"PRIOR PREPARATION PREVENTS PISS POOR PERFORMANCE"

16 miles on the PRT / So Mt course. Just a med long run with a couple of down hill mile sprints. Yowzza, what a great med long run trainer and entry into "Taper Madness" ! 19 days 18 hrs till Showtime.....Yea !

Oh happy Labor Day to all of you still laboring out there. I had a rest day and went to a great big car show.....

5 easy miles on the PRT....

8 easy miles w/3@MP.

6 med miles on the big block this Zero Dark Thirty....

8.5 mi this Zero Dark Thirty morning from home to South Mountain and back. the humidity started out at 65% and by the time I was about a block from finishing it started to rain...lucky for me I guess? 7 mph breeze.14 days & 23.5 hours till I get a case of white line fever at the Full Monte ! 

Taper Time rest day...

12 easy long style miles on PRT & South Mountain. Start at 64* at Zero dark thirty, half way thru the run it started raining and I turned around and headed home staying just in front of the rain falling. 

TT Rest Day

6 mi on the big block, 1/2 @MP.....11 days till HFM.... 63*, 15 mph wind, 54% humidity...What you see is what you get.

5 miles today on the big block. 53*, light 6 mph wind, 77% humidity between rain storms with black to gray skies. Kind of a dreary day but it only helped feel at home on the road thru Taper Madness. 9 days 22 hours and it's almost all done but the crying at the Full Monte!

6 miles on the PRT enjoying the cool weather. 

4 easy am miles on the PRT......

Rest Day.....&  my 50th High School Reunion.

8 miles on the south mountain for a pre race shakedown cruse.

2.62 miles on the small block. This was my traditional shakedown and good luck run and thats it for training. Today I will prepare my Carb load meals and start the process of eating it on  Wednesday morning thru Friday afternoon. Saturday morning at 7:am the Full Monte gets underway....

Yum yum, it's pasta/carb loading time, three days of feeding my face with pasta! It's a good thing that I love pasta!

2 days 9 hrs -  Full Monte

Just hangin’, eatin’ pasta, and resting till 7:am on Saturday morning!!!

Taper & Carb Load

Showtime at the Full Monte/Huntsville Marathon - September 21, 2019

It was a pretty great day running the Full Monte/Huntsville. At the starting line it seemed to be about 32* or at least you could see your breath. There was a heated tent but you couldn't get all 380 marathon participants in it. Troy and I hung out in the tent long enough to get prepared for the run down the mountain to the Huntsville City Park finish line. At about  10 minutes before the starting command we finished preparations for the race, putting our throw down clothing bags in the cargo truck and then worked our way to the starting line where we met up with our respective pacer and pace groups. I was disappointed to learn that there wasn't an exact match pacer to the pace that I wanted to run the race, so I jumped into the closest one which was the 3:50:00 pace group. This was probably a fatal mistake in my plan. The marathon seemed to start right on time and the herd of 380 marathoners were off and running. I was really amazed at how well I was acclimating to the 8500 ft of altitude and my increase pace. I went on to hit the half way point or my first half split in the race (13.1mi) at 1:56:22, which was a bit faster than I was planning on. Meanwhile Troy was running with the 3:25:00 pacer and was way ahead of me on the course. Earlier before the race began I stated to Troy that if I was able to pass  him during the race it would mean that his plan had fallen apart. At the halfway point my race seemed to be going fine, but as my race continued somewhere about 17 to 20 miles out I really started to become fatigued and started to experience some muscle cramping and fatigue in my right hamstring and lower glute all the while suffering reduced pace times. This situation continued to with me to the finish line. Sadly enough I didn't accomplish all my goals for this race but I am quite satisfied with my final results. My chip time for the Full Monte was 4:28:59, a bit slower than I had planned on but better than several of my more recent marathon races. I am most impressed with the recovery of my left knee to the point that I am even able to get out and run at an advanced pace! Troy finished the marathon at 4:18:08 which was an all time PR in his marathoning, almost a 25 minute improvement over his last marathon !  So now it's time to get recovered and get ready to do the University of Utah Homecoming U5K race on Saturday September 28th, I've got to defend my 1st place Age Division Title/ranking from previous years!!!

2 easy miles and then a lt w/o. Live is good and returning fast.

3 recovery miles this am, lifes returning slowly but surely!

3 easy recovery miles getting ready for the The U5K Saturday, I hate the short layovers! I’m an old guy and need more recovery time between races..

the U5K (Homecoming 5K)was a blast as usual, it threatened to rain but only sprinkled a couple of times, about 60* at the start and dropping as time went on. I was just too tired from the Huntsville Full Monte to to put out much effort this year so I just went for a fun run. AD: (65-69) AD Pl: 4/9.  Maybe next year!