Hi Bob! Sorry to hear all the comments form people who work on your tendon That must be so frustrating but it really sounds like you're dealing with it well. Not that you have to! But sounds like you're using all the lessons you've learned in life to cope very well with this. And awesome about the Half Ironman! Must be nice to have something on the horizon to think about- you'll totally kill those guys- ha ha ha (evil laugh). Oh- my avatar... My favorite thing is to try to get a picture where I'm jumping in the air- I've got pictures from all over my travels of me jumping in the air in front of stuff. Its not so much the picture but trying to get th epicture that makes it really fun. Good luck Bob- you're doing great and keep up the patience and good work.

Hmmmm.... don't know what my plans are for next year yet but....... New Hampshire huh?

Alan, that would be pretty cool if you could do it! Fly into Long Island and we can drive up together. The area is just beautiful there. A bunch of people from here are going, we're gonna all book into the same place to stay right on the lake. It would be a lot of fun! http://www.timbermantri.com/timber703.html The race will fill up shortly, so it's now or never!

WOW! I'm sad that this will be your last post on your blog for awhile, but I know you have to do what you have to do. You have been such a help to me this summer!! It really helps when you know there's someone paying attention and caring about how things are going during marathon training! I will be patiently waiting for you to start your blog for your next race! Your in my thoughts and I'm wishing your recovery to go well and hopefully faster then you expect.Good luck with your recovery! I ended up doing the same thing your doing with my neck injury. Your friend in Seattle is lucky to have you as a friend (btw I'm from Seattle originally). Can't wait for your training to start for Boston. Thinking of doing it in 2009 as well? Cause you know I'm going to qualify next year!! Anyway take care!!

I wanted to pop in and tell you all about my trip into NY City to help out at the Olympic Trials. Sorry, it's pretty long! I know you probably just want to hear about the trials, but I'm gonna tell you about the whole trip anyway! Not being a city person, I'm always anxious when I travel into NY City, which luckily isn't too often. Fear (usually unfounded) of the unknown I guess. I caught the train into Flatbush, Brooklyn Friday afternoon after work. From there I took the subway into lower Manhattan. I was sharing a hotel on the west side with a running friend who came in from Philly to do the race. I got to the hotel by 7:30, feeling quite proud of myself for not getting lost and not having to ask for directions. Passing by the World Trade Center site, I payed my respects. You cannot go by there without getting emotional. Thanks to the recommendation from my coworkers, we went to a nearby Irish Pub called Moran's for a bite to eat and a beer. Great place! We were able to walk there by following the park paths along the water. What a nice view, the moon was out and you could see the Statue of Liberty and the Verrazano bridge easily. It was an early night for me since I was planning on getting up at 4am the next morning. Alarm goes off at 4am and I was out the door by 4:30am as planned. I had get to 72nd Street and Central Park West by 5am for the volunteer meeting. I had the route all planned out... walk to the Chamber Street subway station and Take the "C" subway line right to my destination. It was foolproof! Ha! Feeling a little creeped out walking around the city at that hour, I got to the subway station in record time, only to find that the line was shut down for the weekend! Crap! Unfortunately I had no plan "B" in place. The signs recommendation was to go to west 4th street and catch the subway there. My best guess is that it was a bit over a mile away, so I started hoofing it as fast as I could. Luckily the weather was cooperating, tropical storm Noel was brewing offshore but all we got in the city was a lot of wind and cold temps. No rain! Yay! Down in southern Manhattan, the streets have "real" names instead of numbers like in midtown and above. So you really don't have a nice grid of streets to work with. I finally came across Broadway and knew that would put me close to where I wanted to go, so I started following that. Boy was I making good time! After about 15 minutes of walk/jogging, I notices a large, mostly glass, fully illuminated building up ahead. As I got closer to it, I saw in very large neon letters "Staten Island Ferry". Holy crap, I've been going in the wrong direction! Now it's 4:50am. I see a sign for a subway stop, and a quick check of my map showed that it went close to where I needed to be. But at the same moment, I spotted a cab, and opted for that. It cost me $20, but I got there with piece of mind, just a little late. I was hoping to get there early and find a place for a bagel and coffee first, but that didn't work out. Luckily, the NY Roadrunners take good care of their volunteers and they provided us with coffee and snacks and these incredible turkey and cheese panini sandwiches. FYI, here's a map of the NY City subways. You try to figure it out! There were 100's of volunteers there, which is pretty cool given the early hour and the threat of bad weather. After signing in, you waited to have your name called, and you were assigned to a group. I lucked out. My group consisted of 9 people, and our assignment was to patrol the course between 75th and 80th streets on the west side, which was just up the road a bit. Some groups had to go to posts that were almost 2 miles away. Our job was to fan out and keep the course clear of wandering spectators. There was one crosswalk in this section where spectators were allowed to cross and I volunteered to take on that duty along with a young woman who joined me. The race course started outside of Central Park in front of St. Patrick's Cathedral, and entered the park after about 1 mile. Once in the park, the runners first did a 4 mile loop followed by four 5 mile loops. Where we were stationed worked out to be miles 2.5, 6.5, 11.5, 16.5 and 21.5. We got to see them pass 5 times which was cool. Of course on the first pass, everyone was together. All you heard were footsteps, breathing, and felt a rush of wind as they all flew past. Each successive lap spread the field out more and more. Since it was a loop course, many spectators would flock to the west side of the park where we were, watch the leaders pass by, then run to the east side, watch them there, and repeat. So you'd have 1000's of spectators, followed by almost none, again and again. When they passed by for mile 16.5, it was down to just a handfull of contenders, with many of the favorites still together. What happened between mile 16.5 and mile 21.5 just blew my mind. All of a sudden, here comes Ryan Hall. Then we waited. And waited. And waited. Finally Ritz comes by, then Dan Browne, Brian Sell, Khalid, Meb... all spread out. All heck broke out during those 5 miles. I was rooting for Dan Browne to make it, but later found out that he faded the last few miles. It was about halfway through the race that I started hearing rumors of Ryan Shay. I discounted them as rumors. Ryan was the guy I picked to win. I had been following his progress this year, and admired him not only for his athletic abilities, but also for his personal character. But I heard from more and more reliable sources that the rumors were not rumors. It really cast a sad tone to the rest of the race. Volunteering was great. The spectators were very cooperative. I only had to stop one person, a woman who had been running through the inner roads of the park was trying to exit, and she ran right out into the road without looking or stopping. The leaders were approaching and the lead motorcycle was about to pass us. I grabbed her by the arm and yanked her back. At first she was startled and angry, but then saw the motorcycle and thanked me and went on her merry way. Her iPod was blasting, I suspect that had something to do with this. There would've been a collision for sure. On the final lap we were waiting for the stragglers to pass by. Stragglers HA! Even the last few runners would finish in under 2:30! One of the runners was walking. Another runner came up behind him and patted him on the back and said "Come on, let's finish this thing up together". That was awesome! After the last runner passed, my co-volunteer and I headed back to 72nd street where we all first met up. She was a really nice girl who works with inner city youth kids, and is running her first marathon in Philly in a couple of weeks and was so excited and nervous about that. We've all been there! I wanted to know how her race turns out so we exchanged email addresses and parted ways. After returning to the hotel, I got into my run stuff and headed out for a run. Thanks to a tip from my new friend, I found the Greenway Trail that literally circles the outer edge of Manhattan and ran on that. I'm not much of a city person, but this was pretty cool to have this resource in a huge city, much like Chicago and the lakefront trail. Then it was back to the hotel for a quick shower and off to the expo just to see what that was like. I was pleasantly surprised at how well organized and relatively uncrowded it was. After experiencing the likes of Boston, Chicago and Marine Corps expos, I was expecting the same here, but it wasn't bad at all. It was a lot more spread out than the other expos, giving you room to actually walk around. I made sure I grabbed a lot of freebies, and also checked out booths for future marathon possibilities. Right now Iceland is looking good! Finally it was off to Times Square to meet friend for dinner. Had a great meal and great conversation at Tony di Napolis. Then is was back to Penn Station for the trainride back to home sweet home! NY City is a neat place to visit, but.... Thanks for reading! Here is a blurry shot I got of Ryan Hall passing by at the 21.5 mile mark of the race.

