As a coach I have become a collector of Quotes.  These are my top inspirational quotes.

5.  "Courage is not the absense of fear, it is action in the face of fear."

4.  "Wiether you believe you can, or you believe you can't, you're right."

3.  " The ingredents of success never change; they are discipline, hard work, perseverance, and faith."

2.  "Don't let what you can't do interfer with what you can do." John Wooden

1.  "Only those who will to risk pushing too far will ever know how far they can go." TS Eliot

And MY quote... "Failure is not in losing...but in never trying."

Big race next weekend.  I'll have something more interesting next week, I promise.

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I survived.... so for those who want to know what crazy looks like here's last week...

Monday PM 10 miles (1:05)

Tuesday PM  14 miles

Wednesday AM 10 miles (1:14)

                  PM 10 miles (Workout 10 mile run with 6 x 3 min on and 3 min off) (:59)

Thursday AM  2 miles

              PM  15 miles

Friday AM  3 miles

          PM  10 miles (1:06)

Saturday  AM  9 miles (1:00)

Sunday AM  17 miles (1:54)

The park that we typically practice at is on the back side of Rose Hulman Institute of Technology.  For those who have never heard of Rose Hulman, that's the school the the MIT students wanted to get into.  For those of us who got less than a 1500 on our SAT's (or in my case MUCH lower) it is that home of Indianapolis Colts trianing camp.  Thursday night I was finishing up as the Colts were getting out and got to say hi to several of the starters...sorry when you run 100 miles in a week you don't have a lot of other high points.

On the book front I'm about a 100 pages into my next book by Sandra Brown,

Ricochet: A Novel

Ricochet.  It seems pretty good so far but I'll keep you posted.  The weather this summer has been GREAT.  The high today is 79...in August it's usually 99 so I'm about as happy as you can get.  Great training weather and I starting to taper...

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OK...I'll be at 100 miles for the second straight week.  I'm tired, my legs hurt, I am ALWAYS hungry, and I think my boss thinks that I'm on drugs, but 3 more days.  No interesting workouts this week.  Some hill stuff and some long runs with pick ups.

HOWEVER...next week I taper.  The 22nd is the big relay race.  I promise to get better pictures.  I always say "this time I'm going to get good pictures" then I never actually do...but this time for sure.

The cross country team looks great.  One of our top girls (and Jr. USATF All American) is growing (2 inches in the last 6 months) and she is really struggling right now.  She isn't running well (relative term) and she's having a lot of pain in the upper shins (the Osgood Slaughter area for those who know what that means).  We've been keeping her om grass and limiting her miles (which she hates because she's losing ground on the other top runners) but ti's a process and we really don't want her to get hurt.

Until I taper...that's about all there is, sorry.

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10 DAYS UNTIL TAPER!!!!

Ok, lets get caught up here.

Friday (July 25) was the Midnight River Run (actually at 11:15 but hey).  Last year I ran 15:24 but they lengthened the course this year by over 200 meters so even with the cool evening we had, the times were much slower.  I went out in the lead pack but faded to 4th in the second 1/2 of the race.  I held off the guy in 5th in the end before the gap to the rest of the field.  There were a couple hundred runners but in the end I couldn't keep up with the college kids (Though the guy in 5th was a college kid too).  Final time was 16:16 in the midst of another 90 mile week.

This week looks like it could be 100... not degrees...miles.  I ran 37 miles in 36 hours before taking the morning off, but I've got another long (12-14 miles) run tonight and my actual long run on Sunday.

Practice (actaully its summer conditioning because it's all optional) for cross is going well.  While practice is optional, we are lucky to have kids that make it to practice very consistently all summer long.  I think we will have a stronger team this fall then the one that went to the state finals a year ago.

We've been lucky here that we haven't had that bad of weather, but it appears that the hot weather is finally here and will likely be here for the next several weeks.  For all of you where it's hot, stay safe.

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I don't like to make long posts, so I try to post more often rather than put it all in at once...while this isn't one of those times, sorry.

1.  Hammer the training again right now for my return to Ragnar (we are doing the 12 person division this year) and then my big 50 miler coming up in September.  I was just short of 90 last week (88) with the tough 3 x 2 mile workout on Tuesday, a hill workout on Friday and 2 hours yesterday.  Even with a race on Friday night this will be another big milage week for me.

2.  Summer condition is going well for the team I help coach.  We can't have official practice until August but we have had great turn out from our varsity runners all summer long.  It is very true that the more the merrier.  When you get good turn out you have more fun and the more fun you have more people want to come.  I'm lucky to work with a great group of kids.

3.  It is HOT here.  It is 90's and humid.  The humidity makes it bad, but it could be A LOT WORSE.  We've had triple digits this time of year so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this is as bad as it gets...

4.  New book I've been reading is Killer Dreams.  It's ok but I have several pretty good ones waiting for me once I finish this one so I'm hurrying to move on.

