Revival of the Fittest

March 20th - 26th

2011-03-27T20:37:00.002-05:00

Well an over all pretty good week. Just took it real easy due to the fact that I have not raced in quite some time and I was not sore at all. I guess I had never gotten a massage immediately after a race before either so maybe that was it but dang the legs felt good all week.

Sunday - About 15 miles
Half marathon - 1:15:14
2 mile warmup and no cooldown

Monday - 6 miles (44:10)

Tuesday - 8 miles (55:48)

Wednesday - 6 miles (44:32)

Thursday - 5.5 miles (38:45)

Friday - Off

Saturday - 10 miles (1:12:04)

Week total - 51

Not too bad with a day off.

So as I mentioned at the beginning I took the entire week real easy. Even though I felt great and super motivated coming off of this race I am thinking that it is in my best interest to take it easy for the week and then figure out what I am going to do from here. Right now it is looking like I am not going to race again until the May 15th down in the Boston area on the track. I have no clue where I am at in turns of being able to run on the track but I am thinking that that will be a good time to find out. I do not think that I am ready to go and pound one out on the track quite yet but in a month and a half I think I will be ready. So far everything still feels pretty good with the knee there is a little worry but i do not think that it is much of anything. Going to try get in a couple workouts this week and see how things go with those. Until next time. Happy running.

Well Shall we try this again after yet another long break?? Why not...

2011-03-21T21:31:00.003-05:00

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.

I have been running...

2010-10-28T20:54:00.002-05:00

But I am really lazy and never write down what I do. But I ran a 5k a couple weeks ago on the 17th and it went pretty well. I ended up winning the race and ran 16:52. Pretty good time for where I am at right now in my training. I am running a half marathon in a couple days and I think that this week I will be able to have a good update next week. The thing is I feel that this is just not that interesting being it is about me running base mileage and nothing all that exciting. Maybe I should start doing the occasional workout...

5k
1 mile - 5:11
2 mile - 5:26 (10:37)
3 mile to finish - 6:15

More to come after the weekend.

September 20th - 26th

2010-09-27T15:08:00.002-05:00

Well it was an interesting week but not a bad one by any means. Here is the breakdown.

Monday: Off. Ran yesterday and it felt pretty good but I go lazy and decided not to get out the door.

Tuesday: 8 (57:10)
Well look at this for a "long" run. I was not planning on going this long but I ended up taking a wrong turn and this is what I got for it. I finished the run and felt really good but there were some nasty hills on the route that I am sure to run into again at some point in my time here. I did find some nice trails that I am going to run at some point.

Wednesday: 7
Little sore from yesterday but I still had a good one

Thursday: 6
Real EASY. We are talking like 8:15 pace at best for the average of this run. I was thinking about weather it is about getting back to the normal 6:45-7:00 min pace that I usually run at and getting the mileage in or if it is about taking it slow and putting the time in but not the mileage. Not really sure right now.

Friday: 7ish
Not really sure on the distance of this run but it was a good one for sure. I went with one of the students from the Catholic Center and a girl from his dorm. And man was she pretty amazing. I would be willing to bet that we were running pretty dang close to 7:00 pace and she was having no problem keeping up with us. Funny thing is, is that she told me she was only a 20-21 min 5k runner. Something was just not adding up on that. None the less I may just have to give that girls name to the cross team and see what they can do with it.

Saturday: Off
I was thinking that it might be a good day to not run today as my knee was a bit swollen. I am really thinking that the cartilage has taken a turn into a spot that is starting to aggravate the area more than normal. My knee does not per say hurt all that much but the swelling is causing some of the tendons to rub the wrong way.

Sunday: 6
Easy recovery run that I ran pretty late at night on a dark path that creeped the crap out of me. Stopped to stretch a couple of times to rub out the knee.

Total: 35 miles!!

Overall: A week that I was pretty pleased with. I know I am probably starting out to fast but I do not really care all that much. I can handle it but I am not sure if my current knee can. So I am thinking that I am going to take it easy for the next week and see what I can do. There is a 5k that I want to run this weekend but that will depend on how the next couple days go. Plus I just found out that I may be able to get this knee problem taken care of sooner than I thought.

This is what just happened...

2010-09-20T16:57:00.002-05:00

And so we are brought to the present tie of the blog and right up to the Boston Marathon weekend. I did a little 6 mile workout on Wednesday and it felt really good. I was in an unfamiliar area in Minneapolis and I found a 1.8ish mile loop that I ran 3 times. I was not really planning on running it that fast but I felt good and gradually started picking up as I went on. I remember feeling really good and ran the last mile in 5:30ish. This pretty much served no purpose at all but I felt like getting the run done. So then I got to Boston, couple of runs and took the day before off. Then race day. Here is to no suspense to find out what I ran.

2:42:46

It felt good and it is not an easy course at all. Here is how the race breaks down to what I can remember. First 4 miles are pretty much all downhill with a hill at the end. Then it was pretty much rolling for the next 7-8 miles and then at 12ish there was a big hill that led up Wellesley College. This was a great little area with TONS of women screaming like crazy. I would have to say that this was probably one of the fastest miles that the male competitors ran. Great motivation. But after this there is not a lot of fun left in the course except for the end of the race that I can really remember. I remember hitting the hills at 16 miles and feeling really good. I dropped a large group that I was with and I think only 3 or 4 people passed me by the end of the race. So being from northern MN and it being flatter than death I hit the hills pretty well. By far the hardest part of the race started to be the downhill sections. My quads were crazy burning by the end of the race and the downhills hurt so bad. You know that it is not good when you desire uphill sections. I hit the wall and can honestly say that I gave it everything I had that day. I averaged 6:08ish pace for the first 22 miles and then the last 4 were 6:30ish pace. I was pretty much completely depleted of all energy. But I was able to keep off this guy that I had been running with since mile 7. Beat him by less than 10 seconds. Overall pretty good day.

Mile splits are from the garmin and the kilometer ones are from the race results.

1 mile: 6:06
2 mile: 6:09 - 12:15
3 mile: 6:09 - 18:24
5k: 19:01
4 mile: 6:06 - 24:31
5 mile: 6:13 - 30:45
6 mile: 6:09 - 36:54
10k: 38:21
7 mile: 6:08 - 43:02
8 mile: 6:12 - 49:15
9 mile: 6:09 - 55:24
15k: 57:36
10 mile: 6:07 - 1:01:32
11 mile: 6:10 - 1:07:43
12 mile: 6:01 - 1:13:44
20k: 1:16:44
13 mile: 6:06 - 1:19:50
Half Marathon: 1:20:52
14 mile: 6:08 - 1:25:58
15 mile: 6:08 - 1:32:06
25k: 1:35:44
16 mile: 5:53 - 1:38:00
17 mile: 6:11 - 1:44:12
18 mile: 6:09 - 1:50:22
30k: 1:54:48
19 mile: 6:00 - 1:56:22
20 mile: 6:12 - 2:02:35
21 mile: 6:27 - 2:09:03
35k: 2:14:12
40k: 2:34:19
22 to end: 33:50 - 2:42:46

So as I said you can see that the times started to slow from average at the 21st mile and on. So that is the last 6 miles of the race. It hurt and lack of running showed to be the downfall of me though I still only ran 4:30 slower than I did in Kansas when I was in WAY better shape. So god to know that if I really try hard I cold probably put something pretty good together. We shall see what happens in the future.

So I was pretty jacked after the race and this just continued on through the end of the month.

May: I was pretty rock solid for all of May. I did not do any workouts at all that I can remember but I did do the Fargo Marathon on the 22nd. That was by far the best race that I have run in a long time. 1:13:23. Not that fast for the most part but damn was I jacked after I crossed the line. For the most part I really only had about 2 months of training with a marathon in the middle of it. And since my PR is only 1:12:41. For being 42 seconds away from a PR in very wet conditions also really made me happy. I was really looking forward to the summer of training and the next year to see what it was going to bring but that is a story for after the Fargo splits...

I started out slow and then started to hammer at the end and the splits show

1 mile: 5:44
2 mile: 5:47 - 11:31
3 mile: 5:42 - 17:14
4 mile: 5:41 - 22:55
5 mile: 5:31 - 28:27
6 mile: 5:40 - 34:07
10k: 35:27
7 mile: 5:32 - 39:39
8 mile: 5:33 - 45:13
9 mile: 5:25 - 50:39
10 mile: 5:31 - 56:11
11 mile: 5:22 - 1:01:34
12 mile: 5:17 - 1:06:51
13 mile: 5:19 - 1:12:11
end: 1:13:23

So as you can see this was a pretty good day. I was real happy. Now we fast forward one in time to the worst part of my running career. The day was Saturday the 29th of May 2010. In a freak volleyball accident I dislocated my knee cap and that pretty much put an end to life as a runner as I knew it. I was in super good shape and was looking at running a race in a couple weeks in Illinois but that obviously never happened. I took ALL of June and most of July off. I ran a couple days and it felt OK but I have discovered other things since all the doctors and what not have looked at it. I was told by a friend that I have floating cartilage in my knee and that has to be removed with surgery and I just really do not have the funds for that right now. So I am just trying to get by with what I have right now. I know I should probably just get the stupid thing taken care of but it is really a money thing right now more than anything. I have been running again but not at any real quality. I am hoping that I will be able to just giv'r and see what happens with it. If I need to I will get surgery in the early part of next year and see what happens from there.

As for upcoming races...I have no big ones planned at the moment. I moved to BUrlington, VT in the middle of August and am loving it but I need to get into a steady running plan and get back int racing shape. I ran a 5 miler last weekend and BLEW up during that. I have been battling some hip favoring problems as well but decided to run anyways. I ran 29:24 for 5 MILES!!! I have not run that slow since I have no idea when. I almost ran that fast for 5 miles of my marathon last fall. This is not acceptable and I will get back into running shape very soon. I will be running a cross country race on the 22nd of October. And I will run well at it. And by well I better be under 28 or I am going to be PISSED! I got faith that I can get down to that range in a month so now it is time to go for a run and quite complaining.

Thanks all for reading and hopefully I can update more frequently again.

Run for Him,
Richie

What just happened??

2010-09-20T12:47:00.003-05:00

Well this is what happened. I quit blogging and running for a while...kind of. I quit for about a month and a half after this last post and then I started running again on and off. Nothing to crazy but I also had gotten into the Boston Marathon about 2 weeks after the last post so I had that going for me in April as well. Here is the extent of what I did over the last 9 months.

December: On and off but mostly off.

January: Was running about 4 to 5 days a week nothing to crazy but it was cold and I did not really care at all. But there was the underlying theme of me trying to get back on the track and run a couple indoor meets. Which I did. I ran a 3k on the 30th that went OK but I could tell I was still not in the greatest of shape as I only ran 9:18 which is what I ran a sophomore and I barely trained for this at all so that was good but none the less it was not fast at all. I knew that I was capable of running faster but I needed to get my head out of my but and get in gear if I was going to.

February: The beginning...Good. The end...not so good. I think the main reason that this segment was a little rough was it was so bloody cold. I ended up running another race on the Feb 6th that went much better. 9:09 which I know that I could not have run faster than at that time. It was only a week after the last one and I ran 9 seconds faster which is almost a second faster per 400m. I was pleased with the results of my brief indoor season as I have not put any speed work in except a couple strides after the runs that I was doing. The next week was good and I got in a really good long run that next weekend on Valentines Day in Minneapolis with a buddy. We ended up going about 16.5 which was a pretty good run for both of us at that time. We were both starting to prepare for Boston. This was 10 weeks out so I was feeling pretty good. Bad part about this is that I did not get another long run in this month. I can not fully remember what the rest of the month looked like but I feel like it was back to the on and off 4-5 days a week plan again.

March: This was not a pretty month at all. I was really thinking that it was going to be a good one but I was really wrong. I ran the first 4 days of the month and then I left for a cruise and did not run a single day. I was in 85+ degree weather for 10 days and did not take a step. ZERO motivation other than the fact that I knew Boston was coming up really soon. So I got back on the 14th and then I started back up again and did the standard 5 days a week running plan. By the end of the month I was back up to 7 days a week and feeling...pretty good.

