2009 is a wrap

I seem to have caught a cold. It's been with me all week, and hasn't gotten any better. I waited until Thursday, but I reluctantly withdrew from this weekend's 50-mile race.

Which means - 2009 is probably finished, at least with marathons and ultras. The highlight of the year was the PR at Caumsett 50K, and the finish at Grand Teton 50M - I persevered in the latter, and had a really good solid run in the former.

As soon as I get over this cold, I want to dedicate a few months to running faster speeds and shorter distances, because I really feel like that kind of training makes me better at longer distances. Marathons and Ultras are "easy" after a few really hard efforts at sub-half-marathon, and all of my best performances have been in periods of short training runs.

Also, short intense training seems to be the best fat-loss strategy for me, as the "long slow burn" only seems to increase my appetite in compensation.

But for those of you who crave ultra content on this blog, don't fret! With the Umstead 100-mile a mere 4½ months away (crap!!), I'll be certain to be writing plenty about going long as that approaches!


New entries for Steve's blog are published every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 10:00am NY time and can be seen at http://www.tursi.com

Meb is not an american?

This is just an educated guess, but I'll bet that most the people who complain that Meb Keflezighi is not really american, have something in common - they're the ones who've never heard of Meb Keflegzighi before he won the NYC marathon. Letsrun.com cretins notwithstanding, they're not the running fans. Only running fans bothered to watch the 2008 olympic trials that were not televised, but were streamed over the internet. I don't think many fans who watched him struggle with the stress fracture he had and ultimately drop there said, "well, he's not american anyway."

This is what I'm talking about: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/03/sports/03runner.html

These people don't deserve to have their opinions printed any more than I'd deserve to have my opinions on Cricket printed. I don't know anything about Cricket. Why should my opinion matter?

Fortunately, at least the talking-head haters are getting what they deserve: http://www.businessinsider.com/cnbc-on-nyc-marathon-winner-of-course-he-is-an-american-2009-11.


New entries for Steve's blog are published every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 10:00am NY time and can be seen at http://www.tursi.com

What I learned at the NYC marathon

1. I'm fat
2. I'm hopelessly inconsistent in my training
3. The best way to make your legs feel like they ran a 50-miler without actually running a 50-miler is to run an ashpalt/concrete marathon in trail running shoes.

My official time was 6:10:53, a half-hour off my PR.

great race, btw. crowds were amazing, especially in brooklyn.


full race report later.

New entries for Steve's blog are published every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 10:00am EST and can be seen at http://www.tursi.com