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Glenn,

Thanks so much for the stimulation you provided me this past Sunday May 27 2012 over

the phone.

I am not sure I want to go ahead with an orthodox training program.

My goal in life is to abolish suffering : I am a “spiritual activist” seeking to change the

world, and this begins by changing the way we approach our lives…

So what the heck am I doing asking a veteran, accomplished coach to give me a recipe of,

say, 7×1 km with 2 min recovery trot? I have tried many times to do one such nice, pretty-

looking, streamlined, hard long-interval session, and on most of those occasions I have aborted

at the second or even just the first rep.

The Monday morning of May 28 after we talked, in fact, I felt like aborting even a mostly

easy run. Total lack of motivation. Something did not feel right to me about racking my body

and asking my mind , one more time!, to fire through the appropriate neural pathways to keep

flogging on the oxygen-starved, lactate-swamped or simply fatigued muscles against the

dictates of common intuition and nature. The human body is the sacred temple of God. Why

should we brutalize it, and habituate it to perennial discomfort, to fighting the wholesome

impulse to quit and rest? Birds happily flutter about. They don’t time themselves and each

other in agonistic contests against fatigue and the clock. Maybe the Buddhists are right, and

the only way out of pain is to dissolve the ego and renounce all goals and ambitions.

At the same time, without effort on one’s part, there is no reward. Everything

worthwhile in life costs something. But does this mean that, in fact, no pain no gain?

Life, at least in the present reality, feels to me like a punishment by God, because one is

ever fighting the losing battle against entropy buildup and decay. I take no solace from the

comforting advice from the likes of my mother that running is something I ought to do just for

health and fun and without getting obsessed. Neither am I relieved by the common medical

counsel which posits that just those twenty minutes of aerobic easy exercise three times a

week are enough to “maintain fitness”, “stay healthy” and minimize (but unfortunately never

fully avert) the problems associated with aging. Health is not something that one ought to

perpetually toil and strive, in a Sisyphean manner, in order to maintain. Health should be our

natural state, requiring no effort or sacrifice. But it is not, because we live in a fallen world,

subject to the merciless arrow of Time, and our consciousnesses have accepted this indenture

to Time, entropy and sorrow for so long, generation after generation, that they have forgotten

that this is not the way things should be, and have inadvertently kept generating, and

perpetuating this reality, at least until now.

I am 37, I am over the hill. Conventional understanding proffers that no amount of

training is going to keep me from, almost imperceptibly at first, then ever more noticeably,

slumping down that hill of entropy and aging, although it may still take me a while to reach my

genetic ceiling as I have been training very seriously only for a few years. Deepak Chopra does

not run competitive marathons year after year after year. He is not seeking an Olympic spot.

He does not follow Lance Armstrong in the sports news (did Lance dope, then?). There are

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days when it seems that my dad was right, after all: life ends up defeating you, bending you

down like a sagging tree, breaking you. Also, no amount of hard training is going to change my

inferior genes.

Now, one can change one’s genes, and rewrite one’s DNA codes, through the power of

Consciousness. Here I must introduce the horrible and grotesque, but still mostly unaccepted

when not plain unheard-of, realities of mind-control: the total takeover of someone else’s

mind (and hence body). According to Fritz Springmeier and to my good friend Cisco Wheeler

in their awesome tome The Illuminati Formula Used to Create an Undetectable Total Mind-

Controlled Slave, the main finding that scientifically launched the super-secret Monarch mind-

control program was that, in stressful situations, the brain can convert nerve signals into

messenger molecules that induce the endocrine system to make certain hormones, which

then reach the nucleus of some cells and alter their genetic makeup, the DNA blueprint

responsible for metabolism, sexuality, development and the immune system.

In mind-control, the set of behavioral instructions laid on a subject in such a manner that

he/she can only obey them is called programming. Under suitable programming, individuals

subject to Monarch mind-control –slaves- can influence their body’s temperature and heart

rate, and even paralyze their bodily functions so much that they look dead.

Ken Bowers, Franz Alexander and a mind-control programmer known as “Dr. Black”

were all involved in this ultra-sensitive area.

The capability of humans to affect muscle tension, glandular responses, breathing

patterns, skin surface electrical activity and heart rate was broached to the public in the 1970s

with Barbara Brown‘s research on biofeedback, but it is important to emphasize that her

findings were known in the secret mind-control programs years before her book New Mind

New Body came out.

One goal of these heinous mind-control programs is to create, sometimes in conjunction

with cyborg-type robotic “upgrades” or other techniques, military combatants with super-

human traits as in the movie Universal Soldier. This I must repudiate vehemently. Another

matter would be the peaceful, benign application for the benefit of society of some of these

techniques covertly developed in the baleful mind-control programs. The techniques might

conceivably be employed to cure Down’s syndrome and other obvious genetic afflictions. But I

question the morality of rewriting one’s genetics through one’s mind powers just for the sake

of something as banal and competition-driven as sports achievements.

Moreover, conventional medicine soon might enable one through gene therapy to

rewrite his/her genetics to an extent. Applying such a medical genetic treatment to improve

one’s sports performance, however, does not feel right or ethical to me, even if all athletes

competing in a sporting event have had equal access to the treatment, treatment which at first

will presumably be very expensive.

In a similar vein, one can stem and even reverse the ravages of entropy and aging, lifting

oneself up from the fallenness of this world, through the Godly power of Consciousness: “free

energy” systems with which I am conceptually familiar already might upend the second law of

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thermodynamics, and John Hutchison, a Canadian “free energy” inventor, has reported

anomalies in time flow. He is not the only such inventor reporting that, but John has

furthermore gone to the length of stating that his biological aging has reversed , although this

last thing, even if true, could be due to his vitamin supplementation. Without going to these

still very uncharted unconventional waters, soon conventional medicine with telomerase

therapy and all that is going to step in as well. But is it ethical to benefit in a professional

sporting contest from reversing one’s aging through any approach? If one contestant is

allowed to do it, then all contestants must be allowed to do it. Obviously, age-group records

will no longer be kept after a while if this glorious scenario unfolds.

Can you imagine Haile Gebrselassies training at the maximum level of their youths all

through their 60s and 70s and 100s and 200s and 300s? (The term “youth” and a good swath of

our language will lose its meaning, or will have to be further clarified, if and when aging

reversal becomes commonplace).

And where will we end up, as far as absolute world records are concerned, if athletes at

large learn to improve, running-performance-wise, their genetic makeup with the power of

intention?

