Hoping for Fall redemption

Glad to read you had a good time in Tn. Seth. And it is great to read you can't wait to get back on the trails at home. Thanks for your posts and support in my blog it sure does mean a lot. There is no doubt that running on trails sure does something to the spirit and soul hope you take it all in when you hit the trails again. Keep up the great comeback buddy not that you were ever gone in the first place.

Good GA run, Seth!

I hope you enjoy the trail running, too. Runners World recently had an issue all devoted to trail running, I don't know if you read it but I enjoyed it.

Sounds like you had a great time in TN...but I know you are glad to be back on the trails, being home is always a good thing.

Our running club has really gotten into the trail running as part of training for various races. I loved it when I could do it and found a dramatic change in my strength. Good luck and will enjoy reading as your training progresses.

Thanks everyone!

We got back from Memphis last last night, and didn't get to bed until after 1:00 am. I took the rest of the week for vacation, so it's great to get home and not have to rush back to work.
Back to the trails at the preserve for the Wednesday morning club workout, which I was a little late for. Building on last week's interval workout, Mike had me do a slightly more intense progression tempo run. 8.75 miles in total, starting with a 3.5 mile warm up, than 3.5 miles starting at about MP, and working down to between HMP and 10k pace. Finished with a 1.5 mile cool down. The Garmin lost the satellites midway through the tempo run, so I had to
go by feel, but I'm confident that I was in the ballpark. I like the pattern of the Wednesday morning workouts. He's having me slowly build intensity, and also starting to make the runs more race specific. So far they're not too taxing, but they're definitely building. Tomorrow will definitely be a recovery run, than 13-14 miles on Saturday.

Looking good Mon!

Sounds like a tough workout that you nailed - good job!

Thanks Kenny and John.

5 easy/recovery miles this morning. Legs a little on the tired side after yesterday's workout. No running tomorrow with 13-14 miles planned for Saturday.

After going over the thread I posted on the Running Forum about the difference in pace between asphalt and trails, and then talking it over with my coach, I'm now thinking about running Philly again. Mike (my coach) thinks that running on trails, even well groomed, non-technical trails, will probably cost be about 5 seconds/mile. Translating to just under 2 minutes over the course of a marathon, than becomes potentially very significant in terms of the BQ, especially since my goal is to run 5 minutes faster than my BQ time of 3:30 in order to guarantee entry. I probably have to make a decision quickly before Philly closes out, so I'll be giving this more thought over the next day or two.

Between the doubts in your mind about the trail slowing you down and very positive thoughts you've got from the BQ in Philly, I think you should go that direction. Plus, the unknowns of the other course and the still to be determined certified status makes it sound like the safest bet is to go for it in Philly.

I'm also not sure you need to worry about being 5 minutes under for 2013. With the standards being tightened by basically 6 minutes, I think that just about everybody who gets in under their new time will get a spot.

Seth - Philly closed out I believe by Sept. last year (I missed it). Sounds like great news! Let me know your final decision and lets see if we can meet up again before and/or after race. If I kick ass in Hartford Maybe Ill be your water boy!

mul21 wrote:Between the doubts in your mind about the trail slowing you down and very positive thoughts you've got from the BQ in Philly, I think you should go that direction. Plus, the unknowns of the other course and the still to be determined certified status makes it sound like the safest bet is to go for it in Philly.

I'm also not sure you need to worry about being 5 minutes under for 2013. With the standards being tightened by basically 6 minutes, I think that just about everybody who gets in under their new time will get a spot.

Thanks Jim...I'm thinking the same thing, that the tighter BQ times will cause enough runners to be shut out so that I won't need that extra five minutes. In my case, since I just entered the next AG, my BQ time of 3:30 remained what is had been when I was in the 45-49 AG. While I'm not sure how realistic it is for me, I don't mind having to set a 5 min. faster goal. As always, it's all about staying healthy. I'll probably live to regret saying this, but I'm in the fifth week of the training cycle, and while things aren't perfect (meaning the foot and knee), I haven't missed a scheduled workout yet.

That is great you've hit every workout for 5 weeks. I've hear Philly is a good marathon, I hope you enjoy it if that's what you decided to do!

