US XC Champs/last week of training

So the day before US Cross, I travel with Nicole Feest on the same flight to Spokane. Oh and the reason she does not post on the blog is, because she still not able to figure out how to post... hahaha We took the public bus which was an "amazing race" type of experience. I think she lost her phone, bus pass, and bus map like 10 times! hehehe needless to say it was a good time.

As Greg said in an earlier post my 2 favorite things in life are betting on sports and picking up chicks. That being said, I don't have a problem and I'm not in denial. I don't want to stop betting! It feels soo soo good when i win. The background is that, at work we've been playing espn.com "the streak" and I got to a streak of picking games to 14. The night before I raced was my loss that broke the streak(and may have killed my race)!!! I called Art about a boxing match that night... who was no help and that's why I lost my streak!

The race... I put my self in good position to have a shot at being top 10. I was the back end of 20 person lead pack, however it really wasn't my day. Right about the end of the first lap which was a 2k loop of a 12k. I thought to my self, "So I have 5 more of these... I'm screwed!" I held on until about 3k, until I knew I was really out of it. I slowly faded back to 40 something place and ran 38:41 which is like 5.10 mile pace. If i could blame anyone i would blame Art for letting me down with the boxing pick and losing my streak the night before the race...

But 4real(for real) I was a couple weeks behind from training going into race when I got sick a couple of weeks ago. I just need a couple of good workouts under my belt to really be ready and I didn't have it. What I was able to salvage out of the race was; I at least put my self in place to run well at the beginning, I at least got a good tempo on grass and at sea level, and afterwards I caught a ride with some friends to Eugene, OR to train at sea level for a couple of days.

The Eugene trip after the race was awesome! I wish I had pictures, but I don't have a camrea :( but let me paint you a picture with words!!! (i suck at writing, so that's not going to happen) My coach (Andy Downin) lives in Eugene, so that's why I planned to travel there after the race. I got a great long run 20+ on sunday with the "brothers" at about 5.45 pace. we then pumped a 10/10 double on monday. Workout on Tuesday with the Brothers. we did 2x800 2.30, 2.27; 6x1 min on, 1min off; 2x800 2.20, 2.18; 6x1on, 1off. I felt pretty good. It was great to be at sea level and do a workout there again. Drove through a beautiful scenic drive to the Pacific coast and ate clam chowder and whale in Florance(ok no whale, but did have some "little whales!" aka goldfish crackers) But, I did a bike ride around Eugene, Hayward field, the cemetery, and then back to Colorado Springs!

Sorry my post was so long :( I needed to post over a week ago and hadn't gotten around to it.

A forced few days off

I had planned on writing my blog entry today about the race I was planning on racing this morning. I was hoping my entry would have gone something like this... "I ran my first race in about 6 months today and it went fantastic. I started out conservatively and picked it up with each mile. It was only a 5K, but a step in the right direction."
Instead of running that race I was forced to take a few rest days. I woke up Thursday morning with some symptoms resembling a cold, but they were still a little vague and not quite sticking. I still did my workout (just a little fartlek), and while I felt decent the last couple of pickups felt a little hard. I felt a little worse throughout the day and ended up calling in sick to work on Friday and did not run because I wasn't feeling good. Last night I wasn't able to fall asleep until after 1:30 because I was having weird joint and muscle pain (elbows, calves, hamstrings, hands) and the only reason I fell asleep is because I took some pain reliever. So, that led me to the decision of no run today. We will see what happens for tomorrow. The most I will do is a short run and then maybe try to throw a long run in a different day next week.

Husky Invite/U.S.A Indoor Championships

Hey everyone, I tried all day to load a video of my blog for this weekend. So after a long time of attempting, I just did it differently. I post my video blog on myspace. so you can click the link to see my video of whats going on as of late with me.

http://www.myspace.com/aucenciom

I don't do grass

My last few weeks of training have been pretty decent. Three weeks ago, I ran my highest mileage week since before the Olympic Trails in 2007 (139 miles). Two weeks ago, while feeling the burn of the previous week's volume I ploughed through 117 miles. Last week I mustered 114 miles while traveling to the US XC Champs with Morgan (my daughter) in tow. Alone in an airport with a 17 month old the night before a national champs race was a new experience for me. I was exhausted by the time I got to my hotel in Spokane and turned her over to Grandma and Grandpa. Needless to say, I didn't expect great things at the XC champs given the mileage I'd been running and only 2.5 weeks of workouts under my belt. And sure enough, I didn't do anything special. Frankly I really struggle racing on grass surfaces but probably felt the best I've felt in the past three months during the race (which isn't saying much). I was thrilled to find myself picking several guys off the last lap despite having gone out too hard. I can feel the strength of marathon training starting to kick in. Now I just need some speed.

