Blog #91

Okay, let’s blog this sucker.

It’s been a little over a month since Boston, and I think I finally have fully functional legs again. That course, holy moly kids, that course tore me up unlike any other marathon course has before! I was absolutely thrashed after taking on that sucker. My quads, my poor poor quads. Oh man, that was rough. But that was then and this is now, time to get back at it!

My down time was pleasant, I drank a bunch of beer and put on some buffer weight. But I made a point not to get excessively drunk and fat. After my previous marathons I tended to let things go maybe a bit too much. So like any good historian (Colorado State University, bachelor of Arts and Sciences,  focus on History, class of 2007) I studied the past. I collected primary sources and I examined first hand accounts. I scoured the footnotes, interviewed witnesses and finally formed a thesis: Being drunk and fat is a bad idea if yer tryin to do fast runnin’.

Sometimes I get a little rowdy, and by the time I realize what is going on I’ve put myself in a big damn hole. Being in that fat, drunk hole is lame, it takes me a good 6months to climb out and to get back into any sort of fighting shape. No more of that nonsense folks, because another thing History has taught me is that running fast is a lot cooler than running slow. As us Historians like to say; If you don’t learn from the past, you are bound to repeat it in the future!

What’s the next battle then? Well I’m off to Ottawa this weekend to run a 10km. It’s gonna be a good test to see how I maintained during my down time. I think I maintained well enough as to give Ottawa a good go. I’m really looking forward to racing against my buddy Kelly Weibe. If you don’t know who Kelly is now, then I assure you, you will soon! Kid is a stud, he won a bunch of stuff in the Canadian University System and now he has migrated from the frozen prairies of Saskatchewan to the training mecca that is Vancouver. Kelly arrived in Van a few weeks ago and he’s been giving it hell ever since, he’s a very exciting and promising young Canadian talent, dude has 2:09 written all over him!

I’m pretty pumped about the way things are shaping up out here in Vancouver. There is a whole lotta promising young talent in the area and things are really starting to come together. I have joined Point Grey TC, this is a pretty sexy new little outfit.(still coached by Pete, club is my affiliation & local base) I think there is potential for some special things to come out of this club in the next few years. Everything is coming together, the talent is here and the drive is here now we just gotta make some noise! It will get especially rad when we get our  faithful leader Wykes back out here for good! Things are getting speedy in Vancity!

After Ottawa I will race the ScotiaBank 1/2 marathon here in Vancouver on June 23rd. Wanna do well here. This is my favourite Canadian race, it’s wonderfully organized, the course is stellar, the competition is deep and they have awesome post race snacks. I really wanna win this one!

Oh yeah, and for Scotia I am running for the Alzheimer Society of BC, I set up my fundraising site and so far it has been a little slow moving…actually very slow moving…I have raised zero dollars…it’s embarrassing. So if ya hate Alzheimers as much as I do then hop on over and chip in a few for a great cause. http://my.e2rm.com/personalPage.aspx?registrationID=1897689

After Scotia I’ll take a little break and then start a long low build towards a fall Marathon.

Yeah, so I should probably stop for a moment to address Moscow and the whole World Championships thing that is going on this summer. One would assume that if an athlete qualifies for such a big major championship that is World Champs than said athlete would be lame for not going. Well I kinda agree. And having said that, I will not be going to Moscow.

I do feel kinda lame about it. Part of me thinks that I should be going, but my ultimate goal is Rio2016, and everything I do in my running is based on this one goal. there are many legit reasons as to why I should go, but there are also a lot of reasons as to why I can’t do it. There are athletic factors and a life reasons why this isn’t in the cards. It may sound lame, and it may kinda suck, but that is just the way it is folks. What can I say?

Okay, well I’m gonna go and blast my abs, it’s beach season!

Go leafs!..oh wait…shit…that one still hurts.

-rob-

Blog #90

Okay folks, sorry that this post Boston post has taken so long to come out. It was a crazy day and it has taken me a while to wrap my head around everything that happened and how to approach writing about it. On one hand I had the most fun race of my life, and then there was the bombing events which really made the race seem insignificant.

I lack the writing skills and vocabulary to accurately express my thoughts and feelings on these events. My thoughts and love go out to all those whom were hurt in these attacks. Such horrible senseless actions.

