So Danny is at it again. Psyching himself up for some big fall marathons. Currently signed up for Adirondack Marathon September 25th and Cape Cod Marathon on October 30th. His goal for Cape Cod is to qualify for Day 1 registration for the Boston Marathon(2:45:00) which would be a 2 1/2 minute PR. Additionally, he would like to post the fastest GCS time of the day. A 2:45? On a hilly course? How's the training coming?
Well the training started off well for the first week. He increased his mileage to 25 with a track workout and a mid-distance(8 miles) run. With about 12 weeks to go, he was confident that he would have time to ramp his mileage up to the 40-50 miles/week that he has heard works slightly better than his previous marathon plans. One week down, eleven to go. He's committed, he'll be all set right? Well.... Along comes Munich.
Danny's sister and her boyfriend are traveling around Europe for the summer and Danny's mother and he decided that they would visit them while in Munich, Germany. Danny had very little knowledge of Munich other than what happened at both the 1936(Owen's kicking some Nazi butt despite some racism) and 36 years later in the 1972 Olympics with the Palestinians massacring the Israeli athletes and Pre coming in a disappointing, yet heroic, fourth place at the 5k. Not to sound flippant about such serious events, but Danny knew nearly nothing about Munich.
 |
| One of Danny's favorite Munich pictures, despite not needing the water while over there. |
Yet despite that, he and his mother made the trip over the big lake to visit with his sister. A nicely written report of his trip written by his sister can be found here. What she doesn't mention is that besides one harrowing run at night that Danny gets utterly lost in a foreign speaking country for over an hour, Danny didn't get any of his prescribed runs in. Okay 3 weeks down, 9 to go. Looking okay.
So back on track now that he's back in the States. He did approximately 30 miles last week and has already done 35 miles this week. He's signed up for the NH 10 on Saturday so could likely be in the 50 mile week range by Sunday. Not too shabby. Eight weeks to go and he has a 10 miler, a marathon and Pocono's 70.3 that he can all use to continue to get some meaningful miles in before Cape Cod. Perfect!
Well not so perfect. Danny has decided to go to Shanghai, China for his peak running weeks. China? Doesn't he realize the amount of smog he is going to have to contend with? Doesn't he remember the 2008 Olympics and how Haile Gebrselassie pulled himself from the race because he feared pollution's effect on his lungs?
Danny does realize this may pose a threat to his (hopefully) new fitness that he will have worked so hard the last few months to achieve. However, he also realizes that this may be a once in a lifetime opportunity to see some of the world's most ancient and wonderful landmarks. How could he pass them up?
So, while a bit unorthodox, Danny continues to pursue that 2:45 marathon time while not sacrificing all those other life experiences that make life complete. Can't wait to see how that turns out.
Up Next: NH10(Danny), Adirondack Marathon(Danny), Pocono 70.3(Am and Danny), Cape Cod Marathon(Danny) and Ironman Arizona for Am
No comments:
Post a Comment