I love racing XC, I just wish I didn't suck at running on grass and mud. Put me on a firm dirt trail, roads, or a track and there's no way that field of runners would put 44 dudes in front of me, but something about soft wet grass or mud seems to suck the efficiency out of my stride more than others. I'm still waiting for the day that USATF picks a XC course that is on nice firm footing with some real hills in it.

I've backed off a bit this week. But big miles planned again for next week!

What a weekend.

Well I figured that I would give the folks a few days to put up their own results from the weekend performances but as the days past I realized that either they are too shy to put down what they ran this weekend or they forgot their passwords. So here are some of the results that were thrown down by the BRC/adidas team this weekend.

Husky Invite:

Aucencio "my legs felt terrible" Martinez: ran a PR in the 3000m of 7:59 getting the auto for US Indoor championships in a few weeks in Albq, NM. Now I'm sure he will blog a bit more about his race.

Alisha "I like to run at the back" Williams: Ran a PR in the 3000m of 9:18 also getting an auto for the US Indoor championships where I'm sure she will not go to the back of the pack straight off and remember all the valuble lessons coach Vandenbusche taught her.


Grand Valley:

Scott Dahlberg: Ran a PR in the 3000m of 8:03 just missing the auto time by .45 sec. We are waiting to see what is ran this weekend with the hopes that his time will get him in.

Paul Michel: With the pressure of "the big bet" firmly on his shoulders Paul showed his true game face and ran a PR in the 3000m of 8:04 also just missing the auto time to run in NM.

Greg Reindl: The captain of "team Golden" had a huge breakout and ran yet another PR in the 3000m of 8:10.

Art Siemers: I know he didnt win the bet with Paul (age handicap) but seriously this cat can run some darn fast times on a track for being 37! An 8:23 at any age is a great time, just ask the college guys he smoked.


US XC Championship:

Shannon Payne: In a very stacked field "Payne Train" ran to an impressive 19th place. In a few years a top 10 will happen for this girl.

Nicole Feest: The "little Sparkplug" was right on Shannons tail in 20th place showing the depth that our ladies team has and the great results that she will post this spring.

Tommy Neal: Taking his current training into consideration (marathon prep) T-Bone ran to a solid 40th but knows that with a little fresher legs a top 20 was possible.

Jason Delaney: Also getting ready to tear up a spring marathon a 44th place is a good sign that "Heartbreak Hill" will be a minor bump in Jasons Boston Marathon.

Nice job to everyone.

Post-U.S.A. XC

I'm still trying to figure out what I think about the outcome of last Saturday's race. I mean, obviously it's a moot point by now, but still. Personally, I kind of think that there were way more positives than negatives. For one thing, I would not have changed anything leading up to the race preparations-wise, conditions were awesome (I was hoping for more mud though), the head was screwed on straight, and there wasn't anything left in the tank after I crossed the line. All you can do is the best you can do, right? Given those things, there are no regrets, at least none that I can think of. Furthermore, I felt better in that race than I've felt in I don't remember how long--I felt like I ran fast, but didn't feel like I got run over by a train, it is hard to explain, but I don't know when I last felt like that. I would actually say that I was most happy/thankful for that fact above anything else. It feels like I kind of got off to a fresh start and there is a lot further to go, and plenty more to come, and a lot left to help get there, I think that sort of thing gets taken for granted sometimes. So in that regard, I was actually pretty thrilled about it all. Hopefully this will act as a springboard into 2010.

On the other side of the coin, the goal/expectation leading into the race was to finish top-10 and/or make a World's team. Neither of which was accomplished. I actually barely scraped top-20 (19th). And World's? Forget about it. Looking over the results post-race made me grasp just how high caliber the top-15 or so were, and had I finished top-10 that would've been an enormous breakthrough to say the least. As in, I probably would be packing my bags now to go to Oregon and run for the Swoosh or something. I knew that the field would be good, but to be honest I did not look too much at the entry list prior to the race because that stuff wigs me out and I don't like going into a race with pre-determined ideas of where I stand in a field based on anyone's reputation. To give an idea of the caliber of the field, the woman who took first last year (Emily Brown) finished 7th this year, and none of those top-6 women even ran the race last year. So needless to say there was a tremendous amount of depth in the top-30 relative to last year. Still, thinking of that stuff still makes it seem like more of an excuse on my part as to why I wasn't up there. So it's hard to not look at it as a failure of sorts. But it's also weird viewing something as a failure but not being in the least bit disappointed with yourself. That makes me wonder if I am getting lazy or complacent. I don't think so....I hope not.....but this is all more motivation to stoke the fire.