I wanted to pop in and tell you all about my trip into NY City to help out at the Olympic Trials. Sorry, it's pretty long! I know you probably just want to hear about the trials, but I'm gonna tell you about the whole trip anyway!

Thanks, Bob! That was an awesome report - and in this forum there is no such thing as a long post! I think you should cross (or re) post this out in the general forums. It's always interesting to me to see the "other side" of a race - especially one as important as that one. Thanks, again.

great race report Bob! They way you write sucks me in to your story so I agree that its not long at all! So sad about Ryan Shay Awesome picture of Ryan Hall- he is crazy talented. Hope you start logging again when you feel back to running shape. Iceland, huh? Count me out!

Sorry, I know this has nothing to do with training... From my run in upstate NY over the weekend. I pretty much followed a route that a 10k race held there follows. It heads out of town along a river, crosses a covered bridge, then heads back to town on the other side of the river. Welcome to Delhi A neat house in town. How'd you like to climb those steps at the end of every run? Sheep and some alpacas (I think!) This hill climed 500' in just under a mile. The picture doesn't do it justice. The bridge you cross to get to the other side of the river, before heading back to town. Funny sign on the bridge. Looking back at the bridge after crossing it, heading back to town on the other side of the river. Along the river, heading back to town. Neat little farmhouse on a hill. Love the front porch. I thought one day I would like to buy this house and live here. A neat barn. Still heading back to town. A nice peaceful road to run on. Someone's garden in front of an old barn. The local high school track. That would make a nice backdrop for your workouts.

As usual, those are some awesome pictures, Bob. You sure have a knack for taking some great pictures in great places! I really liked that sign on the bridge - and that 500' hill sounds tough to run!