Workout 1. 9 miles treadmill in 62:04 (6:53 per mile pace). Easy. Workout 2. 5.01 miles outside in the cool rain in 34.29 (6:53 pace). 14 miles in doubles today. ----------------------------- Format change. From now on(after today), I will only have one big ass post during each day. At the top will be my workouts (1 and 2) and then 'below the line' will be all the other irritable and immature bashing of innocent, happy, and peace-loving peoples caused by my rampant overtraining mixed with a dollop of my sardonic outlook on life; I'll throw in some occasional gentle stories about swans, flowers, and canals too. Sorry folks. I've probably confused you all at some point when you are trying to find out what I'm doing for a workout. Sometimes I forget that this thing is supposed to be a running log first, and a diary of garbage second. --------------------------- Something in me is changing; these past fews days 6:50s to 7:00s have been very easy. I feel incredibly strong and relaxed. I've never felt this way in my running life. My arms pump down wide in tandem with a different pair of legs that I've never really felt. To boot, I'm down to weighing 163 again and feel very nimble. I'm optimistic that I'm in new ground and whatever insanity that I've been throwing at my body in parallel (speed, MP, progression) stacked on higher miles is paying off. If I have smashed through a point where a 120 mile week feels strong, I can look around at others making this summit for the first time and tell them that it's doable. Anyone can do this guys and gals. Weather the malaise, suffer the doubt, become snowblind in moments of despair as you sleep in the back of your car in the Imax parking lot at lunch--but you can do this. You can. --------------------------- Tomorrow's 700 people on a six-foot bike path is now up to 1000 or more people on said path. I'm starting to miss the Barney Fife 5ks of a few weeks ago. I'm going to try and race this thing smart--go out at 5:30 and take it from there. The course is extremely rolling and that, combined with the high probability for Valley Forge to become a wind tunnel, makes for a challenging day. But if I feel tomorrow the way I feel today, I'm going to fucking crank this sucker hard. --------------------------- I started to put of decorations down by my treadmill in the basement. Right now I have Billy Mills putting his hands up after he just won the famous gold in Tokyo in 1964. It's framed and its the typical picture you see with Mills' jejune and uninspiring quote: "Every passion has its destiny." underneath one of the most inspirational acts of running courage in the history of the sport. I love the picture; I love the story; I hate the quote. Anyway, it's sitting on the ground because I don't know how to drill a hole into concrete. I'm sure I can get the right bit etc. etc. but the last time I drilled in basements, I was in Vermont and the hole I drilled became a spigot for the reservoir that was my one acre tract of land once the snow melted. I kept a big ass screw in there and was afraid to touch it so I'm afraid to touch this McBasement wall.