The trip itself was pretty cool, and I got to meet some people that I have only formerly seen in running magazines. Walking around the host hotel was like being in Runner Hollywood or something. Dathan Ritzenhein asked me what's up. Al Sal said hi to me in passing (I wanted to ask him if he had any extra of those inhaler things that his runners are always huffing on pre-race, but I didn't). Shalane Flanagan told me good job post-race (even though I told her good job first, and I'm pretty sure she had no idea who I was or if I was even in the race considering she finished 3 minutes ahead of me). I hung out a lot with Hey There Delilah (no I didn't sing the song once the entire trip, but I really wanted to) and Kristen Anderson (a former multi-time D2 national champ). And Billy Mills gave me a hug, he's a pretty cool dude.

With all that stuff aside I decided to jump in the 15k in Jacksonville in a little less than a month, it was a last minute decision and I've never raced over 10k before, so we'll see how it goes. It'll be a PR by default though. I'm way excited.

I hope everyone had a swell Valentines Day.

Grand Valley 3k

The events leading up to the race:

Friday morning - Art and I don't want to go outside to run so I ran 1 mile on the treadmill and Art ran 4 miles while watching some reality show on drug rehab. Then when I am back in the room, I hear some pounding in the hallway and Art comes in out of breath saying he just did strides in the hotel hallway.

Tommy call's Art for running advice oh wait, no he called about advice on a boxing match. Tommy said he has two hobbies and they consist of betting on sports and picking up chicks.

Friday afternoon - Head to the track and see Paul, Scott and Jesse. Paul, of course, starts out by saying how much he doesn't like me. He says it's a love hate relationship but I think it's mostly just hate on his end. Art and Paul finalize the bet for the 3k on Saturday. The bet consists of Paul giving Art one second for each year difference in age. So Art has 10 seconds in hand.

The other battle in the 3k is Team Golden vs Team Gunnison. I think me and Art are the underdogs but anything can happen!

Good luck to the rest of the BRC athletes competing this weekend!

First Post!

Well, I finally remembered my password so I can join the fun. Not much is going on for me racing-wise here in the near future. I will be running in a 5k that some students at my high school organized for a good cause (http://raceforhope.community.officelive.com/default.aspx) but it won't be a big effort. I am just coming off a long training cycle that ended at the half-marathon in Phoenix Jan 17th. I didn't run my best there but I wasn't surprised as my training leading up to it wasn't that great. I took some downtime and am now just starting to build again. This training cycle my big goal race is the Riverbank Run 25k in Grand Rapids on May 8th. Being that this is very near my hometown I really want to run well. I will post again soon when I have more to talk about.

Good luck to all you BRC guys and gals racing this weekend at the GVSU BIG MEET and USATF XC Nationals!

Cross Championships Preview

I told you I would try to get back to you before the race and tell you my plan...

The field is good, but other then Ritz is pretty wide open after that. It looks like it will be muddy which will be fine, because it will slow the race down quite a bit. I planning on taking it out pretty hard and being in about 10th place by the mile. after 1 to 2 miles in a muddy race and there won't be a lot of moving 5 to 10 places at the most. Aerobically I'll be fine I just have to be in a good place and if i feel good I will close some people down in the last 3k to 4k.

This is my song of the week... maybe year!!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxB42cjHTGg

Have some GRREEATTT races this weekend everyone!

US Cross Championships Tune Up

Getting ready for US Cross has been a little rough. I been sick for a couple of days and felt the aftermath a couple more days. I have been putting in consistently over 100 mile weeks since the first of jan. other than last week i got 90 in... which i wanted to make sure i was over my crappy cold stuff and be 100 percent.

Workout wise I have been mainly doing fartlicks until last friday i did a very light "tempo" and it went kind of crappy. It was 5 miles at 5:29 avg. and didn't feel great. But that evening I had 6x200m as my second workout. I warmed up 4 miles and crused 34, 34 low, 33, 33 low, 32, 32 low with 50 second light jog. I felt great and not that it was a hard workout at all, but I just needed to run that pace just to reassure me that still can run sub 4:40 mile pace.

My workout day went really good! I had another light workout and it was 4x400, 1k, 4x400. I had to hold back quite a bit, but it's for the better of the race this weekend. I was 70-71 on the 4s and 3.04 for the 1k. I was very relaxed! The outdoor track had about 2 inch of snow on it and was about a 6 to 8 mph winds. I did put spikes on and it looks like Spokane is going to muddy anyways. So I got a little closer to race like conditions anyways. Also, I used the trust art seminars half inch spikes that he gave me last year in Spokane!!! coincidence... I dont think so!!! Thanks buddy!

I do have more stuff, if i have time I'll post before the race.

Peace!