| Location: Rome,Italy Member Since: Dec 13, 2010 Gender: Male Goal Type: Other Running Accomplishments: Best marathon 3:14:40 (2011)
Best Half-Marathon 1:26:38 (2013)
Best 10k 40:22 (2009) Best 5k 20:18 (2004)
Short-Term Running Goals: Marathon under 3:10:00 Half marathon under 1:25:00 2013 Races
Long-Term Running Goals: Carpe diem Personal: My name is Eugenio I was born near Rome, Italy, in 1972 and lived there for 29 years, then in 2001 I moved to Salt Lake City for work and for seven years and one month that was my home, since 2008 I am back to Italy. I started running in 2003 when I realized I could not ride my bike throughout the Utah winter.
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| | No run today. Drove back home from vacation. I am looking forward to resuming my regular schedule. |
| | After one week running in the mountains with snow and sun, in a remote village in central Italy, I am back to the reality of life commuting and working in Rome and back home at night running in a well lit industrial area doing the same loop 10-15 times. At least my running buddy was there to share the misery. 7 miles at 5:53/km. |
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I did a very good evening workout, 10 miles at HM pace 4:18/km (1:08:48 total time), and then half mile cool down. I feel I earned the right to have dinner tonight :-).
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| | 7.2 miles at 5:38/km, recovering run in the evening in the industrial area. Not much else to report. |
| | Evening run 7.5 miles at 4:28/km then 0.5 miles cool down. Another good workout to test/train my perspective/ideal/dream marathon pace. | |
| | Slow recovery run 7 miles at 6:15/km. I am recovering from yesterday and "tapering" for tomorrow long run. |
| | Morning long run around Vico lake. 20 miles at 5:34/km. It wasn't very fast but I really wanted to "rest" a little bit after some fast runs this week and I still wanted to be on my for 3 hours. Have a good relaxing week end.
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| | I really enjoyed the spring weather (70F at the end inside my car). 9 miles at 5:36/km around Vico lake. Everybody decided to do the same thing walking, running, biking, sunbathing or just enjoying the really good weather; according to the weather forecast there will be snow on the ground in Rome again by the end of this week.
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| | After work I spent one hour at the tire shop and finally got home tired and without any desire to go running.
After running for two days in the morning, with beautiful views and warm temperatures, going back to my usual route at night in the dark with high humidity and cold wind it was not fun. In spite of all negative thoughts I managed to do my usual 7 miles at relaxing pace (5:47/km).
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| | Not enough time to run tonight, 4.5 miles at 5:36/km.
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| | Big evening run, 16.2 miles at MP (4:29/km). I have never done so many miles at MP in the past, I am very excited and the marathon is just 2 months away. As a side effect I have nausea and not feeling hungry at all, right now I don't care I feel very happy.
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| | Slow evening run. The good news after last night run are: I am not very sore, I am feeling good overall and it is a good excuse to run slowly tonight. Just 7 miles at 5:51/km not much else to report. |
| | Evening run 5 miles at 5:32/km. I enjoyed the cool breeze that brought rain and then at the end snow flurries. | |
| | Second run of the season with snow on the ground, in some areas around the lake was about a foot. Today I could not care less of my pace or miles (no Garmin) I just enjoyed being outside while nobody was around, the view of the lake and the trees around were magnificent, the only negative aspect this snow (compared to Utah snow) has an high content of water so after 300 meters my feet and ankles were wet and for the rest of the run. I really enjoyed the run. Have a good week end.
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| | Evening run around my neighbourough 7 miles at 5:33/km. |
| | Another good workout at marathon pace is in the book. 10 miles by myself at 4:22/km. Now mini taper before sunday race.
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| | When I was on the train on the way home I realized it was the perfect evening for not going to run, all excuses perfectly lined up in front of me: tired from yesterday's run, tired from a full day at work, I have to go grocery shopping, to iron my shirts, to finish a presentation for tomorrow, my running partner was not going to join me and it was raining. I got home from the grocery store, I put my running clothes on and I went out and I decided to stay out for one full hour even for just a long walk. I ended up with a perfect 10km at 6:00/km. I am done with ironing and now I have to work on my presentation. This was a very good mental training.
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| | Nice relaxing run 7.3 miles at 5:55/km. Time for dinner now. |
| | I managed to run 3.5 miles after the department meeting was done and before dinner. At least I will be rested for the upcoming race.
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| Race: |
Tre Comuni (13.66 Miles) 01:34:54, Place overall: 266, Place in age division: 43 | |
This race is called Tre Comuni (three towns) race because the
race starts in Nepi goes to Civita Castellana and comes back to Nepi through
Castel Sant’Elia. It is a 22 km race (not the 22.3 km they advertise, they cut
it a couple of years ago but they still advertise the same distance) very
popular in the Rome area in spite of its altitude profile and for sure not a race
where you can establish your PR (the highest point is 800 feet and the lowest
point is 200feet above see level). Many consider this race the beginning of their running season
and just do it as a training run.
