Brain Training

this is week three of Matt Fitzgerald's brain training. Last week I put in 38 miles this week I will be right at 40.

Tonight was a difficult hill repeat session. the program called for 8x45 second reps with two minute breaks at 5:55. It sucked Sucked sucked. I got through it and I was somewhat satisfied that I made it through the repeats but the hill training is enough to cause nipple bleeding.

I finished with a total of six miles for tonight and ended with a smoothie spiked with accelerade.

Sunset Stampede 10 Miler Race Report

Yesterday' sunset stampede in Asheville was supposed to be a slow long training run. My goal was to simply finish. I told my wife (who was to meet me at the finish line) to expect a finish of somewhere between an hour and a half to two hours. I havent spent too much time training on hills and I had my concerns about my endurance....it didnt help that i read a race report from the famed Kenyan runner (and 2003 Sunset Stampede winner) David Kipngetich in which he stated “I liked the race....The way it was organized-excellent. But the problem was the course; it was so hard. Out of all the events that I’ve run, I think this was the toughest.”

The Kenyan was right....it was a brutal course....but somewhere along mile five of the race (my thoughts of treating this race as a slow training run changed (it helped that the remaining miles were downhill). With each mile my confidence increased as reflected by my splits:


Mile 1 8'11
Mile 2 8'06
Mile 3 8'22
Mile 4 8'24
Mile 5 8'52
Mile 6 7'15
Mile 7 6'39
Mile 8 6'59
Mile 9 6'58
Mile 10 7'40

Time 1'17'24 (Garmin) 7'44 Pace/Official Time (1:18'01)

Tied for 17th Overall
Age Group 4th

Overall Im really happy with my results and I plan on running the Sunset Stampede again next year. It was a great race to build on in anticipation of the Philadelphia Marathon in the fall.