Clearly this nonsense of agonistic gladiatorial contests, of pushing the body to the limit

and seeing who can suffer the most, which a lot of high-level athletics is, must stop at some

point. It eulogizes the wrong view of life, that of the survival of the fittest, of hunting, of

running for one’s life, of escaping predators: athletic fitness, after all, is a modern proxy for

Darwinian fitness. And the term “cutthroat” needs no etymological exegesis if the world is

ruled indeed by the law of the jungle. But the world in the last instance is not thus ruled. Life

only seems such a dog-eat-dog contest because we live in a fallen state, having forgotten our

divinity, our Oneness, and the eternal, infinitely-creative, nature of our Consciousness.

It is not in the realm of the hard-core paranormal to consider a possible holistic natural

regeneration of the human body as something at hand in the coming years, if we detoxify

ourselves from the stresses and daily insults of our corporate consumeristic Big-pharma GMO

junk-food fluoride-in-the-water society. Furthermore, Deepak Chopra suggests a modicum of

regular physical exercise as a way to lessen, if not stop, the body’s deterioration with age, and

to feel reinvigorated. But such a regeneration is not to be abused: its purpose would be, I feel,

to heal the pathos of our competitive Darwinian existence which some runners tend to play

out in their will to prove themselves to the limit. And, in fact, as I told you over the phone, my

perception is that the ultimate defeat of entropy and aging will be accompanied by an

evolutionary shift to a more ethereal, energy-radiating body form that will no longer need the

daily purge of hard exercise in order to regenerate itself from the stresses of daily life and feel

good. We will have cleansed the karma. I might be wrong. But at any rate I don’t want to wait

to die in order to enjoy the blisses of heaven, so I want to see heaven brought down to Earth

(or to whatever Earth transforms into) in my lifetime… or in whatever my existence morphs

into if Time as we know it ceases to run…, and in such a heavenly existence I see no room for

races or discomfort or agony, whatever the body form we end up taking .

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Call me a prophet if you want.

I am also against doping of all sorts, and in fact I do not take any dietary supplements or

pills. To me they feel like a form of unnatural enhancement of one’s body. And the cyborg,

transhumanist pictures of man-machine or organ-design amalgamations are repellant to me,

except for isolated justified cases like amputees, disabled people on wheelchairs, etc. The

evolutionary implications of transhumanist athletics where genetic, nanotechnological and

biomedical enhancements to the body are allowed might be worse than eugenicist, and I am

scared of even contemplating them.

For a thorough study of the deep transformational issues confronting us, and also for

cutting-edge information about the related subject of what’s really going on in the world, you

can consult my webpage http://conradosalas.info .

So enough for theoretical ranting.

…

You basically said when I first contacted you by e-mail that any person (with normal

genes) can, with consistent proper training (at least 75 miles a week, I remember), progress

within the span of two, three years at most, from a three-oh-something marathon (which is

where I then was) down to the “the Magic Enchanted Land of Two Thirty Something”, as a

poster in a runner’s internet forum yearningly put it. In fact, you talked about progressing

down to a marathon time in the very low 2:30s within that time span and training volume.

There is just an abyss, a world of difference between a marathon time in the very low 2:30s

and one in the very high 2:30s, and I will not indulge in daydreaming. I don’t see myself

running a 2:30-something marathon, or even a 2:32-something marathon, ever. But even if we

talk about a 2:39-something marathon, I must say you were wrong, Glenn. Either I have

subnormal genes, or I have a subnormal tolerance of suffering.

So, if after all this you are still in the mood of giving me some advice, I will happily

summarize for you my “running career” and training so far. I think that a detailed, five-month

training plan as you suggested might be premature. Even if I were in the mood, one would still

have to think about what races to aim at, as well as to factor in things like travels and other

foreseeable and unforeseeable disruptions in life’s routine. There has to be a proper interplay

of discipline and flexibility, even for professional athletes who can schedule their whole lives

solely around their training and racing. There is also one more thing I have discovered these

past years. Training is 24/7. It is not just enough to crank out the training sessions. In fact, you

cannot work and have your mind and spirit during the day in something totally unrelated to

running, and then suddenly when the workout hour arrives switch your mindset to running

and expect to produce the performance. It just doesn’t work like that. What produces the

performance is the motivation that you soak in not just during the actual time of running but

during the entirety of the day –and even night-. The drive to push your body through pain,

discomfort, fatigue, even agony comes from the mind, and that source in the mind must be

nourished and replenished constantly by external stimulation and inspiration, such as by

watching others succeed in endurance events, which invariably prompts you to want to

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emulate them. In other words, you don’t have to just train running. At a certain level, you have

to speak, read, watch, breathe, and live running, make it your whole personal milieu, and be

surrounded by supportive friends, relatives and acquaintances who mirror back that attitude.

You have to move gradually, but inexorably and ascetically, toward the world of pro runners. I

am not sure I am ready for this. Moreover, my mother has submitted me to nearly constant

scold for my abnormal running-centeredness. She no longer gives me a hard time when I go for

a second workout in the late afternoon or evening, but she sure isn’t very pleased. She finds

two-a-days offensively pathological and pointless. She is right about the latter. I agree that, to

run a 3 hour marathon, two-a-days are certainly pointless. But, even if I have already reached

my genetic limit at three hours and I may never progress substantially under that, even if I may

never become a pro or semi-pro runner, two-a-days make me feel that I am training like one,

and this, in a deep psychological way, is important to me. God knows up to what extent I am

driven by the desire to get back at nature, at society… or at my mom.

So here’s a brief history of Mine, to crib poor Stephen Hawking (doesn’t he deserve the

normal physical mobility that I unjustly take for granted?). Here’s a brief history of my efforts

against Time.

Here’s my running background.

…

My father had very thin legs and as a boy rode a (heavy) bike around the local villages to

aid his family in the hard, hunger-stricken days of postwar Spain. He never had the opportunity

to compete in any sports: to him, surviving and getting ahead was the only competition he

knew. He went out on foot to sell door to door and village to village, he sweat doing the almost

Sisyphean errands required to stay on top of the dog-eat-dog business world, he wrestled with

the debasing treacle of commerce and enterprise regulations, he stood in long lines and put up

with the red tape. He ended up becoming very successful as a businessman, but he

overworked himself and was also a very nervous person: all this stress finally took its toll, and

he suffered three heart attacks.

My mother was very thin and handsome when she married. Her father had been a great

swimmer, and while she worked as a school teacher she exceeded at the running tests and was

even asked to coach youth track for a little while. But she also has an obesity gene, and after

giving birth to me her metabolism suddenly changed. Now she is very overweight, and this has

been the cause of untold suffering of hers (and of mine, too).

