Winding Down

Well, the reason for the lack of races over the next six months is rapidly approaching.  And the reason for absolutely no triathlons this year.

In less than 48 hours, I step onto a plane and head off to Iraq for six months.

Goddess has her game face on.  Son’s being, well, Son.

But we aren’t complaining.  Six months will go by quick.  Especially compared to the neighbors, who, all being Army, are gone for fifteen months.  So we’re keeping it in perspective.

Besides, we’ve been apart longer than six months.  Goddess is a trooper - I was gone for the nine months leading up to the wedding.  While she was dealing with caterers, photographers, invitations and the like, I was sunning, surfing, fishing, snorkeling and partying on the beach in Western Australia.  I showed up four days before the wedding.

Why she took me, I don’t know.  ;0)

I’ll still be running while I’m there, figuring I’m building a hell of a running base for next year’s tri season.

Matter of fact, I’ll turn 40 while I’m there, so I’m going to do the run-focus of Roman’s B-Fit B-Day challenge, shooting for Gold and running 40 on my 40th.  I’ll have to start right after midnight and hopefully finish before mid-morning before it gets too hot.

I’ll post when I can (and when there’s something to post about).  Perhaps a few pictures too.

In the meantime, keep writing those race reports.

Take care,

Bill

Headphones

I had to laugh at this one.  I get this question a lot, especially by the folks at work that try to wrap their brains around running for three hours, riding for six, or swimming for two (not that I’ve done the last two this year, but it’s happened).

I don’t wear headphones.  I don’t listen to music.

Except what’s playing on mental radio.

I agree with Frazz.  I’ve got to hear what’s going on around me.  And music is too much of a distraction.

Every time I run a race, I am reminded of why it’s a good idea to not wear headphones.  Little islands unto themselves, runners with headphones take hard right turns with no warning so they can get a cup of water or get to the curb to tie their shoe.  They cross center lines on the (open) road, not hearing the car on the other side, just so they can jog with a bit more space (even loud screams couldn’t get this guy’s attention).

I understand the desire to distract oneself from the discomfort and pain.  I do wear them when I’m on a dreadmill or trainer.  But never outside.

I must be one of the old diehards that this NY Times article is referring to.

Rockin’ & Rollin’

Apparently they blew the tornado sirens last night.  We didn’t hear them, but the very close lightning strikes kept waking us up.  Plus, we’re dog-sitting another greyhound, so the two of them were skittish last night, which made it hard to sleep.

The alarm went off (way too early) and we were on the road to another race bright and early.  Luckily it was a local race, so we didn’t have to drive too much.

Which turned out to be a good thing.

We got to packet pickup and they wanted picture ID.  At that point I realized that I had left my wallet at home.  So Goddess drove like the devil and got us back to the house.  We made it back to the race site with 15 minutes to spare.

Wouldn’t you know it - they didn’t ask for ID this time.

Anyway, we were there for the inaugural Clarksville Duathlon - 2 mi run/13 mi bike/2 mi run.

A last minute addition to the race schedule.  After the Country Music Marathon expo, we stopped by our local running store so I could pick up a few more pair of Injinji (did I mention that I love those socks?).  They handed us the flier to the duathlon, which I posted on the fridge, mostly as a gee-whiz.

On Tuesday, three days after the marathon, I hopped on my Softride for a spin to work out the legs.  It was the first time I threw my leg over it since my IM-distance race last September.  That turned out to be a good ride.  I was surprised how good it felt.  So I punted and entered the race.

Then talked Goddess into doing it too.

I’m a bastard.

Fast forward to today.  You already know about the storms and ID snafu.  We hoped that would be the last (but it wasn’t).

The race started about 20 minutes late, but that’s fine.  It turned out the RD had to be pulled away for some reason.  Besides, the race was held at one of our favorite locations in town, the Beachaven Winery.  The stand-in RD mentioned that we were lucky to have been able to start due to the weather.  She stated that a tornado had gone through the south side of town (unverified, since it’s not on the National Weather Service storm report page).

Anyway, a few words and then the start horn went off.  My intent was to go as hard as I could, pushing it through the whole course.  I told Goddess that I hoped to be choking back bile when I finished.  But I also knew that I had to pace myself.

The two mile run went well, averaging 7:08 miles.  Not too hard, but hard enough, setting me up for the bike.