The morning started with a 10 minutes drive to Nepi, it
was raining, just light rain and temperatures around 41F not too bad overall. I
stayed inside my car until 20 minutes before the start and then I went out to
find a good spot at the start, because with 2000 people and a first km uphill
on a narrow road passing under a roman aqueduct (see picture below) it is very
difficult to keep your speed.
My goal was to try to keep 4:10/km until mile 8 at the
lowest point and then manage to finish under 1:35.
After the first km rain stopped and the conditions were just
perfect, kms were passing fast, these are my splits for the first 13km (8
miles) that in spite of the continuous up and down where pretty consistent and
exactly where I wanted them to be:
4:08/km, 4:12, 4:11, 4:09, 4:01, 4:07, 4:06, 4:08, 4:08, 4:11,
3:58, 4:07, 3:57.
Then fun began when we started going up the steep canyon walls
and my splits show the different kind of “entertainment”:
5:19/km, 4:56, 4:37, 4:31,
4:31, 4:38, 4:31, 4:22, 4:19.
I really wanted to go back to low 4:2x after the first two
steep kms, but it was hard and only during the last two kms with the town of
Nepi in sight across another canyon I started pushing again a good pace. The last
km was a killer, was uphill and on cobblestone on a narrow street but within a “tunnel”
of cheering people (that was the only crowd support throughout the race, except
for the farmers along the way angry because the road was close to traffic), that’s
why my final split was “good”.
I managed to achieve my goal to stay under 1:35, but
considering the last two “decent” final kms, I think I left a few seconds to
the course, I mentally gave up a little bit after the first big hill and I
could not push any “faster” pace even though my breathing was fine and I did
not have any leg problems. I have to keep working on my mental training.
Final statistics: final time 1:34:54 good for 266th
place out of 1978 finishers, 43rd in my age group, male winner won
with 1:08:54, first woman with 1:20:14. My team placed 17th with 27
finishers.
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| | 8.5 slow recovery miles at 6:16/km. Legs and body are still tired from yesterday but no specific pain. In a couple of days I should be able to resume a decent pace during my training runs.
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| | Another slow recovery run 8.5 miles at 6:00/km. I am just tired and eager to go to sleep. |
| | Not enough time to run tonight, 5 miles no watch. Recovery is going fine. |
| | My legs are almost back to normal, 10 miles at 5:24/km but I started pretty slow and finished at marathon pace. I am very happy that last race didn't disrupt too much my training. |
| | 5 miles at 5:30/km, not much else for tonight. |
| | I am rarely able to do during a training what I planned in advance, today was not one of those day. I wanted to run 29 km at marathon pace and even though my running buddy bailed out (he sent me a message late last night) I accomplished that. The only "negative" thing was that it was an awesome day with perfect running conditions, I felt like I had an unfair advantage, other than that I felt great from the beginning to the end, kms were passing fast, I didn't loose my concentration and during the last km I really felt great, not slowing down. I am building up my confidence for the upcoming marathon.
29.2km in 2:10:34 4:30/km
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| | 7 miles at 5:51/km. It was a slow recovery run, but considering yesterday's run, I feel almost completely recovered. |
| | I know my entries are boring a few big runs and a lot of recovery runs, this is the way it is right now. Another recovery run, 8.6 miles at 5:51/km. My focus is pretty much on my long runs at marathon pace during the weekend and lots of slow miles during the week.
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| | 8.2 miles at 5:53/km. Evening run alone, not much else. |
| | Another 8.2 miles at 5:44/km, life is officially back in my legs. |
| | Tonight I felt really good but I didn't want to push the pace too much, I started very slow and progressively accelerated to marathon pace and a little below. 8.6 miles total at 4:52/km average. Ready to rock and roll this weekend with another long run.
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| | Long stressful day at work I was very glad to go running to clean up my brain. 5 miles at 5:33/km. It was my rest day for the week before tomorrow long run. |
| | I wanted to run, after last week, a longer distance at marathon pace and for all the obvious reasons (last week long fast run, last week mileage and just two days ago another 6 good miles at marathon pace) did not happen. I started feeling so and so but well rested, not great, but it was OK until I reached the first incline of the road I started slowing down, bad sign not even a mile into the run. Last week I was always 10-20 seconds under goal time, today I struggled to stay 10-20 seconds above, when I got to mile 13.7 with a decent hill in front of me I gave up, since then things went from slower to bad, I did 13.7 in 1:39 and the remaing 6.5 miles in 54:00 in spite of the fact I was trying to stay below 8min/mile. I walked a mile at the end to get to the car just to relax my muscles and keep my legs moving, but I was really tired. Negative things : I am not able to sustain yet two big runs at MP on two consecutive weekends on high mileage. Positive things: it was another spectacular spring day with perfect running conditions, I did at least another half marathon and change at MP and I managed to complete on dead legs 6.5 miles (alone).