I was the plump nerd at secondary school, with straight As except for Physical Education,

where other kids snickered at me. I think that I once finished last at the 1500 m in the PE class,

somewhere in the 8 or 9 minute range, at around age 8 or 9. I then took up team handball,

where I was actually rather good, because I was tall and strong.

The onset of puberty suddenly trimmed off my plumpness. I took my first trip to the

States, as a 14 year old exchange student, and resolved to kick those jeering classmates’ asses

at the PE class track tests the following year. That summer I took up running and ended up

timing myself over a (mostly flat) 7.5 km course in the park in basically 30 minutes, (under 6:30

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pace I would venture). I would never repeat that performance in many, many years, however.

Neither did I get the pleasure of making all those mocking classmates bite the dust: some still

beat me, although I was no longer at the bottom of my class on the PE track tests: in fact, I was

now near the top. (truth be told, many of those jeering classmates had by then taken up

smoking “to be cool” and “in”) . That year I gave up team handball for track and cross-country,

… and learned the kinds of times that the good high school runners of my age were already

racing in. I was no match. On one practice test, over 200 meters at the track I was timed 29.5.

With less than a month after I turned sixteen, realizing that competing in the standard

races for my age was not my thing, I decided to excel by doing something really singular: I

entered, and completed in 4:31:30, the 1991 Barcelona marathon, which ended in the

pronounced ascent to the Olympic stadium (my recollection is that the climb was made more

gentle the following year for the Olympic race). Then that summer of 1991 I trained very hard

to add some speed to the endurance, throwing in some swimming too, but I must have done

something wrong, because I suddenly developed a heart arrhythmia that left me very fatigued

and diminished. I was told by a physician to totally back off from running for several months,

doing only jogs at less than what I now reckon to be the minimum threshold for an appreciable

training effect (correct me if I’m wrong): 55% of the heart rate reserve . The problem

disappeared in ECGs after the prescribed months of rest: I would be told much later that such

arrhythmias can be quite common in adolescents with their ion counts screwed up.

On resuming my running at age 17, I timed myself 13.8 seconds for 100 (flat!) meters.

That’s the fastest I’ve ever been. I also timed myself 69.6 seconds for a 400 m. So sluggish, I

know. In the Spanish equivalent of my senior high school year, I enrolled a local track team, the

former Scorpio, but I was still shamefully slow. I timed myself 20:00 for an unofficial 5 km loop

in the park.

I did university studies or research in the States, with some interruptions from late 1994

through early 2004. Except for the 1994/95 academic year (my first year of studies in the

States), I did not pursue competitive running in university, doing only basic gym and dancing ,

some yoga and the occasional jog or unstructured run. And some sex, I must add… “ the best

exercise”, as a beautiful blonde I picked up one night, told me.

I returned from the States in 2004 to settle definitively in Spain. And then in late 2006 I

took up again running earnestly. I was now an autonomous worker, helping my dad and mom

in our small real estate business, and this was giving me a more or less leisurely schedule with

little physical labor. This is the tranquil occupation I have had since then, increasingly freed

from stress, and I have sought to take full advantage, running-wise, of my new found calm.

In my first year of serious training in this new period of my life, I basically worked out for

an hour and twenty minutes Tuesday thru Saturday (Tuesday was an all-around full-body,

natural workout in the woods, with my heart rate not lower than the aerobic zone; then, for

the rest of the days, sundry intervals were intermixed with base pace recoveries and hills) .

Then on Sundays I went for the usual long run, which at first went only for two hours.

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Initially Mondays were to be total rest days. (Concerned about me, my poor mom had

consulted a physician and he had recommended a prescription of one weekly day of complete

rest, a prescription she wished to see me heed. I must add that I live in my parents’ house: this

is normal in Spain, especially now during the economic crisis). However, I realized right away

that, psychologically, if I don’t get my daily minimum of an hour of continuous, aerobic-or-

more-intense, exercise I feel I have not been “man enough” and do not deserve the little but

indispensable pleasures of life, which by then were essentially reduced to reading. I only drop

that self-imposed requirement when it is truly indispensable, such as when tapering for a

marathon (and then it took me quite long to accept the imperativeness of a full marathon

taper), or the day of a short race. (Very lately I have added the incomparable fine morning

grilled croissant with coffee at the local brasserie to my sacred, -almost- daily rituals). Besides,

the chemical urge to exercise becomes simply unbearable and I feel too yucky for my day to

have any enjoyment. Hence I was soon commencing what was to be my perennial frontal

attack on my mother’s nerves and tolerance by tucking in an easy 1-hour run or swim on

Mondays as an “active” recovery day. I so have loved recovery days. Why couldn’t all days be

recovery days?, I have wondered.

The Tuesday all-around full-body natural workout was eventually replaced by just

another standard (although typically hilly) training run; the Sunday long run began to go

beyond two hours, at first only a little. And after some time, recovery days began to stretch a

little longer past the hour.

Then I underwent a few episodes of anomalous arrhythmias that forced me to stop in

some runs, totally short of breath and with my heart going wild. My parents took me to see

José Antonio Casasnovas Lenguas, a Professor of cardiology at the University of Zaragoza.

After strapping me with a portable monitor of my heart rate (and perhaps of other

parameters, I don’t remember now), and having me undergo with it the routine of a typical

day of mine, including a normal training run, José Antonio assured me that my heart was

healthy and OK, “well coupled” to the training, and that I shouldn’t worry, the arrhythmias

being the product of my nerves.

By the summer of 2008, I began to first experiment with, and then get used to,

sporadically adding a second, shorter run in the late afternoon or early evening. I discovered

that I actually relished running out in the heat, especially if followed by a dip in the small pool

we have in our apartment complex. But my mother has often expressly forbidden a second

training session in the heat, she is understandably very scared of the heatstroke stories. So,

would you have any special expert reassurance for my mother that a second workout in the

day is OK, that I am by now acclimatized to the heat, that I have over the years learned to

carefully read my body and monitor its signs of stress, that Zaragoza’s summer late afternoon

heat can be scorching but is very dry, and that if the temperature goes over 100o F I can always

don a fully soaked T-shirt as refrigeration?

Progressing in running or in my athletic aspirations became for a while almost

tantamount to going up against my mother, defying her view of what a respectable life should

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be about: now she is becoming a bit more accepting. Putting my training center-stage has felt

for quite some time like an affront on her sense of identity.

On July 20, 2008, I finished, totally exhausted, the toughest race I have ever done, a

grueling 16.1 mile mountain run in the Pyrenees, with 1,640 yards of accumulated (positive)

altitude difference.

