Le Blog du Rob #103

“You’ve gone from the crappiest I’ve ever seen you, to the best I’ve seen in a long time.” –Coach Watson

That pretty much sums up my last seven weeks. Holy crap man, this build has been silly. I’ve been all over the damn place, both mentally and physically. Up, down, fast, slow, and everything in between, but here we are now folks, 10 days out and I am right where I have to be, feeling fresh and frisky. Hells yes, can’t wait to give it a go on the Oct. 20.
I had my last big workout on Saturday and it went swimmingly. I was supposed to do a 25K tempo run, broken down into 20km steady with a 5km “kick” but due to an unplanned break we had to change it up just a bit. And when I say “unplanned break” pretty much every runner knows exactly what I’m referring to.
Workout ended up being 18K at 3:10-11ish pace, a 5 minute break then a hard 5K kick. I was annoyed about having to take that break so I hit that last 5K hard! Ended up going 14:29 on it, made me feel much better about taking that poop. I have not run a 5K that fast in quite some time.

Coach Pete made a pretty cool little video of the workout. Check it out:

If you don’t have time to watch the video let me break it down for you: it starts off with me running down a road, then some music starts, I continue running down the road, then the music stops and soon thereafter I stop running. Oh, and did I mention that I am shirtless the whole damn time? It’s a pretty special video, it’s won a bunch of awards.

I did another little workout on the track yesterday and that too went very well. So here we are, and as the most overused saying in our sport goes: “The hay is in the barn” (seriously, around this time of year you’ll hear that damn phrase 8-12 times a day) It’s full on taper time. Generally, I hate tapering, but this time around it’s different. I’ve been looking forward to this taper big time. My training and racing schedule has been pretty crazy this year. I am more than happy to sit on my butt, watch movies and let all that work absorb into the ole’ body. Trust the training, trust the work and get to that line as rested as possible.

I am very keen to get after it on Oct. 20. This will be my third time attempting STWM, but this is the first time I am actually fit, healthy and ready to get at it. The other two times I attempted Toronto I got there and I was kinda like, ok… let’s see how this goes *closes eyes and takes a wild swing… nope… dnf* This time things will be different… I hope… oh god, do I ever hope!

Big weekend of races coming up here folks. This is a great time of year to be a fan of the sport. We have the Victoria Marathon over there on the west coast. Can’t wait to follow my man Kip at that one. Kelly Wiebe will also be giving it a go in the half there, good luck buddy!

But the biggie this weekend is the Chicago Marathon. Chicago is one of the biggest and best marathons in the world. I have a bucket list of seven marathons I have to do before I hang up the flats. Chicago is one of those races. (I’ve done 2 of 7 with Boston and the world championship – the other five are London, NYC, Chicago, Fukuoka and the Olympics.

I’m very keen to see how the American studs do in Chicago. I think Ritz is gonna smash another one, dude is nails, and he’s fit. Fit Nails- That’s a gnarly combo. Also really looking forward to following Teg in his debut at the distance. I really hope he does well. I’m a big fan of coach Schumacher and his entire crew. Good luck to those guys!

Also pumped to follow the Black Lungs crew as they ready themselves for battle in the Windy City. These are my boys from blog#73. Great group of guys whom just love the sport and continue to work hard and push each other to new heights. Best of luck to Darren, Mike, Dan, Robert, Anthony and crew. Do work men!

Well, that’s all I have right now. I am going to go jogging now.

Have a great weekend everyone.
-rob-