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| | Rest day today. Trying to recover from yesterday's run. One hour core exercises. |
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I got home and I was sick with fever and headache.
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| | I am feeling much better than yesterday, I went out for a short run and I struggled for two miles. |
| | I was feeling much better tonight I went out with the idea of doing a 10k and then I warmed up, legs and lungs were doing their job, I ended up with a few more km. I am happy that things are going back to normal.
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| | The last 7 days I ended up doing an un-intentional tapering week. I discovered that doing two long runs for two consecutive weekends at marathon pace it is not in my legs and in my brain. During the second one after 13-14 miles I slowed down big time with my legs totally numb toward the end. On top of that the next few days I got sick and the rest of the week was stressfull due to a big deadline this coming wednesday. In spite of that I wanted to do another 13 miler last saturday at marathon pace thinking that I was completely recovered, but it didn't happen, after ten miles I was already exhausted and I stopped after 10 miles. I learned the lesson the hard way, too many miles too fast combined with stress at work means disaster. Now I am in real recovery phase, this week just a few slow miles with the goal to try to recover for sunday's race.
I think I got a little bit "overtrained" but I am still hopeful for sunday, otherwise, as usual, I will get what I can. I am keeping my "legs" crossed (not much running).
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| | Rest and relaxing day, at least in the running department. Last day of stress at work. |
| | A nice 5 mile run, my legs feel much better than last saturday. Tomorrow another rest day just to be cautious for next sunday. Weather is cold again, strong wind from the north, conditions for next sunday look bad, oh well not much I can do about it. | |
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Last training run before sunday's half marathon. 5 miles at 6:00/km.
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| | Rest day, cleaning up, pruning trees and taking care of the garden. I am trying to relax my mind. |
| Race: |
Roma Ostia half marathon (13.1 Miles) 01:27:58, Place overall: 1094, Place in age division: 230 | |
The short
version I started with the goal of keeping 4:10/km till the end for 1:28 final
time and I finished in 1:27:58.
The longest
version. I don’t get why this race is so popular (about 10000 runners) it is
not scenic and it is just a long straightaway on a freeway from Rome basket
ball arena to the sea (Ostia), for those of you living in Utah it is like
running from the Energy Solutions Arena to the Salt Lake marina, on I-80, or on
the causeway from Antelope Island. No crowd support along the way except for
the wind usually coming from the sea inland making the whole run miserable and
nothing to engage your eyes except for a couple of hills.
Back to my
day. I woke up at 6 am and by 7 I was on my way to Rome with my running buddy. We parked our car
½ mile from the start but very close to the subway station, where we would come
back. We realized that the temperatures were not as low as expected, around 35
degrees, cloudy sky and no wind, we thought that if these were the conditions in
Ostia it would have
been perfect.
We stopped
at the porta potties, we undressed for the race and we put on a plastic cover
to try to stay warm along with a couple of cotton T-shirt, and then we headed
for our corral, called in Italian “the cage”. We went inside to try to stay as
close as we could to the front line and we waited there 30 minutes warming up just
jumping up and down along with the rest of the crowd.
Finally at 9:15
sharp race started we got rid of our extra "clothes" and in 15 secs we started our race. My running buddy went
ahead immediately, he is faster than me, and I saw him again at the finish
line. After 1km there was the huge wall of the 1:30 pacing group occupying all
four lanes so I decided to push to pass them and finally I was able to run my
own pace. From km 2 to km 6 I was on pace (or slightly ahead, due to the surge
to pass the 1:30 group) and I felt very relaxed and the conditions were still
great. First short hill (a few hundred meters) I slowed down just a little but
then I recovered my cruising pace immediately, second hill was longer approx. the
whole km and I slowed down even more but I recovered lost time in the down hill
side. The third hill (called “ il camping” hill, because there is campground at
the top) is the worst is 1.5 km long and after two hills can kill your pace for
the rest of the race, plus on top of the hill you can see the finish line (we
were at mile 8) and if it is windy you will meet Sir Wind right there. I
accepted my fate and I started slowing down all the way to 4:56, instant speed,
for a 4:46 average pace, at the top there was a marching band but more
importantly there was no wind. The next km was flat at the top, I kept loosing
ground my legs were dead, I felt impossible to recover my top speed. On the
downhill section, I went back to my 4:10 pace and I felt almost worse, if I
could not go under 4:10 downhill no way I could keep pushing the same pace for
the rest of the race. I decided to take one km at a time and strange enough I
started again going under 4:10, with two km from the end my legs were pieces of
lead, I kept my head down, the only real mental push was during the last km
when I realized that even slowing down to 5min/km I would still improve my PR. After
the finish line I stopped the GPS and I could not believe I was under 1:28.
