Track and Field Blogs - Flotrack Blogs

I'm sure by now that everyone has seen how I finished at Boston, so I'm just going to give a real short recap. My stomach was giving me trouble that morning, but nothing too serious. I wasn't throwing up or anything. I was actually bound more than anything. The gun went off and I got settled into where I thought I should be in the race. After the first 2 fluid stations, I still hadn't taken very much fluid, but I felt just fine and thought nothing much of it. Approaching halfway, I saw Kevin and told him that I… more »

I have absolutely nothing to say.
I guess that's the whole point though.
The past 5 weeks have flown by and it seems like I've done nothing outside of training.

If I'd have looked at the shear volume of work I was doing at the moment a few years ago I wouldn't have believed it possible. Like anything else though you just get the routine happening you roll it out.

Monday's and Thursday's look like this:

Alarm. Morning Session. Breakfast. Physiotherapy. Nap. Pole Vault Session. Ice… more »

Mt. Sac was this weekend and for anyone that was there or has looked at the results since you know that it was once again an awesome track meet. We drove down on Wednesday and most of the Chico runners ran in B sections on Thursday night. Lindsay and Brendan ran great 10k's and Dinora ran an awesome PR in the steeple despite stopping 200 meters early.

My race was late Friday night and was much anticipated. We were right on the heels of an awesome women’s race and the guys had a lot to live up… more »

I always feel bad every month as I begin to write a blog because I read all the other blogs and there is normally something insightful or something about running. Then some one clicks on the blog section of the website where my blog happens to be at the top and start reading useless ramblings and find a picture of a mustache at the end. This month is no exception, although I am working on something pretty good for my blog and helping Reneau out for his upcoming blog.

I just wanted to say how… more »

Alright this is a little catch-up blog. It’s been quite a while since I last wrote. The indoor season has come and gone and I've spent time in Seattle, Boston and Florida. Now I’m back in the mountains preparing for the main focus of the year; the outdoor season and the Olympic trials.

My indoor season was fair. I had a lot of minor problems and was unable to put in the string of training needed to race spectacularly. The good thing is that the season's races didn’t really matter and the entire time I stayed… more »

As I write, I'm sitting in the lobby of the Sheraton Boston, where we are staying for the Women's Olympic Marathon Trials. It is the day before the race and I am trying to casually think about the race, while containing my nerves, excitement, and energy, as I'm sure I'll need all I can sequester for tomorrow.

There are a lot of hard things about marathon training, but sometimes I wonder if the taper isn’t the hardest part for a lot of people. One becomes so accustomed to long and hard efforts, that general underlying fatigue… more »

As has become my custom before all my best races, my travel to London was crazy. Before breaking an hour at the Houston Half Marathon it was a monster snowstorm that left us in a ditch and literally snowed in, before London last year it was nearly missing my flight as I realized that the train from San Diego would not drop me off at LAX like I had thought (although my tardiness did result in me getting the last available seat on the plane...in first class), before the Olympic Trials it was the fires and smoke that made for… more »

My teammates and I just spent the last ten days in Florida. It was a nice change from the Michigan weather we had been running in the last few months. I think we are pretty much ready for any type or weather that can come our way on Sunday. It was nice to get some good footing in and I think that helped our conifidence. We just got to our hotel in Boston last night. After working at the expo, the race has started to become more and more real. It's exciting to see all the other runners and see… more »

Wow what a weekend!! After a sub-par opening meet at the intrasquad Blue/Gold (4:30 1600) in dismal conditions; it felt awesome to clean the dust off the shelves (metaphorically) at The Dome.
Coming into the meet my workouts had been going well and speed was finally beginning to show itself in my legs. My schedule was my traditional early season "Workhorse" lineup consisting of: 4x8, 1600, 800 on Friday and my personal favorite the 3200 on Saturday. After my seemingly effortless 1:59.3 split to anchor the 4x8 to a second place finish I knew that the day was… more »

Well I recently got back to the states from my trip to London for the London Marathon. For those of you who hadn't heard, it was a terrible day for me as I dropped out just before 23 miles. I won't go into too much detail I'll just say it was a very bad day for me, I did all I could and in the end I just didn't have it and couldn't finish. I keep telling myself that it is often the bad races that we learn the most from, and that make us better in the end, but… more »

I spoke too soon when I said my body was holding up fine. Physically, things went downhill starting on Friday night… well, they probably started earlier but, they became problematic by Saturday morning when I couldn’t get out of bed properly. It was a planned day off so I figured I would rest and hope that Sunday I could run again. On Sunday morning I ran 30 minutes (planned to run 95 minutes) before I turned back and walked/jogged back to the car. There was no chance of running on Monday, I couldn’t even walk properly and if I stood… more »

This weekend was one crazy weekend. As many people have known for a while, we here at Chico decided to ramp up our Twilight meet and make it a distance carnival with competition from around the country. I would like to think that we were successful. We had 29 provisional qualifiers and 4 automatic qualifiers for the D2 champions in Walnut later this year.

On the first night I was really impressed with the men's steeple and the women's 800 and 3000. The weather was perfect and a number of people booked tickets to nationals in these… more »

Sometimes you have to take one step back to go two forward and I do not know if we have gone one step back the last couple of months but we have spent a majority working on the back end so we can step it up a notch. I spend my waking hours thinking how we can push the envelope, how we can make the sport better and more entertaining, how we can survive! Ever since the beginning of Flotrack we have had his idea of how a track broadcast could be produced and this Friday night we are taking… more »

It took me about a week to recover from World Cross (the travel in particular) and I am getting back in form for the track season which is coming oh so quickly. Last Tuesday I did a 400 work out on the track to wake my legs up from the flight. The work out was 10 by 400 with the 3rd, 5th, 7th, and 9th repeats being Hot, Gary likes having the team do these workouts and I wanted to get right back into workouts after the trip to try to revive my legs as fast as possible. That said… more »

A day shy of two weeks until the big day. The weather here in MI has taken a nice turn toward Spring. Just in time for us to head to FL for some heat acclimation. We'll be down there for 10 days before traveling to Boston. We have a nice house all to ourselves while our two men and coaches share another house. One long run left and one workout left. The pieces are coming together. I hope it's a picture of me finishing the race with a huge PR and perhaps an American flag.

I… more »

well, the relays is over...

i made it through all 10 events...

i had some poor events...

i hit some PR's...

i've qualified for the olympic trials...

one more big meet in between me and beijing...

things went just as expected this week. the weather was great. nice and warm with light winds and no sun! thanks to everyone for their prayers and support over the last days, weeks, months, and years. the season is just getting started, so we've… more »

Just about 2 weeks left until the big race. I am so relieved that I am finally rounding into shape. It has been quite a winter and it looks like we have seen the last of it out here in Michigan. In 1 week Pat Rizzo, myself, and the womens team will be heading to Florida for a week before heading up to Boston. Florida will be a much needed 'vacation' where we can run our last workouts and get our final preparations ready for the big day.

Over the past week we have all had our… more »

So my plan was to post a new blog everyday while I was in Scotland but I got busy and the Computer lab hours were not very convienent so I let you all down... Sorry!

I guess I have a lot of catching up to do. My last post was on Thursday morning so I’ll start with Thursday afternoon.

Jon and I did a workout in a really nice flat park with short grass right next to the dorms. We did a fartlek of 4 or 5 2 minute repeats, 3 or 4 1… more »