's article in The Washington Post notes (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/11/AR2010041103550.html), that's the race's second fastest time in its 38 years. (The course record, 45:38, which was set in 1995 by Ismael Kirui, was also a world record at the time.)

For the women, last weekend's Crescent City Classic winner was indeed able to earn the top prize. Lineth Chepkurui, 23, simply annihilated the field, running by herself to win for the third straight year in 51:51.

A four-time winner ('78-'81), Bill Rodgers, who had surgery for prostate cancer in 2008, could be seen running straight through the finish, his hair bobbing up and down as he continued on through a mass of finishers walking through the finisher's chute. There was Boston Bill, running on toward the White House like he had a few more miles to put in.

Unbelievably, another legend, Joan Samuelson, 52, shattered yet another age group record with her time of 60:52, which was good for 18th. (She started with the open men rather than the elite women, who started 10 minutes before everyone else, and could be seen running well under 6-minute pace with a pack of men around mile 2, as the runners came off the Memorial Bridge and passed behind the Lincoln monument.)

GRC put up a fine showing. Jake Klim led the way for us, finishing 22nd in 50:56 for a PR. He was the fourth American, and when you consider that Cherry Blossom's elite field (you need sub 48 to get in) contained 22, finishing where he did is pretty darn impressive. There should be more about our team's efforts at our blog -- http://www.georgetownrunningcompany.blogspot.com/ -- in the coming days, and Peter Silverman (aka Towpath) has produced this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9A9YsQfvWg

Training to train to train

I've missed a couple days during the past two weeks due to a busy schedule and a wicked cold, but I've reached the point neuromuscularly where I am able to really train so I can REALLY train for the Chicago Marathon. The race is Oct. 11 and GRC is sending a sizeable brigade (aka a bunch of weirdos who do lots of running). I am working with my coach to develop a 20-week plan that might serve as a blueprint for us. As Klim and I were discussing yesterday while making a loop through Roosevelt Island, the big advantage we will all have is group tempos and long runs. As soon as a rough training draft has been developed, I will pass it on to Klim et al and more folks for extra fine tuning. Of course, it will naturally be revised as we go along, maybe even torched.

I did 6 times 3 minutes on, 1 minute off with Patrick Murphy in the field behind the Tidal Basin on Thursday. Yesterday, I got in 1:45 (15) with a group, and I'm about to sneak out for a moderate 10-12. It's a shame not to race this spring -- and I very much look forward to seeing my teammates toe the line at the Cherry Blossom 10-miler -- but with running you have to try to take everything in stride, focus on the advantages and blot out the negatives.

Oct. 11 - 20 weeks = May 24. I will probably sneak in a 5K the first weekend in May and an 8K the weekend after that.