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.
Revival of the Fittest
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Monday, March 21, 2011
Well Shall we try this again after yet another long break?? Why not...
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.
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.
Thursday, October 28, 2010
I have been running...
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.
5k
1 mile - 5:11
2 mile - 5:26 (10:37)
3 mile to finish - 6:15
More to come after the weekend.
Monday, September 27, 2010
September 20th - 26th
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.
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.
Monday, September 20, 2010
This is what just happened...
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
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??
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...
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...
Sunday, November 15, 2009
As of now
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.
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.
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