It's a sprint, not a marathon

mul21 wrote:Indy looks promising. I reserved a hotel room for Friday and Saturday night but haven't pulled the trigger on registering yet. Looks to be a fair course with a little bit of roll and a decent downhill grade the last 4-5 miles to the finish. Pretty cheap as far as marathons go as well, especially if you register early.

I did a quick 4 miles with strides yesterday to get ready for this morning's 5K. That went about as well as I could have expected, especially considering the uphill finish the last half mile or so. I averaged 6:35 pace through the first 2 miles, which was just about where I wanted to be. I got passed by a few people on the downside of a hill just after the 2 mile mark but went by those people and a few more as it flattened out and started the uphill to the finish. Official finish time was 20:56, but that is a few seconds slow due to the gun start time and the course was a tad long. I think if everything is perfect (chip time and the right distance), I would have been around 20:40 or so. I'm happy with that because it tells me I'm in better shape right now than I was last year in March when I ran a 20:58 on a pretty comparable course that was a bit shorter and chip timed.

Now, off to move some firewood and take down the Christmas lights.

That is impressive Jim - I wish we could run together - you would kick my ass when I needed it and I think we could probably run pretty similar IF I could stay healthy. Good job on the 5K - pretty fast!

I registered for the race too. What hotel did you book? Since I have Hilton points, I was thinking about a Hilton property and I see there is a regular Hilton and an Embassy suites near the start/finish.

Michele "1L" Keane wrote:I registered for the race too. What hotel did you book? Since I have Hilton points, I was thinking about a Hilton property and I see there is a regular Hilton and an Embassy suites near the start/finish.

I used points and am at the Hampton Inn not too far from the start. It looks like the Hilton, Conrad, and Embassy Suites are all a bit closer and still available. Kind of strange that the Hampton is $24 more a night but 5,000 less points than the Hilton.

Yes, truly weird. I booked the Embassy Suites as it was/is a bit closer and I'll be by myself driving in from Ohio.

I guess I'm going to bite the bullet and sign up for Monumental before my company decides to stop paying for races. Pretty early, but it should be a pretty god choice based on the course and logistics, not to mention it sounds like there will be a few of the group there.

Had a short, but solid workout tonight. 5 miles total with 2 x 1 mile at 6:30 and 6:18. I put together a schedule to get ready for the St. Patrick's Day 5 mile and sent it to Dave for a quick review. While I had scheduled mostly 400s and 800s, he suggested adding in some 1200s and miles to really work the VO2max end of things. So, tonight was the first of those workouts. Tomorrow is an easy day and then the first of a series of tempo runs on Thursday with a 2 x 2 mile.

mul21 wrote:I guess I'm going to bite the bullet and sign up for Monumental before my company decides to stop paying for races. Pretty early, but it should be a pretty god choice based on the course and logistics, not to mention it sounds like there will be a few of the group there.

Yeah - it will be good to see you again, and I hope that you are at least 30-40 min faster than me.

Michele "1L" Keane wrote:

Yeah - it will be good to see you again, and I hope that you are at least 30-40 min faster than me.

Hey, if you're in shape to run 3:45 at that point, that would make me a happy camper!

I did a pretty easy recovery run on Wednesday of 5 miles averaging right around 9:00 pace. Then yesterday was my first tempo run in quite a while. I was surprisingly pleased by how well it went. It was just a 2 x 2 mile, but I was a little bit surprised at how easy the pace felt on the first set. I had planned on trying to do the second set faster and that became a no doubter after the first 2 miles in 7:19 and 7:13. The second set was at 7:13 and 7:08 and was still reasonably comfortable. I don't think I even hit 85% of my max HR on the first set. I was a little bit over that toward the end of the second, but I kind of expected that after not doing any kind of sustained effort like that outside of a couple of race in the last 2 months.

mul21 wrote:

Michele "1L" Keane wrote:

Yeah - it will be good to see you again, and I hope that you are at least 30-40 min faster than me.

Hey, if you're in shape to run 3:45 at that point, that would make me a happy camper!

Me too, and that is my definite goal!

Off day Friday as scheduled and a long run today. Since I'm not racing anything longer than a 5 miler this spring, I'm not really pushing these out too far, especially right now while I'm still not quite back to 100%. I did my 10.2 mile loop again, but pushed the pace a bit and averaged 8:07 pace. It was an absolutely beautiful day, sunny, almost 60 degrees and a decent little breeze. This makes two weekends in a row where Saturday involved running in shorts and short sleeves and Sunday will have to be a bundled up freeze fest. Really strange weather patterns.

In other news, Illinois is terrible at basketball (again), but the Bulls took down the Celtics last night and the Blackhawks are up 3-0 on the Stanley Cup champions LA Kings right now, so not all is lost.

Blackhawks looked pretty good as do the Penguins. Just waiting for the Bruins vs. Rangers tonight. Glad the run went well, Jim.

Off day. Thank goodness because I drank too much good beer yesterday and didn't sleep very well. That, on top of a drive to KC, makes a day off a good thing. Also, I'm going here:

http://grinderspizza.com/index.php?/grinders/menu/

for beer and tater tots.

I keep seeing the beers you are drinking on Facebook, it's pretty funny.

JohnP wrote:I keep seeing the beers you are drinking on Facebook, it's pretty funny.

I find it quite enjoyable! It's really a beer or two at a time and according to doctors, that's healthy!

