Video Footage of June 28th U.S. Men's 5,000 Meter Olympic Trials in Oregon

On June 28, 2012, 26 year old Galen Rupp of Portland, Oregon broke Steve Prefontaine's 1972 5000m trials record, running the race in 13:22.67. Galen's career best time in the distance was set earlier that month on June 2 at the Prefontaine Classic in 12:58.90, where he finished in 3rd place. This will be Rupp's 2nd appearance in the Olympics, finishing 13th in the 10,000 meters in Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics.

Rupp will be joined by 38 year old (ancient by 5,000 meter standards) Bernard Lagat, who finished 15/100ths of a second behind Rupp, and 3rd place finisher Lopez Lomong. This is a great finish in what was a very tactical race. Looking forward to seeing these guys compete in London next month.

Waking Up My Body Once Again With a Local 5K Race on the 4th of July

With no particular race plans and no real focus to my running these days, I don't have a lot of motivation to run fast. It has been 3 1/2 months since I started back with my running after 5 1/2 week hiatus. I've been running consistently, but not spectacularly.

Part of my problem continues to be lack of adequate sleep...getting to bed too late. I'll have to work on cloning myself. Too tired in the morning, my daily runs have been slow. My long runs in the 8 to 9 mile range over the last 3 to 4 weeks.

In any case, I thought it would be fun to do the local Miller Family YMCA 5K in Newbury Park on the 4th of July to give my body some shock treatment again. When you don't do speedwork on the track or in your training in general, I'm a fan of running a periodic 5K to force a little speed with peer pressure surrounding you in a fun environment.

There were over 400 runners on hand for the 5K. The weather was overcast, the course was semi-challenging. I felt decent. Not speedy, but not bad.

As usual for pretty much any local 5K/10K, there were dozens and dozens of teenagers toeing the line. Although I know most of them will be out of the gate like a sprinter, then fizzle out before the first miler marker, I don't bother trying to squeeze into the front where I know I belong (I did, even at my advanced age of 47, still manage to finish 9th overall). I chose standing in the 2nd/3rd row and relaxing, though slightly annoyed, to jostling with a pimply 16 year old for a spot.

The race starts and, sure enough, 50 people bolt out ahead of me as I work my way into it. But within 1/2 mile most of these folks are behind me as I slowly but surely reel them in. At that point I was pretty much in the spot I'd end up at at the finish line.

While the speed that carried me to 17 1/2 minute 5K times 2 years ago was not there, I felt more competitive than the 10K I ran 2 1/2 months ago. So I was able to keep a couple teenagers on their toes most of the race, trading positions with them a few times. At the end, they were able to accelerate while I stayed in 2nd gear, and they beat me 8 seconds.

The results show me in 9th place in 18:31, roughly 5:59 per mile. The first mile was uphill, which forced me into negative splits, which is a good thing. The two kids in front of me were 14 and 16. The 10th place finisher, 25 seconds behind me, was 15. WTH?? I'm older than the combined ages of these 3 guys. Too much fun!

Boston Marathon 2012 Was Sweltering; Top Local Finishers

Here is the card I got back in the mail, indicating my lack of appearance at the race. My friend picked up my shirt in Boston for me. At least I have even splits in this race.It was actually a blessing that I didn't run the Boston Marathon last month as I don't like running in the heat and it was one gnarly, hot and humid day out there. According to race organizers, it was 79 degrees at the start of the men's race and 85 degrees at the finish.

One local runner who has run Boston a dozen or so times said it was 87 degrees at the finish and he was starting to see double. He finished about 33 minutes slower than last year's time, though he was equally fit. Another friend of mine who works at Future Track Running Center in Agoura Hills dropped out of the race; having finished in 3:22 last year, he saw little point in staying on the course for 4+ hours in overheated misery! The winner of the men's race finished in 2:12:40 this year, nearly 10 minutes slower than last year's winning time.

Here are some of the top local runners who did complete the whole course. Congratulations to all!

