Running Times, Online

11/8/09

Mike Wardian, leading the top pack at the 50K World Championships in Gibralter on October 31st.

Hello Everyone,

Hope all is well and your lives are going well.

I am just getting back into things after the 50K World Championships which were held on Halloween (10/31/09) in Gibraltar.

I was able to to run pretty well, 3:00:56 for a bronze medal. Lead the race for most of it but got passed by a really solid guy from South Africa around 43.5K and then a Englishman about 47K, so while I am happy with a bronze I am disappointed I didn’t achieve my goal of coming home with a gold medal for the USA.

That being said, Kami Semick who was also running for the USA, won decisively for the women so we had a great showing overall all for the USA with a gold medal for the woman and a bronze for the men. The rest of the USA team did well too, Justin Fyffe, ran well finishing 9th overall and in the top 10 for his first international race and Amanda Stickel was the 5th woman and ran strong in her first race for the USA.

Mike ended up in third place

Another runner, Jill Perry, who is just an awesome person and a super solid runner had a tough day and didn’t do as well as she could of, but I know that she will come back strong and run really well at one of my favorite races - the JFK 50 Miler in a few weeks.

I was so proud to be a part of the team and can’t wait for my next major challenge which is coming up soon.

I am running the Richmond Marathon on 11/14/09. Then I get to do something really fun and with my family. I can not wait go for another Guinness World Record with one of our sons, Grant on 11/22/09 at the Route 66 Marathon.

I heard from one of my friends that someone was trying to break my son Pierce’s Guiness World Record at the Route 66 Marathon so we are going too and it is going to be “pram pushing duel” for the Guiness World Record.

I am really excited and looking forward to using a new BOB stroller to go after a new World Record. We haven’t decided with model to use yet, so if you have suggestions let us know. We still have the “BOB” Revolution that we used for the last World Record so might consider using that again as it was “good luck” the first time but understand some of the newer models might be lighter, so need to research that the next few weeks.

Besides that all is well and starting to feel my legs coming back after the hard effort and travel last weekend.

Really enjoying training at the moment and can’t wait to get back to it.

Hope things are going well on your ends and look forward to hearing your thoughts on which stroller/model to use for the Guiness World Record attempt in a couple weekends.

Cheers,
Mike

Ps. Herewith a video that Arlington County did about our family being a huge part of my running and it is timely with the World Record Attempt coming up: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aZe1YNSrgs

Hope all is well on your ends.

I have been unable to work on a proper blog for a few weeks so wanted to update you all on what I have been doing. I have been training and racing a lot.

I have done the following races the last few weekends:

• The North Face Endurance Challenge 50 Miler-3rd overall all in 6:31, September 19, 2009

• Clarendon Day 10K-30:59 (within 4 seconds of my PR), September 26, 2009

• The Medtronic Twin Cities Marathon-2:23:13 / October 4, 2009

• The BAA Half Marathon-1:09:15 / October 11, 2009

I was pleased with the 10K and 50 Miler and disappointed with others the Twin Cities Marathon and the BAA Half Marathon but so is the way it goes with running.

I was on pace at Twin Cities (went through 20 miles right where I should have been) to achieve my goal of sub-2:19 but failed to hold that pace till the end of the race, so cliché but it is exactly what happened to me.

I am presently excited for the 50K World Championships on October 31, 2009 in Gibraltar and I am focusing my training the next few weeks on making a very good showing there. I think I can do well for the USA and would like to come home with a Gold Medal for us.

Apart from the running, my family and I are doing well, trying to get ready for fall and battling some nasty illnesses but we are recovering and should be 100% soon.

One of the most exciting things that happened the last few weeks is that we had a Kenyan house guest, Joseph Chirlee, who came to the Washington, DC area to run the Baltimore Marathon on October 10, 2009 and he ended 4th overall in 2:18 or so.

Joseph, taught us a lot of interesting things about being a professional runner and best of all, he loved our children, Pierce (3 years) and Grant (almost 10 months) and we got to “race” around the house with him, learn to make ugali (pretty tasty actually) and see how he views the world. We learned that he is supporting his extended family back in Kenya, which was very inspiring and made us appreciate all we have living in the United States of America.

Another interesting and exciting thing that is going on is that our son Pierce has discovered Star Wars and we are in full discovery mode. Pierce is quizzing us daily on why Darth Vader is “bad” and Luke Skywalker is “good”, what is a “Wookie” and does R2D2 have feet. Where does Darth Vader sleep, how does he get out of his mask, does R2D2 help undress him, etc…

This morning, I did a 10 mile treadmill run while Pierce watched scenes from “Return of the Jedi” and asked questions. Great training.

