Nationals in sight

I am on my way West today for a visit in Vancouver through LAX.  I have been flying since I was 18 years old and have at least 300,000 air miles and I have never been to LAX!   I guess I do not have  any need to go to Southern California.   But today, I will pop in for short visit, eat some lunch and continue on my way to Vancouver.  Right now I am over the Grand Canyon and the clouds are breaking up—one big ditch you got down there.  One the way to Vancouver form LAX, there was a lot of snow in the mountains.  Hopefully the drought conditions will subside this season.

I have the Masters Indoor Nationals coming up this weekend in New Mexico and I have been training as hard as I have for any meet. The last two weeks have been really hard.  I ran and went to the gym for 7 days in a row.  I knew I would have some off days when I went Tulsa and that is why I pushed for 7 days in a row.  Typical training is max of 3 days in a row running. But, I figured I would take a day off and continue my speed work at one of my favorite tracks in Owasso, OK after a days rest.  I hurried to the track after work in Tulsa and my legs were not going to have any of this running and literally refused to go!  I was just stunned, I had never had a refusal like this before.   My knees were just too painful, I guess, and my stride was totally junk.  I did not try any more, I just walked 1.5 miles and called it a night.  I ended up taking off four days and I still was not feeling that peppy when I got back to the track.    If I really work my legs hard, they will recover and be better than ever—I hope that scenario does play out.  Seven days of leg work is way too much and I think I will be able to remember that going forward.  

My last three visits to the local track in Brentwood over this last weekend were on windy days and they were tough conditions to get anything serious done for training.  I used my parachute one day ( I had to use some tape to take out some hold back)  and ran into the wind the other days.  You really have to concentrate on form and swing the arms hard to get anything going while running into a 20 MPH wind.  I worked hard on some shorter—100,200 –sprints and did OK.  I pushed as hard as I could and did not get any lactic acid to form, but I was whipped.  I think my conditioning is good and I will let it rip Friday—not worry about fatigue—just fly.  Plus,  we will be at 5200 feet and the air density is great for speed and shitty for recovery.  I will worry about that pain after the race.

I have been trying to get the weight back down and I should be able to run at 195 pounds this weekend. This summer I will be even lower, but getting weight off in the winter is tough to do.

Linda it made it to the grand baby shower this last weekend in Wisconsin.  2 months to go and everything is on track for a healthy grandbaby which will be named   June Rosemary.  We already have a Rosemary and a June on the Allen side of the family and it is nice to carry on some classic names. Linda and I are just as ready as the parents!