April: This was a month of getting after it. I think I took about 2 days off before the marathon that was on the 19th. So with the marathon only 3 weeks from the beginning of the month I knew that this was not going to be pretty. Just to remind you I had not done a long run since the one that I told you about in February. And now that I think about it, the end of march really sucked. I was headed out for a long run one day and I was feeling really good. I started out pretty slow and then fell into a pretty comfortable pace at about 6:25ish pace. All of the sudden around 12 miles my hamstring started to lock up. I stopped to stretch and made it another mile and had to walk home. This was on March 21st and this required a couple days off. So, The first weekend of April I was like it is crunch time but I am pretty much screwed for a good race. I had done two 13 miles since Feb. and that was the extent of my long runs. But on the 5th, two weeks out I really through down for one last good long run. And I must say that I was pretty surprised. I ran the first couple pretty easy and then fell into about 6:30 pace for a bit and then ended up having about the last 7 at about 6:04 pace. A couple were under 6:00 and a couple were closer to 6:10 but I remeber feeling pretty dang good at the end of that 20 miler. I averaged 6:18 for the entire run after a pretty slow start. I could not believe that I had just ran that fast for that long off some of the worst training that I have ever put in. So this for sure gave me hope that I would be able to put something fairly well together at Boston in two weeks. The next two weeks were good and I got a 14 miler in on the 12th. I did not really taper at all for the race as my whole training was pretty much a taper or not that intense to where I needed to taper at all. In fact I think it was kind of the exact opposite of a taper. I was running more... PS I signed up for the Fargo Half Marathon back in January that I knew was also looming around the corner in late May. Boston and beyond post to come very soon...

As of now

2009-11-15T23:05:00.005-06:00

As of now it is 3rd place. I got an email response tonight from the guy that I had contacted earlier today. He said that the guy was DQ's for cutting the course, along with some others as well. I thought that there was something fishy with the results as I was looking at the intermediate splits but who was I to say anything??

The interesting thing about it is that the guy that is currently second did not get disqualified even though from what I can remember from looking at there splits they were almost the same as the guy that got DQ'd. And they only finished 2 seconds apart. So a did a little digging deeper into the online intermediate splits from the guy that took second and man is there something that is not right. Here is what I found

First off I must say that the guy is a pretty good runner with some legit PR's. He ran for Adam's State in Alamosa, CO and has run a 14:32 5k and a 30:44 10k
They had 4 intermediate splits throughout the race at 3.3, 9.1, 13.1, and 20 miles
These are the splits for the guy that took second.
3.3 - 18:20 (5:33 pace) seems legit
9.1 - 49:07 (5:24 pace) ...maybe but this means he had to average 5:18 pace from 3.3 to 9.1
13.1 - 1:09:29 (5:18 pace)...I don't think so. The time is plausible for this guy but this also means that he race the 4 miles from 9.1 to 13.1 averaging 5:05 miles. This could be possible but there is also a 1.25 mile climb in the middle of this section and no downhills. Not saying that is it possible, but actually I am.
20 miles - 1:48:11 (5:25 pace)...back to plausible range. That 6.9 mile segment averaged 5:37
Finish - 2:37:43 (5:58 pace)...OUCH this had to hurt. Average pace for last 10k...7:58.

So in conclusion I do believe that it was legit from the start to 9.1 but from there to the half there was some cutting going on. No way in hell did those paces happen on this course at that section. NO WAY.

Update

2009-11-15T14:35:00.002-06:00

As I was doing my research on the splits today I looked at the online race results and saw that I had been moved from 4th to 3rd. For now it is staying at 4th as I have no clue why the guy was taken off the results but I emailed one of the race organizers today and am still waiting on a reply.

As for the return to blogging hopefully next week after my first full week back.

Kansas City Marathon - Oct. 17

2009-11-14T18:15:00.007-06:00

Well this is going to be my reattempt at opening up this blog. It has been about 4 weeks since the marathon and most of that time was spent not running, but I have returned and now it is time to get down to business and get ready for Boston.

Here are the results:

2:38:16 - 3rd Place

All in all it was a great first effort and I think that I have learned a lot from getting the first one done with. There is still a lot that I have to learn but I think that it is something that will be developed over the next couple marathons. I really have no idea on what the limits of my abilities are going to be when it comes to the marathon, but I do know that I am going to try my best to figure out what it is.

Here is the breakdown of my splits

1 - 6:08
2 - 5:52
3 - 5:59 (5k - 18:39)
4 - 6:21
5 - 5:55 (30:17)
6 - 5:52 (10k - 37:22, 18:43)
7 - 5:44
8 - 5:52
9 - 5:57 (15k - 55:35, 18:13
10 - 5:58 (59:42) (29:25)
11 - 6:02
12 - 6:11 (20k - 1:14:35, 18:59)
13 - 6:03 (Half - 1:18:33)
14 - 5:59
15 - 5:59 (1:29:59) (30:17) (25k - 1:33:09, 18:34)
16 - 5:58
17 - 5:59
18 - 5:52 (30k - 1:51:34, 18:24)
19 - 5:54
20 - 5:57 (1:59:42) (29:43)
21 - 6:03 (35k - 2:10:26, 18:52)
22 - 6:16
23 - 6:12
24 - 6:04 (40k - 2:29:14, 18:47)
25 - 5:45 (2:30:04) (30:22)
26 - 5:49
.43 - 2:22 (2:38:16) (5:59 pace)

Last half mile - 2:47 (uphill)
Last mile - 5:43
Last 5k - (18:01)
Last 10k - (37:13)

These are the results from my watch. There were some fairly heavily treed areas on the course and the GPS is only so accurate. But none the less if you look at what the race website says I ran my last 10k in about 39:13. There is no way that I ran my last 6 miles averaging 6:18 pace when I only had one miles that was slower than that all day.

Okay, so now that you have looked over the splits here is the mildly in depth report about the race. First of all the course was FAR from easy by any stretch of the imagination. If you want a real in depth detailed outline of the course there is some great documentation on the course website. Here are what I consider the key areas of the race and what happened during each section.

Start - 1.3 miles
For the most part all up hill. I think that there was a little downward dip right at the start but from .25 until about 1.3 was all uphill. For the most part it was real gradual so you didn't really notice it that much but the end of the segment was real steep 5oft elevation change over about 1.5 city blocks. It was early in the race and everything felt good.

1.3-3 miles
Almost all downhill. I had already got with a group of guys and just kind of latched on to there pace. There were some half marathon guys in the mix as well. Real easy and conserved for pretty much the whole section. There was a little rise over a bridge right at the first water station that me and one other guy made a little move to drop someone.

3-4 miles
Started at the very bottom of a road that leads you up to the WWI museum. Nasty little climb that the guy I was running with really slowed down on. There was a flat section at the top as we looped by the memorial and the another nasty little climb that brought us to mile 4

4-6 mile
For the most part this was down to flat to gradual uphills that you did not even really notice at all.

7-11.4 miles
Mile seven was a real long downhill that the guy I was running with caught a couple other people on. We rolled mile 7 and then continued to run together with a group of 6 of us until 11.4 miles. This section was more or less flat. Very little changes in elevation.

11.4 - 12.75 miles
ALL UP HILL. We made a really sharp turn at this start of this to start the climb and our group of 6 quickly went to 3 and by the end of the hill it was down too 2. The last guy to drop off did it about 200 meters from the top of the hill. I had also found out while climbing the hill that he had just run the Chicago marathon 6 days before.

12.75-14 miles
Rolling and then some downhill. Pretty boring section

14 - 20 miles
This section was pretty boring too. It was a two mile straight stretch, then turn a corner and see that there is a runner that is just dying. This happened at about 16 miles and the runner was caught just a little after 17. Once we caught up with him he stepped in behind us and just latched on for awhile. His breathing was ridiculous and I know that this was not going to last very long. He would try making moves every once and awhile but we would catch him within 30 seconds. He lasted until about 19 miles. The guy I was running with (Jay who ended up 5th) and I just laughed at the stuff this guy was trying to pull. It was a flat to slight downhill section from 18 - 20.

20-22 miles
So there was no elite water stations so I had to deal with what was on the course and I had brought one Powerbar gel with me during the race. Both Jay and I took them at the 20 mile aid station. And this is where the mile marks started to get really off. According to Jay's watch our 20th mile was around 4:30, can't remember the exact time but I know it was around 4:30. Something tells me that this was far from correct. This is also where there got to be about zero people on the course, including people that tell you where to go on confusing intersections. Jay and I ran together until about 21.5 and then I kept the pace going and he didn't.

22-23.75
Well the last up hill section started at about 20.75 and continued until the end of this section. This was by far the hardest climb of the day and could not have come at a worse time. Not only was there the hill but we also got the pleasure of meeting up with the half marathon people as well. So at this point we are at 21.5ish miles leaving us with about 4.5 miles to dodge people that are on pace for a 3+ hour half. This was a blessing and a massive distraction all at the same time. It was great having people cheer you on as you blew there doors off but man did it suck trying to dodge people all the time. There was one intersection where a policeman was stopping the runners and letting cars go by. I came really close to getting hit by a car there cause there was no chance in hell that I was stopping I know that. So choice words were yelled at the cop as I was coming and I think he felt like kind of a dumbass but that is his fault not mine.

23.75-26
This was where it started to get fun again. I could see a guy that was actually running in front of me which meant that he was in the marathon. Now I had been told at mile 13ish that Jay and I were in 4th and 5th maybe 5th and 6th the girl was not real sure. But then at mile 21 I was told 7thish. This made no sense at all as I never got passed and by that time I had dropped Jay and passed another guy which would have put me in about 4th. So upon passing this guy I go into 6th at about 24.75. Then I see another guy and pass him at about 25.25. It was a little bit of and up hill and then a long gradual downhill that was the same as the start of the race but the opposite way.

To the finish.
There was a bridge right before the finish that was a lot steeper that it needed to be about 200 meters from the finish. There were people everywhere and I was freaking tired. I crossed the line and that was all she wrote. I had no clue what place I finished and did not find out for a couple hours. 4th place it was. I also found out that that 2nd and 3rd were 32 and 34 seconds ahead of me also and that I had made up 10 minutes on them over the last 10k. If only it would have been another 600 meters I would have been second.

And that is the race. For the few of you out there that read this if you have anymore questions feel free to ask.

June 29th - July 5th

2009-07-06T20:50:00.002-05:00

Well this week was quite a bit better than the last with one minor flop in it. I got no long run in this week which I was not really happy about.

Monday - 9 (1:02:47)

Tuesday - 8.7 (1:00:22)
Last run in Portland :( A very sad day indeed

Wednesday - 13 (1:30:08)
One of the worst runs that I have had in a long time. First off we drove from Portland to Bismarck and then ran when we got there. This was about a 19 hour drive and I was awake for about 24 hours. I made the mistake on the way out of getting really tired and then not being able to drive when it was my turn but this time I made sure that I had coffee. WOW was that a mistake. I guess when you don;t drink the stuff that often it hits you a little harder. Anyways I had about 1.5 hours of sleep, not enough water or food in my body, and it was about 85 degrees with no clouds in the sky in the peak of the noon time sun. What on earth was I thinking...

Thursday - 10 (1:11:00) HR 144

Friday - 6.5 ( 47:01) HR 140
Real easy run that I was just not having today. Plus I have to race tomorrow. Was only going to do 8 anyways.

Saturday - 4.5 (33:00) warmup and cooldown on race day

Race - 10K (33:41) 5:24 pace 1st place
1mile - 5:31
2mile - 5:24 (10:56)
3mile - 5:24 (16:21)
5k - 16:57
4mile - 5:23 (21:45)
5mile - 5:22 (27:07)
6mile - 5:18 (32:25)
10k - 33:41

The race was pretty even for the most part. Started out a little slower and then ended a little faster. 3:27 first kilometer and then the next 7 were between 3:20-3:23 and the last two were 3:18 and 3:17. They sure felt like they were a lot faster but I has a pretty comfortable lead so I didn't really have to worry about pushing it in too hard. A good effort and at least I now kind of have something to base my work off of. McMillian race converter shows an approximate estimation of 2:38 for a marathon based on that level of fitness which I know will increase over the next couple months quite a bit. We shall see where I am really at come mid September at the Dick Beardsley 1/2 marathon.

Sunday - 9.5 (1:08:20) HR 144

Week: 67:5

June total - 261.5

July to date - 50

A good week that hopefully will have a much better week following it this coming week. Long run on monday to make up for none last week and then hopefully another one on Saturday or Sunday to get back into a regular schedule. The race was good and who knows what I could have done with others around me but I hate doing the what if...thing after the race. I felt good and I thikn once I start doing some faster stuff it will be much better. 33:41 is pretty good for not doing a bit of speed and running pretty much every run at about 7:05-7:10 pace. I was happy that is all I got to say. Plus I made a $100 in beer money for the weekend too :D

Happy running!

June 22nd - 28th

2009-07-06T20:37:00.002-05:00

Just a week of running out in Oregon at the USATF championships. A good week for the most part but there was a lot of travel involved and very sleep deprived people. The mileage was not quite what I wanted it to be but I did what I could.

Monday - 9.5 (1:07:18) HR 149

Tuesday - 11 (1:20:37) HR 138
Easy run in the morning the day that we left.

Wednesday - 8.3 (58:04)
First run in Portland forgot my heart monitor so no more for the week.

Thursday - 5 (35:30)
First really short day since the real training began at the beginning of June I was really hot and really dehydrated and a little hung over. Oops :S

Friday - off
First day off in 28 days. 27 days on 1 off was a pretty good run. I was a little mad that I didn't get time to run but we were late getting to the meet in the morning and then didn't have time to run after it was over.