Killer Dreams

5.  As I said in 1 I have a "race" on friday.  It is the 5K were I ran 15:24 last year.  They are changing the course AGAIN.  I hate when they do that.  With my training where it is I'm just hoping for sub 16 but we'll see.  Anytime you're training like I am races are very much hit and miss.

Stay cool everyone.  I'll post the info about this weekends race.

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My buddy Josh is on his summer training program for ISU and I've been doing the program with him.  That is I've been trying to do the program with him.  After the illness a few weeks back, I've been really struggling in my workouts.  I have had some decent days but all and all it's been a struggle.  However tonight was the crown jewel in the ISU summer training program (at least in my mind).  The workout is 3 x 2 miles at 10:10.  With the temp being 92 degrees today we stayed off the track and hit the rolling trails of Hawthorn Park.  So here's how it shook out...

               Josh            Jeff

1:            10:00          10:15

2:            10:15          10:19

3:            10:29          10:18

It was a very strong workout for me.  While I didn't chase Josh on the first one, it was my goal to run all 3 under 10:20 so it was a very strong workout for me.  Hope everyone's running is going well.  I'll have a post about the new book I'm reading in the next few days.

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After missing a few days last week from illness, I've got right back in to the training mode.  I worked back into it over the weekend (by that I mean I did a hill workout on Saturday) and was ready for a good hard workout Tuesday.  We stuck to Josh's summer training program, and here's what the work out looked like.

The work out was a 10 mile run with 4 X (4 min on / 4 min off).  On means race pace, off means training pace.

2 Mile Warm up (12:20)

6 Miles that included the 4 x 4 (32:30)

2 Mile Cool down (12:10)

Total time for 10 Miles 57:02

Josh actualy was a hair faster than me because he actually pulled away from me on the last on and then waited for me to catch up.  Josh you will remember is the guy who had the tumor removed from his leg a little of a year and a half ago (not cancerous) but wasn't allowed to do any weight bearing exercise for 6 months.  I'm very happy to see him running so well after everything that he has gone through.  We did stop at the 8 mile mark to grab a drink of water before starting the cool down but that was the only break in the entire run.  SOOO, I've been soar that last couple days.

Anyway I'm headed North for the 4th of July so everyone have a Safe and Happy 4th of July. 

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Due to illness I'm not able to run for the next few days.  Which sucks because I was hitting 80's for my weeks before this but I should be back at it soon.  (I just keep telling myself I needed a couple days off).  Anyway...Since I have no running to talk about, I thought it was about time I finally posted a picture of my D-O-G since I always reference her but have never put a picture up.  So here she is...

Picture 001

She's not a fan of summer since she doesn't get to run much in the summer but I try to take her out for a morning here and there...

Useless information for you, my buddy Tom made the Running Times ranking list again finally.  He was in the rankings 2 years ago but then fell out after an injury plagued 2006.  While 2007 was much stronger it seemed like every "big" race that he had didn't count on their ranking list.  So now he's back on there ranks list.

I should be mended soon and ready to get the miles back up.  I have several big races coming up myself and it's really hard to take days off this time of the year.  Don't forget the Olympic Trials will be next week.  Don't miss them.  We have some VERY exciting races.  (Not just because I have 2 former team mates running)

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Picture 003

The 3rd annual Hawthorn Half Day went off as most races do...never as smooth as planned.  As a race director you always focus on the things that went wrong.  1st the Mule (the ATV that we use to get things out on the course) got there late.  The mile marker got there AFTER the runners on the first lap.  2nd the trail were wet...big shock considering the flooding we had (actually this could have been MUCH worse).  3rd there was a computer problem at the end of the day and the results took almost 2 hours to get out.  While 2 hours sounds bad, with the time it takes for people to pack up stuff and then the post race dinner we plan on it always over an hour before the awards begin.

Picture 006

Picture 010

On the running end, it wasn't my best day.  I really struggled all day long.  However I toughed out 6 legs (5K) on the hilly (muddy) course.  Then in the last 30 minutes when the race switches to 1/2 mile loops, I ran 2 of those.  While it was not my best day, it was strong enough to help my team win the over all title.  Our team ran 116.8 miles in the 12 hour time limit.  Just missing the course record of 118.6... even though it wasn't the best conditions.

Picture 013

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Lets see where to start...

1.  I've been reading as usual.  I finished reading "I am Legend"  Let me tell you the book and the movie are alike in title only.  Book is a little bit of a let down.  It's a very short story with little happening.  I'm reading "Honeymoon" by Paterson right now, I'll keep you posted on how it is.  (I'm only half done)

Honeymoon

Richard Matheson's I Am Legend (Graphic Novel)

2.  We had a flood here last weekend.  I was stuck in my subdivision  all weekend.  I was very lucky to have had no damage to my house so I'm not complaining.  I've never seen so much water.

3.  My race is this weekend.  The race I put on.  Due to some last minute drop outs I will be running on my wife's relay team.  It should be interesting to see the race from the runners veiw and it will be a great chance for me to improve some little things to make next years race even better.  www.hawthornhalfdayrelay.com

Best wishes everyone.

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