Embracing the Awesome

T-5 or 6 days (I’m not sure how you count from Monday night to Sunday morning). Achilles was really tight on 7.5 easy miles. Part of the issue is that running easy is a bit easier than running at speed and I think something’s a bit different in my foot strike. All I know is that during my strides tonight the pain was a lot less than during the easy portion of the run. So all systems are go for the marathon.

In response to my post yesterday, my coach posted the following:

Then he put a thought-provoking tweet up earlier today:

Ppl who say things like "Embrace the Suck", "Slow down the least", "Manage the Shitty" in regard to IM aren't training or racing correctly.

October 24, 2011 2:14 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@darkhorsetri

Steve Johnson

There was some back and forth between Steve and Steve Fleck about that tweet (and who those strategies are really meant for), and I thought about a lot of the run tonight. My feeling is that if you want to finish an ironman, then those might be good strategies. But if you want to race… then the dark horse is right. If your goal is to slow down less and manage a bad day… you need better goals and a better outlook on the race. Thought a bit about how it applies to me this weekend as well. Of course, my strategy isn’t listed about. It’s just to run the way I’ve trained. I’ve put in the miles and the time and the effort. It’s easy to say that I’ll ignore the wall that’s inevitably gonna hit around mile 20-22, but I’m not worried about it. So which Steve do you think was right? Steve Fleck? Steve “Dark Horse” Johnson?

Update: Jags winning means I break taper and have a beer. Not really a big deal, as I don’t think the not drinking is really an issue.