By then my attitude had become that, if in this present reality, subject to aging and

entropy, one can only maintain basic fitness through a minimum of routine exercise, if I have

to breathe this oxidizing atmosphere of Earth, then, given my extremist character, I may just as

well go whole hog and turn exercise into my life, training almost like a professional athlete, at

least as far as exercise-centeredness is concerned. I would go on grinding myself in training

with a quasi-pro dedication until I could improve no more in my times; then I would just retire

to a basic, “maintenance” fitness routine.

In September ’08 I ran a marathon in my hometown of Zaragoza. I did 3:08:13 on a

(mostly) flat course (net 3:07:43), including a forced pit stop due to what I was to learn was a

great dread of any marathoner: the runner’s trots. I ran under 3-hour-pace until the 30 Km

point. When I was passed by the 3-hour pacing bus, I became demoralized and totally crashed:

my crawl to the finish was an 8-minute-per-mile-pace calvary, the traditional scenario of hitting

the wall which was to become quite familiar to me.

By then I was doing the bulk of my training runs with extra weights, so at the easy base

pace effort of 142 beats per minute I was plodding along slower than easy base pace.

Moreover, I had also just learned to ride a bike (that’s right, I had missed out on that as a

child), and was enthused about the prospect of triathlons. One Friday I logged in a total of four

hours between the running, the biking and the swimming. What seems now retrospectively so

remarkable, given my inborn propensity for sleeping a lot, is that I pushed myself through

those grueling (although very low in anaerobic quality) multi-sport training sessions sometimes

on just 9½ hours of sleep a day or even less. And in those days when I was toying with

triathlon, I had to put up, due to my dad’s high-powered business drive, with far more stress

and with more physically demanding work-related activities (errands, travels and the

mandatory calls to the various real estate properties we have scattered around) than I do now.

With hindsight now, however, it seems clear that it was precisely my dad’s commanding

presence as “the boss” that pushed me to sustain for that time (what to me was) such an

exacting training routine. My dad did his exercise throughout the day by walking about town

and physically carrying out sometimes very heavy errands: hence work and the fun of a

leisurely walk was for him always blended into one. I couldn’t partake of that fun because I had

picked up early in my adolescence the notion that walking tires you but has no training effect

(This, I have learned now, is not accurate, but certainly a stroll about town in casual clothes is

no substitute for a decent, compact easy run). Moreover, my dad understood that I naturally

wasn’t thrilled by doing business the way he innately was. And he could understand that I did

some morning jogging before starting my proper workday: after all, even George H. W. Bush

famously jogged around the time when he was President. But a heavy training routine, semi-

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professional in mindset and aspiration if not in performance level, upset my dad’s notion of

what a decent, respectable life should be like. So I wanted to show him, with a certain seething

fury, that I could attend to my family business responsibilities and train for a triathlon. My dad

would pass from a fulminant cancer in July 2010, and the underlying psychological motivation

“to get back at him” by redoubling my athletic self-punishment is now gone.

Also, a couple of duathlons I took part in later 2008 quickly disabused me from multi-

sport projects. Cross-duathlons demand a high level of mountain biking skill and are simply not

for me, I painfully found out... And then, for ordinary (road) duathlons I had to master the road

bike, and my parents had banned me from road bikes, rightly concerned about their inherent

risk of accidents.

Then in April 2009 I came across you online and you sent me your inspiring running

encouragements. I heeded your advice and dropped all the weights in my runs. I still went out

for an occasional bike ride but now I was to focus solely on running.

In late 2009 I really squeezed myself in training. One week I logged in over 125 miles:

that’s the highest mileage I’ve gone up to. Two-a-days had by then become rather common. I

sure reveled in training like a Pro: that’s why I wanted to see that 200 km+ week, even though

it surely sagged me more than boosted me as my running speeds and my access to peripheral

but very important aspects of running like physiotherapy were not those of a Pro. In

preparation for the ‘09 Zaragoza marathon I did one long run (not entirely at easy base pace) a

few yards in excess of the distance of 26.2 miles, finishing completely depleted, drained. There

was little quality training in those high-mileage weeks, though. For that marathon, which took

place on Sunday November 23 2009, I clearly did not taper adequately (I did my hour of easy

running even on the Friday and on the Saturday before the race: I couldn’t let go of my ritual

habit). Still, I should have been able to properly break three hours, I surmised. Wrong. I

finished in 3:17:28 on a flat course and a perfect, windless day, struggling through half in

1:29:59, and being forced to stop to empty my bowels three times. It was a horrible day for

me.

By 2009 my consistent training went year-round: there were no “off” seasons, although

the quality was always scarce: I dread discomfort, I go by feel, and I am just not man enough to

push myself to agony.

For the November 2010 Zaragoza marathon, however, I made the supreme effort of

incorporating those high-quality workouts, the pinnacle of suffering being a two hour

continuous session on the flats with a total of 4.35 miles of what to me is a very hard pace,

roughly 5:26/mile, scattered in chunks throughout the run, with at least one chunk being of 1.2

miles, and the rest smaller; and with the recovery being easy base pace (7:40/mile or quicker),

not a jog. Moreover, I am almost sure I topped off that session at the end by a four-to-five

minute pickup at 6:25/mile. If I didn’t, then on another day of training (perhaps after the 2010

Zaragoza marathon), I certainly completed, between the morning and the afternoon-evening

sessions, two hours of running on the flats with:

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chunks of (what to me is!) high-quality at ～5:26/mile pace, totaling 4.35 miles

or more in chunks (one chunk being of at least 1.2 miles);

12 minutes at ～6:25/mile pace;

and the rest easy base pace as recovery.

This type of training day remains my most exacting accomplishment. (Actually on one

day I strung together 5 miles in what felt like ～5:26/mile pace intervals, again with one of

those intervals being longer than 1.2 miles, but I was totally broken after that, and I don’t think

I managed to top off that day by picking up my pace to ～6:25/mile for the last few minutes).

That kind of training day is certainly not something I can do every week, or even every other

week. Psychologically, in fact, I now dread it.

I also had my go at the infernal 440s, although I never strung together a classic 12×440

yards: the closest I came was one day when I did a block of half a dozen 440s (at, perhaps, 78

seconds/400 m) with a 1-2 minute recovery trot, then two miles easy, then a couple more

440s, then another two miles easy, etc. And it was only on that day, of great motivation and

focus, when I managed to do that; I haven’t repeated it since.