Saturday - 8 (56:00)
A little shorter than I wanted but we thought that the race that we wanted to see was an hour later than it was so it had to be cut short.

Sunday - 15.5 (1:50:00)
Great long run in Eugene. Me and one of the guys that I was with opted to stay in Eugene for the night and get up and run in the morning before the meet. Best decision of the weekend. What a great town to run in. There was probably only about 3 miles that was not on wood chip or dirt trails. Great run.

Week: 57.25 (6:46:40)

MTD: 244

Overall it was an okay week that could have been a lot better. Without the day off and the half day I would have bee right around the low 70 range that I wanted to be at but these things happen when you drive across the country. So the next week will hopefully be a little more consistent as I will sadly be back in good old ND :S

June 15th - 21st

2009-06-21T21:41:00.002-05:00

Well another week down and I really ahve not to much to update on. I have been running and that is about it. Nice and slow and really just focusing on trying to stay healthy and not get tired of running or tired from running. Here is the week.

Monday - 9+ (1:04:30) HR 152

Tuesday - 10 (1:10:26) HR 153

Wednesday - 7.5+ (54:00) HR 148

Thursday - 8.5 + (1:03:20) HR 151

Friday - 7 (50:14) HR 145

Saturday - 14.5 (1:42:40) HR 151

Sunday - 8.5+ (1:00:54) HR 141

Week: 65.5 (7:46:03) HR 149

MTD: 187

The week overall went really well. Since the summer has started I have been really consistent and my body has adapted to it quite well. Being that my month of May kind of sucked I was not sure if I was going to be able to jump right into the mileage like this. Not that this is a lot by any means but it is way more than I had been doing over the past 6 months which was basically nothing.

This next week should be a good week for running as I am heading out to the US track championships in Eugene, OR. Wednesday is going to be the tough one for the week just cause I will have been in a car for about 24 hours before I run. I might try and get a run in somewhere along the way just to break up the drive but none the less it is going to be a long day. Especially with a longer run on Tuesday before we leave. All I know is that I can't wait for the trails in Eugene and Portland for a week. It is going to be a great change from Grand Forks.

I have been trying to get to turtle river state park a couple of times a week which has been great just to break up the monotony of running in Grand Forks. If you looked closely at the time that it takes for most of these runs the average right around 7:05-7:10 pace. This has been my thing for the last couple weeks and it has took some getting used to but in the long run it should be more beneficial to my training. The days out at turtle river on the trails give some added challenge with the trail running and "hills" and keep me slowed down which I like as well.

My heart rate over the last two weeks has been a bit higher than I thought it would and maybe it is just due to the fact that I have never changed the battery in the thing and it is almost two years old. But on Sunday's run it was finally down to what I was expecting it to be at. 140 is about 70 percent of my max heart rate so I was thinking that it would be right around there but it has been quite a bit higher than that. I asked someone about it and they thought that maybe it was just due to the fact that my body had gotten so used to running at 6:40-6:50 pace that it was not working efficiently at the slower paces. So maybe this was the turning day in my training. Only another week shall tell. planning on right around 70 miles for the week and a great week of track and field.

Happy Running!!

June 8th - 14th

2009-06-14T10:51:00.004-05:00

Another week of running with a new twist too it. For the few of you out there who actually read this I have taken a page out of some of the other blogs that I follow and have acquired what I am calling my own "mystery coach." I figured, I know how to train for a 10k and 5k but the marathon is a whole different beast. So I figured I would find someone who knows what they are doing and ask them for some guidance.

Monday - 8 - (54:30)
Easy run

Tuesday - 8 - (50:26)
2 mile w/u, 4 mile tempo (5:52, 5:51, 5:45, 5:38), 2 mile c/d

Wednesday - 7 - (50:29) HR 152

Thursday - 8.75 - (1:04:17) HR 150
Nice easy run out at turtle river

Friday - 7 - (50:27) HR 159

Saturday - 13.75 - (1:37:28) HR 153
Nice and easy long run

Sunday - 8.75 - (1:02:30) HR 153

Week total: 61.25 - (7:10:06)

MTD: 121.5

The week was good and the main thing that I am doing right now is running slow, mainly to build up my low end aerobic level. Also I started implementing the heart rate monitor back into the daily runs. So for the next couple of weeks I am really just focusing on getting in the miles and making sure that I have a good, solid base before the real specific training begins. It is still a little bit up in the air on what marathon I am going to run but it is probably going to be Kansas City.

Back to the blog...June1st - 7th

2009-06-08T16:04:00.003-05:00

Well the month of May was a pretty crazy. School was getting done vacations were happening work was starting up for the summer and a multitude of other things were coming to a close. So now that my life is back in order it is time to start up the blog again.

May had its good weeks and its bad weeks. I was running really well for awhile and then had a workout in the middle of the month that really seemed to kill me. It was not even that much of a workout but my body did not handle it well. It came at the end of a fairly big week for where I was at in training and I think that it was a little too much. I helped pace one of the high school kids to a 10:15 2 mile the day after an 11 mile run and a week full of 8-9 mile runs. I thought that it would be no big deal but I didn't run for a couple days after and just felt exhausted when I tried to run a couple days latter. I don't really know what it was that caused e to run like crap for the next two weeks but whatever it was is hopefully behind me now and I can get back into the swing of things and prepare for the race season this summer.

This last week was I think my first week of seven days of training since I started back up. Now that I am back to a set schedule I can manage my time a lot better and get the training that I need done. So May is behind me and here is the break down of the first week to a new month.

Monday: 8 (54:45)

Tuesday: 7.6 (51:30)

Wednesday: 7.4 (51:30)

Thursday: 9 (1:01:20)

Friday: 7.25 (48:15)

Saturday: 13.5 (1:33:30)

Sunday: 7:25 (50:00)

Week total: 60 miles

MTD: 60 miles

Well this was a good week I thought. For the most part I felt good throughout the entire week with a couple of runs that I wish had been a little different. It has been really nice running so far this week since I now have people to run with but it gets to be difficult sometimes. We always try to run slower but always seem to end up speeding up to a point that I don't want to be running at during my everyday training runs. I usually try and hold them around 6:50 pace but usually we drop closer to 6:35-6:40 by the middle and the ends get even faster. It is not like it feels difficult at all but I want my easy days to be easy and my hard days to be hard.

So this was my solution to the problem...hopefully. Get a good tempo in to get the race mode out of all of us. So sometime this next week I'll throw in an easy tempo just to get the racing out of our heads.

It is not like the paces that we have been running is all that fast and maybe the couple of seconds faster per mile is not that big of a deal but I really don't know. Is it always better to stay on the side of caution?

Something else that I started doing lately is walking at the end of my runs. I usually stop at least 200 meters away from my apartment just to get a better cooldown in. I used to just finish at the door and then go inside grab something to drink and then sit down. I started thinking about it and there is really nothing that could be dumber. So in my mind this will be a great change to my training.

But overall the week was good. I had a couple of easy recovery type days when I was on my own or just made the others run slower so that was good. I would have to say that the best run of the week was my long run on Saturday though. My legs felt great and I got to run with a god friend of mine from high school, Matt Damico. It has been a very long time since I have been on a run with this guy and it is probably going to be one of the lasts runs in awhile too. I ran the 3.5 miles to his dads house and we went for a great 45 min run and then we parted ways and I back off to my house. I ended up a little farther away from my house than I wanted to be so I ended up walking about .75 miles at the end of the run as I didn't really want to make it a 14+ day. Matt I must thank you for the run it was great seeing you and hopefully we can get another run in before you leave Minnesota. I wish you and your wife the best of luck on your upcoming endeavours.

Right now my plan is to stay in the 60-70 range for all of June and then move up to the 70-80 range for July and 80-90 for August and the beginning of September. This is all depending on how my legs feel during the training. I am pretty confident that I will be able to handle the higher mileage by adding morning runs into my routine so I may try to build up a little fast so I can get a couple weeks in at right around 100. This all in the planning still but for the most part it will be about like I said.

One last thing. I know that in my first post back at the beginning of April I mentioned that I was planning on running the Bismarck marathon in September. Well that was a little to close for me and so I changed it to either Des Moines or Kansas City. As much as I would love to run Twin Cities my old roommate is getting married the day before so that pretty much puts that one out of the question. The Kansas City and Des Moines are on the same weekend and are about the same distance away. I know people that live in both of the areas so I have places to stay so that is not the issue. I was leaning more towards Des Moines right away due to it being a little flatter and better competion but right now I am thinking that Kansas City is going to be the one. I figure that I will be shooting for right around 2:35 and last year the winner went 2:35 at KC compared to 2:24 at DM. So at least I would be closer to the leaders at KC. Plus it is on Saturday which sould give me a day to recover before driving home unlike DM which is on Sunday...that would be a LONG day.

Happy running!!!

April 27th - May 3rd

2009-05-06T13:14:00.004-05:00

Well this was not the week that I was looking for but it is what I got. School is finally coming to an end for yet another year and things are getting really busy. So with all this comes little time to run. I am still not really good at time management so this hurts the running as sometimes other tings have to go before it. There was some foot problems that developed during the week though.

Monday - 7 (48:30)

Tuesday - off due to school

Wednesday - same thing

Thursday - 8 (60:00)
Ran with a girl that made the pace pretty slow. It is kind of weird how running so slow can actually really hurt. Foot started hurting pretty bad during this run.

Friday - 6 (35:30)
Easy day in University park. Today I woke up and by foot was not feeling good at all. I was able to get through the run and get home and start hitting the anti inflammatory meds and ice. This seemed to really help a lot as there was barely any pain the next morning.

Saturday - 2.5 mile w/u
5k race (16:07)
1.5 mile c/d

5k splits were pretty much dead even throughout the entire race. I don't have my splits in front of me but I do remember some of them.

1k - 3:15
1mile - 5:10
2k - 6:29
3k - 9:45
2mile - 10:23
4k - 13:00
3 mile - 15:36
5k - 16:07

Before the race I was thinking that I was going to go out at 5:15-5:20 pace to start and then see how I felt after that and go from there. I figured that this would put me in good shape to run around 16:20-16:30. But when I looked at the heat sheets for the race there was a guy at 16 flat and then the next one was at 16:30. So there was a lead pack that was developed right away of about 12 guys. The leaders went through the mile around 4:50 and the back of that pack was about 5:00 with me through at 5:10 as the leader of the second pack. I felt really good at this point so I decided that I was just going to keep this pace as long as I could and see if I can start to pick a couple of guys off. Over the next 2-3 laps I started making some real progress on the guys in front of me and passed a couple of them. I was a little worried at 3k when I came through it at basically the same time that I ran the time trial two weeks earlier. I was still feeling alright but I was a little worried about the end of the race being that there was a couple of guys that knew I was going to catch before the end of the race. I caught 2 more guys with 800m to go and these are the guys that I finished the race with. I stuck behind them for another lap and made my move with 300m to go. With 150m to go it was me and one other guy so it was going to be a sprint finish. I ran the last 200 in 30-31 seconds and was able to hold the kid off which was really a big surprise to me. I had done the 3k time trial and 3 strides down the football field before the race for speed and that was about it. Other than that the last time that I ran that fast was probably either the TC 10mile last fall or conference a year ago. This was one of those races that I was really pleased with. There is nothing that I could have done that would have made me run any faster today. No regrets on the strategy of the race.

Those are what I can remember from what people were saying during the race. And I think that when I looked at my watch splits they were pretty similar. So I must say that overall I thought the race went extremely well. Having only been running for a month it was great to see that I still had some speed and that I could run a half way decent 5k. I guess that only puts me 7 seconds away from being back in shape.

Race Grade - A
Time Grade - C+ (A for where I am at right now)

Sunday - off

Week: 28 miles
April total: 160

Overall the week was not what I wanted it to be with all of the days off. My foot I was a little worried about before the race during the warmup but during the race it didn't hurt at all, at least I don't remember that pain at all. It was pretty bad on after the race and then on Sunday it was alright ut not great. I took Monday off this week as well already to give it one more day of icing and pain killers and it seemed to help. No pain on Tuesdays run and no pain today either. There is still a lot of development that needs to occur over the next couple months but in due time the racing times will be where I want then to be.

April 20th - 26th

2009-04-27T11:16:00.002-05:00

Another pretty good week of training. Most of my runs have been a little faster than I have wanted them to be but I try not look at my watch and just go by how I am feeling. I have felt really good and am ready to get in another race this weekend hopefully.

Monday - 7+ (46:56)

Tuesday - off (test and HW due Wednesday just ran out of time.)

Wednesday - 8 (56:08)
Nice easy run

Thursday -8.25 (55:00)
Little faster easy run.

Friday - 11 (1:13:45)
Nice paced long run.

Saturday - AM 6.5 (56:50) Ran with a couple of girls that are running Fargo in two weeks. It was slow and it hurt but it was a nice easy recovery run. I don't honestly know if I have ever run 6.5 miles that slow, but it was good.

