Liftoff

Sunny run at lunch with Quint. I wore the singlet he made for his company and he was happy.

9 miles at track, warm. 5x1000 w/ 200 recovery.

1. 3:38.8
2. 3:35.6
3. 3:31.0
4. 3:25.9
5. 3:12.3

10 miles, sore but glad to get it in.

8 miles at lunch with Quint.

AM: 11 miles with Christina, middle 8 miles bouncing around 6:35-6:55 pace.

PM: 6 miles. Cut out of work at 3, then met Quint, Bryan and Cody on a beautiful, sunny afternoon. We ran a few miles out from Northshore through downtown St. Pete and past the Trop where some businesses are moving into abandoned warehouses. In this case, the business was a local brewery. I think we were going to talk about some serious topics, but all we talked about was Donald Trump.

3 miles, 1 with Anna on her bike. Took off her training wheels today, but will have to put them back on. I got a little ahead of myself. This happened with Elise too.

I guess it's time to bring my blog a little up to date, hopefully that reflects more focus on running. But not necessarily.

Either way, looking at the big guy in my profile was getting depressing. The shoes still fits, but looking at my daughter's My Little Pony art makes me happier.

I'm running a marathon next weekend. It's in Jacksonville Beach near my wife's parents. I'll be pacing her, shooting for 8:15-8:20 pace, which I think would bring us in around 3:37. I'm hoping she doesn't drop me in the last 10k.

There's a good local contingent planning to run Chicago in the fall. I would like to get on that train. My goal for this month is to be reflective and figure out if I can commit to the training.

20 miles, solid group today. After 3 warmup, ran 16 miles in 6:37 avg, then 1 cooldown. Pretty good run. Miles 14 & 16 around 5:48.

8 miles at lunch with Jim and Quint. We ran too hard for a recovery day.

AM: 3 miles

PM: 7 miles at track, with 2x2 miles, 4 minute standing rest.

Had late-breaking work issues and almost didn't make it to track. Abbreviated warmup and felt scattered. Luckily Sean was there and I just followed along.

11:02 (5:39 / 5:23)
10:46 (5:25 / 5:21)

Probably another step forward, but I'm still not feeling right. I just haven't felt that sensation of legs, lungs, heart and mind all being in sync. In some ways I felt comfortable, in others I felt pretty far away from being fit.

8 miles at lunch with Quint.

8 miles, same ole same ole.

AM: 12 miles. Christina had an 8 mile wave tempo scheduled which I ran with her, alternating 6:45 / 6:25 every mile. Felt controlled but not easy.

4 miles in St. Pete before rolling up to Jacksonville.

This race didn't go as we hoped. I ran with my wife who was shooting for about 3:37. Things clicked along very well for the first 5 miles, but we were a little ahead of schedule and running north into the wind. We were running even splits, but I fell down as a pacer by not taking the wind more seriously. Running a couple seconds faster than target pace at that point was  a bad decision - we should have gone for a negative split with the wind at our backs on the way home.

Allison started talking about dropping around mile 15, and we talked through it for a couple more miles, but by ~17.75 we pulled over to the side of the road in Jax Beach and stopped. I knew it was time - Allison has less quit in her than me by a mile. Everyone who's run for any stretch knows what it feels like on a bad day. On another day she would have run a PR, but the marathon is such a fine line anything can happen.

We borrowed a phone and called her parents, who live 3 miles away for a lift.  I asked if she'd mind if I finished. I've had enough disappointments and shortcomings in my running in the last few months, so I really did not feel like a DNF.

I felt pretty guilty when I left, but my wife had already processed it and was feeling better by the time the family reunited at the finish. She's more level-headed than me, something I can learn from. I was a little more sluggish than anticipated covering the last 8 miles. My final 10k split was 38:29, 6:11 pace or so. That should be under 6 minutes, but it's where I'm at, not where I want to be.

Despite the disappointing ending, the rest of the race was a lot of fun. We had a good time doing the race pre-rituals together and running well in the first half. So it goes.

8 early miles up Jax Beach before heading home.

9 miles at track. Ran with Mike M - think we did a good job of running with some effort but not too hard. Gasparilla 15k for everyone on Saturday.

Sorry Mike, but I ripped off your splits. I'm just too tired to be original tonight.

Workout: 4x400, 2x800, 4x400 with 200 recoveries between items and 400 between sets.

Splits: 1:26, 1:23, 1:22, 1:20, 2:37, 2:37, 1:19, 1:19, 1:18, 1:14.

Busy day, but got in relaxed 8 miles at lunch with Quint.

I took my daughters to a karate class tonight. I've wanted to try a family class for awhile, and it went pretty well, but it was a lot of work getting dinner, homework, baths, etc handled around the class. We'll see if it sticks.

8 miles at lunch.

I'm running the Gasparilla 15k on Saturday. This is usually the winter peak race for local runners, by way of tradition, temperature and prize money.

When I hit the skids this winter, I didn't plan to run it at all and planned for an alternate goal. I never ended up getting into shape, so that plan went out the window too.

In the last couple weeks, I think I've started turning the ship around. I still don't have any good workouts or races to point to. And I know I'm nowhere near PR shape. But I do think the race on Saturday is a chance to take a step forward.

Mentally, it's a little challenging to settle for a goal that will put me well out of the competition and is 15-20 seconds per mile slower than last year. But I do feel I need to start challenging myself if I am going to train seriously this summer.