A quick transition and we were out on the road.  Again, knowing I needed to pace myself, I pushed, but not too hard.  Lots of folks went flying by, but I knew I’d see them again.  Two miles in and I started reeling them back, averaging 21mph.  Those that started too hard were already starting to fall back.

At just past three miles, the clusterf*ck began.  Apparently the RD decided to throw in a hard right turn, but didn’t station anyone there.  There might have been a mark on the road, but there are so many rides through that area year round that you couldn’t tell.  So at least half of the field flew right past it.  The realization came a couple of miles later when we approached the transition area.

One of the course workers was quite apologetic and redirected us.  No big deal, it was just going to add a couple of miles to the ride.  But the lead female was in the group and understandably upset.  So we followed the directions that the worker gave us.  Wouldn’t you know it, they were wrong.   A few miles later we ended up back at the transition area, having made another loop.

At that point, the group decided that they were just going to go out and make it a training ride.  I decided to run.  So I got 9.1 miles out of the scheduled 13 miles on the bike.

The last run leg was a bit slower.  I pushed it hard, but ended up averaging 7:44 miles.

As I finished my run, the rest of the group that was lost ended up rolling back in.  Some ran, some didn’t.  I watched as a couple of other riders came from the opposite direction, apparently having missed another turn somewhere and ended up riding towards downtown.  Some just bagged the run after their fiasco of a ride.

I was worried about Goddess, but it turns out she managed to find her way around the entire course.  Turns out that they had phoned the guy at the turn before the right-hander that we missed and he told her to make sure she turned at the next intersection.  Information that would have been good to know for the rest of us!

I joined Goddess on the run, pacing her from light post to light post.  She’s a good egg.  She came in dead last overall, smiling the whole way and still grabbed a third place AG medal.  My Goddess had a podium finish!

So although the bike course was poorly marked and poorly controlled, we still had a good time.  The best part was that the race fees went to the local YMCA.

I did manage to achieve my goal, which was to push as hard as I could (although I didn’t have to choke back the bile).  Of the 1:02:22 I raced, I was deep into Zone 5 for 51 minutes.  Minus the three minutes total that I spent in T1 and T2, that meant that I wasn’t in Zone 5 for only 8 minutes.

It was good to get back on the bike.  I was impressed that I was able to put as much power as I did to the pedals considering I hadn’t ridden in seven months.  Too bad it’ll be another seven months before I have a chance to ride it again.

That was my first du ever.  And it was a lot of fun.  I’ll look to do more in the future.

Knowing

I’m not a religious person, by any stretch of the imagination.  But that doesn’t mean that I’m ignorant in the ways of the major religions.

I do accept that there are some things that are not ours to know.

Jim Vance posted an ESPN video documenting Ryan Shay’s life and the impact of his death on his family and community.  One can’t help but be moved by it.

Especially rough is the pain and questioning of our friend’s death, which was just two weeks ago today.  We were glad that Goddess was able to make it to Colorado to help the family attend to his wife and two lovely daughters, aged 3 and 5.  Thoughts of him and his family helped me get through some tough moments during Saturday’s marathon.

We found out yesterday that she’s pregnant with their third child.

Some things just aren’t ours to know.

2008 Country Music Marathon - A Training Run

“Remember, this is a training run” - That’s what Goddess told me as we were driving to Nashville early, early Saturday morning. She’s a good egg, keeping in mind that I typically have great training runs and just don’t live up to my expectations on race day. So a training run it was.

Expo

We waited until the day before to go to the expo, even though they recommend that the locals avoid the rush and go on Thursday. But since my parents and sister were driving up Thursday and my sister had to pick her packet up, we waited until Friday. That was our first clue about how big this race was. We’ve never seen so many folks wandering around downtown Nashville.

The expo was an expo. Lots of ways to spend lots of money, if one’s so inclined. We did pick up a few magnets - “Will Run for Beer“, “Will Run for Wine“, “Running - Cheaper than Therapy” and “26.2 - Been There, Run That“. Gotta have some fun, right?

In the middle, we ran into a road block. At first we couldn’t figure out why, then I spied Denise Austin. So Goddess and I got in line to meet her, since she’s a fixture in this house. Actually, it’s a love/hate relationship. We love to follow her stretching routines and Goddess hates every time Denise says “One more time” during the workouts, because Goddess knows it’s a lie.