Since about that time, it has also become customary for me every week (typically on

Fridays), to go for an all-out sprint, just for a second or two, enough to reach peak speed. And

then I like the hills, the natural strength, and (if done as intervals) the power, that they give

you. Hills have been a staple of my training for quite a while. I am especially “fond” of “the

walls” I use: each about 45-50 yards at a 70-100% grade (35-45o incline). I crest the top

painfully and in very high oxygen debt: I have taken 190 beats per minute. Hence I have come

to highly respect mountain runs. Mountains put you in your place.

That year you would think I would have learned the lesson and would adequately taper

for race day. I did actually take a day of full rest, but I felt disgustingly yucky on it, and I sensed

that it didn’t do me much good either. Then the Saturday before the Sunday of the 2010

Zaragoza marathon I ended up stretching the usually mandated very short and easy shakeup

run on the eve of the race to 50 minutes. God knows if I paid for that on race day, but I must

say that in the end I am proud of how that marathon came out. Indeed, often since that

marathon, I have thought in frustration that it may end up being the only occasion in my life

when I manage to break three hours. But did I truly break them? My official time was 2:59:33,

but at some point along a (quite flat) course the route to follow was not well signaled, and I

found out later that I had gently cut a couple of curves. I am pretty sure I made up for those

shaved yards when I took the exit to (yes) empty my bowels, as well as with the usual slight

sideways moves at the water stations etc, but the doubt is still nagging me. The best of that

day was the elated feel I had up to the 3 Km point, which, because it was placed across the

avenue from the exit, the official clock said I passed in 11:39 (6:15/mile pace). After that, I

gradually slowed down (half in 1:25:21), the gusts of wind ended up getting the better of me,

and I abruptly crashed at the 30 Km point (2:03:28) to the by now familiar 8 min/mile calvary,

but hey, I still made it, didn’t I?

Page 11

After the 2010 Zaragoza marathon and before my next one, the Seville February 13 2011

marathon, I participated in a couple of cross-country races. I did well, or at least I was

encouraged by my results at both cross-country races. Those weeks prior to Seville possibly

saw the best training, in both quantity and quality, I have ever done. But that might precisely

have been the reason why Seville’ 2011 wound up being such a disappointment for me: you

have to watch out not to leave the best of your racing on the training trails, paths and roads in

practice.

Another possible factor accounting for my fiasco in Seville, where I expected to really dip

under 3 hours, with 2:50 being my realistic target, was the previous days of very little running

in the hotel in Seville, when I may have inadvertently stuffed myself with the breakfast buffet

and picked up some weight. I took a day of complete rest the Saturday just prior to the Sunday

race. It seems that Friday would have been a better pick for the day of full rest. The course

and the weather on race day were perfect, the only ramp being the little one at the

exit/entrance of the stadium where the race started and finished. I felt rather torpid during

the race, never finding that sub-4-min/Km click (the closest was the 5 km to 10 km split, at an

average of 4:01’7/km or 6:29/mile), keeping the effort only through half, which I hit in a very

disappointing official 1:27:05 (1:26:36 the net), and then steadily slowing down to the end,

impotently arriving in a gun time of 3:00:48.

On March 20 2011, I did a somewhat hilly 3.32 mile race, feeling ungainly and slow,

finishing in 19:54. I was very disappointed by it.

On April 3, 2011, in a race held on a tough course over scenic dirt trails, with a killer hill, I

finished in an official 1:21:34. I couldn’t hold the pace on the last, flat stretches. Giving up and

crashing down to a lower pace has become habitual for me. The course officially was 11.87

miles long (one runner’s GPS gave 11.9).

Then along came the 2011 Zaragoza marathon, held on November 6 2011. As

preparation for that one I did, five weeks prior to the race, one long run of 26.22+ miles,

basically along flat terrain, but with an initial twenty-something minutes at ～6:20/mile pace,

and with three or four pick-ups of 110-220 yards at ～5:25/mile pace interspersed throughout

the rest of the run. I finished the run totally knocked out, almost like after a race. It was the

last time I did a long run over the marathon distance (or a few yards in excess of it) in practice.

Subsequently I have been told that such long runs do more harm than good because of the

induced muscular and chemical fatigue: 20 miles is the longest long run recommended by the

knowledgeable veteran runner who sells me the running shoes at the local store. Even those

shooting for a sub-2:40 marathon should not go beyond 20 miles in training, he says. (He has a

PR of 2:36 and, by the way, concurs with you that it is possible theoretically to move one’s

marathon PB from three hours down to the magic enchanted land of two thirty something

over the span of two-three years of dedicated, 75+ miles/week training, provided, he says, that

one undergoes much starving with the diet, and that the training is streamlined and

Page 12

mercilessly optimized, ever looking for that agony zone. In other words: 7×1 km with 2 min

recovery trot, the kind of stuff I simply refuse to do).

At the Zaragoza 2011 marathon I went out conservatively. The course was rather flat,

but it was a windy day, with the winds expected to hurt the most in the second half, which

went along unprotected large avenues outside the city center. I hit half in 1:29:26, but then,

when the time came to step up my effort to battle the winds, I crashed instead. The final

stretches were a Dantean nightmare against 58 mph gales. In the circumstances, then, I ought

not to be too depressed by my 3:07:27 finishing time.

Two weeks after that marathon, I took part in a cross-country race I had done before and

which (at least up to that point) I had liked: a hilly course on pine needle-covered dirt trails

with tight bends, which went for 4.35 miles, maybe a few yards past that. I suffered big time,

specially uphill, and was depressed that I just couldn’t keep a fast pace: I said, I am going to

give my best in this race one more time, but that’s it, I compete no more, running just isn’t for

me. My finish time was 28:41: I was 37th in the field. The winner, one of those puissant local

athletes, finished in 23:33. An acquaintance of mine, a really mad ultra runner with a marathon

2:34 PB, came in 7th at 25:05.

Then, about that time, on a Sunday when I was very eager to prove myself, I pulled off in

training what might be my best performance ever: a sub-4 min/km 20 miler. I didn’t measure

the course, but judging from my by then well memorized cadence I am very certain I went at

that psychological watershed pace of 4 min/km (6:26.2/mile) or barely under. There was

almost no wind that day and I had to smartly find my way through the flattest avenues and

portions of town, amply anticipating or dodging cars and pedestrians and bikers in order not to

lose any seconds, and then I had to grit my teeth and summon all my willpower to finish, but I

think I did it. I actually carried on past 2 hours and 10 minutes, so it must have been a few

yards past 20 miles. That’s it, that’s my highest achievement so far, Glenn. Since then every

time I have gone out for a long run I have, following common running wisdom, only done

tempo pace for a portion of it: my latest habit is to tackle my long run (typically on Sunday)

progressively, starting at 7:10 min/mile (if the terrain is flat) or so and picking it up gradually to

6:20/mile or under, and then almost invariably crashing to (fatigued) base pace for the last half

hour or more (in which I then insert one, maybe two, surges of 110-220 yards at ～5:20/mile).

