Week end 13

I've been sick since Wed/Thurs but have managed to keep running. Cuz I felt I needed the extra rest, I decided to sleep in Sun morning as long as I could. Stayed in bed until about 920am. When I got up, i actually felt much better than Sat night. Thus, I decided to roll the dice & lace em up. Got in 12 miles from Soco gym & hit up a light weight routine afterward. Guess I really am feeling better.

64 miles for the week.

My feet did real good today in the Nikes. Yesterday, I went with the mizunos & my right foot was cranky during and afterwards. I'm going to continue to wear the Nikes, but I prolly need to be careful w/ them, cuz I don't want to end up in a worse spot than I am in currently. Such balancing act when one has tin man tendencies...

Team Disaster pt 2

Today was the last true LR for the Austin Marathon group. That being the case, Rogue had the marathon pace group leaders there to provide pacing services for the last long training run. Didn't know it at the time, but turned out there was a three mile warm-up & then the plan was to run several miles at MGP. The guys & gals took off as normal, except the 3hr pacers & and a few other folks tagged along. Three miles in things began to get interesting when the pacers set us on a 650 pace. Team Disaster (Muz, Andrew, Chris, & I) got sucked in. Imagine that. Before I knew it, we were running 630s up Expo. Oopsie. Fortunately, we were able to rein the pace in some on the 2nd half of the run & keep things almost sane. So much for an easy, easy down week LR. 16 miles at 6:59 avg

1st Hill Mechanics Day

At least for me -- I did not do the hill circuit work last week since I was racing. Today I did and boy was it a doozy. The hill itself is not that bad, but if one goes up it in the prescribed manner...hi-YaH!. All we are doing is high knee form running up a hill. Anyone who as ever done high knees knows that the speed at which you cover the distance is not important; what is important: an upright torso, relaxed arms/shoulders, and the leg drive/lift. Simple.

Today, I did four sets. One set is up the hill w/ high knees, down easy, up the hill w/ high knees, an 800 flat loop at tempo pace, and easy back down the hill. The set is about 1.2 miles. I did a 3 mile warmup/cooldown so that put me at like 10.3 miles. No right foot issues w/ the Nikes. 10 minutes in the ice bucket afterwards just to be sure.

The Marathon (simplified)

Borrowed from Dustin's blog & originally written by Tom D: http://irunmissionhill.blogspot.com/2010/01/boston-race-prep.html

"Mileage is the key to the marathon, the next key is racing up to the distance. The closer your daily mileage is to the time of your marathon, the less important is the "long run." If you are a 2:20 marathoners running 100 miles a week then you spend about 2 hours a day running which is only 20 minutes shy of the time you will spend racing, but if you run 40 miles a week and run a 4 hour marathon...well, it is really a different event.

Of course this stuff is hard to do. The marathon is a hard event."

You may or may not like the above two paragraphs and you may or may not agree. But to me, that is some powerful stuff. Where I am with my running currently, it makes perfect sense. If it does not make sense and/or you do not agree, forget about it, and just keep running. :)

Easy easy Wed

Easy 10 from Rogue w/ Kam & Jason. I felt awful (like I was going to bonk) during the first 3 miles. By mile 5, I was good the rest of the way. On the foot front, this was the 4th time I have worn the new Nikes. The inj area of the foot does great in them (shoe does not aggravate it at all). However, I am not 100% sold on them as an everyday shoe (thinner sole/lower to the ground.) Though, I have been told "lower to the ground" should be a good thing. Time will tell.

Mon/Tues

Easy 4 miles on Mon just to push some blood through the legs. My quads had a decent amount of soreness in them. The rt foot felt ragged. Prolly exactly like I should have felt after a race.

Today, I felt better. The quads were still little sore, but the legs seemed sharp at the beginning of the run. Thus, I opted to go for 8 miles steady and see how that worked out. It went pretty well, though, I did labor a little the last couple of miles. I had 620 avg for the steady portion. About 12 miles for the day.

3M half marathon

The race went about as well as I could have hoped. I knew I was ready to go from the moment I got out of bed this AM. And I was good & warm and ready to roll at 640 this morning. But then there was an 1 hour delay due to wind. What in the wide world of sports? I was cold & tight when we finally started. The first couple of miles were slow...very slow. After that, though, it was all downhill from there (literally). Everyone knows this course fast, but I had no idea it was that fast. In hindsight, I maybe could have been a little more aggressive the first half and would have still been fine, because I was never in trouble during any portion of this race -- but who knows for sure. I am satisfied...for today. ;) Here's the pace recap from the gremlin:

646
630
615
616
609
613
618
618
610
609
605
600
549
0:39 (.14 mile)

121.41 total