Climbs and Crossings

It has been many years since my last road marathon,  four years, to be exact , and the decision to run another one came about when it was announced that the Olympic Trials Marathon would be held the day before the regular people marathon in LA. It was like the buy one, get one free of marathon weekends. The Trials We flew into LA Saturday morning and arrived downtown at the convention center about ten minutes before the start of the men's race. The course couldn't have been more spectator friendly. The runners would loop past us four times, so we got to see the entire race unfold. So. Exciting. For a tiny little video I put together, see previous post here. Making 5:45 mile splits look like no big deal The LA Marathon   Dodger Stadium, 5am.  My race plan was pretty simple: Cruise the first ten miles at an easy pace, no music, soak up the experience, and have fun. At mile ten, put on the tunes and do the work to get through the next ten. Then, just ha...

I've never actually written a year end recap post because I'm usually writing about stuff all year long so why be redundant. THIS year, however, I've been such a slacker at writing and racing that this will be brand new information. If anyone is still here. I had a kick ass 50k in March followed up with a crappy attempt at my second ever 50 miler in April, and that's pretty much where we left off. Let's address that and get it out of the way. Here's what my Lake Sonoma race report should have said: I can come up with excuses that sound reasonable as to why I dropped, but in reality my head wasn't in it. When I needed mental strength to push through, it wasn't there. That's it. I moped the rest of the spring and spent most of the summer trying to shake it off.  ANYWAY...on to summer. Summer was great. My birthday is in July, and somehow my birthday celebration has gone from the actual day, to a week, to a month to...well it started in June this ...