• Blue Benadum, 32, Malibu: 2:42:08 (100th overall!)
• Jessica Douglas, 30, Santa Barbara: 3:12:41 (79th female overall)
• Pete Feldman, 47, Santa Barbara: 3:16:58
• Joy Zemella, 36, Santa Barbara: 3:19:37 (153rd female overall)
• Craig Prater, 47, Santa Barbara: 3:20:50
• Simon Martin, 45, Newbury Park: 3:26:40 (1st Ventura County finisher)
• Steven Kulchin, 57, Santa Barbara: 3:34:01 (61st in age group)
• Leanne Mohr, 26, Camarillo: 3:34:25 (2nd Ventura County finisher)
• Joslynn Spreadbury, 35, Santa Barbara: 3:37:30
• Fred Alvarez, 49, Ojai: 3:37:35
• Rebecca Getman, 23, Calabasas: 3:38:22
• Barry Wallman, 60, Camarillo: 3:38:30 (19th in age group)
• Andrew Whittington, 45, Thousand Oaks: 3:38:39
• Jason Griffith, 40, Thousand Oaks: 3:40:03
• Sharon Pick, 45, Thousand Oaks: 3:41:03 (56th in age group)
• Brianna Alban, 23, Thousand Oaks: 3:41:09
• Erik Lange, 44, Ventura: 3:41:57
• Scott Hambly, 45, Thousand Oaks: 3:42:24
• Dana Janowicz, 36, Camarillo: 3:42:31
• Larissa White, 25, Santa Barbara: 3:42:49

Visit www.baa.org/races/boston-marathon for more information.

Knocking Out the Cobwebs With a 10K Race

Yes, I guess I did run like never before last weekend...my first 42 minute 10K, 11 seconds slower than the first 10K I ever ran back in July 1993, 2 months after starting running.

But I don't mind. I had been back to running less than a month after 5 1/2 weeks away from running and this was a good way to "work out the kinks." My hamstrings have been sore and stiff and the day after the 10K they seemed to have loosened up. While 42 minutes isn't blazing fast for me in a 10K, the 6:46 pace was much faster than the slowpoke training pace I've been running.

Now I've got a bit of a sore right outer knee, something new for me, but it doesn't seem to be impeding the running too much. My right hamstring has been sore too. Guess I gotta give it a day off or two as I've barely taken a day off since coming back to running.

In any case, my advice is, if you're looking to improve your speed and aren't motivated to run on the track, consider signing up for some local races as training runs. It costs a bit of $$ but usually it goes towards a good cause. Plus, it makes it more enjoyable to run fast when you're running with others.

Gaining Entry Into the New York City Marathon Can Be Quite a Challenge

A friend of mine who recently finished his first marathon told me he entered into the lottery for an entry into this year's ING New York City Marathon. He asked me how I did in that race.

I've never run the NYC Marathon!

Timing simply never worked for me for New York and I enjoy the logistical simplicity of running local fall marathons like the Long Beach Marathon, Malibu Marathon and Santa Barbara Marathon.

But New York is one of the pre-eminent marathons around the world. With over 46,000 finishers last year, it is also one of the world's most popular marathons.

I've run Los Angeles, Boston and Chicago but not New York. So for grins I took a look.

Wow! $255 for non-New York Road Runners club members plus an $11 application fee! Ouch! That compares to $165 for this year's Los Angeles Marathon and $150 for Boston.

What really surprised me is that there are qualifying times for a guaranteed entry into the NYC Marathon. Having recently signed up for Boston, with a 3 1/2 hour qualifying time for my 45-49 age group, I was actually shocked to see that the qualifying time for my age group at NYC is 3 hours, 10 minutes, a full 20 minutes faster than the Boston Marathon!

Then I read and realized that the 2013 New York Marathon guaranteed entry qualifying times drop even more...to 2 hours, 58 minutes for my age group! Wow! Boston qualifying times are also dropping in 2013, but more slightly, to 3 hours, 25 minutes for my age group, a full 27 minutes, or over 1 minute per mile, slower than New York.

I better start training! Or maybe I should sign up for New York THIS year!

They don't let anyone off the hook beginning in 2013. NYC qualifying times for men up to age 39 will be 2:45 in 2013 while ages 70+ will be 3 hours, 46 minutes. That's MOVING! For women up to age 39, you will need to run a sub 3 hour marathon, while apparently 70+ year olds will need to run 4:50 to qualify (which is actually 15 minutes slower than current NYC Marathon qualifying times).

I see this as a challenge! Check out more at www.nycmarathon.org.

