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.

Back to Work

I've been easing into training for one month. I'm back on the Wednesday night track horse. In terms of fitness lost, it could be a lot worse: I'm fairly pleased with how my body has responded to five weeks of no running.

Training ever day. Doing strength work at gym.

Spring racing season is a bust, though I do believe I will return to action at the Broad Street 10-Miler, a super fast race, the first Sunday in May, which will be a year since the 2009 Frederick Marathon. Last Saturday I got up early and walked from my apartment to 5th and E. Capitol streets to watch friends and teammates in the National Half Marathon. I ran 1:11.52 there last year during a 100-mile training week. This year it was a 63-mile week with a 13-mile long run and two quality days. On Wednesday, I enjoyed helping Jake Marren, who has been working really hard and is super fit, get through the classic 4 by 2-mile workout. He nailed it -- that's a good sign for Boston.

My plan: To gradually increase my training until I am putting in more volume than I ever have.

The race: 2010 Chicago Marathon. GRC is sending more than a dozen.

Pretty soon I will blog about recent sightings, recent thoughts ... But right now I need to finish my coffee and head out to run before work. I will run about 70 miles this week with a tempo run, 15-mile long run and something else.

Injury Report #7

The only thing left to do is wait. The cut/wound/eyesore/annoyance/site of infection has to completely heal and close up before I can resume training (or it might come roaring back). This is like watching grass grow ... or paint dry ... or snow fall ... or Avatar.

Today: Blizzard Round 2. Emily and I are snowed in. The gym is closed again, which actually sucks worse for Jake Marren, who is training for Boston, than it does for me. Sick of the snow, he recently put out a call for treadmill usage, and I said my gym in Capitol Hill (quit the one in Waldorf) is allowing members to bring guests on Wednesdays.

So it's Wednesday, and I get a text from Jake this morning: "Any chance of hitting the treadmill today?"

Nope.

"Then into the snow I go!" he writes.

And Godspeed.

For the past 10 days or so, I have been able to do some light cross training -- cycling, digging out every car on the block so I could eat during the Super Bowl as if I had spent the morning putting in miles.

One month gone. This is uncharted territory.

Today's training: a yoga DVD.

Feb. 1

Registered for 2010 Chicago Marathon.