Red Dirt Harriers

My next race on the horizon is going to be Tulsa Run. Unfortunately my race last weekend at the Prairie Fire 1/2 didnt pan out, but the bright side is that I ran a couple nice workouts prior to it and reminded myself of the importance of rest. I also had a fun time at the event, in addition to sleeping in my car, as there were some other buddies running the event and I randomly bumped into some family as the finish line and am hoping to reconnect with them. I also am going to go ahead and mention that I'm set to run the Santa Barbara International Marathon on November 10th. In selecting the event, I was after one that would be a race scenario, rather than a time trial and since I don't know the area very well, it will serve as a nice little exploratory visit. I felt like it is time to get back on the marathon horse but I haven't necessarily slated my training how I might have in previous leadups and so I hope to bring a different perspective to the table and also allow mys...

Summer's here, we've got nice, hot weather, lots of daylight and the only thing that sounds appealing sometimes is sitting on the couch in your underwear with your beverage of choice. There's alot of talk floating around of The Summer of Malmo, but I felt obliged to remind everybody about the origins of this proclamation: I think we all know who that was, more importantly we should consider the points laid out in his exclamation. Three months of floating, reading a book or two, tasting the fruits of the season: all these things can be well integrated into a great summer and successful rebuild to new heights in the fall. I too have always been a fan of The Summer of Malmo ideals. In fact, I pretty much use these methods when training for anything other than a marathon.

So I had this really eloquent, pithy write up of the week surrounding the OKC marathon. It was Norman Music Fest, Jenny's birthday, and then I was going to recap training and all. Well somehow I lost it as I hate typing these posts from iPad. Suffice it to say that I had a lot of fun that week, ran 2:37 in a very controlled effort in conditions which I hate. I recovered fine after an awesome backyard crab boil, but then travelled to the Green Bay marathon only to be have my effort stymied by the weather. I actually finished but the assholes decided to only indicate the finishers in the top 5 of each gender. I thought I was running conservatively enough going through 1/2 in 75' but everybody slowed and the nature of the course almost ensured that. I ceded 5th place around mile 23 when I stopped to stand in a sprinkler hoping I could regroup and make up the gap, but that didn't happen. I'm most frustrated by again getting two separate races where weather just killed my po...

I'm sitting here waiting for the Oklahoma summer heat to abate. I've elected to hang out in Stillwater for the summer which is pretty low-key and relaxing. I have some great training venues, with the cross country course literally feet away, the track less than a 1/4 mile away and dirt roads less than a mile. It's allowing me some time to rest physically and mentally from the last six months. There were alot of miles run and some frustrations in different respects and so I opted to change my surroundings. The summer around here really tests you're resolve and I have yet to really get anything going in training. Last week, I was in southern California with friends and managing to effectively stay up way to late, drink way to much beer and waste alot of time in traffic. It was a good time and made it apparent how tough a stimulus consistent 100+ degree heat is. I could spend all day there outside and have little lingering fatigue, whereas here its an hour here or there....

So far as I can tell, there's sort of two deliniations of runner. Those who enjoy going faster and those who like going longer. I can obviously be lobbed in to one of those deviations. I enjoy the discovery of new venues and mostly figure my motives are related to exploration, rather than an enjoyment of ripping off quarters. Much of this has to do with the fact that I'm not that fast and I probably tend to find more success at longer races. Plus I like to eat and the only way I can figure to work up a really good appetite is to work out for a while, as opposed to a short while, and then expecting to see huge gains and sustain motivation when you've throttled your body to an extreme and possibly even injured yourself. I'm not knocking anyone, Im just explaining my motives, persuasions, and tastes based on some empirical evidence of my own and even some common sensical notions. That being said, I ran my first 50k race last Saturday. It went fine, I was kind of able to ea...

So the last week spent in glorious Stillwater, looked something like this: M: 16 miles, dirt roads/XC course, few strides T: 16 miles, hilly dirt roads, really windy and hot W: 15 miles w/ 11x 90 on/off, 3 miles Asher run Th: 12 miles F: 15 miles, 5 shakeout, strides felt really tight S: 12 miles, stayed out late and had to entertain parentals all day so run was late and I ended up getting really dehydrated Su: 9 miles, 92 degrees stiff breeze and feeling it from week, opted to not run again because of my issues yesterday, i wanted to ensure recovery and with the heat this week i needed to be a little careful and get ready for next week; drove back to Norman and invested in some ice cream. I watched some decent films (The Big Year being the highlight) and some bad ones, cooked some tasty snacks and hurdled 3 snakes on the dirt roads without getting bitten. Im not loving the weather, it's never an easy time of the year around here, you either get allergies or gale force winds, heat,...

An update for those interested: I have been rolling out the miles, hoping to get ready for some spring races. I've been running more singles in an effort to consolidate the training stimulus, explore to the farthest reaches, and wash fewer running garments. The longer races are presumably what I will be better catered to my preparation and I will naturally hope that training through a warm Oklahoma spring gives me an edge if it comes to it. I am struggling a bit already to get the long pace runs in as it's pretty hot and fluid consumption is already a must. So a trail 50k may be the next start line I toe. In fact April is looking to be a race heavy month. Ill get some pics up of the training grounds in and around Stillwater, as I think they warrant some attention. Endless dirt roads and trails await, although I think I already know more about some of these venues than some of the locals. I'm spending a week up in these digs mainly to await Jenny's parents arrival with, ...

The latest news in SBevvy land was an adventure down to ft worth, TX for the Cowtown Marathon. A number of OKRunners were going to participate and who am I to shy away from some pacing duties and free and bottomless post race beer? Conner Wann was set to leg out his first 1/2 thon along with Josh Heimbach, Patti Rogers, Kels Hargens, and assorted other friends and patrons. As a sidenote, Ive had a tumultuous last week and a bit initiated by a massive hangover incurred a week previous, which led to a rough Saturday at the shop, which led to a trying weekend with the lady friend, which resulted in a number of sleepless and stressful days and nights. I also had managed to somehow strain an ankle tendon by a combination of running 12 miles on sand with a backpack on and doing hill repeats promptly afterward, but more likely just from lacing my damn shoe too tight. In any case my ankle looked like a bloated and decaying lamb shank and stayed that way as I worked at the shop on my feet throu...

So as the new year has been ushered in, I've struggled with training a bit. Mileage is always there but the weekly quality efforts were somewhat variable as I've already dealt with two respiratory/sinus flairups coutesy of the warmest winter in a long time around here. We haven't seen any snow down here and apparently things are blooming in January. I had a couple running resolutions which amounted to getting on trails and hills once a week. Sometimes this effort has been fused into a single run but overall, I've really enjoyed getting on the single-track at least once a week. Unfortunately my typical trail companion, Asher aka "meathead, shithead, knuckleahead, jackass, etc." has had a few run-ins with sharp objects in his haste and the most recent resulted in a gnarly gash from his shoulder across his bicep and all the way down to his elbow. Needless to say several stitches (and a satellite dish collar) were necessary and we'll just say that now he and M...