So here we are with Denise. Too bad I couldn’t work it out so I was the filling.

Race Day

With Nashville only 50 miles away, we stayed home. Next time we think we’ll get a room in town, since it required a 3am alarm to get to the start line on time. A heavy, heavy rain and thunderstorms on the drive down really made for an upbeat drive (yeah, right). Then the horrible race traffic at LP field, which was backed up quite a bit on the interstate and some folks sat in line for over an hour.

This is where the Race Director really screwed the pooch. Instead of organizing police officers to direct traffic, the intersections at the top of the off-ramps were just flashing red lights. Imagine cars delivering 30,000+ racers and their families, all trying to converge on the same place at the same time. It just didn’t work. And where the 7,000 parking spots at LP field were sufficient in year’s past, it wasn’t even close this year. So lots of folks were ticketed and/or towed, according to news reports. The RD’s got a lot of thinking to do before next year’s event.

Anyway, the rain continued. Luckily enough I had enough foresight to grab some lawn bags to throw over us, so we stayed dry while we waited for the shuttle bus to get us to the start area across town, while we stood in line for the porta-johns (which didn’t have TP by the time we got there [AAARRRRGHHHHH]) and then stood in our corrals at the start line. The rain stopped right before the start, so I was able to toss the bag aside.

I was in corral 6, which was for the folks that were looking for a sub-4:00 finish. Did I have any business being in that corral? Probably not, but that’s where I thought I’d be when I signed up for this race back in December.

The gun went off for the elites right at 7am and it took me only 10 minutes to get to the start line. The RD did a great job of staggering the corrals so that we didn’t get all jammed together in the opening miles. The opening miles were nice and steady and I initiated my run/walk strategy just like I had been doing in training - run six minutes/walk 30 seconds. Lots of well-meaning folks were cheering me on, telling me to not “give up” yet whenever I stopped to walk.

Four miles into it and I finally felt warmed up and settled in to my pace. Right around 10K, I started feeling the joys of not having TP at the start and lucked upon several porta-johns that were well-stocked, with no waiting. So my average pace suffered, but in the long run I know it was for the best.

Solid, steady pacing for the next 10 miles. I hit the halfway point at 1:58, so I was on pace for a sub-4:00. I was feeling quite strong at that point, which fit into my plan of slowly ramping up the pace and pushing a negative split. I was poised well.

At mile 15 I felt a little bit of stomach pain. Nothing significant, but I’ve had enough issues in that arena to recognize the onset. So I settled back a bit and let it work itself out, which it did by mile 17. Which just happened to coincide with the longest hill of the course, located between miles 17-18. That’s when the wheels started to wobble a bit, but I didn’t worry about it. Pushing through that, mile 19 felt good, back down at a comfortable pace.

Mile 20 is when the wheels came off. And that’s when a sub-4:00 slipped by me, both figuratively and literally - I watched with slight dismay as the 4:00-pacer slowly passed by with a group in tow. The cumulative climbing caught up to me, as it did with a lot of people by this point. From here on out, my pace swung from 11:23 to a 14:07 mile 23. I didn’t bonk - even with the gastro issues earlier, I had been fueling right from the start at regular intervals, since I carried my fuel with me instead of relying on the water/food stops.

As you can see, mile 23 was the worst point. I hit a section where both quads locked up on me, so it was some ginger walking for a little while. This cramping surprised me, since I was taking Endurolytes religiously throughout the event and had even loaded up on electrolytes for the previous several days in an effort to stave off any cramping. But as you can see, I was able to work it out and started ramping up the pace for the last few miles.

Once the sub-4:00 goal slipped away, I started thinking about my standing PR. Even through the rough points I knew I was going to set a new PR, so it was a matter of by how much. My next floating goal was to break 4:15, but that slipped by too. Then it was to break my standing PR by over an hour, which was still within reach over the until mile 24. By then I knew I’d have to crank out two 7:00-miles to achieve it and that just wasn’t going to happen. But as you can see, I was able to ramp it up for those last two miles.