I found my
running buddy, he finished with a good 1:25:39, we collected our stuff and we
walked for another km to the bus that took us to the train station to get the
subway back to our car in Rome.
My goal for
this race was to try to go under 1:27, I started conservatively shooting for
1:28 and then I realized that with those hills I could not keep the pace for a
faster finish. I am incredibly happy about my performance, I mentally never
gave up, thanks also to the huge crowd of runners, every time I slowed down I
was passed by ten people so I knew right away I was slowing down, that’s the
reason because many people do their PR here, in spite of the hills and the
wind.
Plus as added
bonus weather was perfect, overall a great race. Now time to recover and taper
for the marathon in three weeks. Stay tuned. My splits:
Split Time min/Km
Delta min/Km
Km 5 0:20:39 4,07 0:20:39 4,07
Km 10 0:41:31 4,09 0:20:52 4,10
Km 15 1:02:35 4,10 0:21:04 4,12
Arrivo 1:27:58 4,10 0:25:23 4,09
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I went out just for a slow motion jog to keep blood flowing in my muscles. I stopped after 4 miles because it started raining I didn't want to get wet. Legs tonight are already much better than this morning, my right leg is much more sore than my left one, this is the first time I noticed this asymmetry.
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Another slow recovery run 5 miles in 52:40. My goal for tonight's run was to run longer and farther than yesterday. Unfortunately tonight I didn't have the luxury of stay dry, because it was already raining when I started and after 2km I was soaking wet. My legs are still sore, my right quadriceps is more sore a lot more than my left one, but full recovery is in sight. This is the first time after a half marathon I am feeling so sore, it is very similar to marathon soreness and for this reason I am very "happy" (obviously only a runner can think is good feeling crippled), it means I left on the road all I had.
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Another wet and rainy and cold recovery run, 5 miles a little bit faster than yesterday in 48 minutes. Legs are feeling much better
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| | Last long run before the race. I wanted to stay on my feet for 2 hours and 30 minutes and I finished in 2:35. It was refreshing running slow during the day in spite of the light rain and humid weather it felt relaxing. Two more weeks to rest and finish the recover from the half and I will be ready for the marathon. |
| | 6.2 miles at 5:24/km. I am afraid to say that I completely recovered from Saturday run and I am ready to taper for the next 10 days. Last november I was feeling great two weeks before Florence marathon and then 4 days before the race I fell sick with bronchitis, fever and sore throat. I will try to focus my mind on positive aspects.
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| | No enough time to run tonight, "tapering" doubts are coming. |
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7 miles at 5:10/km. Tonight speed came back into my legs, if the marathon was no approaching so fast it would have been a perfect day for a fast workout. At least I can feel my legs behaving in a normal way, no complain.
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| | 6.2 miles at 5:50/km, nothing special. Just a few more days of this and I should be ready for the marathon. | |
| | Two more runs before the marathon. This is the time when all doubts are coming out. Plus during the last month I did not run as often as I would. I also started questioning myself if it is a good idea doing an half and a full marathon three weeks apart (the reason I did them is because they are the two greatest races around here). This is the second year I am playing this scheme and I am not sure if I will do it again. I am not concerned about physical recovery but more about my mental strength. After the half I felt I achieved a great result and it was really difficult to be "hungry" again for a full marathon. I know I know this is just the usual taper madness, I have to trust my training, but because my training was not very strong during the last thirty days doubts are getting stronger and stronger. There is not much I can do about it right now and somehow write them down helps a little bit, at least tonight I felt very relaxed, the first couple of miles were under an heavy rain shower and then when I was fully wet it stopped raining and the rest of the run was good. Tomorrow rest day and my ritual haircut before the marathon.
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6.2 miles at 5:45/km. One more run on friday and then the big on sunday. Tonight it was raining from the beginning, I ended up wet and stronger. This run will go in the books as a good mental training run.
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I didn't go out to do 1.5 miles, I wanted 5 or 6 as my last run before the race. I had a bad headache all the afternoon I was hoping it would go away while running (sometimes it does) but it didn't so after 10 minutes I was feeling worse with nausea and I went back home. This is the marathon cycle with the largest "taper" I have ever experienced almost five weeks excluding the half marathon 3 weeks ago. I am not very happy about it but at least I should be well rested. My original three goals for sunday's race were: goal A 3:10-3:15 goal B under 3:20 goal C under 3:27 (my 2010 time); right now I am still shooting for goal A and I will ready to accept with a smile any finishing time will come.