Holy crap, tonight's workout was brutal. First time I've ever done hill repeats on a mill. 6 miles total with 8 x 400 and numbers 1, 4, and 7 were at 5% incline at 7:30 pace. The other 5 were flat at 6:30 pace. My legs were toast at the end of the hill repeats and I wasn't entirely sure I was going to get through all 8 while I was in the middle of the workout. I think these will definitely be beneficial down the road. I've got 2 more interval workouts on the schedule with hills worked in since my 5 mile goal race has a couple of brutal hills in it.

Looks like it's been a few days since I checked in here. Wednesday was a grinder of a 5 mile run. I had no desire to be on the treadmill, my legs were grumbling, but it was one of those where I really felt like I accomplished something by sticking it out after I was done.

Thursday was an off day and Friday was just an easy 4 miles with some strides thrown in to get ready to race Saturday morning. 7 miles total on Saturday with a 4 mile race. That was a tough 4 miles. The goal was to go under 27:00, but that was before I knew how tough the course was. I started out right where I wanted to be and hit mile 1 in 6:42, which finished on an uphill and seemed like it just continued to go uphill for most of the mile. It's kind of strange to look at splits after a race and see that the second mile of a 4 mile race was your slowest.....BY 14 SECONDS!!!! Yes, that's right, 6:42, 7:00, 6:42, and 6:46 with a little tacked on at the end to get to 27:15. I was really pleased that I didn't let the slow mile 2 affect me mentally and I really worked hard to keep plugging away and run really pretty even splits outside of the hilly mile. I got 4th in my age group and with a 3rd place or better finish in two weeks, I should be able to pull off 3rd place in the series even though I missed the first race, which probably would have been an easy 2nd place finish based on who showed up for that one. Oh well, they count your 4 best races, so I'll just have to make #4 really count.

Today got off to a slow start because after the race I went to a beer tasting and sampled my fair share of delicious beers. I finally made it onto the mill at a little after 5:00 and knocked out a solid 10 miles at 8:25 pace, so it was a solid week of training. I can definitely tell the long runs are getting a little easier now that I've logged double digits 3 weeks in a row. I think I may crank up the pace a bit on the intervals going forward and we'll see how the legs feel on my first extended tempo run this week (4 miles).

Good work Jim!! It looks like things are really starting to come together. Those miles that you put in when you really don't feel like it, are normally the best. They also are the miles that get you to that next level. Keep it up...

Solid race result. Here's to kicking race 4. Jacking up the long runs always yields good results.

Looking pretty good, Jim. And the race was more than solid given the description of the course. Remember time is nice, but it is how you run the race which IMHO counts more (kind of like Dave-O's great run in Houston).

Thanks Nick, Dave and Michele.

The legs did not enjoy the upped pace of the intervals, but I got through it (barely). 4 x 1200 with the pace increasing slightly on each one from 6:31 to 6:27 to 6:22 to 6:18 mile pace. Meaning the last one was almost 10 seconds faster than the first one (4:54 vs. 4:44). I was really working hard on that last one and haven't pushed that hard during a workout in a really long time. It felt good though and hopefully the recovery day tomorrow will be enough to allow me to knock out the tempo run on Thursday.

The recovery run Wednesday was uneventful, although I found out when I got home from Springfield, MO that I had no water due to a water main break. That they couldn't find. Until sometime Thursday. Apparently it broke sometime Tuesday night during a torrential downpour we had and it took them until late Thursday afternoon to locate and fix it. I think I'm still under a boil order, but that's way better than no water and having to shower at the Y, even if I did have a private family changing room to do it in.

On to the tempo run Thursday. This was going to be the longest tempo run I've done in quite a while, so I wasn't real sure how well it would go. I think the racing I've been doing lately has helped because I blew through it with no problem. HR was right where it's supposed to be and I knocked out the miles in 7:19, 7:13, 7:08, and 7:03.

Yesterday was an off day and the munchkin and I are headed up to the Y shortly so I can get in 10 miles before we go have fun.

Looks like an awesome tempo run. A nice progression...I wish I was that fast right now.

Sorry to hear about the water main issue.

Nick Morris wrote:Looks like an awesome tempo run. A nice progression...I wish I was that fast right now.

Sorry to hear about the water main issue.

You wish you were that fast right now, eh? From the guy running 8 miles at under 8:00 pace? Riiiiiight.

Looks like I'm behind on updating things here.

Saturday was just an easy 10 mile run that I had to hit the treadmill for since I had the kiddo. The daycare at the Y is great and she loves going there so I don't feel too bad about leaving her in there for an hour and a half.

Sunday was and easy 5 miles during the first half of the Super Bowl. They had quite the interesting little ordeal there!

Monday was an off day and yesterday was more intervals. 10 x 400 with 4 of them as hill repeats. I did 1, 4, 7, and 10 as hills. 1 and 4 were at 7:30 pace at 5% incline and 7 and 10 were at 7:03 pace at 5% incline. The first 3 flat 400s were at 6:18 pace and the last 3 were at 6:15 pace. A pretty solid workout and I can tell I'm getting better at negotiating the hills after doing hill repeats just twice so far. I have one more hill workout on the schedule and those are 800s, so I'll probably keep the pace around 7:30 or so on those.

The last race of the Frostbite series is Saturday and I need a good showing to pull off 3rd place in my AG, which I think is possible. I may try to go out a little faster than I have been and see how I hold up in the last couple miles.

Good luck on Saturday. Treat Thursday/Friday as days you need to get a little more sleep than usual, and eat well Friday. It will make a difference.

What's the distance of Saturday's race? It seems like you've gotten enough fast training under your belt to make it worth the risk to be a little more aggressive out there on the course. Good luck!

Hey Jim, I'm catching back up with everyone and your plan for shorter races seems to be going well. You seem to making good use of the treadmill during winter training. I especially like the beer tasting intervals mixed in to the training! Keep it up!