10 miles. I got caught up in a workout with Josh, Greg, and Joe and ended up doing a warmup, then 13 x 1 minute on, 1 minute off, then a cool down. 1 minute on was anywhere from 5:40 to 6:00 pace and 1 minute off was like 6:30 to 7:00s. Humid and hot out. I feel great and recovered. ------------------------------------------- I bought an antfarm for my daughter. It took four weeks for the ants to show up. They arrive in a tube that someone actually has to pack and seal with all the appropriate legal documentation. These things are amazing; the ants are all working together as they should and have decided, in a moment of anti-establishment fervor, to kill the farmer and his family in their little green house with their little green tractor and to take all the sand from the 'ground' and take over the farmer's property above ground. I spent 15 minutes watching them do this. I'm that way with nature things which is why I stay clear of nature shows on PBS or Animal Planet; I get sucked into it. So for all the life going on upstairs, there's death down on my porch; my daughter's friend convinced her to take ownership of five dead sand crabs which were taken, sadly, from the New Jersey shore. They became more dead as they sat outside festering in the 90-degree sun in a sealed tupperware jar for a grave overlooking Mexicans hauling ass on tractors cutting the grass behind McWorld. --------------------- Random, disjointed, boring thoughts about the meaning of life: -I've written this before: whether you realize it or not, you are going up or coming down; you are either cresting a peak in your racing--in your life too. Or, you are damned to throw yourself at race after race until you finally conclude with your head looking down at the ground, that you are getting older, you've done your best, and that there's always ultras right? We all get to this point in our lives. It's as destined and programmed in our DNA as that little cancer mutation, that we don't know about, that is waiting to explode at some point and take us into the bowels of the earth, despite the yellow Livestrong bracelets that look good with a nice tan and Bristol Myers Squibb's bottom line. It's going to happen, people. -Similar to above, we all get to ride a rollercoaster in our racing history. Some of us realize it at young ages, while others of us don't get the fun until we are a bit older. But it's always the same ride--we eat away at PRs in huge chunks and think, with enough caveman shit and good ole' Hollywood tears and Jimmy Chipwood spirit, that we can make it into the zone of greatness and win one for the Gipper. I struggle daily with this. Am I at the edge of my potential here or can I run faster? Can I keep throwing spirit, intensity, and sweat at this thing? Is the ride slowing down? Is this thing a dartboard and I've thrown one too many shots at 2:36 to make me stop believing in myself? If I do 50 thousand 800s at MP, will this burn the scrub oak forest to the ground and let the new, sub 2:30 grass take root? I mean this really is the sole reason why we have running blogs full of me-me doubtings, Oxysox, Gus, racing expos, Bart Yasso and the rest of the cottage industry out to sell you whatever magic beans you need. It's those magic questions that we can't seem to answer for ourselves--that we need someone else to help answer: can I get better? Is this the end of the road? Was that popping noise I just heard my gene mutating? Who says I can't run faster? Fuck them. Train, train, train. This is the only way to find out. We all have to keep training, keep hammering, keep running harder and harder. The more we don't believe anymore, the more we have to dig into the caveman shit bag and wail away. I'm also convinced that continual racing will dull the blade. Sharpen the blade, reforge it and use it sparingly. So this is a commitment to try to train more and to race less. My first reaction after this marathon is to fly somewhere cool, tomorrow, and to disprove the times. I would have done this last year. No. Keep it real. Train, train, train. Do the right things. Keep believing in myself, fuck the naysayers and the peanut gallery. Drive on. It's better to be over the crest and still trying than to give up not knowing that you really could have done it. ---------------------------------- I'm joining a track club. I've concluded that I need people that run 49 minute 10 milers to beat me into the ground and make me feel like shit to get any better. You are only going to get so good at 11pm on a cold street by yourself. The time has come to hand the stick to someone who's always going to be better than myself to beat me with. Details to follow later.