After IMC, I really felt motivated to work on the running over the winter.  The plan was to do a January marathon as a forcing function for a lot of solid running. We picked this one since I'd heard good things about it and I like the area. We got a hotel in Del Mar and kicked back in San Diego on Friday and Saturday.  Man, it's easy to love that area.  Highs in the low-to-mid-60s in January were mighty nice compared to what we've had around here.  We went to the zoo on Friday, which was a lot...

One of the things that my coach wanted me to get done this season was some metabolic testing to determine exactly where I was at, in terms of metabolic efficiency.  Endurance sports performance is very much about one's ability to use fat -- versus carbohydrates -- as an energy source.  There is some debate about how best to train this, but the idea is basically that the more efficiently your body can use fat as a fuel, the faster you'll go for longer.  Note this has only a very little to do with diet and weight management, it's about how...

The Seattle area is a great place to live.  If you can handle the long streak of overcast skies in the winter, everything else is great. Unless you're a sports fan, that is.  Our professional sports teams, collectively, have exactly one Championship.  In 1976.  In basketball.  That's it. And while hope springs eternal for those teams, at least we had good old UW Husky Football, right?  As a UW Alum, I love me some purple.  UW was a major force in NCAA Football up through the 1991 National Championship team.  Followed up with 10...years...slowly...going...downhill to a Rose Bowl victory in...

If you want to see what kind of dogs people in your neighborhood have, just go run on a weekday, while school is in session between about 3pm and 5pm. Why?  It appears that "walk the dog" is a regular guest on the chore list of kids and teenagers a like.  And that's when they get it done, 3-5pm, weekdays.

For the last few years, I've been working on strategies to declare a gift truce with my family.  For some reason, I don't want people buying me things most of the time - I've got enough stuff already!   An added complication is that I don't seem to be able to understand the reciprocal nature of a "truce" as I keep buying things for other people anyway, ruining the whole thing.   Anyway, this year I suggested my family to make donations to charities in lieu of a gift purchase.  I gave them some suggestions of causes that I support,...

With two weeks to go until the Carlsbad Marathon, I had a bunch of running on my schedule this week.  I woke up Friday morning feeling a bit "off".  I had a 2.5 hour run on my schedule, which I cranked out (again) in cold, wet, windy weather.  The whole run was tough - by the end of the day I'd clocked 41.3 miles between Tuesday the 1st and Friday.  That's a lot, and with the running on the schedule for the weekend it looked like I was going to go well over 50 for the week. But by Friday...

Wow, 2008 already.  New Year turned out pretty well, we did a short ski trip up to Sun Peaks with some friends.  We had a great time.  Funny, it was weird driving past the signs for the turn off to Penticton; I've got such great memories from IMC and am looking forward to getting back there next year.  It was easy to imagine we could turn off and it would be sunny, calm, and green there just like it was in August. My coach Scott sent out an email to all of his 2008 athletes setting some context and asking...