I ran really easy last night so I ran hard at lunch. The hilly bits weren't too bad so I just squeaked under a 7min/mi average. I'm not as fast as I was at the end of 2009 and into the spring of 2010 but my stride is much different than it was then and I'm still getting used to it and trying to figure out what type of shoe will work best for me now. I felt like I put a 90% effort into the run which is great but I wonder if I'll ever be able to push myself hard enough to throw up. I don't know why that would sound at all appealing but the idea of pushing my body to absolute failure once sounds intriguing. Runing until I fall across a finish line knowing that I've left absolutely nothing out there. I need to get past my mind to unlock that last 2% - 3%. I think Chris has been that far into the pain cave. I'd like to see the back of the cave once.
Run 2) 4mi at what felt like a 9:30 - 10:00 / mi pace. My schedule worked out for me to drive over to Fleet Feet in Seattle after work today (almost didn't make it with traffic, 1h10 min to drive 13 miles!!) to get there at 6pm for a group run that the store puts on every Thursday. Today there was a special guest joining the run, new Close Personal Friend Of Mine ;-) Scott Jurek. A short list of his accomplishments would be:
- 7 time Western States 100mi Endurance Race winner
- 3 time Spartathlon 153mi race winner
- 2 time Badwater 135mi Ultramarathon winner
- Newly crowned American record holder for 24hrs with 165.7mi
- numerous other race wins, course records, and running awards
He's been there and won that. I'd like to just finish some of the races that he's won which is about as high as I can aim. Last week Scott Tweeted that he was going to be at the store tonight for the Thursday night group run and I planned accordingly. He showed up, gave a few announcements and we all (about 40 people) went for a short slow run. Scott ran at a painfully slow pace near the back of the group and talked with whoever was running near him. I started out at about a 9:00/mi pace and he never caught up to me. I started slowing down and taking my time at street crossings and I got further back in the group. I was probably running 10min miles and still never drifted back far enough in the 4 miles for him to catch me. Most people sped up a bit and ran ahead. I'm not much of a star chaser so I didn't want to stop on the route and wait for him to catch up just so I could blab to him about nothing.
Back at the store after the run he stuck around and glad-handed with anyone who wanted to. I got a picture with him and talked for a few minutes about running and the product he pushes: Green Magma which I'm curious to try now that I have a handful of free samples. Ditto for Udo's Oil. He was as expected an incredibly nice guy and at 6'2", taller than I thought he'd be. He spent a good hour there talking to everyone in the place and signing autographs, taking photos, handing out schwag, etc... before I left. Also, Brooks held a raffle for some free running gear. I got lucky and won a Pro Tec roller massager stick that I'm going to try out in about 10 minutes.
It was a nice way to spend the evening and reminds me that I should run with a group once in a while to spice things up and get out of my little bubble. I used to run with the Palo Alto Running Club years ago and while 80% of the people at the group treated it like some kind of elitist social club that I was apparently not cool enough to join, the running was great. I made it my tempo run for the week and tried to keep up with the handful of sub 3hr marathon guys and sub 37min 10K guys. It sure made me faster to compete like that every week. I hope to get back into that sort of thing when I eventually move to Seattle.
Thanks for sparing us some of your time Scott, and thanks to Fleet Feet for hosting it and Brooks for giving away some nice stuff.
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