Running Times, Online

3/29/09
Good Evening Everyone,

It is late here in Elford, Morocco and I can smell hukak smoke from the bar as I type on a french keyboard.

I made it thru the Aministrative checks for the Marathon des Sables and tomorrow the race begins.

The first Stage is 20.2 Miles - I believe around 33K through some of the biggest sand dunes in Morocco and North Africa, if what people tell me is true.

I have tweaked my gear a lot to hopefully be on or near the starting weight of the best runners and hope the modifications to everything pay off tomorrow.

I am so glad we are getting the chance to compete and I can’t wait to mix it up.

Must get off to bed and finish packing but tomorrow it is on and we are going to see who came to race.

Looking forward to updating at some point tomorrow.

By the way, if you go to the race website you can see a video of the flooding that caused todays stage to be cancelled.

All the best,
Michael Wardian

Monday AM 8 shakeout, 1:05:36, in Red Rock Canyon, first 5 with Blake. tot. 8

PM 8 at El Pomar w/ Blake, 57:33, felt pretty good, but hit my shin on a board that Blake kicked up as we were crossing a stream, hurt like hell really banged and cut up the shin pretty good. tot. 8

XT Stretching (1:20), shin drills after first run

Tuesday 2:30PM (stomach upset in morning) at Fountain Valley School, 3 warm up-24mins- stretching 40mins- 10×100m at 85% effort jog back rest, 4×5x200m 1min rest, 200m walk between sets each took about 2:20, breezy on track but not real bad with one or two exceptions, 34.4, 34.4, 34.2, 33.0, 33.7, set 2, 33.4, 33.1, 33.5, 33.2, 33.1, set 3, 32.7, 31.4, 32.4, 32.6, 32.5, set 4, 31.2, 31.1, 31.3, 32.1 (wind), 31.2, 3 cool down 26 mins. This workout was prescribed by Dr. Vorderer the guy who gave me the stretching, basically to try to open up the hamstring and hips more than normal and help with the healing process or something like that. He didn’t go into great detail. tot. 10

8PM 8+ at El Pomar, solo shakeout, 1:10:00 tot. 8+

XT Stretching 40mins

Wednesday AM Bear Creek 10 with Blake and Steve, 1:15:52. tot. 10

PM 8 on Gold Camp Rd. with Tommy Neal and Blake (doing 5), 1:00:06. tot. 8

XT Stretching 1 hour

Thursday Noon at Gold Camp Road in a snow storm (really stupid see flotrack blog for details) 2 mile down hill warm up (15:00), 6 mile climb at hard effort (I aimed for half marathon pace effort), climbing from 6600 feet to 8000 feet, 42:59, 4 mile cool down, 34:05, very cold. tot. 12

PM Road and trail 10 from house, still in snow storm 1:26:38 positively exhausted, first 7 w/ Blake. tot. 10

XT Stretching 40mins

Friday 2PM (slept very late) 8 at Monument park with Blake and Tommy Neal (doing 6), 1:02:03-tired. tot.8

PM 8 shakeout from house, road and trail, first 4 with Blake, 1:07:48. tot. 8

XT Stretching 40mins

Saturday 1PM 13 at El Pomar, solo, 1:27:55 out and downhill in 47:25, back and uphill in 40:30 very overdressed had long pants and windbreaker on, I wrung the shirt I had on under the wind breaker out. tot. 13

PM 3 miles easy, 3 minutes at 5:35 pace, couple mins easy (all that with blake who was warming up for a workout the rest I did solo), 12xshort hill (15 seconds) jog down rest, 5 cool down, just over 40mins. tot. 10+

XT Shin Drills, stretching 40 mins

Sunday 10:30AM 20 on Woodmen trail w/ Blake (did 18) and Tommy Manning, 2:17:47 (out and uphill in just over 1:11:00) 1:54 walk rest, then 6x 1/2 mile on trail odds rolling downhill, evens rolling uphill, both finished with ups and short straight, like NYC, I’m pretty sure this was short, if not I’m totally pumped, (jogging rest between reps) 2:20.5 (1:46), 2:30.4 (1:48), 2:29.0 (1:38), 2:31.0 (1:48), 2:30.0 (1:43) 2:30.4, tot.24+

XT Stretching 40 mins, myrtle, ice bath

Summary 137 miles for week, three good workouts, one short hill session. I really blew it on the stretching this week. Frankly I had no schedule and after having a bad stomach one night and morning I basically got into going to bed at 1am and sleeping till 10 or 11 and not running until afternoon. It threw my whole schedule off and I wasn’t getting stuff done. But our coaching duties at Fountain Valley start up again this week which should inject some structure into my schedule and I’m going to be much more diligent about it too. I’m happy with this week. Moving forward I’m planning on going hard for about 10 more days then taking a few light days before the Crescent City Classic 10k.