I was worried about cramping again, especially as I approached the finish chute. Crossing the 26-mile point, I kept looking at my Garmin and wondering if I was going to break 4:30. I wasn’t sure, since the Garmin turned off on me for less than a minute early on (between miles 3-4). That last two-tenths of a mile was uphill and then a hard left turn. I kept accelerating up the hill and made that turn, throwing all caution to the wind. My Garmin clocked me at a 6:15/mile pace for that last tenth of a mile and the legs locked right after I crossed the line. My Garmin told me 4:29:02, but I knew it was more than that. So I had to wait until I got home to find my official time, which was 4:29:47.

A new PR by over 56 minutes.

Official splits:

6084  •  Bill Anders  •  M-39  •  Marathon  •

Gun: 7:00:30 AM	5k	6Mi	10Mi	Half	20Mi	Finish	O’All	Sex	Div
Chip: 7:10:42 AM	28:11	54:12	1:31:28		3:10:49	4:29:47	2294	1509	260
Race Pace:	9:05	9:02	9:09		9:33	10:18

Memorable moments

- At about mile two, a lady motioned ahead of me and said “Well, that’s something to see”. It was a “guy” wearing nothing but running shoes and a pair of hot pink daisy dukes. We saw him post-race at during our feed at Baja Fresh. Luckily he had changed, but I wanted to ask him if he had any chafing.

- Watching the blind runner and his guide, working smoothly as a team as she described the neighborhood so he could “see” where he was running. I reminded me of riding through the Hill Country of Texas with a blind rider while the captain on his tandem described the springtime scenery to him. I know he enjoyed the scenery just as much as we did.

Off-topic plug: For those of you looking to put in some serious early-season bike mileage, I cannot recommend Nick Gerlich’s “Texas Hell Week” enough. A non-supported, but highly organized event, you can meet and ride with cyclists from all over the world who are looking to build a significant base by riding 500-800 miles in eight days. You’ll be amazed that you can do it and after the initial saddle pain of the first three days, you’ll be sprinting up hills and flying along the flats on day seven. But if Texas doesn’t fit your schedule, he’s started up several other Hell Week’s that might work for you. It’s been nine years since I’ve taken part, but I have no doubt that it’s still a quality event.

- At about mile four, the leaders went by on the other side of the street. Impressive to see the leaders, who were now about three miles ahead, even though they started only ten minutes before me.

- At about mile 14, we turned and headed up a hill, which was located right in front of a church. Lined up along the hill were several dozen nuns, replete in their habits, cheering on the runners. Lots of hoots, hollers, and high-fives, as well as a water stop advertising cups of holy water. I should’ve grabbed one, since it was just a while later when the stomach started feeling wonky.

- Right at mile 18, we started heading downhill, which gave a great view of the oncoming masses running the half-marathon. We had split at mile 11 and now we were about to meet up again. With about 21,000 in the half-marathon compared to 5,000 in the marathon, there was a huge difference in runner density. Plus, right about this point I saw the helicopter hovering near LP Field, knowing that the elites were finishing up their races. I cursed.

- While Brian had to sing to himself, we had bands scattered all along the course. Some of the music was memorable, some was not. But as Brian would attest to, there’s a point in a run where one must sing the chorus from “Just a Gigolo”. Come on, you know how it goes - “I ain’t got no body“. Brian, you would have enjoyed the band at mile 23, who decided to play the song and I managed to time it to be right in front of the stage just as they got to the chorus. What a boost.

- Immediately following the “Gigolo” chorus, we met with the Hash House Harriers water/beer stop. For the first time in my life, I bypassed the beer table. I was focused.

- Climbing a small hill in mile 25, a guy was in the shade, holding a sign for his wife/girlfriend. It said “Lisa - Run! Dick Cheney’s right behind you!” I asked if Dick had a shotgun.

- Meeting with Goddess and my sister as they finished their half-marathon. After I made it through the chute, turned in my chip and grabbed some food, I called to find them. They still had a couple of miles to go, so I started walking towards them. I found some shade and then had a lot of fun cheering on folks in both the half and full. I walked with Goddess and my sister for a while, then cut the course to meet them at the finish. A bit of loud, obnoxious cheering and then some shame - I started running next to them and yelled “Hey, if I can do this, so can you“. So they ran to the finish line.

