Lee Troop, who is 40 years old, finished 3rd in
the Bolder Boulder Citizen’s race. He
had these insights after the race.
“Training is easy. But it’s all
the other things you’ve got to learn to make you a better racer, a better
person. A lot of the things we prescribe
are to make them better people. If they
can be better people and be more content with what they do, they’ll get more
out of their training and racing.” Amen
to that.
I remember the first, and only time I ran that race. Through most of 1993 and into the spring of
1994 I ran by myself. The only speed
workout I did was a six mile fartlek run a couple of times each week. I ran an A wave qualifying time at the 1993
Governor’s Cup and decided to register for the Bolder Boulder. My brother-in-law was completing his PhD at CU
Boulder and lived about a block from the start.
Mary and I crashed on his floor the night before the race.
Memorial Day 1994 was a hot day. I ran the 10 K course in 37:01, good enough
for 10th in my age. What if I
got some advice on shoes and trained with an organized group? I went to the Runners Roost on Colorado Boulevard and
they fitted me with a pair of Nike Air Pegasus.
They told me about the Phidippides Track Club which held track workouts close
to my office.
So I showed up at the Belleview Elementary School track one Tuesday evening. You would think that a 37 minute 10K time
would have put me in Group 1 with the faster runners. It didn’t.
Group 1 was full of the likes of Glen Mays who finished 4th
(31:59) and Rob Welo who finished 11th (32:43) at the Bolder Boulder. I settled into group 2.
A year later I had lowered my time in the 10K by two
minutes, which enabled me to hang in the very back of group 1. But, by that time, Glen, Rob and most of the
other fast guys had moved on. Such is
life.
People have been asking me what I eat. The core of my weekly diet consists
of:
2 ½ cups of corn meal (pre-cooked)
2 ½ cups of brown rice (pre-cooked)
2 cups of rolled oats (pre-cooked)
3 cups of beans (cooked)
4 eggs
20 bananas
10 apples
6 baked potatoes
6 baked potatoes
I eat a lot more than this and I do eat meat, but in limited
amounts; about 4-6 ounces of either chicken, pork or beef (that’s in total, not
per day).
People also have asked me about my weekly mileage, the kinds
of workouts I do and if I cross-train.
So far this year I have averaged 45 miles of running per week. I typically run four days per week. My workouts are: one long run of about 20 miles; a track
workout which consists of repeats of 400m up to a mile; one hill run of about
13 miles and either a three – four mile tempo run or a fartlek ladder run.
For cross-training I swim two or three times a week with the
Highlands Ranch Masters. These workouts,
which are each about 4,000 yards long, help my legs recover and give me
additional aerobic training.
Want to know more?
Just ask me.
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