The bombing attacks on Boston were horrifying. It is heartbreaking whenever there is a senseless attack on the innocent public, and this particular event hit especially close to home. I am saddened, and to be honest, kinda rocked by what happened. You never even consider something like this would happen. The marathon is a celebration, it’s an event when people from all over the world come together as one. The marathon gives no heed to sex, colour or creed, we are all just runners trying to conquer that damn 42.2km grind. I have stated many times before that the reason I love this sport is because there is such a positive vibe in the air at these events, an overwhelming sense of joy and love, it’s awesome.

I hate that this happened, I am an optimist through and through. I will always see the bright side. Shit like this can happen and it can rock you to your very core. You feel helpless, you do not know how to process the emotions. Sadness, frustration and anger. How can humanity stoop so low? How can someone target children and families? How can this happen? With the lowest of the low though you can also see the power of good, and the resiliency of the human spirit.

Those bombs went off and for a brief moment all of those positive feelings were gone, replaced by fear and uncertainty. Those feelings lasted for only a brief instance though, and over the course of this past week the running community has come back and responded in the only way it knows how. We came together, we helped each other and we pushed on. I love being a runner and I love this community and we will only become closer and stronger.

I also have such a huge amount of love and respect for the city of Boston. I was there for a few days before the race and I fell in love with the place. Not only is that city beautiful physically, the people there are amazing as well. They were so accommodating and open to all of us whom came in for the race. Boston loves their marathon. It is a proud city, and clearly one that you do not want to mess with! That shit went down and they immediately stepped up in every way possible. They took care of their wounded and then did some serious Jack Bauer type stuff to apprehend those responsible.

I’ll briefly touch on my personal experience with the events;

When it happened I was in the Hotel eating lunch with Pete and Kristin, our hotel was right near the finish, we heard the explosions. There was a lot of confusion and uncertainly when it first happened. The elite committee did an excellent job in handling the situation. They made sure we were all safe, they tried their best to keep us up to date and informed and they remained calm and collected the whole time. This was a bunch of Boston locals whom must had been going through inner turmoil of their own. They put on a brave face and they took care of their guests. So much respect to the John Hancock team, what an amazing group.

My first thoughts while all this was going on were of my family and loved ones. Pretty much everyone just wanted to make sure their loved ones were okay, they wanted to make sure their families knew they were alright, it was upsetting. Really puts things in perspective though, shit can go down in a hurry folks. Make sure you have your priorities sorted. There is nothing more important in this world than those you love.

Sorry, I’m kinda gushing and babbling on here, it was an emotional week man.

Wanna hear a bit about the actual race? Well I’m gonna cop out here. for my pre-race thoughts check this out:

Pre-Race

Okay, and then this is how the race went;

This part was awesome

This was not so awesome

This plain sucked. My legs have never seized so badly, that last 4miles hurt!

At least I could hobble down to the bar after. Pete and Kristin were absolutely amazing, I love my team.

For post race thoughts check these out;

http://www.flotrack.org/speaker/1892-Rob-Watson/video/705575-Rob-Watson-with-a-lot-of-face-time-at-the-2013-Boston-Marathon

or here;

Post Race

Yeah, huge cop out on my behalf. If you don’t wanna watch those videos here’s a brief synopsis. Started out and just got in a rhythm. Wanted to be smooth and controlled, and I was, just happened that smooth and controlled put me in the lead! Africans roll by…hard! Then they slow down…a lot! Back in the lead! Leading the Boston Marathon past Wellesley College; Highlight of my running career, unbelievable! Hit the newton hills, feeling those down hills! Crest heartbreak hill…Calfs going…going…gone! Quads go next…hobble home last few miles. Legs have never been this beat up! Different kind of feeling than previous marathons. Energy levels and fueling was great, just no legs left. 2:15, 11th place.  Finish, fall over, moan and groan, recover…all in a days work. Most fun and exhilarating race of my career. Round 2 next year Boston!

Okay, well this blog was weird. Sorry about that.

I also wanna say thanks so much to all of you whom have continued to support me. I received so many messages of love and support from so many people after this race, it was very humbling and heart warming. Sorry if I could not respond to everyone, but I want you to know that it means a lot. Thanks so much guys.

Huge thanks to everyone involved with putting on the event, it takes an army to put on an event of such magnitude. And never have I seen it pulled off so efficiently and with such professionalism. Special shout out to the John Hancock elite squad, Mary Kate, Patrick and the whole crew were unbelievable hosts.

Love my Coach Pete and Sister Kristin, they put up with my shit for 2months and never stopped supporting and believing in me. No words to describe how much these two mean to me.