On February 5 2012 I participated in a local cross-country event that I had done in

previous years. In 2012 the course went for an official “6 miles”, but I found out later that the

race organizer tends to advertise the course as slightly longer than it really is in order to puff

up participants’ egos and hook them in for next year. The racecourse that day, at least for the

open male and female races which closed the event, was very muddy, and there was that small

hill that had to be passed in every loop. A little bit into the race I gave up under the lactate

buildup (“the bear”), and slowed down a bit, but I still came in 36:54, 46 th in the open male

field. For a while I was reassured that my average pace (even if the course was short), was

almost as fast as that of Marisa Casanueva, and faster than that of 2008 Beijing Olympic

marathoner María José Pueyo, in their shorter female event which had taken place earlier the

Page 13

same morning, and where they had finished 2nd and 3rd respectively. (The girls did the same

loop as the boys, they just did fewer loops, so if the loop was short of the announced distance,

it was equally short for both categories). Marisa has now run a 34:51 road 10 k; María José had

run a 2:34 marathon the year before. Unfortunately, the same guy I’ve alluded to before who

sells me the running shoes was the killjoy: he told me later that I shouldn’t draw too much

from the performance of these top girls vis-à-vis mine at that particular cross-country race, as

they don’t race flat out in these local events. I must also add that the time of the girls’ event

had coincided with a heavy downpour.

About that time I had decided to go for the 2012 Barcelona marathon, which was to be

held on Sunday March 25. My last three weeks of full training (before the mandatory last

fortnight of taper), came at 104.3, 100.7 and 95.2 miles.

I must say I am not dissatisfied with how my 2012 Barcelona marathon came out. By that

edition, held on Sunday March 25th, Barcelona was already the fourth biggest marathon in

Europe by number of entrants. For that race I observed pretty much a correct taper, including

full rest on Friday, which made it a horribly yucky and anxious day; and on Saturday the

customary 25 minute easy shake-up, in which I felt actually very bad and awkward. Then, on

Sunday, on what is an almost flat course right at sea-level, and on a day with no wind, which

got just a tad too warm as the race progressed, I produced a 3:01:35 gun time, 3:00:53 net. But

I keep from that race my encouraging 39:52 net 10 K split. I felt like a good marathoner up to

that point, the pace feeling fast but not unbearable. I actually relished gliding down, even up,

those streets and avenues. Nevertheless, I knew there was no way I was going to hold that

pace through the second half. Very shortly after passing half in 1:25:26 net (already struggling),

I had to take a, yes, pit stop due to the runner’s trots again (this time probably triggered by

those little tomatoes at the hotel breakfast menu…). Still, I managed to tough it out and did

not slow down very much until the 30 km point (that’s why it’s called the wall, I guess). The

last 2 km were a real calvary: their very gentle 1% uphill grade, which ordinarily would not

have been a big deal, felt dauntingly imposing to my stiffened legs. I had to summon all my

strength to finish, and I vowed I would never run a marathon again.

Barcelona was the first time when I just couldn’t go out for a run the day after a

marathon. I had to help myself by the hand rails to walk down the stairs. Well, maybe I could

have gone for a short, limping trot, but I refused to. My muscles were just too sore. I did an

hour of pool work.

I understandably did not even want to consider racing for a while after Barcelona.

Nevertheless, by the third week after the marathon, I had gone back up to my usual mileage

and quality, or attempts at quality, doing 95.5 and 93.2 miles in the two weeks from April 9

thru April 22 2012.

But what is the point of training if you don’t race? So it was with some enthusiasm that I

signed for a hilly 12 K race to be held on Sunday April 29. In every race, however, there comes

the moment of truth, when you have to buckle down and bite the bullet. I refused to do it on

that day. Shortly after the 4 minute/km (6:26.2/mile) bus passed me, paced by none other

Page 14

than Abel Antón, the two time marathon world-champion (and now a coach), I simply quitted,

and did not finish. There is a slight possibility that the bus pace group was actually charging

ahead faster than the stipulated 4 min/km pace, I don’t know for sure. But at any rate, I

couldn’t put up with the specter of the same old familiar types of upper-middle-of-the-pack

runners passing me, some with the now fashionable long compression socks that are said to

aid muscle recovery, and which like all fancy gadgets and trinkets I have refused to buy into as

long as I am in that unworthy, uncouth three-hour-marathon level category of heavy-framed

wannabes. And there was that guy I knew who was much older than me, with white hair, but a

thin and small complexion, who didn’t even need to pass me, he was ahead of me from the

get-go and unreachably pulling away: yet, and despite his gracefulness, I had watched him

crank out the long intervals in training and neither that nor his racing on that day was a very

pleasant sight; rather, it seemed to me the epitome of the losing, unnatural, brutal battle

against aging. No, in that 12 K I was demoralized. I was not having my day, I stopped and

emptied my bowels, I had diarrhea or close. But it’s no excuse. I’m not cut out for suffering. If

life is about who can withstand more suffering, then I am a loser. And I don’t give a damn

anymore.

That week I closed with 75.5 miles, race included.

Perhaps to give in a race what I am truly capable of I have to admit that I will not escape

the inevitable performance decline with aging and summon, while the decline is still essentially

unnoticeable, all of my spirit, if not my soul, into that peak race? (it feels wrong to summon

the soul and the Holy powers of God just for a sporting event).

So the week after, April 30 thru May 6 2012, I was back at it. In fact, the very day after

the race, Monday April 30, I pushed myself punishingly through a 20.8 mile run, not entirely at

easy pace. And then the Sunday after I did another long run , this time of 19.7 miles, but with a

good chunk of it under 6:30/mile. That week I ended up logging in 105 miles in total.

These were my mileage totals for the following weeks:

week TOTAL miles

Days of the week when I did doubles

May 7th thru 13th 90.0 Tuesday, Thursday & SaturdayMay 14th thru 20th 96.9 Tuesday & WednesdayMay 21st thru 27th 87.3 Tuesday & WednesdayMay 28th thru June 3rd 95.2 Monday, Wednesday & SaturdayJune 4th thru June 10th 102.2 Wednesday & Friday

June 11th thru June 17th 95.2 Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday & I'm almost sure Sunday

There were no long runs in this six week period. I have the perhaps insane perception that the

heat makes me stronger when I later compete in normal weather (anything that doesn’t kill

you makes you stronger, right?), so I try to pack up as many late afternoon / early evening runs

as, well, my mood, and especially my mother’s mood, allow. This means that sometimes I

Page 15

sacrifice the long run (which I like to do typically on Sundays) for a two-a-day if the weather

forecast is going to be of a hot afternoon.

