Before I get to that, a brief update on me. Boston Marathon is less than 3 months away and until I hear about my "next steps" for my lousy 20/70 vision in my right eye. If I hear that surgery is viable to correct the vision, that will sidetrack my training. In the meantime, last Saturday I was able to comfortable boost my long run to 12.5 miles in 1 hour, 35 minutes. If the rain is pouring too hard tomorrow morning, I'm hoping to run another 15 minutes longer.

So last Saturday was the 2012 U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials, where, the top runners around the country who met qualifying time standard competed for 3 slots to the Olympics. The men's "A" standard (and thus receives funding support to the trials) was a 2:19 marathon, 1:05 half marathon or 28:30 10,000 meters on the track. The women's "A" standard was a 2:39 marathon or a "B" standard of 2:46 full, 1:15 half or 33:00 10,000 meters. I'm happy to say that back in the day I met all the women's standards...though unfortunately, or fortunately (depending on how you look at it) I'm not a woman.

So in a nutshell, naturalized U.S. citizen Meb Keflezighi, won the Men's Olympic Trials in a personal best time of 2 hours, 9 minutes, 8 seconds, with favorite Ryan Hall and Abdi Abdirahman rounding out the top 3. Notably, the top 2 are both California residents (Mammoth Lakes).

At age 36, he's the oldest winner of the Marathon Olympic Trials after an injury slowed him down at the 2008 trials. In 2004 Meb won the silver medal in the Olympics, the first U.S. male medal winner in the marathon since Frank Shorter in the 1970s.

Perhaps though, this is what inspired and impressed me the most with his recent performance. Only 68 days prior to Saturday, Meb finished 6th place in the New York City Marathon. But he did something really lame that day. Something I can relate to. He accidently ran with a Breath Right nasal strip in his left shoe. And it messed up the ball of his foot so badly that he got an infection. As a result, he had to take extra time off to heal.

Yes, this world class runner made a rookie mistake that I can relate to! Like the day I stupidly ran 45 minutes in "barefoot" running shoes in my first attempt. Even the best of the best make boo boos. This is really motivating! We're all human and we all make mistakes! But we move on!

Congratulations all trials winners! The women's top 3 that are going to the Olympics are Shalane Flanagan (2:25:38), Desiree Davila (2:25:55) and Kara Goucher (2:26:06). Agoura High alumnus and 2004 Olympic bronze medalist and U.S. marathon record holder (2:19:36) Deena Kastor finished 6th in 2:30:40. Not bad for a 38 year old who became a mother just 10 months ago!!