27th Great Race of Agoura on March 24th Race Results

The Great Race of Agoura is easily the largest event of its kind in the area. The 27th event on March 24th continued in its tradition of bringing thousands of runners out. Here are the stats and some of the top placing runners in this year's event:

• Deena Kastor 5K: 1,409 finishers (611 male, 796 female)
• Old Agoura 10K: 1,639 finishers (624 male, 1,015 female)
• Pacific Half Marathon: 549 finishers (246 male, 303 female)
• Cheseboro Half Marathon: 1,034 finishers (512 male, 522 female)
• Kids' One Mile: 443 finishers (232 male, 211 female)

Total finishers for all 5 races was 5,074 with a distinct skewing towards females, who were 56% of the total! Guys, take note!

I ran 5.5 miles that cool morning in my slow return back to running. The last time I ran one of these races was 2007, when I did a 1:26 in the hilly, half trail based Cheseboro Half Marathon.

Here are the top 5 finishers in each of the 5 races! (I'd love to post the top 5 finishers by age group for the various races but I discovered the way the results are laid out that that would take me several hours to do.  So check out all the results at greatraceofagoura.com/results/index.html.

5K Men:

• RYAN ZELADA 16:30
• COLIN ANDERSON 16:58
• KRISTOFFER CHACON 17:00
• TROY BARGER  17:27
• JEFF WELLS 17:58

5K Women:

• HUMA HUSAIN 20:24
• TAYLOR GARRISON 21:01
• KELSIE GARRISON  21:03
• KATRINA CARL  21:09
• NICOLLE JACOBS 21:18

10K Men (these are some amazing times for the invitational event this year!)

• CHARLIE SERRANO 29:43.9 (Serrano, who lives locally apparently here in Newbury Park, finished 49th in the 2012 Men's Marathon Olympic Trials!, his first marathon. He previously won the Long Beach Half Marathon in 64 minutes, 5 seconds.)
• SERGIO REYES 29:49.5 (25th in the 2012 Men's Marathon Olympic Trials! Personal best marathon time of 2:14:02!)
• BEN BRUCE 30:02.6
• COURTNEY WILLIAMS 30:22.2
• AARON SHARP  30:51.1 (Oxnard resident an competitor in 2008 Men's Marathon Olympic Trials)

10K Women

• ELIZABETH BLACKWELL 36:14.8
• ERIKA AKLUFI  36:14.9
• LILIANA HERNANDEZ 37:54.9
• TANIA FISCHER 38:16.2
• TIFFANIE MARLEY 38:59.7

Pacific Half Marathon Men

• LARRY BLAYLOCK 1:20:47
• JOE NORDIN 1:24:46
• STEVE BERARDI 1:28:42
• TYLER WELCH  1:30:27
• SCOTT FITZGERALD 1:32:03

Pacific Half Marathon Women

• ELIZABETH BOJANOWSKI 1:34:32
• SARAH LABASS  1:37:43
• GINA JOHNSON  1:37:50
• RACHAEL PARENT 1:39:51
• EMILIE BERTRAM  1:40:59

Cheseboro Half Marathon Men

• ANDREW SALG  1:13:14
• SKYLER MOSENTHAL 1:17:52
• RYAN BUETZER 1:21:00
• MIKE DAVIES 1:21:41
• LUIS AGUILAR 1:22:46

Cheseboro Half Marathon Women

• CINDY LYNCH  1:32:19
• STACEY STERN   1:36:52
• JOANNA NYGREN 1:37:58
• SARAH MOORE 1:38:02
• GLORIA RIOS 1:38:27

Kids' 1 Mile - Boys

• FOREST POLSKY 6:00
• MATTHEW NEVILLE 6:01
• BILLY MORTON 6:32
• JAKE IAZZETTA  6:37
• MICHAEL HOLCOMB 6:38

Kids' 1 Mile - Girls

• HANNAH RITZ 6:36
• GRACE STAVICH  6:44
• SIENNA GOLDEN  6:47
• PEYTON MOREAU  7:09
• SOPHIA RITZ  7:13

Back Running After a 5 1/2 Week Hiatus and Los Angeles Marathon Results

After 5 1/2 weeks without running a step due to doc's orders after an eye surgery, I finally started pounding the pavement again on Sunday, March 18th. The next day was followed by a head cold that I've finally fought off (knock on wood) but I've been very gradually working back into it.