Very roughly, about 5% of my weekly mileage in recent times has been in hard (～5:25/mile on

the flats) or “power” intervals (5:09/mile or faster). I must report, though, that this percentage

might be dropping, as I am losing the motivation to hurt and push myself to even moderate

discomfort. All for what, I tell myself in each surge or interval as soon as I start to feel the

asphyxiating grip of lactate buildup and oxygen debt, “the bear”?

Sometimes, instead of those hard or very hard intervals, I have done “semi”-hard intervals,

which I guess are at ～5:39/mile on the flats. These are also to me high-quality miles, so if we

include them in the count, the total weekly percentage of high-quality miles might have then

been larger. But I am losing my motivation for these “semi”-hard intervals too, as I just don’t

see myself holding that kind of pace in a half marathon, which was my original rationale for

doing them.

Then another ～ 9% of my weekly miles has been tempo-style running near my anaerobic

threshold (6:15-6:20/mile).

And yet another 9-10% has been brisk or “live” pace (6:20-7:00/mile), generally as part of a

progressive long run.

And that’s it, as far as the “high-end work” is concerned. My body dreads agony, is accustomed

to the good life, and does not ask for any more quality, at least not at my recent mileage

levels. So the rest of my training routine is just easy miles, easy downhill segments, and uphill

stretches where I “take it easy”.

Realize that a sizable portion of my weekly mileage total, even of the “high-end” miles, have

been on hilly, sometimes quite steep, terrain. These hills, even when not done as intervals or

at tempo-ish pace, cannot properly be considered easy miles, for my heart rate goes markedly

above 142 beats per minute, especially at the “walls”!

The day (typically Saturday) before a planned, hard long run I have found that about an

hour and a half at easy pace with some tough hills leaves my legs primed but not too tired.

Occasionally, if my week has been deficient in quality, I may try to make up for it by packing in

a few minutes at fast pace or a few surges, but I have to be careful not to burn myself out on

the eve of a planned, hard long run.

The recovery day after a (progressive or hard) long run has so far almost invariably

consisted of an easy run of ten-miles-and-a-few-yards on the flats.

When doing doubles, the second session in the day has often featured at least 12

continuous minutes at anaerobic threshold/tempo-ish pace.

I use no GPS, so there will probably be some error in my reported training paces and

distances, although I have a pretty good feel for my pace, especially on the flats, where I often

calibrate my judgment against 100 meter marks that are available on some paths.

Every day I do my sit-ups and lumbar exercises (with about twenty pounds in dumbbells)

before heading out for my (first) run, and I finish each run with the basic stretching.

Page 16

I really take care of myself. I eat lots of raw vegetables, especially lettuce, which gets on

my mother’s nerves. I stay away from all sweets and keep processed foods to a minimum. (I

relish the excellent Greek-style yoghurt from the local supermarket chain, though). My dad in

his last years was a fanatic of healthful eating and he really helped improve our diet. One of

the factors that have contributed to lowering my self-esteem in the past has been the fact that

I am such a sleepyhead. These days it is just plain common for me to sleep 11½ hours after a

hard training day with a double, and I have come to unapologetically accept it. –I don’t nap,

however: my phobia of siestas is a hard-ingrained custom I carry from the days I wanted to set

myself apart from the common, afternoon-lazy Spaniard, even though now Americans are

catching up with the wholesomeness of the ancestral Spanish habit, and the in-between-

training-sessions nap has long been an indispensable staple of many professional long-distance

runners-.

I think I can detect the (at first very slight) symptoms of getting older. I need to sleep

more, and I no longer recover as well as I used to. It’s becoming harder and harder for me to

stick to the same training routine week after week: I try to change the scenery a little bit by

taking the car and occasionally driving to appealing unexplored nearby locales, but even this is

not exciting me much anymore. I feel I am winding down and aging and slowly dying, sinking in

sadness. I would like to insert some desperately-needed freshness into my life by traveling to

the States and catching up with my good old friends there, and maybe meeting you too, but I

suspect I have already sentenced myself to lifelong exclusion from the US when I wrote to the

American embassy in Madrid and other official places and decried to them up front that a large

chunk of the US government is run by criminals that perpetrated 9/11 as what’s called a “false

flag” operation, blaming it on Islamic extremists. So I’ll probably be blacklisted at Homeland

Security or wherever as a troublemaker: society has no stomach for those who tell the truth.

And I cannot stand the lies. This is a spiritual battle to the end.

On the evening of Sunday June 17 I went for a very short run. At a very exacting pace, on

the flats, with a slight head breeze, I timed myself at 6:22/mile pace. I aborted the run almost

right away. That’s it, what’s the point anymore. I was not assuaged by the fact that my legs

were tired after closing a week of 95.2 miles (including that Sunday evening run), many of

which were intense and demanding to my low-grade lungs and cardiovascular system. Neither

was I consoled by the heat of that evening. After years of obsessive hard training, I am still a

pathetic piece of shit, I told myself: a trudging pig, a subpar creation by God. 6’4” tall, 180 lbs

on a strict diet, I felt I was just not made for running, period.

But life is running, isn’t it?

The life force is in the blood, and in its capacity to carry oxygen, and a new breed of

parvenus, of the new rich, eager to rule and dislodge the traditional aristocratic Alphas and Old

Money establishments, have discovered this new martial elixir of power, gym youth and

beauty, and express it in neat bouts of aerobic or more intense exercise, like neatly-packaged

little capsules containing the active ingredient of life, vitality’s distilled living essence. Beta,

lower-class people cannot afford that, and have to scatter their vitality out throughout the day,

Page 17

like my poor dad had to do. The Betas slave away at the mines or sweep streets or perform

some other lowly, menial social function to serve the ruling power ELITE.

Fitness and prowesses at recognized endurance events have become the new status

symbols.

On days like this past Sunday June 17, my judgment gets blurred, conflating the highborn

Elite who rule the world, and the Elite of long-distance running and endurance athletics, in one

dejected fit of sinking impotence: if one doesn’t have an ELITE OV̇� 2 max or if one doesn’t have

(athletic or aristocratic) ELITE genetics, one doesn’t deserve to breathe the fucking oxygen of

this planet. I tried to solace myself by reading Whitley Strieber’s Communion. But I couldn’t. I

don’t care how wonderful and real Whitley’s experience with aliens or the paranormal has

been; Michael Shermer will not be impressed unless the person vouching its reality can

produce a two hour thirty something marathon, which shows that the person’s genes are

Alpha and can survive a Darwinian sieve. (Shermer was an ultra-endurance cyclist in his

younger years and once finished the Hawaii Ironman).