Quote of the Week “The things we do should consume us. If they don’t, our lives won’t have any meaning.” Jonny Kelly the younger

3/29/09-Ouarzazate, Morocco

Good day, the Marathon Des Sables was supposed to start this morning but due to flooding and abnormal rainfall (the worst in 20 years, or best depending on how you view it). The race start has been delayed by 1 day and the first stage (about 30K-18.6 miles, I am being told, haven’t seen the course yet as it is a not released before the start of the race, so that people are not able to scout it and place gear along it) will be cancelled and the race will be shorter by that amount.

I am disappointed it will be shorter but just happy we are going to get to compete. I missed racing the Western States 100 Miler last year (2008, think it was the first time that race had been cancelled) due to wild fires and I was thinking that I might be a jinx or something.

Anyhow, I just got in a little shake out run (had some kids and locals yelling “Bravo”nduring it, got to love that) and I am all packed up with everything I need for the race and my Angstram 30 backpack is “heavy” must be over 20lbs, I need to reduce some food but also need my required 2000 calories a day (excluding drink mix, which they don’t count as calories for some reason) so might need some last minute tweaking.

I also have another bag with food and gear I am not taking but considered taking which has pickles, extra PowerBars, Powergels (going with a certain amount each day to save weight), dried fruit (that stuff is really heavy but so tasty) and water bottles (only need two brought four to see which I prefered), extra sunscreen, extra socks, clothes, etc.

I have about 1 hour before I meet up with my ride to the starting point, so should start to double check to make sure I didn’t miss anything. It looks like a 5 hour “taxi” ride to the start is in my future.

I am really excited for the start and to see if my preperations for the race were sound and if I can push these guys and girls during the next 6 days.

I am here to challenge for the win so each day will be tough but I am ready and now comes the fun part.

I will try and update after each stage and let you know how it is going.

All the best.

Michael Wardian

Fri, 27 Mar 2009 13:51:03 -0700 — Flooding in the Sahara

The subject heading is not a joke: We have been diverted away from the start of the race to a desert town called Erfoud. Today we took 11 hours to arrive by bus because the highway had been flooded in many places. It turns out that a river is running through the Bivouac, so the race organization is putting us up in hotels.

This is rain of biblical proportions–awesome. I hope that they update the website with photos over the next few days.One minor problem: My mouth may get me in trouble. Before we left, rain had been rumored for 4 days. I proclaimed, “If it rains for 4 days, I’ll eat my hat–literally.” I sure hope that the rain stops before Monday!

The Sahara is flooding. How crazy is that? The race is still supposed to start on Sunday; hopefully all goes well.
3/28/09-8:46am (local)

Good Morning,

I was supposed to be meeting up with the other appx 900 athletes today but after getting to the hotel very early this morning (1:30 am arrival and after 30 mins of paperwork, getting to my room) and sleeping for a few hours I went down to meet my ride to the start of the race and he was nowhere to be found so I called my emergency number and was told that they are not sure if the race is going to be held this year due to floods.

Floods in the desert, what is going on.

I am hopeful that the race will still start tomorrow but not sure as I was told to book the room I am in for another night and that perhaps the race will just start a day later.

That is fine with me as long as we run it (and perhaps they make one of the other stages longer so the distance is right)

I am ready to go and want to test myself against the various aspect of race.

Not sure what I am supposed to do today but would like to be with the other runners if at all possible; however, it doesn’t sound like anything is firm yet so hard to know where to meet them.

I hope to be able to relay more details later today.

Best Regards,
Michael Wardian

3/27/09
Dear Readers,

Waiting, seems like that is what I have been doing for much of the morning.

Waiting in lines to get thru security, to get food, to go to the bathroom and now for my flight from Amsterdam to Casablanca and then Quarzazate.

We are supposed to board soon so that is good as getting to the race involves a lot of moving pieces and each one must come together perfectly or I will miss the start and fail in my goal before the fun part even starts.

I am confident that everything will go according to schedule but still something that is on my mind.

Got to “run” for a few minutes in the airport (up and down the terminaln always mindful of the guys with automatic weapons and my bags) but hope to be able to get some more running in upon arrival in Casablanca as I am not flying out tonight until 11:00 pm.

Have heard indirectly from some of my teammates and it seems like the rumor is that this year the race will be the longest ever with the “dune day” first (when I did the race in 2000 the “dune day” was 3rd), in case you don’t know the “Marathon Des Sables” consists of 6 days of running and usually has 1 day that is 50 miles and 1 day that is a marathon, 1 day is in the “dunes” and the balance of the days make up the difference to get to around 150 miles.

Should be interesting to see how the race plays out with the “dunes” first if that is accurate.

Just fyi, noone except the race director knows the exact course until tomorrow when we receive the “road book” which has the course each day (along with compass bearings) and is required to be in your backpack at all times or you get a  time penalty.

Well looks like the flight is boarding so need to go but will try and update in due course.

Best Regards,
Michael Wardian