Saturday - AM - 35 miles bike race (1:20:00ish)
Not really sure on the time but I think it was around that . I have not really raced or rode my bicycle in almost two years so it was good to know that I could still hold my own with some of the guys that race and ride all the time. 8th place overall I think.

Sunday - 9.25 (1:03:00)
Easy run to finish off the week.

Week total: 50 miles
MTD: 145

Well it was an easy beginning of the week and a busy finish to the week. The last three days I really thought were going to take it out of me but surprisingly i felt really good in Sunday. I had no soreness in by legs at all from the bike race and felt great during the bike race even though I ran that morning before and went long the day before. So all in all it was a great effort on the week and I am looking forward o possibly racing this week again. If I do race this coming weekend it is going to be a 5k so we shall see how that goes. Goal time is below 16:30 which I am pretty sure that I can do if the weather is decent. I think the fastest that I could go right now is maybe 16:20 but even that might be a stretch for only a month of running, not even 200 miles, and no speed work at all. I felt really good during that 3k last week so I think that it can be done.

New beginning and a new color

2009-04-21T00:24:00.001-05:00

It is time for a change from the green to something a little different. We shall see how it goes...

April 13th - 19th

2009-04-20T15:33:00.002-05:00

This week was just like the last two with a little twist thrown in at the end of the week. Still just trying to keep building the mileage up until I am ready to star running some workouts. There were a couple of UND alumni that wanted to run a track meet this last weekend and see what you could do. There was a lot of hype coming into the meet but it totally did not deliver like it should have. Turns out there was only 4 people that raced in 3 different events. So there was only one unlucky guy that didn't win his race. The events were as follows: Mens 800m run, Men's 1500m run and the Men's 3000m dash (or at least it felt like a dash). If you can't tell I decided to run the 3k. So here is the week.

Monday: 9+ (61:20)
'Long' run to make up for not getting one in the week before. Can you really consider it long if it is not even double digits?

Tuesday: 6 (40:45)
Easy run

Wednesday: 6 (41:20)

Thursday : off
Had a busy day at school then went to Winnipeg for a Gordon Lightfoot concert. It was amazing!

Friday: 5 miles (35:10)
Easy before the big race tomorrow.

Saturday (Race Day) 2 mile w/u 15 min

3k - 9:42!!

3 mile c/d 22 min

I find it quite sad that I am really happy with a 9:42 but I am. I was hoping to be able to be right around 10:00 and I destroyed it. I was thinking all week that the fastest mile that I have run in the last 5 months was a 6:08 I ran about two weeks ago. How on Earth did I think that I was going to be able to run back to back 5:20's on a little less than three weeks of training?? Well I figured I would just go out in 5:30 ish and see how it felt and then just give it all I had for the last 3.5 laps. Well I ended up going through the 800 in about 2:38 which was a little bit fsater than I wanted but I felt really good so I decided to stick with that pace. Came through the mile at 5:18 and was still feeling good and this was when I knew that I had way more left in the tank than I thought I was going to have. So I decided to really start picking up the pace and see what I could finish this race in. I ended up running about 5:05 for the last mile which I thought was pretty damn good.

Here are the rough splits that I was able to take during the race.
200 - :39
1000 - 3:19 (2:40)
1400 - 4:37 (1:18)
1800 - 5:54 (1:17)
2200 - 7:11 (1:16)
2600 - 8:27 (1:16)
3000 - 9:42 (1:15)

Sunday - 10 (1:10:30)
Real easy recovery run

Week total: 43

Would have been 50 without the day off.

Overall I was pretty happy with the performance being that it was off three weeks of training and I had no clue of where my fitness was at. I ran this race by myself in the cold and windy ND spring. I think it was about 42 degrees with 10-15 mph winds. So a pretty good effort none the less. I might even think about running another one on the track in a couple of weeks. I am sure with some competition and another two weeks I can go under 9:30 for sure.

I think I decided that I will consider myself back in shape when I am in sub 16:00 5k shape. That is when I will know that I am on my way to being in the shape that I should be in.

The first two weeks

2009-04-17T10:34:00.002-05:00

Well this what I have been up to lately. I know that it is not much but you have to start somewhere. It has been good and I can't wait for the race season to start again. It is like Ricky Booy once said in Talladega Nights, "I wanna go fast!!". So I got that desire going for me at least.

March 30 to April 5

Monday - 4 (26:44)

Tuesday - off. Not a great start to a comeback when you first day comes the day after you start it but I ran out of time in the day.

Wednesday - 4 (27:51)

Thursday - 5 (34:45)

Friday - off. Day after my birthday. Not such a good day.

Saturday - 5 (33:31) Much better day

Sunday - 8 (54:15) Great first 'long run' if you can call it that yet.

Week total: 26.25 miles

What a first week back it has been. I thought for sure there was going to be some problams with my knee as it was not to good throughout the first week but as the time passed it started to get better. Just keep running I guess.

April 6th to April 12th

Monday - off. Travel day to Seattle where I was for the whole week.

Tuesday - 4.5 (31:30) Easy run to get situated in Seattle to find out where to run.

Wednesday - 6 (40:30)

Thursday - 6 (41:00)

Friday - 6.2 (42:00) Back in GF now

Saturday - 7 (48:50)

Sunday - off. Got 2 hours of sleep last night and had family things all day long. Just did not have the time.

Week total: 30 miles
This week was much better than the last one and I am starting to feel a little better about everything. The hills were killer on my knee but not so bad to where I had to stop. Another week done and hopefully I will be able to stay a little more consistent the next couple of weeks leading up to the race.

And the time is now for a new beginning!!

2009-04-15T11:11:00.002-05:00

Well after a more or less winter hiatus from running it is time to get back on the sidewalks and start dominating again. There is much catching up that needs to be done in the next couple of months to get back into the shape that I am wanting to eventually be at but I think that it will come along as the time passes.

It was a great winter off and I think that it was much needed on my part. I probably only ran about a dozen times or so from Thanksgiving till the end of March. But once the end of the month hit I started back up again and have been going ever since. Let me tell you it is not that pleasant starting up again when you have been gone for only a couple months. The first week was ROUGH. But it is coming back a lot faster than I thought it was going to. I am entering my third week of training and have ran 5 out of 7 days the two previous weeks mainly due to a birthday that was pretty rough and then a lot of travel. But now it is looking like I will be able to get back into the routine of running everyday again. I cant remember the exact mileage for the two previous weeks right now and I don't have my log infront of me so I will post it later.

First race planned for the year is a 3k this coming weekend on the track up in GF. This is more or less just for fun and will not be taken serious as it is the 2nd Annual Norm McGee Invitational. First Actual race is the Fargo half coming up on the 9th of May. After that I really don't know what I am going to race. Probably a 10k on the 4th of July and some other small stuff later that month. Dick Beardsley in early September possibly and then the Bismarck marathon on September 19th. Not really shooting for anything special there but it will be good to get one in before really starting to train for one.

Happy Trails!!

New Year, New Update, New Beginning

2009-01-14T15:27:00.002-06:00

Well since the last post not a whole lot has happened. It felt fine that day that I ran but was not so good the next day so I took a couple more off and then destroyed it at a wedding that Saturday. I thought that I was going to be able to start running consistently again but after a freak dance party injury and not being able to walk for about three days it had to be postponed again.

I took the next couple two weeks off and then finally went out for a run with Lee when he was home over break (This was on Friday the 2nd). It felt pretty good and didn't really hurt at all when I got home or at all the next couple of days. The swelling that was still there went away on Sunday and I decided that I was going to try starting again on Monday.

First week back was nothing special but started getting me back in the groove. I ran 5 miles every day except Sunday when I went about 8.5 which may have been a little much a little soon. My knee was fine when we were running but when we would have to stop and then restart it was not liking that to much. I took monday off and just iced and rested but it didn't do much so I decided to give it another go on Tuesday. Went 6 miles last night and the knee felt fine but a lot of other things started bugging me throughout the run. I have been trying to tell if I have been favoring that leg at all when I run but it seems that I am running normal. But my hamstring and calf usually start tightening up towards the later parts of the run. Who knows what is causeing it but my guess is that it is ost likely a muscular weakness problem all over my leg that is just transfering from one area to the next.

I am doing some light weight strength training stuff for the legs and it is going alright but there are not a lot of leg lifts that I can do that don't really aggrivate my knee. I can't do lunges, leg press, or squats. I can do really light weight leg extensions and leg curls but that is about it for lifts that really concentrate on the quad and hamtring. Even the leg extensions are painful most of the time but i figure that they have to be done.

So until I can't run I will be continuing to run and hope that it all just kind of works itself out over the next couple weeks of light running and weight lifting.

Grandma's is going to have to be changed to something in the fall and I have no clue what one it is going to be yet due to t he fact that I have a wedding that I am in the day before Twin Cities so that is out of the question as well.

It might just end up being a small one somewhere in the area just to get the boston qualifier in. Possibly Walker,MN or Bismarck,ND which I believe are both in September if I am thinking right.

Ran Today!!!!

2008-12-17T23:45:00.002-06:00

Well it was my first run in three weeks and it felt pretty good. My knee was not hurting at all during the run or after so I think that was a good sign. I went 6 miles with three on the "track" and three on the treadmill. For those of you who don't know the "track" is a weird shape that includes two 90 degree turns and one that is probably 120 degrees. Pretty much kicks the shit out of your outer IT Band after awhile. There have been some long runs on there but you pay the price for it the next day. I still think that I hold one of the fastest miles ever run on that track though (5:43 I believe??? Do you remember Lee?)

Right now I think that my leg has gotten significantly weaker due to me favoring it over the last couple of weeks. I have noticed it quite a bit over the last couple of days and even on the run today. I just hope that my favoring it doesn't lead to more problems. As much as I hate the treadmill I think it is all I am going to get at least until I think that this thing is gone.

Anyways I hope it feels alright tomorrow otherwise its back to the drawing board...

The Problem Found

2008-12-08T15:32:00.002-06:00

Prepatellar Bursitis. I'm sure that most of you who read this are familiar enough with the human body to know what this is. All that can really be done for it is rest and a strengthening PT program. Running might have to take a bit of a back seat while this heals. The pool is by friend I just have to remember that. It feels a lot better right now but I can tell that my leg is not liking it much being that I have been favoring that leg for so long that my muscles feel out of balance. More to come later. Hopefully only another week with limited to no running and then slowly get back into it.

MY KNEE IS BROKEN

2008-12-01T16:34:00.000-06:00

That is all...

Nov 17th - 23rd and for now not much else...

2008-11-26T21:45:00.003-06:00

This was a shitty week and it is not going to be the only one. Not real happy right now and there is not really anything that I can do.

11/17 - 8.25 (57:00)
Did not feel that well at all today. I was planning on going 10 but my legs and feet just didn't have it today. My arches were still pretty sore form the week before and so I tried to massage them out and that was the wrong decision. I woke up the next day and could barely walk. They were pretty messed up.

11/18 Off
Arches

11/19 Off
Arches

11/20 11 (1:15:00)
Felt great and got in a good run due to it.

11/21 9 (1:01:00)
Easy run.

11/22 9 (1:02:30)
Going long tomorrow and ran out of time today.

11/23 17 (1:54:30)
What a great run. I took the weekend easy on the party scene so that I would have a good run today and man did it pay off. I could have gone much further and the last 5 miles were all sub 6:30 pace and it felt great. I was so happy after this run knowing that I could have easily gone another 4-5 miles no problem. GREAT DAY!

So due to some not so favorable conditions at the race last week my legs took a little bit of a beating and I was forced to take two days off. Other than that, the runs that I had were of great quality. Very happy with the runs for the week.

And now the bad news. Sunday night probably 9 hours after my run was over I was moving some stuff from one room to another in my apartment and felt a little pinch in my knee. This was such a minute pain that a normal person would probably not have even noticed it, but being a runner you notice even the smallest of pains in critical body parts. Well an hour my quad was feeling a little weak and so I popped a couple of Aleve and went to bed. I woke up the next morning and my leg was quite weak and were my patellar tendon connects to my knee was quite quite painful when I took my first step of the day. If I fully extended my leg it hurt a little and if I put am impact force on my leg it hurt. It sucks walking down stairs and I had to alter my walking stride so that I could walk without pain.

Long story short right now...the next week is over and I logged 2 miles this week on Tuesday. As of right now I am going to try and get one of my old trainers to take a look at it but who knows if I will be able to or not. No running in the near future is what it seems. I wrote the beginning part of this earlier this week and have since come to the conclusion that it is not my patellar tendon, but rather behind my patellar that the problem exists.

I looked online for some possible injuries and there were a couple that seemed close to what it feels like but there are holes in them as well. So we shall see what the trainers say in the coming week. Wish me luck.