Actually, what the hell. Two hour thirty something is not even world-class for females,

let alone males, these days. No, to be truthful, outside the ruling peerage and the patriciate,

only the Patrick Makaus, the OV̇� 2 max absolute world champions, deserve to breathe the

oxygen of this planet. All other people are useless eaters, according to Prince Charles and his

social aristocratic Elite ilk (who don’t run two thirty something marathons, but that’s OK

because they have a special blue blood –why is it called “blue blood”?-, and their contest in life

is different). On days like this past June 17 I am unable to get myself to do anything. My pain

and my anger at God are too strong. In fact, on days like that, I spiral away in despair,

wondering: what if there is no God, after all?; what if Michael Shermer and Richard Dawkins

and all that crowd are right?; what if “God” and “aliens” and “the paranormal” are just fairy

tales with which the Betas, the people of lesser genes that will never be able to emulate the

likes of Patrick Makau, console themselves?

Happily, a little love for myself and the rest of Creation came back in the days after.

One day we will stop competing, and we will fully realize that we are One. Perhaps no

longer One Flesh, as we may have to transcend matter in order to reach that noospheric,

apocalyptic, glorious stage, but certainly One Energy, One Consciousness. There will be no

more Alphas and Betas, no more predatory Wall Street practices, no more killing of other life-

forms to eat, no more social Darwinism of trampling on each other, no more showing off and

bragging that you have made it to the top of the pile, no more boasting about getting laid with

the knockout chick, no more ejaculations and post-ejaculatory blues and Viagras and porn, no

more getting up all low in the morning and having to do a 7×1 km with 2 min trot recovery, no

more look-at-my-genetically-endowed-body-which-you-can’t-have celebrity model airs, no

more aging and anti-wrinkle cosmetics, no more antidepressants, no more pension funds and

401ks and inflation and banks and insurance, no more tax forms, no more testosterone

supplements, no more paralympic athletes and amputees, no more disabilities, no more

Page 18

Skeptic society meetings at Caltech, no more things to prove, no more injustices. To speed the

coming of that day, though, I am finding out that loving the little things in life is all-important.

This past June 24 2012, indeed, I took part in a 7.369 mile race on the dirt trails around a

salt mine near Zaragoza, in the village of Remolinos, in which the course wound up and down

with some prolonged 20% grade ramps. I must say that, while I suffered, this time I did finish,

and moreover I did so with a good feel and I relished the whole experience of meeting those

old running pals and some new people (including a Scot!), of the pre-race pep talk and

camaraderie, of coming under the inflatable arch of the finish with a strong photogenic kick

after having given my best. And, moreover, the numbers on the digital clock as I crossed the

finish line didn’t look too ugly. I came in 55:03.

An entrant in that race was local long-distance running legend Luisa Larraga, who had

been 21st at the Seville 1999 10,000 m World Championships, and is now retiring at age 41

from top-line competitive racing after having failed to make the Olympic team this year in the

marathon. During the initial stretches of this June 24 2012 semi-mountain race, I think I

remember watching Luisa steadily pull away from me with the characteristic yellow racing gear

of her Simply-Scorpio-71 team, the successor of the team in which I had run as a youngster.

She is obviously in better shape than I am, but she went on to win in Remolinos’s open female

field in a not seemingly that unreachable 52:12. I wonder if she exerted herself as hard as I did,

because a few days later she went on to post a 16:39 at a 5,000 m track meet in Mataró, near

Barcelona.

The week of the Remolinos race, June 18 thru 24, I tapered and logged only 80.2 miles in

total. The week of June 25th thru July 1st I did 100.1 miles ; the week of July 2nd thru 8th I did

95.5 miles .

In the evening of Monday July 9th I went for the second session of the day in 95o F heat

with a usual 13 minutes at anaerobic-threshold / tempo-style pace, 6:15/mile I suppose. I took

my heart rate during the last minute or so of the tempo segment: 160 beats per minute. One

minute after fully stopping at the end of the run, I had recovered down to 108 beats per

minute.

As I was wrapping up this report/essay, I was going to point out that my base pace

hadn’t very noticeably improved in the years since late 2006 when I started training seriously:

the bracket for what I take to be “easy base pace” (140-142 beats per minute heart rate)

seemed indeed stuck between 7:11 and 7:27/mile (on the flats, obviously, with no wind),

depending on how fresh and “inspired” I was on the day in question. A few weeks ago I had

timed myself 7:02/mile, but that was already at 146 beats per minute.

But on July 10 2012, at the end of a not entirely easy run, I timed myself at 26.6 seconds

over a couple of measured marks separated by 100 meters: hence 7:08/mile pace. And

immediately after, trying not to modify my pace, I took my heart rate as I ran. At first I got 132

beats per minute. No, that couldn’t be, I must have slowed down a bit since the 100 m

segment. So I took my heart rate again. 140 beats per minute. I, always so hard on myself,

always the strict experimentalist, searched for biases. Was there a tail breeze? If so, it must

Page 19

have been a very slight breeze. Perhaps I should start to admit that my shape, at least for base

pace, may at last have improved?

If the weather hasn’t been too humid and I haven’t had one of those bad days when I

finish very fatigued, I usually recover in the first minute after an easy pace effort from 140

down to 95 beats per minute. My resting heart rate is 39 beats per minute.

Then, in the evening of July 15th, Sunday, about seventy seconds after concluding a fast-

paced second workout of the day, (2.5 mostly flat miles, starting at 6:13 and finishing at

5:38/mile), I took only 95 beats per minute. There was no heat that evening, though. That

workout closed a week (July 9th thru 15th) of 102.3 miles.

It has been increasingly harder to sustain quality and quantity during the last three

weeks of my training. I have managed to do so, but I think I am burned out, at least mentally.

Even recovery days are becoming burdensome:

July 16th thru 22nd: .....................I did 91.9 miles and no long runs

July 23rd thru 29th:......................I did 94.0 miles and no long runs

and July 30th thru Aug 5th: .........I did 92.6 miles and no long runs

…

Frankly, Glenn: I am now not that much more motivated to undertake focused, exacting,

disciplined training than on this past May 27 when we talked on the phone. In fact, on more

and more days I feel like just retiring from competitive running, or rather from my clumsy

attempts at it. Do you feel I should strive on in pursuit of improving my times? Should I

continue endeavoring to see the glass half full?