At age 47, I'm finding my recovery and buildup times have grown quite a bit as compared to 20 years ago. But then again, in 20 years of running, I've never taken 5 1/2 weeks off, even for a running related injury. And this latest comeback comes on the heels of 45 days taken off after my initial eye surgeries back last October. Needless to say, my fitness level has taken a hit.

1 1/2 weeks back into running, pretty much daily, an FINALLY, this morning, my body started to oblige again. The biggest sticking point for my running after taking time off seems to be my hamstrings. They get sore easily. I'm not big into stretching but a bit of hamstring stretching off and on seemed to make them feel better. Nothing fancy. Just find a wall about hip heighth, pull one foot up and start stretching.

So at this point I have no race plans but as my fitness improves I'll start planning my next event. I'm itching to run a marathon but I'll need 4 to 6 months to train.

Speaking of marathons, the Los Angeles Marathon was also on March 18th...perhaps that was my motivation.

Over 22,000 people registered for the race and 18,881 crossed the finish line. There were 660 registrant from Ventura County and Agoura Hills and of those, 546 completed the race. The average time of all local finishers was 5 hours, 8 minutes and ranged from 3:04 to 9:57.

There were eight local finishers ages 16 and under and four 75 year old runners. The average age of all 546 runners was 40.

The winning overall times were 2:12:12 (men) and 2:25:39 (women). The top 10 fastest local Ventura County area participants by chip time were:

• Michael Conoscenti of Newbury Park in 3:04:43
• Jose Garcia of Oxnard 3:05:41
• John Wheeler of Simi Valley 3:08:35
• Ramon Hernandez of Thousand Oaks 3:09:03
• Erin Chenoweth of Ventura 3:09:55 (Top Local Female! 23rd female overall in race!)
• Levi Moellering of Moorpark 3:10:13 (He's only 17 years old! Nice job Levi! 1st place overall in his age division!)
• Golan-David Danino of Ojai 3:10:36
• Jason Griffith of Thousand Oaks 3:12:04
• Jose Lastre of Camarillo 3:15:09
• Brian Pidduck of Ojai 3:18:18

Other top 10 finishers in the age divisions included:

• Katie Tapia of Ventura 3:35:05 (9th place in 45-49 age group)
• Serafin Barajas of Thousand Oaks 3:59:45 (9th place in 65-69 age group)
• Sheila Galinsky of Camarillo 5:18:57 (9th place in 65-69 age group)
• Joe Herzog, Sr  of Simi Valley 5:52:09 (10th in the 75-79 age group at age 75! This was a highly competitive age group with a winning time of 3:19:21**)
• Thomas Sullivan of Camarillo 6:17:50 (2nd in the 70-74 age group!)
• Linda Loiselle of Camarillo 7:07:11 (2nd in 55-59 age group)

**In fact, I've contacted race organizers as the 1st and 2nd place finishers in this age group appear suspect. The exact names finished the prior year event in comparable times...except their ages last year were 33, not the 77 listed in this year's event. This could just be a big coincidence...but something appears off to me.'

Congrats to all that crossed the finish line, regardless of time and place! You all accomplished something special!

2012 Marathon Trials Winner Meb Keflezighi is Motivational For a Number of Reasons

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!!

Running a Local Turkey Trot While Still Feeling Sub-Par

Seems that as I age, I'm "off" more days than I'm on. After my 45 day hiatus I started back up with running. Then all of 18 days later I'm back with what's become my standard early winter cold.

I'm always wondering what I can possibly due to eliminate this issue of catching colds when those around me are sick. Sometimes it just feels impossible. A co-worker had been sick for several weeks and while I steered pretty clear of her, her office is next to mine and many of the documents she touches come to me. So while I diligently washed my hands as much as I could, there was only so much I could do.

Then of course my wife was sick for several weeks. Hard to stay away from her :>

November 14th was my opthamologist visit to check out the eye with the no-longer-detached-retina. The first words out of his mouth as I sat face to face, just a foot away from him, was "I just got over a cold that knocked me out all weekend." CRAP I'm thinking. There's absolutely no way out of this situation. He's literally touching my eye and placing drops in it and I'm thinking, I'm screwed. Sure enough 3 days later the storm in my sinuses and throat came.

T-shirts like this never get worn by yours truly. This color just doesn' do it for me.In any case, the cold made it (as usual) into my lungs and I'm coughing up stuff in large chunks in shapes like Maine, New York and Massachusetts every morning and my chest hurts from all the hacking. And a week later was Thanksgiving and we had no out of town plans, so I figure, why not go run the local Turkey Trot at The Oaks mall.

