My Olympic Marathon Trials Dream ...

I dreamed about the Olympic Men's Marathon Trails last night.

Not running in them or winning them -- I think I'm too old for those sorts of dreams. It was one of those real/surreal scenarios where I watched the start go off from what sure looked like the starting area of the St. Patrick's Day 8K in St. Paul.

Next, I was in a pizza restaurant arguing with some other race fans about how the race would play out. (I thought some guys would go off the front early but that the favorites -- Culpepper, Meb, Abdi, etc. -- would prevail in the end.)

Finally, the buddy I was with -- can't remember who that was now, wide-awake at 7:30 a.m. -- and I decided we needed to get back to the course to see the runners when they came by. But, I had all these boxed slices of pizza that were really cumbersome to carry ... but that we needed to bring with us to feed the marathoners!?!

Then I woke up.

If there are any Freudians reading DtB, please feel free to comment on my dream below.

I interpret the dream as telling me to not forget to post about the Trials despite it being Big Tens week, MIAC week, Sectionals week, etc.

So here's that post ...

USA Track & Field announced that the largest Olympic Trails field since 1984 will line up in Central Park for this year's event on November 3. A total of 134 athletes, of the 179 qualified, have entered the race. The USATF media release has a wealth of informational tidbits about the race.

The official entry list is HERE.

The New York Road Runner's Club has put together a fine spectators' guide for the race HERE.

Also, as part of their Trials build-up, Runner's World briefly chatted with former Minneapolis resident Mike Reneau. Reneau is currently training in Michigan with the Hansons-Brooks program. He tells Peter Gambaccini that he's shooting for a 2:15 at the Trials.

" ... my strategy relies on other people going out too fast. There’s not doubt about it. Realistically, I’m not a 2:11 marathoner at this stage, so I’m not going to pretend to be come Race Day. And ultimately, when you train for specific pacing and you have specific goals, it’s foolish to completely change those based on what other people are doing in a race. For me to run the best race possible, I’ll have to run the race that I trained to run, and that’s right around that 5:10 (per mile) pace range."