Soundbites…

A few things heard this week for anyone to ponder on while out training this weekend…

• Perfect practice makes perfect – not practice make perfect, in other words don’t reinforce bad habits
• Ride lots – Eddie Merckx response when asked how what was his advice to become a great cyclist
• Train your weakness race your strengths – if you only train your strengths you'll only be good at what you are good at!

Be safe and train hard!

I wish I could write like this…

“….it's about believing in yourself when you don't have a reason to; it's about the courage to try something beyond hard when the rest of the world is incredulous; it's about your own personal honesty with yourself; it's about living life with passion and conviction; and most importantly, it's about bringing out the best in human beings. I don't see this race as a fearsome challenge anymore, but an amazing opportunity to do achieve something brilliant. We aren't much more than tissue and bone, but when we are committed and driven, our incredibly insignificant small bodies do some amazing things that shock the entire universe."

Source

Wordless Wednesday…

Blast from the past…

I was going through some old papers this week and I came across this newspaper clipping from the Sports Pages of the Palisadian Post from July 2006. It’s a local 5/10k race that is held on July 4th every year in Pacific Palisades.

It’s about five months before I got my first Nike+and I made the decision to run my first marathon and about six months before the birth of this blog. It’s also a little over a year after we moved back to California from New York City and I started running again to drop the 50lbs gained in NYC!

And so 500 posts later, this is #501 I have a few more miles under my belt, dropped my 10k PR by 15 minutes or so and gained a few of the 50lbs back, I’m working on that, but the like the clipping says I am Right at Home and the adventure still continues!

Have a great weekend!

Almost Wordless Wednesday...

Slammed at work! Exercise will be resumed shortly...

Thankful for the Inspiration!

As we start the Thanksgiving Holidays here in the US, in addition to my wonderful family and friends, here are some of the things that I have seen and have been thankful to take inspiration from...

...what inspires you?











Happy Thanksgiving

Review; Running for my Father

I was contacted recently by Cody, a friend of mine from the Trail Runner Club, who asked me would I mind reviewing his movie on my blog. I knew he was making a movie but hadn’t been able to get to any of the silver screen showings so I was delighted to have been asked. I replied that I would be more than happy to and a couple of days later the DVD arrived.

Having watched it twice, ironically the first time on a treadmill, to be honest I am not sure what I have to say can do it the justice it deserves.

The story follows Cody after the death of his Father. It’s not often that I am at a loss for words but it was a privilege to have been asked and to have watched Cody share the beauty of his relationship with his Father; something I aspire to have with my sons. To hear how he discovered running and in the short space of a year went from the couch to running his first marathon is inspiring enough but to see the joy and pain that the story highlights; frustration from injury, the high of his first 20 mile run and the triumph of completing the marathon one year to the day of his Father’s death is simply amazing.

If you need something to move you emotionally and physically this is the movie to do it. The movie is available to buy and all profits go to the National Brain Tumor Society. I asked Cody if I could pass on the copy he sent me and he graciously said yes, so it’s yours to the first person who wants it all I ask it that you review it and spread the word.

Here’s the trailer:



Cody is a professional musician and composer; he also worked on Ultramarathon Man and The Runner both of which I also highly recommend watching.

Be inspired!

This weekend is the 30^th Anniversary of IronMan, this is definitely one of the best videos I have seen, it’s enough to inspire you to lace up your running shoes, clip in your pedals or rinse out your goggles! There's a great interview with the 3rd place competitor, Dave Orlowski, from the very first IronMan on The Competitor Podcast.

I posted this last year and it still gets the hair on the back of my neck standing up; tough times pass, tough people remain! Be inspired!

Taper week

Well it’s taper week for next Sunday’s LA Marathon, the past week has been very low key with only one run; not quite what was planned but after tweaking my knee last Monday I wanted to take things easier. I managed a nine miler on Thursday which felt ok at the time but subsequently my knee was still twitchy. Over the weekend my wife and I headed off for a relaxing spa weekend at La Costa spa just north of San Diego, this year is our 10 year wedding anniversary and although we are a little early we thought we would take advantage of my in laws, who are visiting at the moment, and leave the boys with them. I had a great massage which freed off a lot of tension and so far things are feeling pretty good, of course two uninterrupted nights sleep didn’t go amiss! I intend to cut right back on the mileage this week, I ran the PCTR 50k without having run anything the preceding two weeks so I am not too phased by this. I am off to my ever friendly chiropractor later this week and my FIL who is a retired osteopath will give my legs a massage on Friday so I should be in as good a shape as possible. All things considered the marathon is really a training run and although I have a couple of goals in mind I am not going out all guns blazing; I am looking to finish sub 4:00.

Following up the trip to the movies last week I was inspired to order from Amazon; The Runner, the story of David Horton’s record breaking 66 day run of the 2700 mile long Pacific Coast Trail which runs from Mexico to Canada, it by the same film maker JB Benna so it should be good, I’ll let you know once I have watched it.

The hunt for shoes has drawn to a close, at least for now, the last pair I tried; Vasque Mercurys were too tight, so for now out of sheer boredom and the advice I received via The List from people who have completed LD, that the trail version of Asics' 2120s or 2130s as they will be now will be more than robust enough for the run. I expect to have to revisit this later but for now it’s a suitable solution.

On a final note I signed up for The Great Race half, it’s two weeks before LD and will be a good run to end the training phase and start the taper.