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| Race: |
Rome Marathon (26.2 Miles) 03:24:21, Place overall: 1396, Place in age division: 170 | | This was my 11th marathon, not the one that I planned but I am still happy about the result achieved (it was my goal C to go under 3:27). I was shooting for sub 3:15 but it was not in my legs today. This is the recap of the race: everything was perfect at 7:00 am we were at the starting area, cool temperatures around 8 degrees Celsius with a light breeze from the north. We entered the designated corrals at 8 and then at 9:07 we moved. The first 2 km were a little bit congested but I was happy to have a "wall" of people to block my stupidity and by mile 10 I was perfectly were I wanted to be on track for a 3:13-3:14 finish time. I passed the half with 1:36:40 and the whole system was fine, I was running smoothly and I was very proud not having pushed a faster pace, then all of a sudden in the next 5 km I started slowing down and by the 30th km I was in a total drama. I could not go under 5 min/km my breathing was fine but my legs were no longer cooperating with my will to push. I straggled until the end, I didn't give up but I watched my goal B slowly going away without having the possibility to fight and then I finished with the just one goal left. These are the emotions from the race: I was really looking forward to running this race after last year, it is an incredible feeling if you are born around Rome to have the honor to run on some the streets in downtown (where only cars are allowed), empty just for the race. After the start, the race goes through some residential areas not that beautiful, at mile 6 we rejoined the river Tiber and we followed it back and forth for the next 13 miles, sun and blue skies were just picture perfect and the entrance in the road leading to St Peter was just as special as last year. Approaching St. Peter was something really unique, it was the only place were the stream of people running in front of me looked so small in the vast emptiness of St. Peter square, after leaving that area and the half was behind we entered the no-man's land of a non descriptive area where no supporters were around until mile 20 when we re-entered Rome downtown. This part was full of supporting people, we run through many narrow streets and then through Piazza Navona, Via del Corso, Spanish steps, Fontana di Trevi and the scenery was great, the last two km took us around the Foro and the main archeological area until the arch of the last km had the Coliseum in the background, last hill around the Coliseum a short downhill and the finish line was in sight. Overall it was a great experience. Rome marathon is a hard marathon in spite of being a sea level flatish race, there are many ups and downs, sharp corners and the "official" 5 miles of uneven cobblestones make the race hard on your ankles. Only during the two Rome marathons I had at the end really bad calf cramps, I never experienced them before (after Ogden, Salt Lake, Des News and Park City) and I think cobblestones are responsible. I missed goal A and goal B and I consider my time only a partial consolation, I started this race with the sincere hope that under well 3:20 was easily achievable, but I learned that the word "easy" must not be used in the same sentence with "marathon". I missed the last month of training because the half marathon and a deadline at work. I am still a student in this field, I need more mileage and more mileage. In three weeks I will have a trail marathon, it won't be a redemption race more a fun/adventure race. Next road marathon next fall.
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| | Rest day. Actually I went for a brisk walk at night just to relax. |
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First run after the marathon, my legs are almost recovered, calves are ok, cramps did not leave any residual soreness and my quadriceps are just a little bit tense. I will keep this mileage for the rest of the week just to enjoy the spring weather, next week I will start again to increase my miles.
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3.3 miles at whatever pace it is left in my legs, no watch, just enjoyed the evening breeze waiting impatiently for the warm italian spring weather and more hours of light at night for running next week after the daylight saving time change.
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| | Another good recovery run of 3.5 miles at night. The weather is still relatively cold at night, spring time is not here yet. |
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Another short recovery run, actually this is the second run completely pain free since sunday. Life is not back yet into my legs but I am working on it. Tomorrow long run to check the course of the trail marathon, it will be more a fun exploratory run than a real run.
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| | I wanted to explore some of the trails of the upcoming trail marathon, my original plan was to do 16-20 miles but at the top of a hill 7 miles from my car I realized my legs were still fried from last race. I turned around and headed home. On the way down and during the last 3 miles I was really tired, at least I enjoyed the good cool sunny weather. Enjoy your weekend.
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| | A nice run along the Adriatic sea in Pescara. Temperature, sunny skies and a cool breeze made it a perfect run. My legs are still tired but toward the end of the run I felt I was able to push the pace again, 5.3 miles in 54 minutes. |
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Thanks to the Daylight Savings time change, at 7pm there was light, so we started our "spring-summer" season going running near the lake. It was refreshing not running the same loop in the industrial area over and over and even though it was past sunset with cloudy skies there was enough light to enjoy a good run. My running buddy and I officially celebrated the end of the winter season with a decent recovery run. My plan for this week is to keep 6 miles/day for the rest of the week hoping that some slow miles might help the post-marathon recovery.
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It was a good run, perfect weather, legs are finally cooperating. More than a 10k in 52:39. Spring is here.
