 It's time, it's time. This is it, folks. The final threshold test of this marathon training block, getting ready for Amsterdam. This is the big one. This is the doozy. This is the half marathon, the 13 miler, 13.1. Now we are about, let me just say, I think we're like 10 to 11 days out from Amsterdam. I have to do, because the race is on Sunday. It's like 11 days out. When you're watching this, I believe it's 10. So I would have probably preferred to do this workout, hold on one sec. I would have preferred to do this workout probably 14 days out, maybe 13, but just how things lined up with my other racing, specifically the US mountain running championships. My legs were sore last week. So anyway, this workout just got bumped a little bit, but I am beyond excited, not worried at all. It's really good. I think it's going to work out really, really well, because after this, as you know, actually when you're watching this, I'll be on an airplane to Toronto and then from Toronto over to Vienna. So it's just going to be like from here on out, I'm just going to be able to rest and relax and let the legs really freshen up. But this is a big one. This is an important workout and I'm excited to share it with all of you. Oh man, I can't believe we can taste it. You know what I mean? We can taste it. So, okay, here we go. Going to meet. You better believe it. The one and only Steve. He's going to be here again today. Steve helping me out with the bike pacing and then giving me fuel hydration, the Morton hydration mix, energy mix, I guess I should call it, along the way. Come on, everyone. Come on. Let's do this. Let's go. Woo. I'm ready. I'm ready. That's right. Meetin' Steve here. McDonald's is right on the Highline Canal, so I'm going back to dirt. Not because I'm worried about injury at this point, but because I don't want my legs to feel basically beat up with 10, 11 days to go until Amsterdam. So that's why I'm going back to dirt. Just to keep it soft. I don't want to beat the legs up too much, even though I know they would recover in 10 or 11 days, but no reason to risk anything. So we're going back to dirt, back to the Highline Canal. Okay. Let's lace up and then get a quick warm-up and then we'll rock and roll. All right. The arches. The golden arches. There we are. I see Steve over here and Jordan joined us. Here they are. Here they are. It's cold, isn't it? Oh, yeah. Jacksonville. All right. Here's the camera. Here you go, sir. Longer than last time, so it's going to hurt. And it should. Yeah. And I might ask you to come up beside me. All right. You know, you can always be beside me, but that helps especially toward the end. Okay. So, yeah. And if, if, shoot, yeah, if we blow. A little higher? Yeah. Oh, yeah. I'll just keep going. Yeah. Cool. And we'll go a little past six and a half now. So. Okay. Sweet man. Awesome. I'm excited to be responsible for your success here. Hey, right? I'll, I'll give you a shout out in Amsterdam today. Steve and Jordan got me to the finish. Make sure my shoes are good. Yeah. If it is. If I take my single off, throw it at you. Sorry. I'm getting warm tonight. Okay. That was good. Little breezy out, but that's okay. They say in Amsterdam it might be breezy, so got to be ready for that. Whoo. Look at me go by. Jordan. Shout out to Steve and Jordan for helping out today. Jordan, Jordan's catching up. Good one, Jordan. Nice line. Boom. That's salt there. Where are my headbands? Whoo. Welcome to underneath my house before heading to the airport in the morning. Got to change the air filter in the furnace because the timing could not be better today in Denver, high of 78 degrees for the threshold run today. Talk about that in a minute. And tomorrow, 18 degrees at in the morning, 18. So that's, am I doing the math right? Is that a 70, 60? It's like a 50 plus degree temperature swing, which happens quite often here in Denver. There we go. God, true love is the best. Let me go on this kind of crazy trip. You know, it's a long time to be away from the family. So the least I can do is make sure the furnace is up and running. We will test it later. Okay. I'm off to pick up the boys. Gonna take them out for a little treat before Papa hits the road. Oh, yeah. We got the boys. Okay. You guys sit down. You're not going to believe it. The boys made ice cream cones. And guess what? At school, we're going to go get ice cream after the haircuts. We got to get haircuts first. All right. We got to get a haircut for Amsterdam, for the marathon and for you guys. Yeah. We're going to go get haircuts and then we're going to go to Andy's. How's that sound? Oh, yeah. Looking fly. Look at you guys. You look so sharp. Look at that haircut. Look at Seth. Oh, where's that? Seth. Seth. All right. Let's go get Andy's. You guys look so sharp. Boom. Here we go. Thank you. Oh, yeah. Thank you. Okay, guys. You come sit. Papa's resisting for now. After Amsterdam. After Amsterdam. But only if I win the race, says Joseph. There's the race. We get one. Yeah. That's right. No pressure. No pressure. And here we go. Okay. So before I forget, I almost forgot, I'm flying to Vienna in the morning, which means I got to be expeditious here in the studio tonight. But I'm going to lose a day of time in travel. So I will be filming, but I cannot, I'm not sure when I'm going to be able to upload. Okay. As you know, like I film every single day, I edit at night, and then I upload the next morning. So just bear with me a little bit over the next, let's say 36 hours. As I figure out the time zones, all I know is I'm losing time as I head to Vienna. And the, you know, I think I'll have Wi-Fi on the airplane, but it's not going to be powerful enough to upload an actual video. It's just like browsing data. So anyway, I just want to let you know the vlog tomorrow, I don't know when it's going to publish, but I will keep you posted on Twitter and everywhere else. So just wanted to mention that. And then also I heard today, you probably already know this, but the official date for Kipchoge has been decided Saturday, October 12th. The weather looks good. Okay. They're locked in Saturday, October 12th, but the time, the beginning, when the actual attempt will take place is between 5 a.m. and 9 a.m. That's a pretty big window. It's like four hours. My guess is going to be 7 a.m. That's my guess. The reason being, I think it could be a little chilly at 5 a.m., frankly, but I know you want the temperatures to be cool. Anyway, 5 a.m. to 9 a.m. is the window for the start for