Nov. 10th - 16th

2008-11-18T15:54:00.006-06:00

The week that was. It was a pretty good week all in all with some hook ups that will hopefully not be all that bad. It was another low week of mileage but I think it will be good in the long run. Here is how it all went down after a couple of days off the week before and finally back into the swing of things.

11/10 - 9 miles

11/11 - Race day - 8k - 28:31 2.5 mile w/u and 1.5 mile c/d (9 total)

The race was an interesting one to say the least. We had a holiday wine and food tasting the night before which may not have been the best idea the day before a race, but being that I wasn't really planning on racing it anyways I figured I had nothing to lose. Well it ended up going pretty well for the circumstances and I ended up with the victory. The course itself is on of the worst things that I have personally ever run on in my life. I did this race a couple of years ago but I do not remember it being this bad. You would be running in a straight line and all of the sudden you sould be almost falling over due to the terrain being so shitty. It was like running in a field following a tractors tires just after it had rained and then frozen. There was ruts everywhere and it seemed like every other couple steps your would be rolling your ankle. I forgot my watch so I have no splits but I know that I went through the first mile in 5:31 and turned around at right around 14:10 ish I think but am not suite sure. I looked at my watch after I turned around and it was at 14:45 and I figured I was about 150-200 meters from the turn around. Also I think I was right around 22:45 at the 4 mile mark so that would make the last mile right around 5:45. That is the best estimates to what my splits were for the race.

I got a stitch at about 1.5 miles and it just would not go away at all but I was able to hold it the best I could and run through the pain to the finish. 28:31 on this course is nothing to be ashamed of by all means but I think I easily could have run under 28 if I would have not been out the night before and actually worked the last mile instead of realizing that I was going to win and then just coasting in for the win. If it would have been on a non-European style course I would like to think that mid 26 min would not have been a problem. Next year I will go under 28 minutes if I run it.
Grade - B
An honest effort but I should have done better and not cheated myself.

11/12 - 10 (1:09:30) HR 142
Easy day

11/13 - 9 (1:01:15) HR 150
Easy run with LaBlanc

11/14 - 9 (1:03:00)
Easy run. Really windy.

11/15 - 14 (1:35:00)
Nice easy long day. Got a little tired towards the end of the run but it wasn't that bad at all. Probably just a little tired from the long week.

11/16 - 8 miles (1:02:00)
This was a much needed really slow day. I honestly don't know if I have ever ran that slow on an 8 mile run ever, but it felt really good.

I have been doing a lot of reading this week about training and I am finally starting to put things together and developing a plan for myself in the up coming months. It is in the early stages but it there isn't a whole lot to be doing right now but running. The one thing that I need to do is to start realizing what the purpose of each run is. There is always a plan for what you are doing that day but what is that plan??

Ever since that cross race this week my foot has been hurting. The terrain really sucked and my ankles have been really loose since then and my archs have been really tight. I have been running through it but last night I tried a really hard massage on my right one and it hurt like hell just to walk last night (Monday) afterwards. These last two days have been kind of hard so I might just take another easy couple of days just to see how this foot pans out. It is hindering me a little but it is way more just and annoyance that never goes away.

I was really pleased with the cross race and I know that I am in really good shape right now and will be fine in the months to come. Motivation will be the key. If anyone has helpful suggestions it would be much appreciated.

Nov. 3rd- 9th

2008-11-13T10:07:00.002-06:00

Sorry for the lack of update it has been a pretty crazy week thus far. It is going to be short and quick as that is what the week was.

11/3 - off

11/4 - 10.25 (1:10:00) HR 144

11/5 - 9.25 ( 53:30) HR 167
What a crappy day this was. It was raining like crazy and windy but i was pretty happy with the time. Equivalent of a 58:00 10 mile and it felt like a jog.

11/6 - 11.5 (1:20:00)
A guess on the time as I forgot to start my watch at some point during my run.

11/7 - off hunting

11/8 - off hunting

11/9 - 9+ (1:04:50)

Week total: 40 miles
MTD: 64 miles

It was my last week of business that is going to prevent me from running everyday. The only thing stopping me know is my hatred of the weather, apathy, and injury. The next couple months are the hard ones to get through but by the time it is over the marathon training will be in full swing. So here is to the next couple of months not being that bad and my sanity staying with me through these trying months. Probably just going to be a of a build up week this next week or two and then start upping the mileage.

Great little quite that I read the other day.

"When you are a competitive runner in training you are constantly in a process of ascending"

This is totally true when you think about it as everyday that you go out the door you are getting better. John L. Parker, Jr. sequal to "Once a Runner" (Again to Carthage) is a great read for any of you aspiring marathon runners that are finding yourselves in a bit of a training rut.

Oct 27th - Nov 2nd

2008-11-02T22:10:00.003-06:00

Well that was another great week of running. The hip and core strengthening stuff is coming together nicely and I think that in a couple of weeks when I get my schedule figured out a little better stuff will start to fall into place. The thing that I am finding hard to deal with right now is time. There is only so many hours in the day and it gets hard trying to dedicate 2-3 hours a day to just running. It is not that bad when it is just running and then showering and getting on with your day but the additional stuff that I think will prove to be useful in the future is what gets hard. So that is really the only big thing that I am trying to deal with right now. I am also going to start keeping track of how much sleep I get the night before.

10/27 - 10 (1:07:40)
Easy run

10/28 - 12 (1:23:10)
Ran most of this run at the golf course.

10/29 - 11 (1:17:30) - 6 hours
Ran with Mahoney and Richard nice and easy. Little farther then I wanted to go but it worked out fine.

10/30 - 10+ (1:17:00) - 6 hours
Early morning run with Nate. Then hunted and worked in the woods all day.

10/31 - 9.25 (1:02:30) - 8 hours
Hunted all day again and then got home and went running. I got a ton of sleep last night but sitting in a car all day and then trying to run really sucks.

11/1 - 9+ (1:02:00) - 8 hours
A nice easy run that I thought about going long on but realized that I had put in a pretty solid week thus far and that I had a little to much fun downtown last night and was probably quite dehydrated so we canceled that plan and just went a little over 9.

11/2 - 15.25 (1:44:50) - 6 hours
Nice long run. Again the party scene last night may have gotten a little out of control but these things are going to happen every once and awhile. I felt good until about 11 then the legs started getting a little tired.

Week total: 77 miles
October total: 270 (28 days)
MTD : 24.25

Overall it was a great week. There are a couple of things I would have done differently but it was Halloween so I had to get a little crazy. I was pleased with most of the runs this week, but I wish that the long run would have went better. I am going to be forced to take at least one day off this week due to deer hunting but after that it should be smooth sailing for the awhile so there wont be many other days off. The legs feel great right now so hopefully I can get in another 5 good days and then take the weekend off. I might try and run on Sunday when I get back if time allows it to happen but I am thinking right now that it is not going to happen. Still need to work on the whole getting more sleep thing but hopefully that will fall into place better as well. Good week.

Oct 20th - 26th

2008-10-28T21:57:00.002-05:00

A week that finally felt good. This was a real relaxed week that was much needed. There was one day that was bad but that was just due to the weather. Not really that much of an update this week.

10/20 - 11 mile (1:15:50)
Easy day that I ran at a good pace.

10/21 - 10 miles (1:05:30)
Did a workout with Dustin today. Didn't run it all that hard as I was trying to pace him for most of it. I am in no need of running workouts at this point but it was nice to feel the speed.
2 mile w/u
1 mile - 5:05
4 x 800 - 2:29 (grass), 2:34 (grass), 2:26 (track), 2:27 (track)
2 x 600 - 1:43, 1:39
4 mile c/d

All in all it was an alright workout that I did not push on at all. I hit could have gone probably 5 seconds fast on the 800's and not felt any different during the workout but I was running with Dustin and the workout was about his pace work not mine. Good enough for the day.

10/22 8 miles (53:30)
A little fast on the run today but man did I feel smooth

10/23 10 miles (1:10:00)
Easy day with a Kouba

10/24 10 miles (1:09:00)
Ran with the Thompson High School team (two of them) and Mahoney out tin Thompson. Real easy for the first 3 miles and then the gradually got a little bit faster as the run went on. I thought that running out in Thompson would really suck being that the town is about a half mile by half mile big. But all of the roads out there are gravel and so it was actually pretty nice running out there. I would not want to do it every day but once in awhile might not be that bad.

10/25 14 miles (1:40:00)
This I forgot to start my watch at one point during this run so it is a little bit of a guess in distance and time. If anything it is short. A couple of us went to Jamestown for the ND State CC meet. We got there early enough to where we were able to run the course a couple of times before the races started. Really windy day but also a real easy day. Felt pretty good until the end where I started to get a little tired. I was running on very little sleep though so that didn't really help the matter at all.

10/26 7 miles (50:00)
Real easy day in a hellacious wind. It was an all around shitty day that I don't want to see again for a long time.

Week total: 70.5 miles
MTD: 218 miles

I was reading Paul's blog earlier and the one thing that I really have to start working on doing better is SLEEP. This is something that is going to have to get better if I am going to up the mileage as much as I want to and still be able to function during the day. The late nights and early mornings are really going to beat me down if I don't change things. This is something that I am really going to try hard to do these next couple of weeks.

Also I have started doing a lot more core strengthening stuff other than just ab work. I have started some hip exercises and other core stuff that I figured can't hurt to try. Here are a couple of links:

Myrtl Hip Workout: A Nate Jenkins Special
http://www.brightcove.tv/title.jsp?title=1568084508&channel=416418689

Additional Core With Matt Tegenkamp
http://www.brightcove.tv/title.jsp?title=1364171553&channel=416418689

That is just part 1 of 4 in the series but the others are located right below it in the link

The Predestal: From CU and KSU Coaches
http://www.brightcove.tv/title.jsp?title=1373280780&channel=416418689

There are a couple of other good videos that people have put together that I found on brightcove but you can go and find the rest of them yourself as there are two many to post all of them.

All in all it was a good week that I hope to improve on next week. It was a busy week sorry for the lack in update. Have a good week of training and now it is time for SLEEP.

Oct 13th - 19th

2008-10-21T08:38:00.002-05:00

Not so good of a week. I got sick this week and ended up taking a couple of days off which hurt a little bit for the race on Saturday. I feel fine now it was just a couple of days that I felt like crap and didn't really do anything except lay on the couch. The days that I did run I felt fine for the most part but the runs were still a little off of what I would have liked them to have been.

10/13 10 (1:10:00)
Easy day felt a little sickness coming on during the run.

10/14 off

10/15 off

10/16 8 (51:30)
I wanted to do a workout on Tuesday and that didn't so it ended up getting moved to today. I was still feeling a little crappy so I shortened it a bit. Here is what it was.

3 mile warmup - 20:00
1 mile - 4:55
800 - 2:25
4x400 - 69, 68, 68, 67
2.5 mile cooldown

The repeats felt pretty good but man did I feel like I had no leg turn over at all. I would have went a lot better if I would have run the last two days and I wasn't sick, but these things happen.

10/17 8 (55:30)

10/18 Race day
3 mile warmup
5k race (15:56) (5:11, 5:06, 5:20, :16) It was a little bit short.
2 mile cooldown
All together the race sucked. It was maybe 40 degrees with 20-25 mph winds. The first and last miles were right into it. The sickness was still around and I just didn't want to race that much when I found out there was nobody to run with. I won by a little over 3 minutes. Waste of time. With a good day and people it would have been interesting to see what I could have gone. Another day will come
8 miles for the day

10/19 off
I woke up this morning and could barely walk at all. Some good times were had last night but I don''t remember doing anything to my hip. It felt like I jumped off the roof and landed right on my hip but I am pretty sure that never happened. Maybe I somehow slept on it wrong and that caused it but nonetheless I took it off due to barely being able to walk.

Crappy week all around hopefully the next one will be back on track.

Week: 34 miles
MTD: 148

Oct. 6th - October 12th

2008-10-12T17:14:00.004-05:00

The week after the race was a real easy one. I took no time off since I am going to take a couple of days off in early November for hunting. Very little soreness at all on Monday and Tuesday so that was nice. All the runs were easy miles with very little looking at the watch at all. I just ran at what I thought was a real easy comfortable pace which turned out to be around 6:50 for most of the runs this week. I didn't get a quality long run in this week but I figured I should be fine. I am probably going to stick around the 75 mpw for the rest of October and then start increasing it after hunting season. I could run during the weekend of hunting but I would be risking my life with so many people with high powered guns around, it's just not worth it to me. Anyways here is a breakdown of the week.

10/6 - 9 (1:03:00)

10/7 - 10 (1:08:00) HR 143

10/8 - 9.5 (1:05:30)

10/9 - 9 (1:02:00)

10/10 - 9 (1:01:00) HR 143

10/11 - 10 (1:10:00)

10/12 - 11.5 (1:20:00) HR 141

As I said all of the runs were really easy. The HR was where it should be now so that was promising. The legs have felt great all week and I just want to race more, but there is nothing really in the near future. I am pretty sure that I am going to run the Homecoming race this weekend, which is a 5k so that could be pretty fun to see what I can do in that. Im hoping to run under 16 and ideally around 15:45. Being that I ran the last 5k of the 10 mile in about 16:15 I think that this is a pretty feasible goal.

