This week I have experienced the power of touch.  On Sunday, a full-time massage therapist that Sara and I have hired for the ten weeks leading up to the ING NYC marathon arrived in town.  I was really excited to have her join us in Mammoth because she had been a big help in working on me a lot leading up to the 2008 London Marathon where I set my personal best of 2:06:17.  I remember in the build-up, how amazed I was after hammering a 23 mile long run and walk out of the massage feeling like I could go run some more.  The next day I would be surprised by the lightness in my legs.

Leah, our massage therapist, joined us and started working right away.  The first couple of days I could tell that my legs were starting to feel better.  Then last night before the tempo run today I was walking around thinking to myself that I don’t think my legs have ever felt this good.  But I wasn’t sure if it would pan out into a good workout the next day.  As it turned out I had one of the best tempo runs I have ever had in Mammoth.  It was amazing.

Leah’s work has made me believe all the more that there is power in physical touch.  I believe our bodies were made to respond to it.  I am really excited to have Leah’s healing hands with me on my journey to the finish in Central Park.  I know that I still have to put in a lot of hard work on my end but I am growing in my assurance that if I am going to win in New York it is not just going to be as result of my hard work and my sacrifice, it is going to be the result of people like my family that helped us move in to our new place last week, and my wife who decided to stay home and not go to Europe this summer to support me, and my teammates and friends support and encouragement along the way.  If I win, it will be because I am a part of a great team of people that are sacrificing and working hard towards one goal, some with their heads, some with their hearts, and some with their hands.

Of course I’m counting. Only 44 days until the Bank of America Chicago Marathon. I still have 650 miles to go in training. In my closet are three more Kayanos and two more Hyperspeeds waiting to wear thin. Numbers are everywhere these days. The past week had me jumping up in mileage and intensity which means I’ve been sleeping like a dog. 12 hours to be exact. I get into bed with a book at 8pm and can’t finish a paragraph without slipping into a deep sleep. Before I know it, the dog is waking me up for breakfast and a walk. After our hard training session, I sit in the creek for 10 minutes. I still shiver through lunch and get into bed for a nap before heading out for a second run and the gym. My husband Andrew told me today that I should not put emphasis on a single workout, but look at putting good weeks together. If that is the case, I had a great week. I have done one of my better long runs in a while, followed by a speed session and a tempo run later in the week. It is fun to look at the specifics as I not only break in my shoes, but today I started breaking in my water bottles. These little details get me focused on the task ahead. The task is tall as I attempt my second win in the Windy City. As my day unwinds I look forward to tomorrow. We will have an easy day around the lakes basin at 9000feet altitude. Our coach is also arriving after spending the summer in Europe with our teammates who ran the World Championships. His homecoming is a symbolic mark of the fall marathon season. I always look forward to the inspiration he brings to practice. We look forward to the next sign of marathon season, the crisp fall mornings.

There is nothing like a disappointing race to light a fire under my feet.  Last weekend at the New York City Half Marathon I thought I would have raced better since I had finally put in three good weeks of training.  In what was my worst half marathon time since trying the distance in 2001, I finished so far back from the winner that I stopped counting places.  I can’t blame my performance on the weather, lack of desire or a sore foot.  The truth is, my foot felt fantastic and I am just lacking fitness. Today was my first hard workout after the race and was the best speed session of my season so far.  I have seven weeks until the Bank of America Chicago marathon and nothing gets me going in practice more than the pressure of getting ready to meet my goals.  After this half marathon test, I have a sense of urgency to make every day count.  My focus in workouts is one thing, but I also know I need to focus on resting well, eating well, getting in good weight lifting sessions and believing in my ability to get in shape quickly.  It is easy for me to round into fitness now that my foot is completely healed.  I had a scary setback in June and July when my foot was inflamed and had to take a few weeks off.  It was the same foot I had broken last summer, so I took it very seriously.  My training came to a screeching halt and I rested with some acupuncture and ice baths.  Once the inflammation was down, I did some balance work and strengthening of my feet.  Since returning to running my foot feels strong and my workouts are getting better.  I have less than 2 months to pull everything together.  I have the mind for it and my body is pulling together just in the nick of time.  I look forward to sharing the intensity of the coming weeks with you.  Let’s get going!

12th IAAF World Championships
August 18, 2009
Olympic Stadium
Berlin, Germany

4-time Olympian and 8-time World Championship Team Member Amy Acuff (Isleton, CA) qualified for Thursday's final in the Women's High Jump by clearing the automatic qualifying mark of 1.95m. Acuff cleared 1.80m/5-10.75, 1.85m/6-0.75 and 1.89m/6-2.25 on her first attempts but needed all three of her attempts to clear 1.92m/6-3.5. She then cleared 1.95m/6-4.75 on her second attempt to automatically advance to her sixth straight World Championship final. Afterwards, Acuff commented, "I'm really excited. I don't take making the finals for granted. Every one is a treasure. I'm really happy to be there, especially in Berlin. I felt like I got up at 6 a.m. I felt like it was early in the morning. I drank my little green tea, but it didn't really kick me up. I think I will feel better in the final. I want to go back (to the hotel), take a nap and get rested and try to have a more fluid run. I'm just going to let myself go and not micromanage everything."