The race got off to a nasty start for me. With only 20/70 vision in my right eye (more on this situation in a future post), my depth perception is in bad shape and I didn't see the bump in the road 10 steps into the race serves as a walkway towards the mall. After nearly falling flat on my face, both hamstrings immediately were sore. It was bizarre, like they decided to go on strike. They weren't sore before that. All I could think of is that my body simply was telling me it wasn't ready to be speedy again, 25 days into running again and 11 days since my first 5K since coming back.

But this was a "fun run" for me and I kept on running. While running isn't so fun for me when my hams are sore and my chest is full of yucky stuff, I continued onwards to at least break under 20 minutes, several minutes slower than my "typical" 5K time. But hey, I'm still glad I did it.

Tonight, December 1st, I'm still coughing to some degree and have a little bit of stuff left in my chest, but I feel good enough to have my first glass of red wine for about 3 weeks. Yay!

I see Conejo Valley Guide on the back of this shirt. :>

Coming Full Circle in the 5K - What 45 Days Off Does to Your Aerobic Capacity

So on Halloween I was given clearance to start aerobic activity again after a 45 day hiatus due to multiple eye surgeries. 45 days off from running is by far the longest I haven't run since the beginning of my running endeavors in 1993.

While it sure felt great to get out there again, I knew regaining my aerobic conditioning would not be easy.

As mentioned in previous blog posts, I was signed up to run the Malibu Marathon that took place yesterday, but obviously had to bail out due to my eye surgeries. However, I had forgotten that many, many months ago, last March to be exact, I had signed up to run the Calabasas Classic 5K. Yes indeed, I was signed up to do 2 races in 1 day. Kind of lame of me, but hey, I wanted to get the early bird discount way back when.

The Calabasas Classic 5K/10K is one of the biggest local races, with over 2,000 participants in the 2 races (split about 75% 5K and 25% 10K). It is a well orchestrated event and the goodie bag alone, with a nice "technical" shirt and other items, is worth the cost of entry. Not to mention, the medal you see to the right is given to all finishers. What a neat gesture, as people love getting great swag and momentos at local races!

So since I had already paid to run the 5K, I decided, what the heck, it would be fun to actually run the race.

Mind you, I had only been back running for 12 days since my doctor's blessings. Without a day off in those 12 days and Friday/Saturday my legs were pretty darn stiff and non-responsive. While I had felt pretty good the first week back to running, my body was starting to rebel a bit.

So race day, I had very low expectations. I was running to have fun and test myself, not compete. That was certainly the way the race went.

The gun went off at 8 a.m. My legs actually felt o.k., slightly better than the prior 2 days, and my breathing wasn't labored or anything. While I couldn't run "fast" by my standards, I had situated myself in a spot where I was stuck behind slower runners at the start of the race. This allowed me the mental enjoyment of passing dozens and dozens of runners the first mile of the race.

But after the first mile, that was pretty much it. While my legs were moving, I simply was not able to run "fast" (again by my own standards). About a year ago I ran a 17:30 5K in Camarillo without any speed training. Yesterday I had absolutely no gears and ran a 20:11, effectively the slowest 5K I've ever run (my first ever 5K was 19:42). But hey, it got me 45th place overall out of 1,500 participants. Gotta look at the positive side. And 4th in my age group.

NO REGRETS! Given everything I've been through, I was perfectly happy with my time. Heck, that was a 6:31 per mile pace, 11 days and no rest after 2 major eye surgeries and 45 days of zippo running.

Still, I was a little bit exasperated, trying to run down 2 kids, ages 11 and 13 (according to the results) that were directly in front of me. Heck, add them up and double it and I'm still older than them. I'm gonna run down those kids down next time :> (loved seeing those kids doing so well out there).

After the race my chest was so tight and sore I though I might get a stroke or something. But not to worry, my lungs were simply not used to sucking down all that air so quickly. My aerobic capacity had taken a beating and was in shock I think. Within an hour I was back to feeling fine.

The morning after the race most of my lower body was sore, though mainly my shins and hamstrings.

Feels good to get sore again. I'm baaaaccckkkk. Or on my way, at least.

Run local races. It's great motivation for getting aerobically fit.