Gabino Toledo

Five months after heart surgery, Boulder-based coach Gabino Toledo took on the heat and altitude at the Evergreen Town Race. It was probably his hardest effort since the trauma of having a replacement valve fitted, but then again, knowing how he trains, maybe not :)

Gabino finished 42nd in 41:32, and we can expect him to start slicing minutes off that now he is back in training.

Welcome back, Gabino!

Gabino Toledo's world-class running career was cut short when docs discovered he had a congenital heart defect. He refused surgery and carried on running, still well able to make the rest of us suffer. In fact Gabino was the coach who taught me how to suffer, by the simple expedient of running my hardest workouts alongside or, often, just in front of me :)

It was a standing joke among the athletes training with him that we only had to hang on long enough for his heart rate alarm to go off -- then he would have to back off. Being Gabino, he rarely did.

Fellow-Brit Nev Johnson has got me thinking with his posts here. First he asked me to outline how I managed to take 11 minutes off my 10k time in a year.

My first item in my list was "Set a clear, quantifiable goal that I was really, really excited about."

Nev came back with the comment: "Most people would say that your goal was way out of reach."

That got me pondering again. How do you know if a goal is achievable or not?

A mighty 25 miles this week!

Is that pathetic, or what?

In my defence, I would have clocked more, but for the snow. I've put the hours in, but today, for instance, I was ploughing through snow at 11 minutes a mile or even slower.

We're just starting the third week of Bobby McGee's 45-week sub-5 minutes miling program. Are we havung fun yet? Oh yes! This training is very different from anything I've done before. And speaking to Kyle, it seems I'm not the only one whose body is enjoying the slower pace.

We've been given a heart rate max which we're not to exceed during some of our runs. And it feels slow. Now, this will also sound a hit pathetic, but dude, running more slowly makes me feel good! I'm actually coming back from runs invigorated rather than exhausted. I'm recovering well between runs and there is no struggle to get out the door because I know I can do the speed I'm "supposed" to be do. Duh! I know, I know, it's blindingly obvious. But I've never done it this way before.