The last bit of news I have for the week is that I am deciding to make my marathon debut next summer at Grandma's so let the training begin. Being that it isn't until June 20th I still have plenty of time to get my specific training plan organized so until it starts it is just going to be tons of base mileage and some evaluation workouts throughout the hellacious winters that we endure. I really want to get a good 5k in this winter during the indoor season but I am not sure how many races I am going to run. I am not going to run a whole lot of workouts but I wold love to get under 15 minutes. As long as I keep up my training and don't get injured I think that I will be able to do it. Two years ago I ran 15:12 at the second meet of the season and had only a couple of workouts under my belt when I did it. Hopefully I can find a good race in the area where this could possibly happen. Until then let the training begin.

Sept 29th - Oct. 5th

2008-10-09T15:08:00.003-05:00

The week that I have been looking forward to since I finished my college career. I have been planning on racing the Twin Cities 10 mile since my pathetic performance last year and finally the week is here. I had a really good month of September after a not so good August which really helped. After that half marathon at the beginning of the month I have been on a mission to get my work done and run well at TC10. Another good week of training leading up to the race with a little workout midweek just to see how the legs were feeling. Everything went really well during the week so I was looking forward to the race. From the two 80 mile weeks I was going to cut back about 10 percent per week for the taper. I hit low 60s with a day off and then low 60s again this week to finish off the 'taper' period.

9/29 - 9.5 miles 1:08:00
Easy run with the UND team

9/30 - 8 miles 56:00
Easy run

10/1 - 9 miles 56:40
3 mile w/u
1 mile 5:08
.75 mile 3:56
.5 mile 2:39
.75 mile 3:50
3 mile c/d

This was my little 'workout' that I did in the middle of the week. It wasn't much but I didn't need that much either so I figured this would be a good indicator of how the legs were and what I was going to be able to do this weekend. I did it all on grass at University Park where I do most of my repeat workouts. I started the first mile and just rolled with it and tried to hit what I thought was going to be pretty close to 5:20. I didn't look at my watch until about 150 m to go and I was under 5:10 pace and felt fine so I just kept with it. 5:08 and feeling like I could have easily ran 20 seconds faster was fine by me. First 1200 went just as well though I tried to slow it down just so I wasn't working to hard but it didn't work. The 800 I managed to slow down enough to hit the 5:20 goal pace but was right back up on the last 1200. Overall it was a good effort and I at least knew that my legs had some speed and they would be able to carry me a little better than they did a month ago during the half.

10/2 9 miles 1:01:30
Another easy day with the last mile finishing 'harder' in a 5:40 which felt like a 6:10.

10/3 8 miles 1:03
Real easy with a friend in the morning. It was good to get up at 6 this morning just to feel what it is going to remotely feel like getting up at 3:45 on Sunday is like. I stopped by the track 1.5 miles from home and ran a couple of 400s to see if I had speed in the mornings. They were real easy and I went 75, 71. nice easy run home from there.

10/4 5.5 miles 39:00
Easy day with Paul the day before the race at the nature center by his house. The trails are really nice and man do I wish we had something like that in GF.

10/5 TC10 mile 55:09

Well this is the race that I have been anticipating since I graduated and it went really well. All I really wanted to do was to run faster than I did last year (57:13) and it was accomplished. I had the same goal as I did last year which was to be about 55:00 and it was a pretty good effort today. I went to bed around 9:30pm knowing that I was going to be getting up at 4am. I probably fell asleep around 10 and was up every 1.5-2hours from then until 3:30 at which point I just laid in bed and waited for the alarm to go off at 3:45. From then the day began.

I had a couple of pieces of toast with PB, two bananas, and a cup of tea to get the morning started. Some light stretching and relaxing before heading down to the capitol to get on the bus to the start. We arrived at about 5:40 and got on the 10 minute bus ride which took 25 minutes due to incompetent people driving the buses. Finally arriving at the dome to get ready for the race which was in about an hour. Bathroom and warmup took me until about 6:45 and after a little stretching and shoe changing I got to the line about 6:55. A couple of strides and the women took off with us following 8 minutes later. There was probably around 30 elite men that were running around at the start so I was able to get in the front of the starting line.

The race started and a group of abot 3 guys took off right from the start and were never seen again. There was another pack of about 4 guys and then another group of about 7 of us. I knew that the first two miles were all down hill and it was going to be easy to get out fast and not really notice it at all. So I just stayed relaxed and stayed at my goal pace of about 5:35 for the first 2 miles. The thrid mile had a hill on it that is almost a half mile long. The groups had split up after the second mile and I was in a group of 4 with the lead 3 and another 7 in front of us. I ran with the group of 3 for the first 4 mile and then decided to take the lead of the group after the 4th mile was a little slower than I wanted it to be. I thought that one of them was going to do something so I was just hanging with them for mile 5 and then decided after coming through 5 mile in 27:50 that I was gong to have to start puching the pace if I wanted to get under 55:00. So the next 2.5 miles was almost all up hill with a couple of very brief flat spots that were few and far between. So once I pushed up the hill at mile 5 I could see on of the guys in the pack ahead of us coming back so I had something to chase after. He was a good 30 seconds up on me so I knew that it was going to be a little bit before I caught him. I wanted to go hard up the summit miles but not too hard being that once I reached the top I still had almost 3 miles to go with some rolling hills along the way. I charged up the hills and passed the guy that I was chasing at about 7.5 miles and that was the last I seen of the men in the race. I picked off my first elite women around tis point as well so I knew that I was coming back on people and all of the people that I kept seeing I thought might be men but never were.

Once I peaked the top of Summit I was still feeling really good and decided that it was time to get down to business and that is what I did. The women ahead of me were just great motivation to keep going and try and catch as many as I could. It was great when I passed them cause it was like they were standing still and I was just flying. I probably passed about 6-9 women in the last 3 miles with 2 or 3 of them being in the last half mile. With a lot of the last 3 miles beingdown hill it was easy to start running to fast so far out but I knew that I was feeling good and went with the feeling. The last mile was great as I was rounding one of the last turns about a half mile out I could see people in front of me and just threw down over the last mile to finish in what I considered a pretty good time being that I had not raced since the half marathon and had no clue what I was going to be able to do. Here are he splits over the race from the garmin.

1 - 5:32
2 - 5:32 (11:05)
3 - 5:41 (16:42)
4- 5:29 (22:15)
5 - 5:34 (27:49)
6 - 5:42 (33:32)
7- 5:37 (39:09)
8 - 5:20 (44:30)
9 - 5:22 (49:53)
10 - 5:00 (54:53)
10.06 - 55:09
Last km - 3:01
Last 800 - 2:20
Last 400 - 1:07

Apparently I got some speed in me!!!!!! :D

So here is what I think about the race. I had to much left at the end of the race and probably should have run mile 4 and 5 harder like I was planning on doing but didn't. The first two miles could have also been run a little faster. I figured if I would have changed a couple of things I could have run about 54:30 but not much faster than that. It is hard to say what I could have done with other men around but being that the closest one in front of me was about a minute it was hard to do. I was thinking when I crossed the line that I could probably have held that 5:20 pace for a bit longer without that 5:00 in there, probably enough to carry me through a half marathon at least. I'm pretty sure that I could have run another 3 miles in 17 minutes to give me a 1:12 half. I was really happy with the last mile that I ran and figure that it will be a good indicator of how things are going to go for the rest of the fall races and for the indoor track season. Overall I was pretty pleased with the race.

Sept total miles 296
Week total 63
MTD 46

For now I have maybe one more race planned for the season which will be a road 5k for homecoming. I ran it last year in 15:53 or something like that but it was a little bit short. We shall see if situationa allow for races to take place or not but other than that maybe the another 5k/8k in the cities the weekend of halloween and possibly the Veterns aday run if I am in town that day. Probably run for the rest of the month and then take 3-4 days off in early November for deer hunting.

Sept 22nd - 28th

2008-10-01T08:08:00.002-05:00

Started backing off a little bit from what I had done the last two weeks and felt pretty good for the most part. All aches and pains are gone so it was overall a real relaxing week with some good runs.

9/22 - 9 miles 1:04:00
Real easy day

9/23 - 10 miles 1:10:00

9/24 - off Just ran out of time in the day

9/25 - AM 4 miles - 31:20
PM 5.5 miles - 40 minutes

9/26 - AM 5 miles 39:00
PM 6.5 miles 45:00

9/27 - 17 miles 1:52
Was not really happy with this run. I ran with a guy in Fargo today and said I wanted to go 14-15 and his loop took us a little bit farther than that. Felt great until about the last mile and then started to get a little tired but I just hope it doesn't affect next weekend at all.

9/28 6 miles 45:00
Easy recovery day. I have a killer cramp in my calf that I got massaged but it is still there. Hopefully I can get another one this week sometime.

Week Total - 63 miles
MTD - 277.5

Overall I think the week went well. I would have liked to get a little something faster in this week but I was pretty exhausted during the mid week and went long on the weekend. I did get some good accelerations in on a couple of the runs so I don't think I am going to lose much. One last tuneup workout planned for this next week and then the race on Sunday. I don't really even want to guess at that my time is going to be but I would like to be around that 55:00 range. As long as I run faster than I did last year I will be happy. I figure I am in pretty good shape after that workout I did two Saturdays ago so hopefully that will come out in the race and wrkout for the best. I would be quite pleased if I got around 54:00 but we will just have to see how the legs fell on Sunday.

Sept 15th - 21st

2008-09-22T20:46:00.003-05:00

Another great week of training that was even better than last week. My body is taking the mileage fine which I was a little suprised about right away with the shaky month of August I had, but the more I thought about it, it made sense. I realized that it wasn't that much of a jump in mileage from the stuff that I had been doing on a regular basis for the later part of the summer. I added a couple of runs and made sure that I was getting everything in. Also I started running a little slower than normal and have been feeling great. Here is the breakdown:

9/15 11 miles 1:16:45 HR 141
Nice easy day

9/16 11 miles 1:12:55 HR 161
Great workout today and here it is:
3+ miles warmup (22:40)
3 x 1mile (5:14|(170), 5:08|(180),5:03|(175))
5 mile cooldown (36:00)

Well I tried this workout last week and granted it was only a couple of days after the 1/2 marathon this workout was worlds of difference. I thought that this was going to be a pretty good week right after this workout and I was right. I could have done one or two more of these repeats, probably not any faster but probably around 5:10. I figured that I didn't want to push it to much just because I had no clue how I would react to it.

9/17 AM 4 miles 32:40 HR 156
PM 9 miles 1:02:40 HR 162 ( so many anomalies in this run with the HR??)

9/18 11 miles 1:17:00
Easy

9/19 AM 4 miles (29:35) HR 163
PM 10 miles (1:10:00) UND CC meet today ran before and then during the meet and ran home.

9/20 10 miles 1:02:48 HR 173
Well I got about 4 hours of sleep last night and then worked all day. I got home at 6 PM and took an hour nap and then headed out on my run. Work really put a damper on my plan today so I cut my run short as I was planning on going long. I wanted to go about 14 miles with the last 5 at about 10 mile pace 5:30. I got three miles in and decided to push the last five miles
and see what happens. I ran 35:30 through 5 miles and then picked it up and here is how it went:
5:41 | (195?)
5:37 | (201?)
5:22 | (194?)
5:17 | (182?)
5:15 | (181?)

5 miles 27:12

Pretty good run for being completely dark outside. I did wear my flats so that helped with the time a bit but I think the darkness was a way bigger factor. The only time I ever looked at my watch was when I beeped at the miles just to see what the pace was. Well if I would have hit it a little bit harder at the beginning and not run it at night and what ever other factors you want to put into this to make it seem not as optimal for running I figured I could have run close to 26:30. I felt really good when I finished and could have made it another mile no problem which would have put me right around 33:30 for 10k which woud have been fine by me. Overall it was a great day and a great party afterwards.

9/21 11 miles (1:16:20)
Easy hangover run. It was hot out and I was dehydrated quite a bit. I stopped for water 4 times on the run.

Week total 81 miles.
MTD 215

Overall it was a great week of running and I never felt all that tired. I really enjoyed the morning runs this week as they really got me going in the morning and I usually felt pretty good for the afternoon runs. I'm going to drop down a bit for the next two weeks to taper for TC 10 mile. If I don't run better than I did last year I may quit running. Seriously, if I don't I am running for another 1.5 years just to do Boston in 2010 and then I am done. This probably won't happen but it tis ny initial thought. A couple of morning runs this week and probably no mre than 70 miles this week and 60-65 the week after before the big race. Not sure on what is going to happen after twin cities but I might try and get in a couple more races this season.

