RIP Steve Lacey

I just realized that some readers of this blog also used to read Steve Lacey's blog (Ewen for one) and should be informed of the sad news that he passed away last Monday, aged 57.

He had been bravely fighting lymphoma since 2015, and while he won several battles, he finally lost the war.
He was in and out of the hospital for several years, then went back in about six months ago and while treatments seemed promising, the doctors ultimately could not save him. It was a real shame that because of the corona virus, his friends could not visit him over the last few months.

As the doctors said the end was near, they brought him home on Monday morning, but he passed away in the afternoon - shockingly sudden.

He was a valuable member of my running club, a good runner and a truly great guy, and will be greatly missed by many people.

One of the highlights of his life, I'm sure he would agree, was the 2:54 marathon he ran in 2005, which is still a source of inspiration to me (in fact, it got me out running today in the rain). This was a fantastic achievement, given that he was not a naturally talented runner. He simply researched what he had to do, worked damn hard and accomplished his goal.

Here is his blog post about it - read all the way to the comments and profile:

http://variegatus.blogspot.com/2005/11/ohtawara-marathon-2005.html?m=1

As for me, I'm training well but slowing down - under 21:00 for 5k is no longer doable (maybe in the fall when it's cooler...or maybe not). Running six days a week with one interval workout, one long run of 16k (at present), and four 10k runs with 5 easy, 5 tempo. And an extra rest day as necessary. Rather than doing 80-90k a week, this keeps my legs fresher and pain-free.

Hope you are all (if anyone is still reading this blog) well and able to run. I believe I read that Melbourne is in lockdown again....

Ewen, if you read this, please pass along the sad news to anyone else who knew Steve.

All the best,
Bob

Update and Goal

Hello there. It's been a while. Shamed by my friend Padraig, who writes a blog post almost every day, I've decided to stop procrastinating and write something.

I manage to recover from the calf tear and train a little bit before running a 10K race in Huntington Beach, California on Dec. 29th. It was a flat course along the beach road. I ran 47:26, however, even though I wasn't in very good shape it really did seem faster so I think the course was about 300m (1 minute) long. I actually felt quite good on the 5k back and was moving well. Won my (small) age group and was 18th out of 221, but of course lots of folks were just out there for the fun of it.

I was there because we were visiting our daughter in Los Angeles. Which means I ate way too much good food and gained weight that I'm struggling to lose. This despite my avowal to become a vegetarian, mostly successful, after having watched The Game Changers on Netflix. This is a very persuasive documentary about how good a plant-based diet is for athletes. If it works for top ultra runner Scott Jurek it should work for the rest of us, right? Seriously, I think it's a good lifestyle choice.

At any rate, I trained pretty well in January and am ramping up the distance with a goal of 90km a month by the end of March. In particular, I really need to get back to a long run (24-30k) once a week.
I've totally lost my speed, though, as evidenced by my slow times on the club wednesday night interval workouts. I'm hoping this is due to a combination of extra weight and not being in good shape, and the speed, what still remains of it, will return over the next two months.

However, the main reason I wanted to write this post was to share with you my primary goal for the year, which is...do not get injured! Can I go an entire year without an injury? Can any runner? I certainly hope so, and I'm certainly going to try. Just being very cautious all the time, and especially after races. Let's see if it's possible....

I hope my blogging and running friends in Australia are not and will not be badly affected by the fires - here's hoping for rainy days ahead!