You're Running a WHAT?!?!

I'd be remiss if I didn't post a big congrats to my friends and training partners, Jim Cox-Nicol and Andy Sayers, on their second and third place finishes respectively at the Frosty 50k in Winston Salem, NC, this past weekend. They both ran smart, well-executed races and demonstrated that if you train consistently it will pay big dividends in long distance races. Andy's performance was particularly impressive seeing as how his longest previous race was a half marathon and his preferred distance is 3.1 miles not ten times that. In fact, when he told me a couple months ago that he was gonna step way out of his comfort zone and do a 50k, my reaction was "You're gonna run a WHAT?!?!" I knew he had the strength to do it though, and Jim is just a machine when it comes to long distance running, so I figured both would do well and they didn't disappoint. Great job guys! In talking to both about their experiences and what a good event it was, they've got me thinking about doing this race next year, but hopefully I'll come to my senses between now and then - ha, ha.

As a side note, Jim was planning on pulling a Mike Wardian and running the Dubai Marathon this coming Friday, the same race where Haile Gebrselassie will be going after his 27th world record. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately for his health) he was unable to secure an entry so he'll have to settle for just watching this one from the sidelines.

Changing subjects, I've been following this thread on letsrun.com lately. It's about Pete MaGill from California who ran 14:34 for 5k as a 46 year old and recently (as in a couple days ago) ran 14:49 at age 47. That's just nuts. There are a few other guys mentioned in that thread as well who have run some crazy times (including a sub-1:06 half marathon at age 42) in spite of being a little on the older side. Stuff like that is encouraging and makes me think there might be some hope for me yet. If those guys can run that well, there's no reason I can't do it when I'm still 10 or more years younger than they are. Just gotta get healthy (which, knock on wood, finally appears to be happening) and stay that way. There's also a few tips in that thread about things those guys have done to help them continue to compete at such a high level (like drills and hills), so that's good stuff as well.