All in all things are good and life is going well, need to stay after training for the 50K Worlds and can’t wait to compete again for the USA.

Hope that all is well on your ends too.
Talk to you soon.

Sincerely,
Michael Wardian

Everyone,

Hope all is well and your running is going well.

I have been doing well, really busy with work and the kids but still finding time to train and I am excited to get some big races in this fall.

My next big race is this weekend at The North Face Endurance Challenge 50 Miler in Washington, DC and I am even a panel member for the pre-race talk the night before so that should be neat to be on the same panel as Dean Karnazas & Sam Thompson. It should be a big challenge and fun as I have some friends also running including my boss and his son so really, really cool to be a part of it and have the support of work, family and friends.

In view of the 50 miler and also getting ready for the Twin Cities Marathon and I am planning to run 2:16-2:17 so I need to be ready, I have been working on my speed and endurance and wanted to see where I stood this past weekend.

So I signed up for the Parks half marathon a terrific local half marathon that I have run for a few years now. I love the course and the running club (MCRR) that puts on the race and know if you run well on this course you are doing something right as it is on bike trail and is definitely challenging with little rolling hills and lots of tight turns.

I am feeling fit and ready to go.

Sunday comes around and Jennifer and I wake up early as the race starts at 7:00am and is about 30-40 mins away so the plan was to be on the road by 5:30am. Well, I was in charge of the children.

I got everyone up, made some coffee and put the boys (Pierce & Grant) in the car.

We leave right on time and make the race by 6:20am, plenty of time to get my number, warm up and be ready to run. I go to get my race bag out of the trunk of the car and realize, oops, I don’t have it. I have snacks for the kids, hats, gloves, jackets, boots, sippy cups, diapers, wipes, toys, but nothing that I need for the race (no shoes, no singlet, no socks, no hat, nothing).

Well, we don’t have time to go home and get my bag and of course, I am wearing my cozy The North Face Base Camp sandals but they are not going to be too fun to run 13.1 miles in.

I start asking anyone that will listen, hey do you have size 11 men’s shoes that you are not going to wear for the race. Everyone is looking at me like I am crazy; however, I am in luck after about 10 minutes, I see a buddy from Baltimore and he has some extra Nike flats but they are men’s 12, that he is deciding if he is going to wear of not.

We chat and he says, “Here use these, I will just wear the flats I have on.” I thank him and strap them on, without socks as I couldn’t find an extra pair of socks.

So I head to the start thinking this is going to be interesting “running in someone else’s shoes”.

The race goes well, I run 1:08:13 for 2nd place and I felt really strong the whole race but I lost the race in the last 200-300 meters, which was disappointing.

The nice thing is I only got three big blisters due to the bigger shoes and no socks.

I take off my friend’s shoes, feeling a little like I just went bowling and wait for him to finish. He is a tough masters runner so I don’t have to wait long, I hand him back his shoes and head home with the family thinking that was cool, now I know what it is like to run in someone else’s shoes.

Sometimes things don’t go as planned but I hope that I make things work when that happens in the future, like I did this past weekend.

Have you ever gotten to a race without something that you needed? I’m interested to hear your funny stories.

All the best and look forward to hearing from you.

Cheers,
Mike

The last couple weeks I have been staying close to home and been having a great time enjoying the local racing scene.

I ran the Bluemont 5K on a Tuesday night after work and Jennifer and the boys came to run it too. It was terrific. We all got to participate and race less than a mile from our home and we couldn’t have had more fun as it was a really low key but well-run event.

It was one of those no frills types of things that just makes me happy all over as a runner. Someone draws a line on the ground, sets up a cone, and says “go”. I love these type of events, they really connect you with the community and allow you to interact with all different kinds of people.

The next race I did was the Health Focus of Southwest Virginia Salem Distance Classic 10K in Salem, VA.

I have been involved in the Health Focus of Southwest Virginia Salem Distance Classic for more than four years and each year I enjoy the experience more than the year before. It is such an honor and privilege to have the Salem community accept me into the fold and support me the way the do.

I am so blessed and lucky to get to compete all over the country and world the last few years and each time I go back to Salem the people there tell me how they followed me in such and such a race and how it was interesting to them and I just love that sense of belonging that they embrace me with and I hope to be a part of their lives for years to come.

After the race in Salem, I ran the Leesburg 20K another home grown and feel good race. This is one of those races where everyone brings their dogs and kids and it is simple course you run out, turn around and run back. I enjoyed seeing all the local Metro DC runners on the W&OD [Washington & Old Dominion] trail where the race was held and it made me so happy to be a part of the event as I was able to cheer for them and they were able to cheer for me on the way back.

