a sunny tuesday may 6th

oxford mail newspaper says that on this day in 1954 roger bannister ran the first sub-4 minute mile on the iffley road track in oxford, in 3:59.4 --- i believe it was a cinder track then and is now the high tech track we see everywhere today. i mentioned that i have joined that track and run there when i can and there are many little plaque like things on the inside of the track signifying people who have run great races. it is a really nice facility and as the only public track around that i know of, gets plenty of use.

will blog more about the book i am reading now-"the perfect mile" which i am really enjoying and find so motivating. only about 120 pages into it but will wrap it up this week. i even used the training stuff in the book about john landy to get myself out the door this morning despite knowing i could use the day off. landy ran up to 12 x 600 yard intervals at 4:20 mile pace five times a week while the other two days he ran 7 miles at 5:20 -6:00 pace; every week not missing. this while going full time to school and having to sneak out to do these workouts at about midnight.

so this morning with john landy as inspiration and a morning heart rate of 47 (was up to 54 when i went to sleep last night)and despite gail saying "weren't you going to take today off?" out the door i went about 7:15am. and i ran down binsy lane and across bottley road and down oatlands road and did the long loop around the park and bike path there and though i was moving none too fast, i was moving ok and eventually i ram myself back over to the made up stretch of track. and there i proceeded to run 32 x 100 yard intervals. on very wet grass, but on a very nice morning with the temperature just over 50 and warming up as the morning went on.

gail had come out and was running her loops around the park while i did the 100's. i had a good workout and ran more consistently than i had the other day, though i was never quite able to get down to that day's fastest times. had the usual right leg problems, but ran through that. will be good to get back and have that worked on again. even used the right leg to run some of the last set. afterwards i stretched and then ran the loop around the park and headed home. the longer warm-up had helped some and will try to keep that in mind. should be easier to that again now that the winter weather and rain may be behind us at last. time will tell.

after usual morning stuff i headed up to the city center and did some bank and post office stuff. lines were unusually long as they were both closed yesterday. then did just a bit of shopping and headed home. and eventually headed up to the range to try and build on the last few days of somewhat decent hitting and chipping. but it was not to be and to use the british phrase, i was total rubbish. 150 balls of mostly hitting off of the heel part of the club and though they still were mostly straight, they weren't hit clean or high or long for the most part as they have been more and more lately. chipping went ok despite being frustrated. i tried all the usual stuff, but nothing worked today. my friend dave was having the same sort of problem and eventually we just both end ed up hitting 40 yard pitch shots and playing closest to the pin. we couldn't decide whether if you are hitting "rubbish" and you keep at it trying to work through it, are you ingraining all of the bad stuff and does it cause long term hurt. or should you just quit and come back another day? and of course on the last ball i hit, i hit a beautiful high gap wedge to the green 107 away and next to the flag. i hate this game sometimes. don't tease me, sometimes just let me keep sucking.

and home to listen to last night's usa news and have dinner. tired enough now and tomorrow is a needed market day. legs had been ok after the run, but the driving range had taken its toll. will punish myself some more tomorrow.

before i stop wanted to say congrats to Salane Flanagan, who broke the usa women's record for 10k this past weekend, running it in 30:34.49. she crushed the old mark by 17 seconds, kicking by kim smith of new zealand with 200 meters to go. this took lace at the payton jordan cardinal invitational in palo alto, calif.

and of course a big fist pump congrats to paula creamer for winning again this past weekend in a playoff. the lady in pink has become a real star.

until later.... 84 and a wake-up to go.