Well what has been going on in the world of Richie and running? Well this is what is going on. After I said I was going to write after the half marathon I ran last fall I did not...I ran the race and won but it was easy and I ran slow and it was what it was. 1:19:02 on a very uphilly course. Not at all easy and I won by 6 minutes so I really had no motivation to run fast. But I did get this weird idea in my head after I ran it about two weeks later.
After the race I figured I could have run right around 1:17 if it would have been a flat course and I had any sort of motivation other than winning by as much as I could. So I see this ad for the NYC Half on good old letsrun.com and say to myself...well if I am in about 1:17 shape right now in 4.5 months I should be back into good shape and be able to run faster than I did at Fargo maybe new PR shape like low 1:12ish maybe. Little did I know that God had other plans for me that involved not running that fast at all. I ran pretty consistently during November until the end and then got injured. I had something tweek in my knee right before Thanksgiving and that was it for about 3 weeks. So now it is mid December and I find out that I am able to have surgery for the crap that happened to my knee back in May. Bad thing is is that it is/was on Jan 7th. That leaves just over 2 months post surgery to get healed up, SLOWLY start running again, and then get in racing shape. HA good one. Well it happened, and worked out pretty well.
I ran right up until my surgery, including the morning of, but then took the entire rest of the month off. I read a couple good running books that got me motivated again (Pain by Dan Middleman and The Gift: A runners story by Paul Maurer) . Great post college story books that I recommend especially The Gift, I will even mail it to you if you read this and want to read it, though I will want it back at some point.
Regardless this is what happened. I ran, I was busy, I didn't run a little bit, and I rean a half marathon. As I was thinking in the fall I was thinking that I was probably in close to 1:17 shape and was planning on going out at that speed and seeing what happend towards the end and see if I could pick up a minute or so over the last mile and maybe get lucky and run closer to 1:16. Well all of that happened and more. I ended up running 1:15:14. How in the hell I did that I have no clue but I did. I looked back at my running log and found out that I had run only 32 days since surgery including the first week that looked something like this:
1, 2, 2, 2, 3, 3, 3
I took my time getting back. I crushed out a 14 mile long run the Sunday before the half and was super sore for the next 3-4 days. Here is how the race broke down:
1 mile - 5:55
2 mile - 5:51 (11:46)
3 mile - 5:54 (17:41)
5k - 18:19
4 mile - 5:54 (23:35)
5 mile - 5:38 (29:13)
6 mile - 5:52 (35:05)
10k - 18:01 (36:20)
7 mile - 5:46 (40:51)
8 mile - 5:46 (46:37) The next two were off so I averaged them
9 mile - 5:41 (52:18)
15k - 17:47 (54:07)
10 mile - 5:41 (57:59)
11 mile - 5:38 ( 1:03:37)
12 mile - 5:37 (1:09:14)
20k - 17:19 (35:16) (1:11:36)
13 mile - 5:27 (1:14:42)
.1 mile - :32 (1:15:14)
So all in all it was a good race for what I was at. I was very pleased, with the way that I ran and I am really looking for a good rest of the spring and the summer. I am thinking that I am going to do a fall marathon but I have to find out where I am going to be next year before I make that decision. I am thinking that I am going to be in Vermont this next year but I won't know for awhile yet. My thoughts are this right now. I want to run fast, like sub 2:30 for sure. I know that I can do it if I train for it but I HAVE to train and not get injured in the process. So this also factors into my decision. In order to run as fast as I can I am going to need competition and there is none in the local 3 state area fall races. So I am looking at going to Massachusetts for Bay State or NYC. There is another one in New Hampshire that gives out some real good prize money and the winner has ran mid 2:30's the last couple years. And when I say good, I mean like $1500 for the winner. But that course is kind of hilly and I want to run fast. Who know what will happen. All I know is that I am not sore today and I am not sure what to think about that when I ran as hard as I did...
Next race...who knows but there is a 10k I might do in early May and a 4 mile that I am really hoping to do well at in June.
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