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| | Good progressive run from 6:00/km to 4:30/km toward the end. A nice 10km in 53:30. |
| | Tonight I wanted to check my legs and I wanted to see if my "dream" MP was still there. I started at 5:00/km I progressed in a couple of km to cruising speed (4:30/km) and then I progressively went faster to catch up the initial slow kms. Overall a 10km in 44:20 faster and better than expected. It is a good start for a new spring-summer training cycle. |
| | Good run, 5 miles in 43:20. The sunset on the hills was really beautiful this evening. | |
| | I did another 6.2 miles a 54 minutes something. I decided for this week to keep a 10k as a maintenance/recovery/taper and at least I succeeded. A few more runs before next week trail marathon. This trail run will be more a fun/training race/run. I am really looking forward to starting a more regular running schedule without having a marathon in the near future. Spring exploded today blue skies, warm temperatures, cool breeze, perfect day to be out.
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| | My original plan was to do a 10 miler slow and easy, but I was alone and temperatures were kind of warm for this time of the year, I did not trust too much my will power, when I met a couple of friends running in a different direction I decided to join them so there was no turning around. Pace was nice and easy, conversation was not that great because they were on the last section of their 18 miler so they were struggling a little bit and could not care less of my desire to talk. Today for the first time after the marathon my legs were trying to tell me to push the pace just a little bit, but next weekend race will give them plenty of opportunities to go faster if they still want. It was more a summer morning rather than a spring one, everyone was out on the lake beach to take all the sun possible. Crazy weather.
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| | Planned rest day, the headache was supporting this decision. | |
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A good relaxing run 6.2 miles in 55 minutes. A strong wind from the north cleared up the skies and lowered the temperatures. I am feeling recovered from the marathon and ready to assault another one next sunday.
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| | Another nice run, 5 miles at whatever pace. One more run on friday.
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Planned rest day. For next sunday's race I don't have any real goal. I would like to start slow and easy, the first 2 km are straight uphill, and trying to keep an easy pace until km 19 when we reach the highest point of the race and then on a more rolling terrain trying to keep a strong finish pace until the end. This race will be my third of fourth trail race (after the Bonneville shoreline trail marathons and the Wahsatch steeplechase) but obviously on a smaller scale compared to the other two Utah races. Total altitude gain will be approx. 1600meters considering that the whole race is held on hills no higher than 1200m and it starts at 800m the organizers did a pretty good job to include all the steepest sections possible. This is not a goal but more a prediction, I think I should be able to finish between 4:15 and 4:45, but really any finish time will be welcome. After three big races since the beginning of the year I am really looking forward to some more "relaxing" training time, increasing mileage, and a more regular schedule without worrying too much about tapering, recovering and racing. According to the forecast and current weather right now, sunday it will be perfect more summer than spring but no rain (and mud), warm temperatures and a light breeze.
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| | 4 sweet miles. Weather right now is crazy is definitively summer no spring at all, temperatures are around 30 degrees Celsius (80 F). |
| Race: |
Ecomaratona Monti Cimini (trail marathon) (26.2 Miles) 04:50:50, Place overall: 42 | |
This was my 2nd marathon in 3 weeks, 2nd trail marathon of my "running career", 12th marathon since 2004. I don't consider myself a trail runner even though I spent a considerable amount of miles on trails. Trail running around here is not big and this race was at its first edition with 140 runners. It represents a decent number considering also that 30 miles away there was also an half marathon with 390 people. In Italy races are usually this size because to race you need a medical certificate and being part of a sport group, so this keeps away most of the occasional runners. This race was just 10 minutes drive from my house in the beautiful monastery-town of San Martino al Cimino. I woke up at 6:30 and by 7:30 I was on my way to the start. At 8:00 I was already around the starting line chatting with people, no pressure to gain the first positions, just enjoying the friendly atmosphere in preparation for the race. The race starting line was at the north gate of the town (very narrow approx. one car-wide) and then we immediately started going straight uphill on asphalt road for 2km to reach the crater ridge line. This is a volcanic territory with hills no higher than 1200 meters and the whole race consisted on climbing and descending the walls of this volcanic lake (Vico lake) and some of the highest peaks around. After 2km, the rest of the race until km 40 was on trails, then again 2 km on asphalt to go back to San Martino. I started enjoying the hill and then I tried hard to restrain myself until km 17. During this section where we lost altitude, I restrained myself probably a little bit too much, but it was already hot and I was sweating too much. At km 17 started the most important climb of the day with 2km to reach the top of Monte Cimino no views from the top because the forest is too thick, but the whole ground in any direction in the top 50 meters was completely covered with white and blue flowers. It was really beautiful, I stopped with other runners around to take a group picture, even though we didn't know each other, we felt we were sharing the same feelings. We dropped down to reach an aid station and then we climbed back up through a different route and we headed back to the crater lake. At km 20 there was an aid station "manned" by five silent girls (they didn't look italian) offering water and the usual staff, I thought I heard one whispering something in english, so