Red River Run 15k
Halloween 5k (Maybe)
Veteren's Day 8k

Those would be the only races I do until at least late January. I will probably try and get a couple of mile/3k/5k races indoor this season and maybe a 5k/10k outdoor as well. I am working out the details for my marathon debut but I got some ideas of when and where it is going to be...

Sept 8th - 14th

2008-09-15T21:40:00.002-05:00

Well this was an interesting week compared to the ones that have passed by so quickly. It was a great week with nothing to busy in my life going on so I was able to get some real running in for a change. No real workouts this week but a little one on Tuesday but i could tell that it was way to soon to start those after the race last weekend. I finished the thing but I probably shouldn't have. Easy end of the week with just miles. Here is the breakdown of the week.

9/8 10 miles
Got the new flats this last weekend so it was the first run in them and they felt really good.

9/9 10 miles 1:05:30
2.5 mile w/u
4 x 1 mile with 1/4 mile recovery jog between
5:31, 5:33, 5:39, 5:41
2.5 mile c/d
Felt okay right away but the legs started to get real heavy about a half mile into the second repeat. The last mile was a real struggle when it really should not have been at all. No more workouts until I feel good.

9/10 AM 4 miles 32 min HR 161 (this cant be right)
PM 9 miles 1:05:35
Easy shakeout run in the morning
Ran with the UND woman's cross team in the afternoon for the first couple of miles. Felt okay.

9/11 11 miles 1:16:15 HR 144
Easy day. Ran part of the course for the race this weekend to get a little bit of a feel for it. Looked okay but it might be a little confusing to some people.

9/12 AM 4 miles 32:00 HR 151 (seems a little high as well)
PM 7.75 54:00 HR 155

9/13 14.25 miles 1:35:15 HR 159
Felt really good today. Probably the best run I have had in quite a while. Average about 6:40 for the entire run and felt smooth the entire time.

9/14 10 miles 1:13:00
Real easy day. Had a little to much fun yesterday at the music festival that was in town for the day. Needed to not happen.

Week total 80 miles (New high)

I had a couple of upper 70 mile weeks but this is the first week that I have had in the 80's and I felt really good after the week was over. I am planning on hitting one more 80+ mile week and then starting to come down for the race after this week. I have been having a little pain on my foot the last 5 days but it has not hindered my running at all. In the mornings it is usually fairly painful right away but by mid day it seems to loosen up and everything is fine for the most part. It is right where the Achilles tendon connects to the heel bone, but on the inside of the foot not the back. Just a little tender when I put impact on it or really stretch my calf. Ice and Aleve have been by best friends over the last couple of days. Today's run was fine up until about 9 miles and then it started to bother me a little but nothing that I couldn't run through. Have a great week of training everyone!!

MTD - 134 miles (with two days off)

September 1st - 7th

2008-09-10T08:46:00.002-05:00

What I thought was going to be a good week turned out to be not so good. Had two little workouts and a half marathon, none of which went that well. So here is the week.

9/1 - 13.2 miles 1:27
Started out just running nice and easy and gradually picked it up after about 7 miles. Faster miles went something like 6:30, 6:15, 6:05, 5:50, 5:40, and then a mile cooldown. It absolutely shit poured rain the entire run so the shoes were soaked. But by that last mile I was glad to be done with that run.

9/2 - 10 miles
Another workout day. 4 mile warm up to the park and then ran a workout with Dustin. All he had was 1.5 miles hard and a cool down. We did the 1.5 miles in about 8:00 but I let up after the mile cause he was dropping back. I proceeded to do another mile at 1/2 marathon pace in 5:35 which felt super easy and comfortable. I knew I had the race this weekend so I didn't want to do that much more but I felt like I could have done another two or three no problem...boy was I wrong. Did a three mile cool down back home and have never been so physically exhausted after a run in my entire life that I can remember. I thought I was going to throw up or pass out or something. I just had nothing left in me. Weird day.

9/3 - Felt like absolute crap all day - off

9/4 - 9 miles 1:04:20
Real easy day just to see how I felt. Felt okay.

9/5 5.5 miles 40:00
Another real easy day before the race.

9/6 17 miles 1:45:00
Half Marathon - 1:16:00
Shitty race. I started out nice and easy running around 5:40 +/- 5 seconds for the first 4 miles and then dropped to around 5:35 until 9.5 miels and just hit a wall. Mile 9 was 5:35 mile 10 5:51, mile 11 6:14, 6:17, 6:05 and that is how the race ended up. I thought I was in a little better shape but I guess the week and a half off of running and a little to much partying really killed me. O well time to get ready for twin cities.

9/7 - off felt like shit and a little depressed about yesterday.

Overall a really shitty race one little workout that I felt great in and a soaking wet attempt to get something out of a long run. Not real happy with the week hopefully next week will be better.

Week total 55 miles
Not to bad for 5 days

August 25th - 31st

2008-09-03T00:47:00.002-05:00

It was a good week back with one day off from my knee. It seems to be fine now but I can tell that I lost a lot of fitness over the week off. I am thinking that the race this coming weekend is not going to go as I was planning on it going but that is fine. Last year I ran 1:12:40 or something like that but I think I am going to try and run around 1:14:00. My real goal at this point is going to run better than I did last year at Twin Cities. Granted it was really hot that day last year but I know that I can run a hell of a lot better than last year. So here was the first week back:

8/25 - 6.5 miles 47:00 HR 150

8/26 - 7 miles 49:00

8/27 - 9.4 miles 1:07:00 HR 152

8/28 - 8 miles 55:47 HR 155

8/29 - OFF

8/30 - 9.2 miles 1:03:45 HR 155

8/31 - 10 miles 1:11:08 HR 139

Week total - 50 miles
Month of August - 150 miles

Kind of slacked a little bit on the month and then got injured :S What can you do. The HR on Sundays run was quite lower than the other days but that is around what it should be. Time to just giver for the next month and see what happens at twin cities.

A long needed update

2008-08-29T18:49:00.003-05:00

Well I have been slacking over the lasst couple of weeks in updating and I have had some injury problems and had to take a little over a week off of running but things have gotten started again and I am a little hurt still but running through it. Here are the mileage updates and the next report will come on Monday.

August 4-10
50 miles

August 11-17
40 miles

August 18-24
0 miles

July 28th - Aug 3rd

2008-08-05T12:29:00.002-05:00

7/28 - 13.2 miles 1:31:20
Didn't go long yesterday due to the wedding and travels so decided to go longer today. Wanted to go a little bit further but I was getting pretty tired towards the end.

7/29 - 10.1 miles 1:12:20
Easy day

7/30 - off traveling for work

7/31 - 5.5 miles 40:00
Easy run with a guy and his wife.

8/1 - 6.25 miles 42:45
Easy run before the race tomorrow.

8/2 - Half Marathon 1:17:20
Ran the race easy for the first half and then tried to push it for the last half.

Here are the race splits
6:19
6:08
6:04
6:05
6:05 (30:43)
6:00
5:36
5:33
5:40
5:47 (59:21) Right leg started to cramp up
6:06
6:08
5:45
1:17:22

Overall it was an pretty crappy day. I felt really good for awhile but once my hamstring tightened up it was a long last couple miles. It probably didn't help that I didn't get much sleep this week and have been outside in the sun and standing up for 9 hours a day for three days this week. But now that the busy work week is over I can get back to some good training and be ready for Dick Beardsley in a month.

8/3 - off much needed after this week.

Pretty crappy week due to a crazy schedule at work but it is all over now.

Week Total - 48
Total for July - 254
August to date - 20

July 21st - 27th

2008-07-29T23:51:00.002-05:00

7/21 - 13.5 miles 1:33:24
Wasn't able to get a good long run in last week so I figured that this would be a good day for it. Felt good through about 11 miles and then struggled the last two. Not a bad day though.

7/22 - 9 miles 1:05:30
Easy day

7/23 - 9.1 miles 1:08:40
Easy day out at Turtle River so who knows what the actual mileage was for the day. It is always a little goofy out there due to the hills and tree cover. Really tired due to very crappy sleep I think.

7/24 - 11.2 miles 1:20:40
Another real easy day of recovering but feeling much better and felt fine at the end of the run. There was some tiredness towards the end but felt a lot better than yesterday.

7/25 - 9.2 miles 1:02:50
Workout today
3.25 warmup (7:20 pace average)
3 x (2 x 400, 1 x 800)
77 (129??)
73 (148)
2:29 (161)
73 (144)
72 (149)
2:24 (164)
73 (152)
71 (153)
2:29 (166)
3.25 cooldown (7:40 pace)

Workout was good. The repeats were faster than what they say but it was hard to get an accurate time reading with the garmin. It is times like this that the normal watches are nicer to have. I was really pleased with the way that the workout went overall. Being that I had to start the watch and then press lap after a second or two things were a little off. I know that I had a couple of 400's at 69 but not many. They felt a little weird being that I have not done any really fast speed work this summer. Good thing I don't have to use that speed very much in the near future.

7/26 off

7/27 off

Overall it was a great start of the week that ended badly due to rediculous amounts of traveling and lack of sleep. I probably really need the days off and will probably benefit from them more than they will hurt me. I have been feeling a really tired on the runs as of lately and have not been able to pinpoint why. I was starting to think that it me be that i was a little anemic because i have ot been eating much meat over the last couple of weeks. So I started eating a little differently and it has seemed to have helped out quite a bit. I have a really busy schedule ahead of me and so I am going to have to stay focused on the goals ahead for twin cities before I can take it easy for a couple of weeks and hit it hard for the winter base training and possibly the Fargo Marathon in the spring :)

Week Total : 52
MTD : 225

July 14th - 20th

2008-07-21T17:34:00.002-05:00

Another race week for me. It was the second one fo the summer and it went pretty well.

7/14 10 miles 1:11:50
Easy day of recovery after a really long weekend. I felt good but thought that it was a good place to stop.

7/15 9 miles 59:59
Little bit of a daper workout the week of the race. I had been feeling really heavy in the legs and didn't think that it was going to go that well but it wasn't much of a workout and everything was fine.

2.6 mile w/u
mile 6:21(150)
mile 6:04(158)
mile 5:44(169)
3.4 mile c/d

All in all the workout was a joke. I ran it with dustin who is just not at the same level as I am as a distance runner. I am starting to think that I am going to start to have to do workouts on my own from now on so that I don't start cheating myself. I have some big goals for the upcoming races and want to achieve them and without proper training it is not going to happen.

7/16 9 miles 1:02:10
Easy day

7/17 10 miles 1:09:43
Man was i tired today. I ran with Jones, Dustin and Lee and dropped off from them around 4 miles in. They were running about 6:35 pace and I was having none of it. So I ran my own pace and I think I benefited from it. Recovered good and ready for tomorrow.

7/18 6 mies 43:34
Easy pre race day run. Wow did I feel like shit the entire way. I tried hard to get into a rythm but just could not find it. Thinking that tomorrow is not going to go all that well.

7/19 Race Day 8.3 mile 45:40 2nd place
WU/CD 5 miles
Here are the splits from the race

5:34 | 5:37 | 5:34 | 5:29 | 5:24 | 5:25 | 5:30 | 5:31 | 1:32

Overall I thought the race went really well. I wasn't planning on having a lot of competition and there wasn't. I ran most of the race with Jake Januszewski which i figured I was going to do once I seen him at the start line. We talked through 5 miles pretty constantly and then he decided it was time to drop the hammer and destroy me over the next three miles. He probably ran the last 3 miles in about 5:10 and there was no way that I was soing that. I could tel right away that the course was going to be long and so I held back until the end to really give it my all. If it would have been 8 miles on the dot I probably would have run the last mile in around 5:15 but that is the nature of the beast. I was pleased with the way that the race ended and the overall pace being 5:30 which is what I was shooting for. It may have been a little bit faster if we would not have been talking the first 5 miles but it was a nice easy race that I was pleased with.

7/20 9 miles 1:08:48
Really, really easy day. Felt really good for how drunk we got after the race and really felt good about the recovery.

Week Total - 66.5 miles
MTD - 174 miles

July 7th to July 13th

2008-07-15T23:42:00.003-05:00

7/7 - 11.15 miles 1:17:30
Took Yesterday off being that I didn't get home from the lake until late. Felt good to get a little longer run in.

7/8 - 8 miles 55:52
Easy recovery day

7/9 - 10.1 miles 1:11:30
Easy day

7/10 - 9.1 54:30 ish
Workout today. 2 mile w/u into 2 miles at about goal marathon pace (maybe a little slower). Jog to track and do 5 x 1k at 5:00 pace (3:07) on 5:00, c/d home. Here are splits:

w/u 2 miles
1st mile 5:55
2nd mile 5:52

3:08(175) | 3:06(199??) | 3:07(173) | 3:07(175) | 3:08(177)

c/d 1.5 miles

Overall I felt really good throughout the entire workout. The only one that really gave me any trouble was the last 1000m. I really started to feel it with about 300 to go. Overall was pleased with everything.