- Afterwards, my sister saw an old guy, with cane and race number, sitting off to the side. She went up and talked to him and found out that he is 88 years old and had walked the half-marathon in his walking shoes, slacks, button-up shirt and carrying an old cassette player so he could listen to his Elvis tape while he walked. He cruised, finishing the course in a time that Goddess and my sister were jealous of.

Summary

- Overall, a good race. I rolled into this one injury-free and rested, even though the previous weeks had been pretty hectic and stressful.

- While I’m very pleased with setting a PR with such a large margin, I’m still bugged by the cramping issues that seem to plague me at every long event. But that gives me room for improvement, right?

- Mentally, I made several breakthroughs during this race. One of the most significant was knowing that I could push myself harder through the pain in the closing miles. A lot of that came from running a strong double-long weekend as well as several other long runs these past few months.

All-in-all, a good day.

CMM ‘08 Done

4:29:47, a new PR by 56:49!

Race report later.

Life, or something like it

Been a crazy week.

After last weekend’s long run and some other stuff, it was a week out on the east coast.  It was nice to run with the ocean breeze in my face as it warmed up through the week.  It’s taper time, so the runs were short (5-7 miles), but the pace was brisk.  Especially one evening when I was 3 miles from the hotel and realized that I had to get back to the room, shower and drive across town to meet folks for dinner - in 30 minutes.

I made it.

Midway through the week, Goddess got ahold of me.  Horrible news.  The husband of her bridesmaid, who just turned 31, didn’t wake up Wednesday morning, passing sometime overnight.  Apparently it was a congenital heart issue, although you’d never know it.  He was a healthy man.  Left behind a wife and two daughters, aged 5 and 3.  A bit of scrambling and we worked out travel arrangments for Goddess to get out to Colorado.

Unfortunately she landed less than two hours after the funeral.

But we got her out there.

A bit of shuffling to get Skinny a sitter for the weekend, since we had already made plans to be out of town.  So after dropping Goddess off at the airport, I drove Son and two of his friends north to Louisville.  We were off to see Gigantour, which we had been looking forward to since January.  The lineup was High on Fire (meh) Job For a Cowboy (meh), Children of Bodom (excellent), In Flames (good) and Megadeth (great).

I  didn’t enjoy it as much as I was hoping, mainly because I was worried about Goddess traveling (although she has traveled halfway across the world by herself), about her friend, her friend’s girls and the emotional trauma that I could only imagine that they were all going through (or about to in Goddess’ case).

But the show went on for six hours, which is about 30 minutes past the limit my ears (as well as Son and his friends) can take.  Even with earplugs.  Shame too, since that happened during Megadeth, who I’ve followed since the mid-80’s.  I was jazzed since this was the first time I’ve been able to catch them live.

And what was a first in the hundreds of concerts that I’ve been to over the past 25 years - the concert was paused for safety.  During Children of Bodom’s set, the crowd surged forward hard enough to break the barrier.  They cut the power to the stage and Bodom left for 30 minutes, giving the crew enough time to fix the barrier.  I was sitting up in the stands at that point so I had a pretty good view of everything.  Son was down in the crowd and immediately texted “WTF?”, so I talked him through it.

We got back to the hotel at 1230am.  Much to their chagrin, I woke them up at 700am.  Nothing like trying to wake three 16 year old’s up after only six hours of sleep.  But we had to get on the road so I could get back and spend the rest of the day writing a paper for school.

Joy.

Marathon in 5.5 days.

Flingin’ Flies and a 4 & 30 16

The title sums up the week.

Flingin’ flies refers to my afternoons this week.  For a few of them we drove down to a nearby stream to do some fishing.  For me, it was time to trust the muscle memory and try and find my fly cast.  I had tossed a few flies while living in Australia some 8 years ago, but it had been closer to 13 years since I had done it with any frequency.

Amazing how the muscles can remember such things.  The first day was sloppy, but it was getting there.  By Friday, the casts were long and clean, even to the side while trying to get under the overhanging trees.  I’m used to nice western rivers with broadly spaced pines, not this bushy, brusy tangled mess along both sides of the stream.  Needless to say, I left a few flies in the trees this week.

Tuesday was to see them stock several thousand rainbows and browns.  I don’t think they did, since we received over 2″ of rain that day and the creeks were flooded.  Even by Friday the trout weren’t really there, although Goddess hooked a pretty little 4″ (keep the jokes clean, folks.  OK.  Don’t).  Hopefully they just slipped stocking a week.  Regardless, a day standing waist deep in cool water and casting is much better than being holed up in the house.