The alternate - just running to stay in shape - sounds pretty good in contrast. But I'd like to at least give myself the option of how I train for the rest of the year rather than letting it all go right now.

So...I'll be shooting for around 53:30, about 5:45 pace. One one hand, that sounds pretty easy considering I almost broke 51 a year ago. On the other, I haven't run sub-6 minute miles for any sustained distance in months. So it's far from a slam dunk, but hopefully not completely impossible.

AM: 4 miles, a few strides.

Gasparilla! It went well today. If you told me a year ago I'd be happy to run 53:42, I'd be "unhappy". But it's this year, and I'm good with the result.

I met Charles and Mike ahead of the race and we ran about 3 miles to warmup. A bit more than intended, but those guys are so awesome to run with I didn't notice our mileage until the race was about to start.

Mike and I planned to run 5:45 miles. For Mike, injury not withstanding, that is no big shakes, but he was sick and I was glad for the company.

We clicked off the first couple miles right on pace. It felt pretty easy and I wondered if I was sandbagging the race (spoiler-not!). I heard we were in 30th place, and there were definitely a lot of people up there. It's a Gasparilla tradition to go out too fast, so I knew a lot of them would be coming back. Still, it felt a little weird to see so many people in front. After the first mile, I didn't get passed again.

That said, a lot of people ran well today. Best weather for Gasparilla in years, neither humid nor windy. Just 55-60 temps, really nothing to hold you back.

By mile 3, 5:45 pace no longer felt easy. At the mile 5 turnaround I was really starting to work. Mile 8 I slipped off, but on the 9th mile I came back. Still, the last .3 I could literally not breathe, and I crossed the finish line and began dry-heaving. A race official approached me with an slinky bag, anticipating actual vomit action. That was an interesting first experience. I think I ran today as hard as I ever have.

I've tinkered with the idea that lower miles might be an interesting recipe to experiment with. I think this race definitively answered that question.

I can run 30-32 200s on 10 miles a week or 100. But for distance events, after the initial miles, the difference is the mileage base. I came up against the limits of my training at mile 7.5 today, and it was not pretty.

If I choose to put on a certain set of goggles, I could feel bad, running a lot slower than last year. But more realistically, this is the best I have run in months, and I was able to match my pace against my goal and stay in control. Now I need to take this momentum and roll it forward.

I'm really grateful for my teammates that help break down the race pressure and mindless mileage in our weekly training. I got to spend time hanging with them post-race and that community is my second family.

It was very cool to meet Tom K from the blog on the bridge post-race. The sense of humor and camaraderie in his writing transfer in person. West Coast! Florida yeah!

I have a nagging question to answer: at 42, have I ran my fastest times? Nothing happened today to put off the Grim Reaper, but I don't think I lost ground either.

I think I still stand at a point where my fate is in my own hands.

5 miles this morning, somewhat sore but not too bad. 2 with Elise, 1 with Anna.

There are a couple days each winter when the weather is the perfect mix of temp, coolness and sun, and today was one of those days.

I wanted to run more but the chore backlog was too intense. That's a big question mark now. I don't know where I'm going to find the time to run higher mileage.

We've been waiting for the right age to watch The Last Airbender (cartoon, not the move of course) with our girls. Started last night, it was super fun.

Neat profile on a runner in our group, somehow they let her husband (and my lunch run partner) into the pictures too.

4 miles at lunch with Quint. I probably shouldn't have taken the time to run at all, but this week is going to be dismal with work travel.

Flew to Baltimore. Met two of my bosses for dinner, scheming. Chilly and light rain.

3 early miles on BWI loop. Light rain but nothing bad. There were a couple dirty clumps of snow here and there, which I snapped and sent back to my family in Florida as proof that winter exists.

I got back on Saturday, and continued the nonrunning tradition with another day of not running.

AM: 7 miles.I still didn't feel much like running, for no good reason. But I went out to meet up with the long run group for a few miles just to catch up.

PM: 2 miles with Anna on her bike.

6 miles at lunch with Quint.

I'm at a bit of a crossroads with running right now. I'm sure I will continue running, most days, and I'll keep going to track and the Sunday long runs. Mostly to see my friends.

But I don't feel like training right now. I'd like to race well, and see good results, but I'm not sure I have the drive (and willingness to sacrifice) that that would take.

It's a few things. I put so much energy into training for Twin Cities last summer that I think I burned myself out, in retrospect. Or maybe not. I really enjoyed that training cycle, but I am not ready to recreate it.

There's an internal project at work I've been investing a lot of time in. It looks like it will adopted by a couple clients soon, and I'm hopeful about its prospects. I do a lot of that development after the kids go down, and I'm really enjoying it. I put on the headphones and focus and it feeds a drive similar to running my head off. But I'm not sure it's compatible. When I run 100+ miles a week, I'm pretty much worthless by 8pm.

And more significantly there is my family. Things have only gotten busier in the last year. Since we moved 8 months ago, we're 15 minutes farther away from everything - school, shopping, activities. That doesn't sound like much, but when you double it for round trips, it adds up. And since the girls are older there are more things going on. We have an awesome Dad/daughters karate night now, and there's the usual homework/meal prep/life maintence stuff. It's just so much easier with less running.

I don't see an easy path to integrate all of it. If I was truly focused on racing now, I probably could do a lot of it. But without the underlying drive, it's not happening.

I explained all of this on Sunday to my friend Lee. He just smiled at me and told me I'd be back at it in a month or two. I'm not sure about that, but we'll see.