7/11 - 7.5 miles 56:00
Really easy recovery run with the guys at the camping trip.

7/12 - 8 miles 57:00
Easy run on the trails at Itasca State Park. Real easy on the legs and everyone was pretty hung over from yesterday.

7/13 - 12.25 miles 1:28:00
Real easy long run that was needed. I didn't have it in me to go fast today and we hit a lot of concrete today. The legs were quite tired after that run.

Overall the week was pretty good. If it had not been for the camping trip I would have been over 70 for the week for sure. Next weekend I have another race (10 mile I think) so hope fully I can go about the same pace I ran that 10k two weeks ago. Goal time around 55:00.

Week total: 66 miles
MTD : 106.5

The rest of the week

2008-07-11T00:43:00.002-05:00

7/4 5 miles of WU and CD day total 11

7/5 7.25 miles 52:02 easy hungover run.

7/6 DAY OFF Second one all year.

Week total 48 miles
Month to date 41 miles

Race Report

2008-07-11T00:07:00.002-05:00

July 4th
MSUM 10k 34:01 8th place

Here are the mile splits for the race according to garmin:

5:39 | 5:31 | 5:35 | 5:22 | 5:17 | 5:19 | :68ish

So the plan for the race to begin with was to run the entire thing in about 35:00. Well as you can tell the plan changed. 35:00 is about 5:38 mile pace and I wanted to go out and run the first three between 5:40-5:45 and then run the last three around 5:30. The few workouts that I have done have not bee that great so I thought it was going to pretty hard. I started out in about 10th place and just let all the leaders go. I was probably close to 40 seconds back from the other 10 1 mile in. I only caught two of them but that was fine. I started out the first mile a little faster than I wanted but I felt really in control. Granted it was only a mile so I decided to stay with the pace and run with the person I was with.

The second mile felt great also with no real concerns as I crossed the mark. I felt really good and had dropped one of the guys that I was running with. During the third mile it was a straight shot for a mile into a head wind. This mile had the same effect on a couple of other people as well as it was one of there slower miles as well. I hit the 5k in 17:25 and thought that I was already 10 seconds ahead of my goal pace and was feeling great so I started to pick it up a bit.

At this point I asked the high school kid that I was running with what his goal was. He didn't really have one in mind but just wanted to try and stay with me. He sounded like he was doing really well but ended up dropping him within the next half mile. I passed Joel Rovang at the four mile mark and was still feeling great. I was starting to think that I was going to be able to break 34 minutes if I was able to continue running faster every mile.

I put in a really good 5th mile and was starting to feel the pain that I had forgotten over the last two months. With 2k to go I could see the 34 min barrier in my sights and thought that it was a lost cause as I was mentally starting to cash in. At 9k it was going to be a give it now or not at all kind of thing. The watch read 30:45ish when I looked at it so all I thought was damn 3:15 is going to be hard right now. I gave it all I had and came rounding the last corner with the clock reading 33:45 and I thought no way is it going to happen. Official finishing time 34:01 :( so close yet so far. The splits from my watch read otherwise and it had me at 33:55 :D I prefer that one but I will go with the official time.

Overall I thought the race went really well for having no clue what the hell kind of shape I was in. the 17:25 to 16:35 negative split was really promising as well. I am going to try and run a good 5k at a road race in about a month so hopefully I can be right around that 16:00 range plus/minus 10 seconds. The overall time was not that good but the effort was great
Overall Grade B+

Before I leave again

2008-07-03T11:44:00.002-05:00

Here is an update f my progress over the last week. I am leaving for the weekend and won't update again until Sunday.

6/26 8 miles 51:54
This was the same worlout as last week but a little bit faster and with not as great of HR data.
2 mile wu
5 mile tempo/buildup
6:11(182??) 6:01(165) 5:57(168) 5:52(174) 5:31(182)
1 mile cd

I had no recovery data being that I stopped my watch and didn't press lap :S Other than that it was really hot (85) and I was pretty tired. Overall I was happy that I closed that fast and I could have gone quite a bit faster, 5:10-20 for sure. Finally startng to feel good again.

6/27 7 miles 45:15 (HR 163)
Ran around the Lake Eunice. Felt good and just kind of went with the flow and ran this fast.

6/28 11.75 1:20:00 (HR 154)
Ran around Detroit Lakes on the what I thought was going to be the 10 mile race course that I am planning on running in a couple of weeks. I thought it followed the same path as the 1/2 marathon but I was wrong. I took a wrong turn somewhere and that is were the extra two miles came from. Felt good.

6/29 9 miles 1:02
Tryed to create a course for an 8k road race that is being developed in GF for September 13th. Got one that is really close but I don't know if the course is going to work or not. Prety tough day after the long run yesterday. Made it but I am feeling pretty tired.

Week total: 60 miles
Total for June: 228

6/30 7.4 miles 52:00 (HR 154)
Easy recovery run in University park. Legs are feeling tired.

7/1 8.3 miles 57.22 (HR 150)
WOW was it hot today. 90 degrees and no wind. Hydration was key today and it really helped.

7/2 8.1 miles 56:45 (HR 136)
This was a nice easy run at night and it went really well. My legs feel like they are ready to race and that they are recovered. Easy run tomorrow with some strides and then race on Friday. First post college race so hopefully it goes like I want it too. Goal time 35:00. Nothing that fast being that I ran more 2 minutes faster than that two months ago.

6/25 9 miles 1:03:40

2008-06-26T11:42:00.003-05:00

Ran at night and felt pretty good. It seemed like we were going a lot faster than we were but I guess not. Felt a litle tired towards the end of the run but other than that no thing. Why is it that night runs always seem fast but aren't? HR 141. 4 BPM slower than two days ago at the same pace.

2008-06-24T21:18:00.004-05:00

6/22 1o miles 1:18:00 ish.
Don't really know how long I went but I ran 6.5-7 real easy and then played soccer for about an hour. I counted the soccer as another couple of iles being that I was running up and down the field for an hour. Great day outside for everything.

Week Total: 57.5 miles

6/23 8 miles 57 min. Wow was I sore from soccer yesterday. Nice and easy heart rate was low and so I can tell that I was recovered but just pretty sore.

6/24 7 miles 49 min. Even worse than yesterday. My back hurts and my hamstrings are really hurting. Everything sarted too loosen up towards the end of the run hopefully by tomorrow hings will be back to normal. A couple of more weeks until the real workouts begin. Thats right multiple workouts a week and more mileage on top of that. Things are getting real, real fast.

12.3 miles 1:31:16

2008-06-21T12:37:00.002-05:00

Run with the Ninja Club this morning out at Turtle River. It was the longest run that I have had in about a month and a half. Felt really good even at the end so that is promising. I can't wait until the races start coming around again. I am really looking forard to some of the longer races since that seems to be my forte. HR 156 little high but we went long and the hills kill.

The two week update

2008-06-20T23:17:00.002-05:00

It has been a busy couple of weeks and there is really no excuse to why I have not been updating. But here is what has gone on over the last few weeks and where I am at right now in my training.

6/8 4 miles 29:00 recovery run

Week total 50.25 Good first week

6/9 7 miles 52:50 real easy morning run. HR 139 alright
6/10 5.5 miles 39:20 first run in San Diego. Hills and got lost a little bit. HR 144 alright
6/11 Off No reason other than I was kind of lazy and tired from the conference
6/12 11 miles 1:20:00 A guess on how far it was and the time it was but it was probably close to that. I got lost for quite awhile in SD and went a little farther than I wanted to.
6/13 6.25 miles 43:50 Got off the plane and home and started running right away. Felt alright for spening most of the day in airports and planes.
6/14 10 miles 1:09:52 Easy long run with all of the boys on Saturday. Felt good through about 7 then started to feel like crap. Probably the 11 miler I did two days ago combined with the jet lag. Avg HR 158 HIGH
6/15 7 miels 48:03 Felt not the greatest. HR 161 really high for the pace.

Week total 46.5 miles Would have been high without the day off obviously.

6/16 7 miles 49:00 Watch was dead and it felt like a good run.
6/17 6 miles 43:54 Morning run before the big camping trip. Felt like crap but it ended fine.
6/18 8 miles 55:11 Day after the camping trip...yikes was I hung over today. HR 151 High for the pace.
6/19 8 miles 51:48 First workout of the post college season. 2 miles warmup, 5 mile tempo, 1 mile cooldown. It felt really good for how not that great I have been feeling all year thus far. could have been faster and they will get faster but it is good to get the first one out of the way and know what you are capable of. Here are the splits for the tempo

6:14(155) 6:06 (163) 6:00(165) 5:57(167) 5:37(174)

Recovery 155-:29 145-:41 135-:55

These seem to be quite fast for recoveries so I may change the numbers to get a better idea of how well I am recovering from workouts. Probably going to start doing 150, 140, 130. These numbers may have also been so quick due to the fact that I didn't run all that fast. I got done and felt like I could have done the same thing again and even faster. A good sign I guess.

6/20 7 miles 47:40 This run felt really slow but was pretty fast paced. Itmust be that first workout that really gets you back to where you should be. I was a little tired towards the end but I felt like crap as well. So hopefully this is the turning point back to where I want to be at fitnesswise. HR 146!!! Back to were it should be at and maybe still a little high.

The races are coming up soon. 4th of July 10k. Goal pace 5:45, kind of a tempo but I am not needing to run really fast right now. I would like to beat my pathetic time from last year of 35:10 ish but we will see. I want to run 5:40:50 for the first 4 miles at least and then see what happens over the last 2.2. Hopefully I can hold about 5:40-45 for the first 4 and then 5:30 followed by 5:20 for the last. That should put me right around the 35 min range and I would be fine with that for now. More on later race plans later.

10.5 miles 1:14:20

2008-06-07T13:36:00.001-05:00

Great run with a group of seven of us. We were going to go out to Turtle River but it didn't happen due to all of the rain that we have gotten over the last couple of days. Hopefully next week we will be able to get out there. HR was a bit high (152) today even for the slow pace that we were running. I felt strong but I felt it towards the end of the run so I think I am going to stay right where I am at right now for mileage and just let the fitness come back when it does.

7 miles 49:00

2008-06-06T22:47:00.003-05:00

Today was much better than yesterday. I felt much stronger and way less tired than before. Average HR of 147 which is still really high compared to what it was a couple of months ago. I noticed on a friends blog that he was able to run about 20 seconds faster per mile in a workout this month compared the same workout that was done in January. There was a ton more colths on in January as well and my HR is still high with way less cloths. Some more time is definitly need to get that down to where it should be probably around 140 for 7 min pace maybe even a little bit less. We will see in a couple of weeks when I start up some evaluation runs and workouts again, but those are still a couple of weeks away.

First race scheduled for the 4th. Most likely a 5k but possibly a 10k as an easy tempo run. First main race coming up Sept. 6th, half marathon in Detroit Lakes.

The Second Day

2008-06-05T21:56:00.003-05:00

6.25 miles 44:26

Today was a rough one. I am obviously not in good enough shape to be running this long quite yet. I got a ton of sleep last night but I felt really tired the entire time. We started at 7:15 pace and finished the last two a little under 7:00. The last two felt a lot better but y legs just felt like there was not a lot there. Heart rate averaged 144 which was a little bit high for that pace but I am still quite out of shape and am not near at the fitness that I was at in the previous months. Maybe the fact that we were running so slow made it feel wierd? Tomorrow will be another day and another analysis.

Day One

2008-06-04T22:54:00.002-05:00

Today is a new beginning in my life with my college academic and athletic career finally coming to an end. I was five great years that was filled with many memories that I will never forget. Being apart of the University of North Dakota CC/T&F teams has difinitly made me a stronger person and I hope that it will be a valuable experience throughout the rest of my life to come.

This is going to be my moivation to keep running and let everyone know what I am doing in my running. So here is the first update on the last couple of days.

5-31: 6.6 miles for the first day back after a 3 week break. Felt quite out of shape and can see that I need to start doing physical things again.

6-1: 6.7 miles. A little bit sore but overall I feel pretty good.

6-2: 7.5 miles. Ran with a couple of the guys on the team that love to run 'faster' all the time. I am not interested in running fast at all right now.

6-3: 6.8 miles. A cold rainy June day. Felt good and had no complaints with anything.

6-4: 8.2 miles. Was not planning on going this far today but I made a misjudgement in how far away from home I was and went an extra mile. I ended and felt fine so I wasn't to worried about it. We will see how the body takes it tomorrow.

So far it has been a good start back into running and I am really looking forward to seeing what soe really good training can do for a guy. The shorter distance races (5k-10k) are now for the most part over until next year and the longer races will be focused on (10 mile to marathon). Hopefully the different training will workout well for me and I will see some major changes in my preformance over the next year.