Comeback A Success So Far

It's great to be back to full training after 9 months of not being able. As I've said many times here, I was out for 5 months with a foot injury and then while coming back I was dealing with bad tendinitis in the same area and was stuck at relatively low mileage for the first 4 months back. Since then I've been hitting the PT's prescribed drills very hard and all issues are nearly resolved. In fact my foot has hurt just a few times in the last 3 weeks. I've been able to get some really solid mileage averaging just over 100 a week for the past 6 weeks. It feels great to be getting back into shape again but my fitness has come along very slowly. I still don't feel like I'm in great shape but I think a few more weeks and I'll be ready to go.

My next big race is The Great Cow Harbor 10k out in Long Island, New York in mid September. I'm excited to go back after missing last years race. They put on an excellent event and treat all of the 'elite' runners very well. I don't really consider myself elite but I guess I'm fast enough to make the cut to be one of a group that gets help with a portion of the cost to fly out and they even put us up with a great family while out there.

Most importantly though is that the year is about to get started for the Mountaineers down at Western and I'm very excited to get back to coaching after the summer break. We are going to have a great team again this year on both the mens and womens sides with an excellent chance to challenge for the win. As always though, there will be some very stiff competition and I know those boys and girls down south will be doin work.

On a final note I wanted to welcome Sean Brown and Loren Ahonen to the team. Both of them are recent Western State grads who I had the pleasure of being teammates with and coaching for several years. They both boast some pretty good PRs so watch out.

Bix 7 Diaper money

I’m sitting at DIA with some extra time on my hands (partly thanks to United Airlines who feel they should be compensated $75 if I am going to fill a vacant seat trying to get home on an earlier connecting flight), so I figured this would be a good time to update the blog. I’m returning home after competing in my third straight Bix 7 mile this morning in Davenport, Iowa. Bix is probably the toughest road race I have run. (see course at http://www.bix7.com/2011/bix.php) The course is extremely hilly, but it’s the heat and humidity that really put it over the top. I’m not exactly sure what the temp and humidity levels were – all I can really say was that it was hot as hell out there. Despite the conditions, I was pleased with the result today. I went out fairly conservative just off the second pack for the first 2.5 miles. Familiarity with the course definitely helps, and I knew the predominantly downhill first third of the race turns into grinding uphills real quick. It was around the second big uphill (mile 2.5-3) that I surged into 6^th place and tried to make a move to catch a couple Kenyans falling off the lead pack. I was slowly closing the gap through miles 3 and 4, but then started hitting the wall myself. The last 2 miles turned into a death march that I’m sure we’re all familiar with. I was hanging on to the 1^st American position as best I could, but when Abdi passed me around mile 5.5, I couldn’t muster any response. I ended up 7^th overall and 2^nd American. I felt it was a pretty solid effort but not a great race.

I actually wasn’t planning on running Bix this year. My wife is 8.5 months pregnant with our first child, and it took some lawyer-like arguing to convince her that it was a good idea to run. I ended up spending about 18 hours total in Davenport and was calling every hour to make sure Courtney wasn’t going into labor. Looks like I’ll catch the birth of my first child after all.