Finally, this past weekend I ran the NYC ½ marathon and the New York Road Runners did a fantastic job to bring in some big names like Ryan Hall, Paula Radcliff, Deena Kastor and others to mix it up in NYC.

I ended up 25th overall and had the distinct pleasure of being the first guy to get passed by a woman as Paula Radcliffe passed me in the last 400 meters, you can watch her catch and pass me here at around 1:07:20 if you like: http://www.nyrr.org/nychalf_live/

It was super cool to get to compete with all those big name athletes and made me hungry to keep pushing to get faster and stronger.

All is well here and my next longer race is the local Endurance Challenge by The North Face.

Hope all is well on your ends and you have been enjoying the World Championships. I thought I was going to get to see the 10K last night but they (Versus) tricked me as they only were showing the shorter events, which were still exciting but I like the longer stuff a little more; however, the steeplechase was really interesting, seems like a fun event.

Take care and hope your running is going well.

Best Regards,
Michael Wardian

Last Saturday-June 25, 2009, I was racing the White River 50 Miler which was serving as the USATF 50 Mile Trail Championships at Crystal Mountain, Washington about 1.5 hours outside of Seattle, Washington. [Click here for photo of Mike during the race.]

It was a race that I was familiar with as last year, I won the race and was planning to come back to defend.

I knew that this year’s race was going to be tough as the field was loaded with talented athletes and each of them was gunning for a victory and the chance to be National Champion.

I arrived at the race site on Friday evening and was able to get a feel for who was running and what type of shape everyone was in. My first surprise was that the runner up from 2008, Adam Lint was not running. He was still recovering from some injury or other and a huge trip cross-country from Pennsylvania to Washington State. I was also advised that Scott Jurek was running which was cool, as I know Scott and had just read “Born To Run” and he was one of the main characters in the book and I was hoping to get a chance to test my fitness against him.

In addition, I heard that Anton Krupicka was in the field and that he either runs well or is hurt, not much in between with him and his running. I was very interested to see where I stood against Anton, so this we going to be fun.

There were some other great runners there too such as: Greg Crowther, who was on the same USATF 100K World team with me, William Emerson, a great runner and all around super guy, Hal Koerner, 2007 & 2009 Western States 100 miler winner and I knew I had my hands full but that is fine with me and I love the challenge.

I want to race these people and I love that anyone in the race and the above guys had a chance to win the race, that is what it is all about and why I like to race.

I then saw some of the legends of the Ultra World such as David Horton and Howard Nippert and got to chat with them for a few minutes before the pasta dinner put on by the Seattle Running Company who were terrific hosts. Scott McCoubrey and Leslie Bray are the best and treat all the runners with such care it is ridiculous.

I had a few plates of pasta, some salad and bread and then waited for the pre-race briefing.

Scott McCoubrey does a first class job with the entire race and the pre-race briefing was no exception. He detailed all the issues that might arise and then let us all get to bed. I was staying near the race start so I got to bed and was ready to go by 6:30am the next day.

The race weather was better than expected and my thoughts were to see how I felt and race accordingly.

Well, the race started moving pretty fast from the gun and I decided that if I wanted to be in contention to win that I needed to go with the leaders after about 4 miles and at the beginning of the first major climb. I have been working on my climbing but I am definitely not the best climber around so I started slow and worked my way up until the only guy ahead of me was Anton.

We ran together for the next 16 or so miles, passing some crazy views, saw Mt. Rainier, and that made my day, but as we hit the first turn around I got some water, PowerGels, and had to go to the bathroom and Anton bolted out of the aid station ahead of me and I didn’t see him again the rest of the race.

I was still close to Anton though, within 3 minutes as we went back down the mountain and then started up the 2nd big climb but by the top of the climb Anton had 17-18 mins on me with only 12 miles to go. It was going to be hard to win and that is when I started to think about what someone had told me the night before.

They said there are different definitions of winning and I knew that I was probably not going to win the race and we still had a few hours of running to go but I just took the news in stride and figured that I was going to hammer the rest of the course to run better than I did the year before and to ensure that I did my best.

I ended up 2nd overall in 6:51:49 and was about 1 minute faster than 2008.

I know that there can only be one National Champion and this year it was not me. I ran into someone that was better than me that day and that is fine and he deserved to win the race and I am glad that I had the experience and that I know that I can improve various aspects of my running. I am always trying to get better and this is just more motivation for me to keep pushing myself beyond what I have done in the past.

Each run is an experience and I am so glad I had the opportunity to compete and can’t wait to race again.

Hope all is well with your training and that you have had some good experiences lately.

I like that everyone has been putting quotes up, so I found this one that I thought was applicable:

“Don’t aim for success if you want it; just do what you love and believe in, and it will come naturally.”
– David Frost