I said loud with my worst american-english accent "Ey has it going girls!!!!!!!" and they exploded in laughing and comments and wanted to chat and talk, they were from all over US but none of them from Utah, I didn't ask them what they were doing in the middle of nowhere at an aid station of a trail marathon and it will remain a mistery. From km20 to km 29 we regained all the altitude lost during the first part, one hill after the other partly walking partly running, this was also the hardest point, all negative thoughts kicked in, at a fountain I submerged my head in the water, I ate some candies and kept moving to the aid station at km 29 at the top of the crater. That aid station had loud music and two very nice cheering women-angels, I drank some more water and gatorade, ate some more food and probably the combination of all those things together brough new life to my legs. Next 3 km were straight down to the lake and I was flying on a technical trail like I was crazy, I couldn't believe how fast I was going down compared to the misery of 10 minutes earlier, I reached the bottom and then moved along on a rolling section at slower pace until I reached the swampy area of the lake. This was at km35 only 7 km to go with 2 of them on a dry mud/sandy mosquito infested terrain until I reached the base of the crater again. Then another 2 km straight uphill and this was painful, I was running the last 2 km with another guy and we were walking uphill, when at certain point I realized I was alone because he stopped and he was trying to recover, I kept moving up until there was a runner in distress seating on a rock with some volunteers around, he was feeling sick and nauseous and he couldn't keep moving, we were on a single track trail and no vehicle could come down, the doctor was on his way down but I wasn't sure how they could move the runner without his collaboration. I started moving again I reached after another km the top and the end of the trail and the ambulance with the doc just arrived. The doctor with his tools was nicely dressed and there was no way he could go down for 1 km with his leather shoes, I told him more or less what was going on and then I kept moving while they called a guy on motorcycle to try to bring the runner to the ambulance. At that point 2 km of pure downhill hell separeted me from the finish line and I think I was moving really at 5k speed ignoring my screaming quads. The last twist of the race was that they made us go to the bottom of the town and the arrival was at the top with a final stretch of 200 meters of pure uphill agony. After crossing the finish line and receiving the finisher medal I walked a few steps and for the first time in my running career I left on the cobblestone the last 1/2 liter of gatorade and water I drank that was obviously seating in my stomach deciding where to go. I predicted a finish time between 4:15 and 4:45 and I was right on, if I had pressed the first part a little bit more I would have finished 10-15 minutes earlier, but time didn't really matter. It was an incredible experience on a very beautiful, well organized course. For pictures of the course and maps you can check their website and start practicing your italian. http://www.ecomaratonadeimonticimini.it/ecomaratona_dei_monti_cimini.html
I hope this race will keep growing in the next few years because trail running can be a nice "relaxing" break from road racing.
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| | Much needed rest day, both mentally and physically. |
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Another planned rest day. I struggled during the last two days with lack of good sleep. Legs are tired but recovering, I feel just general fatigue.
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| | Last night was the first good sleeping night since the marathon, this morning I felt refreshed and ready to resume a more normal schedule. I went out to do a short run, I didn't wear my Garmin but it was at a good clip. Cooler temperatures and clear skies helped to enjoy the run. I will keep this mileage for the next few days just to stay safe, I don't want to get injured.
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| | Another nice 5k at 5:30ish/km. Temperatures dropped in the last 3 days from 85F to 50F. Usual crazy spring weather.
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| | 10 miles in 1:22:30. It is good to resume a normal running schedule without worrying too much about upcoming race. I am planning in the next few months to build a consistent mileage base while enjoying the nice spring weather, then surviving the summer heat and finally start "tapering" again for a good fall marathon. |
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6.2 miles in 55 and something. The news of the day was the overall incredible performance in Boston by the winners and by our "winner" Paul Petersen. Incredible day for the whole running community around the world.
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My legs are recovering fast and furious, tonight I pushed the pace toward the end of the run doing a good progression from 5:45-6:00/km to 4:30-4:15/km at the end overall 5:00/km average. Weather was great, just cool enough while the sun was going down. A good day overall.
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| | 8 miles in 1:05:37. A good run overall. |
| | Another boring entry for a good run overall, 8 miles in 1:02:32. I wish this spring weather, would last forever. |
| | This was more a recovery/relaxing run after the last two runs slightly faster than usual. My speed is back but I feel I am working much harder than I should to run at that speed, sooner or later everything should be back to normal. I just need to be patient. |
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This morning was raining, after lunch was still raining so I decided to go out anyway, waiting was no going to change the weather. Unfortunately my legs did not want to come with me (the usual lame excuses: it's going to be wet, we are tired and so on) I got mad and decided to leave them at home as an extreme punishement (they usually enjoy go running around the lake in broad daylight). Unfortunately for me, without them, I struggled all 8 miles long finishing with a new record time of 1:14:35. I was wet and a little bit depressed for my legs at home enjoying whatever they were enjoying. Happy Easter/Buona Pasqua everybody!!!