As for the other part of the title, that refers to today’s run.  After last Saturday’s 1/2 marathon and the painful aftermath, the week’s running has been low and slow.  And today’s run was to be LSD.  A slow start and I finally got going around 11am.  No particular reason.  It was just a slow morning.

I decided within the first 100 yards that I was going to try a modified Galloway plan and run for 4 minutes, walk for 30 seconds.  Except I didn’t have a timer, so I had to keep an eye on the time.  Easier said than done.  By the time I got about 4 miles into the run, there were several sections where I was into my groove and missed the start of my walk time, so I’d have to recaculate.

All-in-all I’d have to say that it’s an effective method.  I felt just as strong through miles 14-16 as I did through miles 4-6, even though I’d amassed a fair bit of climbing in the intervening miles.  Average pace was 10:18; the run legs were 9:30’s and the walks were 14’s.  Although in the end the average pace is all that matters, I was still impressed with how I felt those last few miles.

I’ll give it another go on next weekend’s 20-miler.

Oooops, gotta run.  TV babe Tina Fey is on SNL.

13.1 mile Train Wreck

Ok, maybe not all 13.1 miles, but a good chunk of them.

This morning was the Tom King 1/2 Marathon in Nashville. As forecast, we got there just in time for the thunderstorms to roll in. At 7am, in a driving rain and occasional clap of thunder, Goddess started her very first 5K, which she smoked with a 39:24!

While she was running, I warmed up under the overhang of LP Field, which is where the Tennessee Titans play. I’m not a football fan, so I won’t insert any comments about whether they play or not. If you do, I’ll shrug, since it doesn’t mean anything to me.

Lots of warming up, lots of stretching, then a run inside the stadium to watch her finish. For both races, the finish line was on the east side 50-yard line, after entering the stadium on the northwest corner and then running the perimeter of the field. Quite a unique finish, with everyone’s sprint displayed on the Jumbotron. Here’s the view, with the final turn before the final 50 yards:

So at 8am we started the 1/2 marathon. A nasty start at that -> 48F, pouring rain and a good flash of lighting right before the gun went off, with the course turning into a 5-10mph wind after the first 1/2 mile. Good stuff! Starting off at a very comfortable 8:18 pace, I was right where I wanted to be, slowly warming up and then picking up the pace for a 1:45 finish, which needed a 8:00 average pace to pull off. That’s a pace I’m comfortable with for 10 miles on training runs, so I knew I’d have to push it a bit to go the full 13.1. But it’s a race, so isn’t that the idea?

I typically take several miles to warm up, often not feeling supple and smooth until the 5-6 mile range. Well, that never happened. For the next 10 miles, my average pace dropped a very even 5 seconds per mile, then I flattened out at a 9:02 average pace for the last 2.1 miles. I just never warmed up.

Before the start, I made the decision not to wear a jacket, since I heat up so quickly. So I was wearing an UnderArmour compression shirt under a long-sleeve technical running shirt. That wasn’t a bad decision, since I was pushing the arms up after mile 9 and was quite warm above the waist. Below the waist was where the train wreck occurred.

Down there I was wearing UnderArmour compression shorts under a pair of Nike running shorts. The quads were half-covered, but apparently not enough. I chose not to wear tights since I do heat up so quick; plus I didn’t want to deal with them soaking up water and making my legs heavier than my soaked shoes and socks (layered Injinji and Thorlo) would be.

For the first 8 miles, I wasn’t uncomfortable, but the legs were giving what they could (cue Scotty - “I’m giving it all I can, Captain”). At 8.1 miles, the fun began. The knee pain that cut short my run last Sunday reappeared. Luckily it wasn’t the stabbing pain that it was on Sunday, just an ache. Something to keep an eye on, so I pressed forward. Another mile or so down the path and I could feel both of my hamstrings start to tighten. Again, nothing significant, just something to keep an eye on. During these miles, my average pace was only dropping about 2 seconds/mile, so it wasn’t any significant discomfort.