Less than 48 hours after finishing 10th in her first international heptahtlon, Sharon Day (San Luis Obispo, CA) came out fresh and bouncy clearing 1.80m/5-10.75, 1.85m/6-0.75 and 1.89m/6-2.25 on her first attempts. At the next height, however, Day was unable to clear 1.92m/6-3.5 and failed to advance to the next round.

Wednesday's action will see Jake Arnold (Tucson, AZ) start day 1 of the Decathlon. Arnold will compete in the 100m, Long Jump, & Shot Put in the morning session and the High Jump, & 400m in the evening session.

12th IAAF World Championships
August 17, 2009
Olympic Stadium
Berlin, Germany

In only her sixth multi-event competition, 2008 Olympian Sharon Day (San Luis Obispo, CA) proved she will be a permanent fixture in the Heptathlon after finishing in 10th place at the 12th IAAF World Championships. Day started day 1 running 13.90sec in the 100m hurdles and followed with a 1.89m clearance in the High Jump and was in second place after two events with a total score of 2086 points. Despite not warming over the bar due to a serious case of patellar tendinitis caused by the long plane ride over to Germany, Day was excited to clear 1.89m. She put the Shot 13.42m to set a new event personal best and ran the 200m in 25.15sec for a 4 event total of 3714 points and finish day 1 in 8th place. Day 2 began with the Long Jump and Day only managed to leap 5.69m to fall into 11th place. She threw a new personal best 44.14m in the Javelin and ran the 800m in 2:13.84, the last of seven events, for a total score of 6126 points and a top 10 finish. "I'm very happy about my performance," Day commented after the grueling 800m. "It's my first major competition at the international scale and I couldn't be happier with 10th place in the world right now. It was a really good experience to compete at a world level. I'm going to put this in my pocket and keep training."

Two years ago at the 11th IAAF World Championships in Osaka, Japan, US Champion and 2008 Olympian Diana Pickler (Sachse, TX) finished her first international heptathlon in 25th place. She improved on that performance with an 11th place finish with a total score of 6086 points. A blistering start in the 100m hurdles with a finishing time of 13.50sec put Pickler in fourth place after the first event but below average marks in the High Jump (1.77m), Shot Put (12.40m) and 200m (24.75sec) resulted in many lost points and she finished day 1 in 12th place with a total score of 3589 points. Day 2 started off better for Pickler with a season best mark in the Long jump (6.24m) and she followed it up by throwing the Javelin 41.13m. Pickler finished the last of seven events by running a new personal best in the 800m crossing the finish line in 2:15.60. "I came in so prepared. I went in here faster and stronger than I've ever been, and I felt mentally prepared. It just didn't start out this way," Pickler commented after the 800m. "The first day was a struggle, and it was so frustrating, because I knew that I did everything to prepare right for this meet. It was hard to go out there and be disappointed with the way things went in day 1. I was nowhere close to where I should have been." She added "Today, I just tried to block everything out. I was really happy with setting a PR in the 800 after what I went through in the competition. Setting a PR in the 800 is going to make me mentally stronger."

In the qualifying round in the Women's Javelin, Kara Patterson (West Lafayette, IN) threw 52.91m and did not advance to Tuesday's final.

Athlete's seeing action on Tuesday will be 2008 Olympians Amy Acuff and Sharon Day competing in the qualifying rounds of the Women's High Jump.

One of the things that I love about running and life is entering the great unknown. I have thought about when I am done running professionally, how much I am going to miss the thrill and nerves of the starting line. Even though I don’t particularly enjoy the nerves at the moment, it is at these times that I feel truly alive.

I have been thinking about this because I am pretty unsure of my fitness level heading into the NYC half marathon. While it has already been nearly four months since Boston, I still feel like I could use more time to prepare for my first race of the fall. I guess it is a good sign to feel this way because I will still have plenty of time before the ING NYC Marathon and need to feel like there are gains to be made.

The first month after Boston I basically took down time. Two weeks of no running or cross training followed by two weeks of running every other day with biking on the off days. Then a couple weeks of running with strides and pacing Sara on the track and slowly getting into workouts.

It was hard to take the break after Boston. I was excited with the results and eager to train hard for the fall but I had learned that patience is a necessity for the marathoner, after cutting my break shorter than usual after London leading up to the Olympics. As a result I was pretty much flat and stale in my preparations. My body felt like it was rejecting any training I was doing compared to now when my body feels like a sponge absorbing every workout, getting faster and faster with every week.

After Track and Field Nationals in late June, Sara and I headed back home to the thin air of Mammoth and back to intense training. Training has been going as well as I could hope since being home, but I haven’t done many of the key workouts that give me the feedback of my half marathon fitness. Instead of doing the usual 10-12 mile tempo runs that I use as gauges I have been doing 9-mile uphill runs climbing from 7,000ft to 10,000ft. Those runs are hard, but the reward is huge. Not only physically, but also there is the best pie place in the world at “Pie In The Sky Café” that we have made the post-workout indulgence.

Heading into NYC I am running into the unknown. I will have to wait till the later stages of the race to find out what kind of shape I am in. Regardless of how the race plays out I will move forward with confidence that I am healthy and feeling good in my training. I guess you never know what is going to happen on any given day. I am always in search of that pearl, those really special days when everything clicks, and maybe I will find it on Sunday.