overtaking haynes

I'm definitely never running the day before a race ever again, I just feel so much better when I don't. I was hoping that no one good was going to be here but usual trail race winner Ben Nephew showed up and was in for the full marathon, but gave me a glimmer of hope when he said he may opt out for the 1/2. We started, and I was right behind Ben for the first mile or so but then the hill came and he pulled away. 3 others passed me on the first climb of 2000ft (a ski trail) but not by much and 2/3 of them were doing the half. Next was some single track and i got to the 5 mile aid station in 49 min feeling pretty good. More rolling single track and I got caught on an uphill by another guy who was doing the half and then i passed him on the downhill section but then we ran together.  A long steep downhill brought me to mile 8 which i dreaded having to climb on the 2nd loop which would be the reverse direction. The  course became ATV trails which were not in the best of shape but pretty good. Lots of up and downs to the aid station at mile 11, I had to poop which made me feel better. I think I need to stop eating dunkin donuts egg and cheese and the new flat bread egg thing before races. I like it though at 5am. Anyways, to get to the turn around point it was definitely longer than 2.1, probably 2.5 to 3 miles as the mostly downhill on good roads took a full 21 minutes. I saw Ben coming back and he was for sure about 12 minutes ahead at the turnaround which i got to in 2:05. I would have beaten the several people in the half marathon as I went out pretty easy and wasn't further back than a couple minutes on the winner of that. The second place guy was maybe 2 mins ahead of me and I was determined to catch him. I started very strongly on the uphill but became discouraged when i couldn't see him. I started to hurt a bit up the steep climbs but felt really strong again with about 7 miles to go. I was slightly nervous I could get caught since i was only ~6 mins ahead of the next people at the turnaround but knew i was running well enough that i should be fine. I ended up finishing 20 mins ahead of 4th place. I actually did catch up to the 2nd place guy in the last mile but it was only because he did a mini loop of ~1/3 mile cause he had his head down and missed the turn. He was too strong-a sub 3hr marathon runner according to his friends...hopefully not 2:59,  and he pulled away from me and kicked it in 2 mins ahead of me. All in all i don't feel too wrecked, haven't been getting sore from these weekend races but i think this week may be an exception...i definitely hurt a  little bit right now and waking up at 4:20am to drive to the 8am start doesn't help either....much better than last week. I only got ~6 mins slower on the return trip of 2:05 instead of 13 mins slower on the return trip of 1:20. 

Decided to go run at a place i hadn't been since h.s. It's on the way home from work in the hills behind a fairly large industrial park that is half empty. Kind of creepy actually in a way...I was only creeped out because i got lost and had to find my way back in the dark. I started running about 5:30...planned on running a couple hrs. I remembered the place being pretty hilly and remembered there being some vistas to explore. In looking for new places to run online this apparently is the start of a trail that runs 15 miles in one direction through 3 towns. I planned on doing an out and back...I ran about 2.75 miles to what looked like the trail was going to come out near a road and i decided to turn back and explore some of the side trails i opted not to take on the way out. I was at literally 35 mins or so, but the terrain was pretty awesome. I started at about 450 feet and got up to almost 900 and down and up several times. On the way back i took some side trails and found an unexpected beautifully made rock stairs and also cut out steps in rock, as well as a sweet bench with a good overlook. My downfall was taking another side trail and thinking i was somewhere i wasn't. I ended up getting down to what i thought was the place i needed to be but then i checked my gps watch as it was getting dark and i was like crap! Needless to say i had to climb a hill again and run back completely in the dark with the owls hooting. at least there appears to be miles of trails back here and i saw not a single person which i like. i'll have to go back soon. i think i'm going to try to hit the track tomorrow for a 5x1000 workout but we'll see if the track is open and also how my motivation is. Surprisingly i wasn't sore at all from the marathon. i don't really get sore anymore and i wonder if that means i don't push my body as hard as i can or if i'm just well trained for the races i do. 

went to the track today after work...wore the racing flats for the first time i'm planning on wearing in the marathon. of course my little left toe got hammered with blisters like it always does on the track. Anyways, i didn't really know what to expect. Haynes had cranked out a solid 5x1000 workout recently averaging between 3:20 and 3:25 but he had been doing some speed workouts in the past couple months while i had only done 3, 5k to 5 mile threshold runs in addition to trail racing 14 miles to a marathon the past 4 weeks. I felt fine on my run yesterday and also from the trail marathon minus the soreness on the ball of my foot. it doesn't hurt during the run but hurts to walk the next day. it went away so i'm not worried about it being a fracture...i bet it got bruised from the tortuous downhills...ok, enough of procrastinating with my times....warmed up 1.8 miles, stretched for the first time in forever and then it was judgement. I knew from the first 200 that i was not going to be hitting Haynes times today and ran a 3:29 1k. i then jogged 400m in about 2:30 and did a 3:32...looking week! then a 3:29, 3:30 and 3:33 for the last one. According to Daniels I went from a 60 vdot from my mile time back in may to a 57 vdot based on my interval workout today. What I would run if I could do a 5:11 mile. I do think i could have run much better with Haynes there too so maybe it's not fair to compare. I'm actually not disappointed, I didn't really hurt, just the speed wasn't there. I'm NOT going to race this weekend. I've said this before but i really think i'm going to focus on speed. Even with this workout i could hit a 2:50 marathon according to Daniels if i was properly marathon trained, which i'm most likely not! If i can drop these to all under 3:29 in a few weeks i'll have some confidence that i can break 3hrs going into the marathon. 1 mile cool down.

had an eye doctor appointment in the morning in the next town over and brought my running stuff because i wanted to check out some new trails. I thought the GPS in the car would be enough to find it but what should have taken 10 min took about 30 cause it would bring me to the edge of the state park but i would have had to go through people's back yards on dead end roads. the ball of my foot was hurting again but i'm sure it's from the new shoes i've been wearing...although i brought the same shoes again. The trail began overgrown but after about a mile turned beautiful and I got some good views after a good climb to 1,050ft which is impressive for where i live. did and out and back but the gps went out on the out at 6.1 miles and never really recovered. i wasn't feeling well for starters and i think a lot of that had to do with the pain in my foot and also that i had only had a light breakfast and was out there running for a couple hrs. ran about 10 +/-1 a mile a guess. Excited to explore the next segment of the Ives trail which unfortunately isn't quite finished yet. It's ~15 miles one way over all of the high points in the area.