Kipchoge. What else did I want to mention before diving into today's run? Let's see. Okay. How did I feel today on the last threshold of this marathon training block? Here it goes. Felt great the first three miles, as usually happens in a threshold run. And then that lactate starts to build up a little bit in your legs and you start to feel the breathing a little bit. So I felt really strong the first three miles. And then I really tried to focus on floating from three miles to six miles. And I think I accomplished that pretty well. Now, when we turned around, so I went six miles out and then I turned around at six because there was a huge downhill and I didn't want to deal with that. So I turned around at six from six miles to 10 miles. There was a little bit, just a smidge of a headwind, not much good practice for Amsterdam because I heard it's been a little breezy recently in Amsterdam. So from six miles to 10 miles was a little tougher. I had to dig a little deeper during those miles. But then from 10, the last three from 10 to 13, I felt strong. I actually got a little more mentally focused. I feel like I lost my focus just a little bit from 60. I didn't lose my focus. I just was, I was reminding myself that this is not a race. Just relax. So anyway, from 10 to 13, I kind of clamped down and I found my rhythm again. You know, when you just find like your legs and your arms are working together really well. I think Steve could notice on the bike when that was happening. So I felt really solid the last three miles finishing. Let me just pull it up actually. Well, okay, the run today, I'm going to pull it up on Strava as well, but it's 13 miles, 21 kilometers, 517 a mile or 315 per kilometer. And yes, that is the, that's basically the exact pace I need to run in Amsterdam. But of course, hold on, let me just pull this up. View analysis, I'm pulling up Strava here. And then, you know, there's a hundred feet of elevation gain today. Obviously that's, that's, I think Amsterdam is like 50 to 75 feet, maybe a hundred. It's very, very small. So I'm excited about that. Fastest split was 504. Wow. Okay. You know, I'm not a heart rate guy, but it looks like my heart rate never really spiked. Like it spiked to 180, but just like briefly, and I think that was on a small uphill section. This is good. Average heart rate 168. Okay. This act, all right. And again, not a heart rate guy, but based on what I know, this is really, really exciting. Average heart rate of 168. Max was 182. This is good. So the goal was to be right on that threshold of going into anaerobic. And it looks like I, I was right there if not just slightly under. So this is a good sign to go to Amsterdam to race at sea level. So I've heard from Denver, 5,280 feet down to sea level. You get about, you get about 10 seconds a mile, approximately eight to 10 seconds is what I've heard. So that's good news. Sea level. And then what else was I going to say? Flat, flat course. Oh yeah. Rested legs. I did run 120 miles last week. So rested legs over the next 10 days. And then the two biggest factors and this, this connects to the question of the day is that I respond really well too. And you probably do as well. But I respond really well to crowds and to competition. I love cheering. I love cheering. And most ultra and mountain races are kind of lonely because you're, you're out there in the woods running a lot of times you're, you're in no man's land. Like you're, rarely are you right with someone, another runner the entire way. So I'm ecstatic. And I know Amsterdam won't have crowds like the entire way, but I know there will be people like I've watched replay videos on YouTube. And anyway, I'm, I'm excited to be with all of you, like the locals out in the, in Amsterdam come out and cheer. And okay, I'm just going to mention it right now. I'll mention this again. If you want to film with your phone and then email me the clip that day, I will put that clip in the vlog. So if you're out there on the course and you get some shots, I'll put it in the, I'll put it in the vlog and we'll, we'll get you part of the vlog. That would be, I'll give you a shout out as well. Amazing. But also I respond well to competition as anyone would. I'm really hoping to get into a pack of runners of let's say like five to 10 guys. Like if there's, I think there will be. I'm hoping there's a pack of five to 10 guys that I can just run with. We will see. I really don't want to be in no man's land in Amsterdam. I want to be tucked in and just feeling groovy with a pack of guys to run with. So that is the goal and the question of the day. And this is actually really important. I've, I've never really, I need to do more thinking on this as well. What is one factor, maybe two, but just one factor that you really respond well to on race day? So here's a couple ideas to think about just to give you a sense. It could be, it could be, of course, crowd-sized cheering. It could be like signs along the way. It could be cheerful and happy and really supportive volunteers at the aid stations. When I see a volunteer at an aid station that is like all in and cheering and like really there to help you, it just gets, it makes, it changes my, my entire mindset. It like puts me from, okay, this really hurts to, okay, this person is out here helping me. I'm going to run a little harder the next mile or two or three or four for that volunteer who is giving up their entire day to come help me have a great race. So anyway, that's one idea. And then the other is music. Maybe you listen to music. Okay, that could be a factor. Whatever. So there's a lot of different factors on race day, but what do you respond best to on race day? That's a long-winded way, but you get me going. You get me going. As you can tell, I'm excited about the threshold effort. I'm excited about you. I'm excited about YouTube. I'm excited about Kip Chogy. I'm excited about Vienna and Amsterdam and it's just going to be epic. That's the vlog. See you in Vienna. And again, thank you for your patience with tomorrow's upload. It might be a little delayed just because... Or it might not be. Am I gaining time? Am I doing the math wrong? I'll figure it out. I love you guys. All right, we're going to toss it back to a couple of vlogs over the past 10 days that are doing really well because it connects to marathon training on the right and the left. If you haven't checked those out, make sure you do. Oh, see you in Europe. Seek beauty, work hard and love each other. See you tomorrow.