As soon as the ache went away in my right knee, my left ITB started tightening up, which pulled on my left glute and made for a fun couple of strides. As fast as it appeared, it disappeared. And that’s when the right ITB pulled the same stunt. I tell you, I had a stinkin’ Rolodex of pains going on. The legs just spun the wheel and pulled whatever card showed. Fargin’ Bastages!

Like I said earlier, the goal was 1:45. Well, that slipped away. So I then hoped for a PR of faster than 1:49:38, which I set last October. That slipped away, so then I hoped to beat my January time of 1:55:46. Well, that slipped away, too. So then it was all out to come in under 2 hours. The trick was that I wasn’t sure what my time was. My Garmin turned off for about three-tenths of a mile between 9.5 and 10 miles, probably when I was pushing my sleeves up.

I snuck it in at 1:59:44. 60 of 91 in my A/G; 480 of 939 O/A. Here’s Goddess’ capture of me just yards out of the finish chute:

Afterwards I told Goddess that I was going to change my tagline of “Races are a celebration of me being fit” to “Races are proof I’m too stupid to give up“. Quite a bit of frustration there, especially since I’ve been very diligent about stretching, especially my glutes, on a daily basis. But as the day wore on, my normal over-analysis of every run made me realize that I just never warmed up during the race, even though I did a warm up and headed out at a good clip.

The Good -

- My Injinji. After first wearing them at my marathon last month and coming out completely unscathed, meaning absolutely no blisters at all, I bought another pair. Since my foot moved around so much during the marathon, I used the Injinji as a liner inside my Thorlos. Even with completely soaked feet, not so much as a hint of a blister today. Those socks ROCK!

- The fine gentlemen at the turn around point @ 6.21 miles. Runner’s choice of Michelob Ultra or Amber Bock. The bock for me, thank you. And since it was just an ounce or so, it didn’t impact my run. But it sure tasted good, even though it wasn’t even 9am yet.

The Bad -

Did you not just read my post above?

The Ugly -

- Not a single thing. Even the weather really wasn’t that bad. I don’t mind running in a driving rain. I just wish I had warmed up.

I’ll keep stretching and rolling and hopefully I’ll loosen up for the Country Music Marathon next month.  But I’m not betting on it.

Looking forward to tomorrow.  I’ll spend a few hours casting Wooly Buggers in front of a few browns and rainbows.  I may even catch one.

It’s All Coming Together

Well, the marathon was two weeks ago. The week after was rest. This week was slow, gentle running to get back into it and gauge recovery.

Tuesday’s run was surprising. Very easy effort, yet the HR was steady in the upper 150’s, which is Zone 4 for me. So I rested on Wednesday, mainly because of the late night Tuesday and the snow Wednesday.

Thursday’s run was again a very easy effort and the HR was lower, but still steady around 150, which is upper Zone 3 for me. Due to significant issues at work, I took Friday off, although we had a “smoke session” at work, which was ~50 minutes of focused calisthenics; 15 focused minutes on legs, 15 focused minutes on arms, 15 focused minutes on abs and 5 minutes of plank positions. Each section had 15 different exercises, each a minute apiece. Most were to muscle failure, so I was a bit stiff today.

Today was a scheduled 90-minute run. It was a beautiful day, with a high in the upper 50’s. Since it was so warm (relatively), I waited until later in the day when the temps would be dropping.

The first 4 miles were gradual warm-up then tempo., which was very comfortable at 7-minute pace. After the turnaround, I worked on a tempo/walk scheme, holding 8:30-minute pace for two minutes, then walk for one minute, a la Jeff Galloway’s method. All in all, it felt quite good, covering 8-miles in 1:18. Overall not too fast (9:45 average), but I was quite pleased with the tempo portions.

I followed up the run with a 35-minute yoga stretch session, at Goddess’ insistence. She sure rocks. Otherwise I would have done a very perfunctory 5-minutes (if that) and would be tighter than a drum right now.

I’m finally having to face my age and increase the time I spend stretching. I used to roll in from a 15-mile run, not stretch at all and be fine for another long run the next day. But since I’m not cross training as much this year and pretty much only running, I’ve tightened up quite a bit. That effects my runs and I’m spending a lot more time working on trigger points and lengthening these older muscles. Oh well, it happens to all of us.

Cranking up the intensity during the week and a longer run next weekend, getting ready for the Tom King 1/2 Marathon in two weeks.