Thursday, May 17, 2007

Phidippides

That's the name of the marathon-legend Greek-dude who supposedly dropped dead after running 26.2 miles to deliver the news that the Persian army had been defeated. In fact, the original marathon distance was 24.8 miles, changed in 1908 by Queen Alexandria and King Edward because they wanted the Olympic race to begin at Windsor castle, which added another 2 miles.

Assholes.

Phidippides is also the name of my local running store. Yes, there's some bizarre music playing on that site - don't ask. Yesterday, I sank some dough into some new trail shoes, Saucony Omni Trails, to be precise, a switch from my favorite trail shoe of all times, Asics Trabucos...which have since been discontinued.

Assholes.

I hit Elysian this morning in 'em, and I like 'em! They're pretty cushioned and grip the trails really tightly. And they stopped on a dime when I came across a 2 foot long rattler.

Oh, and as promised, I tied one on with a couple of friends last night, so today's run proved a hangover remedy as well. yay me!

Thursday training: 1 hour of hilly trails (app'x 6.8 miles), 2 miles at tempo pace

2 comments:

Renee said...

Rattler? EEK!

Is that why they added those two miles? Damn them! Non-runners are so cruel.

Mr. Satan A. Chilles said...

Yes, you are correct about the distance, and the British tacking on extra mileage because the King and Queen didn't want to travel the extra couple of miles to get to the original finish line.

'Assholes' is right. Why couldn't it have been 20 miles between Marathon and Athens, anyway ?

- cranky