Okay, this was a sappy ass blog. I’m gonna go drink some beer and get in trouble. Hopefully next post I will have a funny story involving hobos and firecrackers.

Peace out kids!

-rob-

Blog #89

Hey there everyone.

Good news, I’m in Boston. Bad news…There’s no bad news brotha! I’m fit, happy and ready to roll. Life is good. Gonna just have a quick little pre-race post here.

First and foremost. Shout out to the UVA distance squad and the steeple crew! Whilst I was down in Charlottesville I got the opportunity to hang out with the UVA team and I even kinda helped a bit with the steelple kids. Remember folks, back in the old days I was a half decent steepler! I was helping them with hurdling and such. But hurdling was not exactly my strong suit in the steeple game. So my coaching approach was to essentially take all the advice Alex Genest gave me over the years and pass it on. Alex is a sick, sick hurdler, I miss my French friend, hope he’s doing well. Anyways, great group of kids there rolling for the Cavaliers, good stuff.

Let’s get to business. So here I am in Boston! I survived the training camp. It was hard, it was intense and it was a grind. But I made it through and I am as fit as I’ve ever been. I absolutely cannot wait to get after it Monday. People keeping asking about my goals, so I figure I’ll put em’ out there. From the very start my goal was top 10, first and foremost I wanna be top 10. Time? Not to concerned about it. I already have a time for the world champs, and this course is not eligible for Canadian records or carding stuff. I just wanna get out and race, this excites me. Every other marathon I have run has been 100% about time, this one is 100% about competing hard, and If I hit my goal of top 10 then I think the time will sort its self out.

I ran the last 10miles of the course yesterday, wanted to get a sense of what these hills were all about. They didn’t seem to daunting, But next time I see them I’ll have 16miles of hard ass running in my legs, they are gonna hurt! Beauty course though. Had to wear my Garmin to make sure I didn’t go fast, because getting out there on the actual course sure did get the blood pumping had to hold back and just jog along at 6:45mile pace.

This morning we had some press stuff. Needless to say, in this caliber field here I was not in high demand! but I got to meet Bill Rodgers and Steve Jones, so it was an awesome morning. These are two of my favourite all time runners. I just love those old school guys, just tough as nails. These dudes did not give a shit, they just ran hard, and they ran fast. Beauties! I heard that Rob De Castella may be kicking around here somewhere also, I gotta meet him That guy was rad as hell.

Hey folks, just wanted to say thanks for sticking around and continuing to show your support and love over the past few months whilst I was slow and fat. I think Monday is gonna be a fun day, thanks for sharing the ride with me!

Love y’all.

-rob-

Blog #88

Hey. I am gonna blog, but before I blog I am gonna take a bit of space here to give a hugely massive shout out to brother Pete and Sister Kristin. I have been down here in Charlottesville Va. for a little over 6 weeks now and these 2 have been absolutely amazing to me. I have not been treated this well and coddled like this since I was a little baby. It blows my mind how rad these two have been. I could go on and on about their awesomeness, but that make for a pretty boring blog, so I’ll just say Love ya P&K, sorry I keep eating all your food! I have seriously overheard this conversation 7-8times whilst here;

And then I did folks, I did get my shit together! That was a long time ago and since then I’ve gotten lean and mean. I’ve got my mojo back! I’m fit and super pumped to roll in Boston. Crazy how that works eh? Hard work, who knew?

To run a fast marathon ya can’t be dicking around. Marathons are hard man, and you have to leave no stone unturned in preparing properly. Once that last specific marathon grind starts, pretty much everything else stops. Sure, balance in life is super important, but the 8-10 weeks before a big race, there is no time for distractions. I have yet to maintain any sort of relationship with a lady through a whole marathon build-up. Ladies are finicky and they expect attention and such, not gonna happen. It’s probably not healthy or normal, but I’ve made my decision, girls come and go, I wanna run fast!

So now we gotta taper, kinda. We do a two week taper, the first week isn’t so bad. I still get to put in 100miles this week and do a couple little stinger workouts. But the last week before the race? Eff that week, that week sucks.

Blogs also really suffer during the last few weeks before the race. I don’t do anything, so I have nothing to talk about…hmm…maybe a story from my past? Well, after 88blogs I have used up all my good stories…hmm…Ok, well that isn’t gonna work.

How about we have a discussion. Let’s talk about gay marriage, that seems to be a popular thing in the news. Just kidding, I’m not gonna talk about that. This is one of those topics where you are either preaching to the choir or speaking to deaf ears. It’s frustrating.

