In the spirit of competition and sportsmanship between nations

As much as we snowy Canadians can up the anti for the Winter Olympiad, with our snazzy Calgary bobsled track and sky high Canadian Rockies, I much prefer the raw athletism of the Summer Games. There's something about sprinting and throwing and rowing that brings me inspiration and keeps me glued to the tele. Maybe it's the warmth that summer brings, as I've never been a big fan of winter and winter play.

I shudder in the fall when I see those temps start to drop, and defiantly keep my shorts on until the chill wins over ignorance. Knowing I'll be trudging along in umpteen layers of clothing at -25C makes me want to block it out with the persistence of a zombie.

I do like it warm. As hard as it is dealing with a 90 degree day and high sun, it still feels better than having my teeth chatter and my lips swollen for lack of blood flow, running face down into a 40kmh headwind and icicles dangling from my hair.

Canada has had some success in track and field, despite the embarrassment of Ben Johnson. Fortunately Donovan Bailey pulled us out of that one and brought us cleanly back into the limelight. Our 4x100m men's team that year was one of the strongest ever fielded, with Bailey, Bruny Surin, Glenroy Gilbert and Robert Esmie taking the works. Perdita's stumble at the hurdles...tough as it was to take...was at least an honest try and had us that close to gold. She will get her chance at redemption and I guarantee she won't be face to face with the tarmac this time. Our newest hero is Tyler Christopher, who took gold this year already at the World Indoor T&F Championships in Spain last March.

What we lack are good distance runners. It's less of Canada's fault and more of a North American malady. The Yanks are starting to see the light, though, with team Hanson showing that hard work pays off, and Ryan Hall's amazing runs taking the US marathon record, dominating the field at the Olympic marathon trials and prepped to go big in London next week. Up here we just don't have an organization that can make good distance athletes. The ones with potential have to make do of their own accords. Local Charles Bedley (a familiar sight for me as he trains in my area) has run a 2:16 last year, taking third in California Internation Marathon. The link has video of the finish and a good interview with Charlie.

Canada cheaps out on sending distance runners to the Olympics keeping the standards still out of reach and giving athletes little reason to try. If the standards could be lessened we would be able to grant Olympic experience to our distance runners, and having that chance would help push more of them to higher levels. Bruce Deacon of BC was our last entry to the Olympic marathon at the Sydney 2000 games. Jerry Ziak and Matt MacInnis also have the potential to be there. All three of these guys are in their 30's so age will become an issue before long. We need young runners with potential.

The women's side of the things has it's own issues. Tara Quinn-Smith of the Brooks project has run a 1:13:53 half while BC's Kirsty Smith has a sub-1:17 already this year. These girls are young, still in their early 20's. A step up to the full marathon distance must be in their futures. They still have their work cut out for them on the world stage, as their efforts don't even show on the worlds top list for the year (the top list cuts off at 1:13:00 so far for the women).

Hopefully politics won't interfere too much. And the pollution.

178 pages and counting

From time to time I like to poke into Letsrun for kicks and giggles. It's a free-for-all running forum that anybody who knows anything and anyone in running is familiar with. It's not uncommon for elites and sub-elites and coaches to chime into the mix, it gives some insight into the goings-on of the high-end running world...although Runner's World it's certainly not (thankfully).

Among the more popular threads is Henry Rono's quest for the 50+ mile record. Henry was an elite athlete in the 70's who set several world records but never made it to the Olympics due to the Kenyan boycott of the 1976 Montreal games and 1980 in Moscow. In subsequent years Rono fell into alcoholism and his career halted.

After following this thread for the last couple of years I'm convinced Rono could give a shit about the record and is more inclined to seek out appearance and related fees. Gebresellase he ain't, at least not anymore. Runner's World did a lengthy article on Rono last year. The author ran into walls trying to get Rono to contribute directly, but Rono wouldn't offer squat without some dollars in the mix. Instead the article was built around the content of the thread on Letsrun, a sort of Cole's notes compression of 2 years of ramblings.

If you follow the latter portions of the thread, you may find the tone of many to be changing from supportive to doubt to frustration to ambivalence. Henry's last 5k time trial was 20:34. Geez, my last race (last Saturday) was 20:51. If Rono thinks he can get the master mile record off that performance, maybe I should pull my own socks up and get my own. Of course I've got about 100,000 more capable masters runners in my way...which is my way of saying Rono hasn't got a hope in hell of getting that record.

20:51

Saturday morning 5k. 20:51.

I'm glad I was under 21. It wasn't a super stressful effort. I didn't feel like a super stressful effort anyway. It was hard and it showed me I'm fine to run under 21 and that was my basic goal here. No markers on the course, no times called out, it was strictly by feel.

This follows a heavy week of training, beginning with last Sunday's Around the Bay 30k which I ran horribly. I'm hoping to start adding lunchtime runs as well to augment the overall volume. This should actually let me increase the amount of quality I'm putting into my week. I want two more heavy weeks, then one moderate week towards another 5k on April 27th.

Exploiting the luxury

This morning I directed myself southbound for a jaunt along the boardwalk by the beach. The air was dead still, clear and chilly with the sun just peeking over the horizon. Frost covered the timber of the boardwalk, the sharp angle of light cast by the rising run revealed every bump, warp, knot and any other feature you would never see in the midst of the day.

A good run for Thursday, 9ish miles in under 1:20 which granted a reasonable pace when you account for the warmup, the hill climb back and the occasional detour as I waited on changing lights. It's always neat to watch the city wake up and progress through the morning from the light traffic of dawn to the congestion of rush hour. The beach itself is always a welcome target and not something often seen by our local populace at that time of day. For me, it's just somewhere to go, since I'm out there anyway. If I'm going to be covering a bunch of miles it may as well be a nice bunch of miles.

*Yawn* 2

The bed seemed awfully nice this morning. The alarm clock was an evil demon. Trying hard to stick to my routine, which should be easier to do with warmer mornings upon us. If you can call -3 warmer. At least the winds died down overnight, as they were howling at 80 kliks yesterday. I got in a 5 mile light tempo run yesterday morning in tropical 8C conditions before the winds started.

This morning was a followup of some early season speedwork, running park laps alternating hard and easy. Pace wasn't outstanding, about 6:47/mile for the hard laps average, which is about 10k pace for me (or was, maybe I should say). Having run a 30k on Sunday and tempo yesterday might have had something to do with it, or maybe it made it easier...who knows?

I know if I stay disciplined to my schedule I can regain my fitness. It's far too easy to stay up too late on those midweek nights, especially when I'm pitching in on homework help and tidying up after the day. We tend to eat late and it cuts into the evening.

On the plus side, the snowbank on the lawn is down to only 4 feet tall!