Solid running. Interesting about the pace difference on the trails. I've never timed myself, but I've always thought it's easier / faster to run on concrete than grass or soft trails. Makes sense that it would be 2 minutes on your marathon time. Best of luck with going for BQ-5:00:00

You know, it's good to read here and not really see any pain or issues mentioned! I really hope that keeps up. I think you ran Philly before? It's an awesome marathon, one of the best, I've done it three times and PR'd each time. But you need to book a hotel now, the marathon overloads the city hotels.

I agree with Jim, run Philly....to many unknowns with the other race.

Julie wrote:That is great you've hit every workout for 5 weeks. I've hear Philly is a good marathon, I hope you enjoy it if that's what you decided to do!

Thanks Julie. The Philly marathon was my favorite, so I have no problem getting excited to do it again (and hopefully have as much success there as I did the first time).

Penelope wrote:Solid running. Interesting about the pace difference on the trails. I've never timed myself, but I've always thought it's easier / faster to run on concrete than grass or soft trails. Makes sense that it would be 2 minutes on your marathon time. Best of luck with going for BQ-5:00:00

Thanks Kathy. I have only anecdotal evidence that I'm slower on the trails, but it's enough to not want me to take any chances since I'll most likely need every second if I really have to go BQ-5 minutes.

JohnP wrote:You know, it's good to read here and not really see any pain or issues mentioned! I really hope that keeps up. I think you ran Philly before? It's an awesome marathon, one of the best, I've done it three times and PR'd each time. But you need to book a hotel now, the marathon overloads the city hotels.

John, Philly was where I got by BQ and PR. It's a great, great course. Of my 5 marathons, by far my favorite. You're 100% correct about the hotels. I just called Marriott and all their downtown properties are booked (way too expensive for my tastes anyway). I got a room at a Marriott out by the airport. It's 6 miles from downtown, so I'll just drive in the morning of the marathon and park, probably in one of the hotel lots.

Joel H wrote:I agree with Jim, run Philly....to many unknowns with the other race.

Thanks Joel. I think I've pretty much made the decision to go back to Philly. I'll register in the next day or two

Seth,

I booked hotels 6-10months in advance because it cost nothing to book them and you can cancel usually within 48 hours of showing with no charge. Philly hotels sell out quicker then the dam race does. Maybe we can meet up before the race again and this time Ill make sure I will have my timing chip on. What a nightmare that was. I do think that is the only reason you beat me.

Kenny B. wrote:Seth,

I booked hotels 6-10months in advance because it cost nothing to book them and you can cancel usually within 48 hours of showing with no charge. Philly hotels sell out quicker then the dam race does. Maybe we can meet up before the race again and this time Ill make sure I will have my timing chip on. What a nightmare that was. I do think that is the only reason you beat me.

Delusional as always!!!!


It's official...I just registered for the Philadelphia Marathon on Nov. 20th. Now that the decision has been made, I'm totally excited to run Philly again.

Kenny, we'll talk well in advance, but my plan will be to park close to wherever you're staying and walk over to the start together like we did last time...this time you won't have to make a u-turn back to your hotel to get your chip. I wonder if they'll have upgraded to the chip imbedded in the bib like Boston has done.

Cool, have a great race in Philly!

Thanks Jim!

Very good run today. 14 very hilly miles at the preserve. First nine miles were at an easy pace, than 4 miles progressively faster, with miles 12 and 13 close to goal MP, than one mile cool down. The legs were already feeling it by mile nine after all the hill work, so this was a strong effort.
Looking back at my Philly training cycle from 2009, I'm definitely ahead of where I was at this point two years ago in weekly mileage, and pretty close in pace, maybe a little ahead of where I was.
Here's splits and elevation from today's run:

A nice run; and nicely run!

Nice to see it going well.

Very nice hilly run, Seth.

Thanks Michael and Jim.

Finished up week 5 of Philly training with a 5 mile recovery run. The legs were pretty tired after yesterday, but feel a lot better after this morning's run. I kept it to a true recovery pace (between 9:20 and 9:30/mile), and finished with a 1/2-3/4 mile climb, which felt fine done at a recovery pace.

Sounds like things went well for you yesterday. That's encouraging that you seem to be ahead of where you were previously. And you're holding together thus far up til now also. Things are looking up, it seems to me. Cool!

Congrats on the long run and recovery run. It's great that you can see that your training is going well already! I hope the rest of the training cycle goes great and injury free.