Okay, well I’m gonna go to the gym and sit in the Sauna, I love sauna, so relaxing. Just wish there was less sweaty old man balls in the sauna, kinda takes away from the appeal.

Alright folks, have a great one. Peace.

-rob-

Blog #87

Hey, ya wanna hear all about Rob’s trip to the big city? okay then, let’s do a race recap. As already mentioned, I went to NewYorkCity this past weekend and ran in the NYC half. This was my second time doing this event, and just like last year it was awesome! The New York Road Runners are amazing to work with, the course is so friggen cool and the competition is always top notch. This is probably my favourite race to compete in. it’s rad man.

Heading into this race I was optimistic, I knew I was fit, training has been going very well. But at the same time I wasn’t setting my sights to high because racing during marathon prep is always an interesting endeavor, you can never really predict how the legs are gonna respond whilst racing mid-grind. Sometimes ya feel great, other times you feel like death, all you can do is show up and just hope you can gather enough of your shit together to get the job done!

Pre race coach Pete and I had a quick chat and decided on a race plan, it was quite simple; roll with the main pack for the 1st few miles and then read the body and adjust as needed. The field was stacked; Kipsang, Lagat, Ritz and so forth and so on, we did not think that the early pace would be an issue. (on another note, another reason I love this race is because I am a huge fan of our sport and it is so cool to get to hang out with and then line up and race against other athletes that I respect and look up to so much) So the gun goes off, we do our little sprint thing then settle, and then we settled a little more and then we just kept settling! We were damn near jogging! Mile was hit in 5:00.

I think the weather had something to do with this early tempo, It was cold man, quite cold indeed. We had a bit of a head wind for the 1st couple miles and nobody was to keen  to be up front taking on that cold ass wind. I don’t blame them either, because when I jumped to the front I immediately regretted that decision.  My hands froze rather quickly and my dink was getting very cold very quicly. But This had to be done. I needed a quicker pace!

Now here’s the thing folks, I understand that this is a race and time should not matter. Gotta race the competition not the clock. I was okay with that, but I was here to get a gauge of my fitness along with a solid race effort. I already knew I could run 5min miles all damn day, training has shown me that.  I also didn’t really feel like jogging in a pack and just waiting for a move that I could not cover. Let’s be realistic, I’m a 63min guy, these are a bunch of  60-61min guys, when they feel like going they are gone!

So keeping that in mind after the 1st slow mile I decided that I wanted to go faster, wanted to test fitness not tactics. I went to the lead and got into a comfortable yet steady rhythym going.

I watched a replay of the live broadcast after the race, the commentator was todd williams who was a bad ass runner during his day, at the beginning of the race he noted that sometimes hobby joggers will sprint to the front just to get on tv. So after the 1st mile when I took the lead Todd Williams was all like; “this is one of those guys I was talking about before, this guy is gonna get a kick outta saying he led all these awesome runners” (not a direct quote, but it was along those lines). Then again a little later on; “we still don’t know Mr. Watson’s first name…” Man it was embarrassing to watch that. I know I am no superstar, but it was a little blow to the ego. Effing Todd Williams…

Back to the race. So I continued to just roll along with the dudes for a few more miles, we went through the 5km in 15:04, 5mile split was 24:08 and then it happened, it was inevitable folks. They ran the next mile in 4:31…I didn’t. I really wanted to keep contact with the group but that surge was just to quick, the legs were feeling a little heavy and they most certainly lacked the pop to change gears like that. I was suddenly alone, alone and sad.

I felt sorry for myself for a couple min as they ran away. But then I hit the 10km mark and my time was 29:54, not bad, 2nd 5km was decent and I was still feeling very under control. I just kept running as fast as I could. The only cool thing about getting dropped was that for the 2nd year in a row I got to run through Times Square solo, such a cool experience!

The last 10km was pretty uneventful folks. I just kept pushing, picked off a few stragglers and ended up finishing in 63:22. A new PB, I’ll take it!

Overall I was very happy with my race. My legs were definitley tired, but I was able to push hard and run a steady and strong race. It was also really fun just experiencing the awesome atmosphere of a big NYC road race.  It’s all good folks! The body is feeling good, the head is happy and we are rolling, onward to Boston!

So here is what we are gonna do now folks. We’re gonna smash these last 4weeks and then we are gonna smash Boston. This is very exciting stuff!

Good luck to all y’all out there in your own training and racing adventures, spring racing season is approaching. let’s all roll together.

-rob-