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| | I am glad that Easter holidays are over, I can resume my regular schedule. I did my usual route around the lake after work in 51:37. Tomorrow I am planning to push both the pace and the distance.
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| | Tonight I wanted to test my legs, after two marathons in one month and lots of tapering/recovery runs and many of them just flat without and decent speed. I started with the goal of finishing 6.2 miles in 45 minutes I ended up finishing in 42:30. It was a big confidence boost. I felt tired and for sure I was pushing all the time, no stroll in the park, but when I realized that not only I was maintaining my pace but I was accelerating I was very happy. Last 0.8 miles at slow pace to resume a decent heart rate before driving home.
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| | Good run around the lake 7.2 miles in 58:18, I thought I was going to be much slower after yesterday run, I wasn't. It means after three week of slow runs I am really rested and my sluggish runs are caused by my lazy brain rather than by fatigued legs. |
| | 8 miles in 1:14:20 nothing really special, during the afternoon there were several thunderstorms so there was a very high humidity. | |
| | Morning run, I wanted to do an half marathon in 1:35 I ended up doing it in 1:36:57. I am still happy about the result, it is in the marathon pace territory, so it is good. I felt it was difficult to maintain the planned pace (4:30/km), the two minutes at the end were the result of the slow start during the first 10km then when all my hopes to finish under 1:40 were almost gone I kept the pace ending up doing the last 11km at 4:30 or slightly faster. It was probably a mix between tired legs and mind that were not working in sync. |
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Good evening run, 10 miles around the lake in 1:23:31. Light rain and warm wind it was like running in tropical weather.
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Good relaxing run, I started slow at 6:00/km and finished fast at 4:18/km, 10k in 51:30. Nothing else to report.
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| | 10 miles at dream marathon pace finishing strong in 1:11:17. Time to go to bed. | |
| | Night run, I finished my 6.2 miles in 57:22 around the industrial area at 10:15pm. Nothing really special about this one, it was just a recovery run, but very needed to clear up my brain after a long day at work. Time to go to bed. |
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Good evening run, the sun was still out and the light breeze made it much easier than last night. Slightly longer run but the time was almost the same. I am looking forward to a couple of good runs this weekend.
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| | One of those rare afternoon runs, it was a little bit warmer than expected, but I managed to do 13.1 in 1:35:21. I would like to be able to maintain the training scheme and mileage of the last seven days for the next three months. It will be challenging with the increasing heat, but I will try to do my best.
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I went running at 10 am with the sun high in the sky and the temperatures around 25 degrees Celsius, I felt it was a good way to start my summer conditioning. I ended up doing a slow jog after yesterday run, but I was happy to be able to still finish the 13.1 I planned. Everybody was around the lake biking, running, walking and sunbathing, water was still cold to swim.
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| | I had two friends from Utah visiting Rome, we spent the whole day touring all major touristic attractions walking, I didn't have a Garmin with me but I checked our "course" and we walked in terms of just straight distance approx. 6 miles. Not counting all the stops inside churches, ice cream shops, clothes and shoes shops, or in front of one of the gazillion fountains. Got home at 10:32 pm really tired. I didn't have any will power to go out and run. |
| | Not enough time to run tonight 5 miles in 47:12. I am still recovering from yesterday Rome walking tour. |
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Tonight my goal was to keep 4:30/km for the whole 10 miles (my dream marathon pace). I did it. Somehow it was easier than last saturday when I tried the same thing for 13 miles. So I knew I could keep that pace and somehow running during the evening for me is so much easier, in spite the day at work and the commute. I really had to restrain to myself during the first 5 miles and then I went all out during the second half finishing 10 miles in 1:09:59. Finishing under 1:10 it was an added reward.
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Long day at work, shorter run than I wanted, at least at the end I felt fully recovered from yesterday. 8.1 in 1:11:53. Time to go to bed.
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| | 10k run in 53:52 not much else to report. |
| | In my plan there was a half marathon in 1:35 but I knew when I was having breakfast that was not going to happen (I was tired and at 7:30 am the temperatures were already around 70F, so it was going to be hottish), there where two options: going 13 miles at slower pace or doing 10 and trying to finish in 1:12. Between the two options the last one was "safer", I know myself pretty well and if I had started with the idea of doing 13 slow miles I would have stopped anyway at 10. I finished 10 miles in 1:11:25 so I was very happy with that, but going for 3 more miles would have been very hard and at 9:15 when I finished the temperatures were around 80F. I am glad I have the whole day ahead.
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| | I got back home from work earlier than usual, I had just one hour before going out again for some other stuff, so I made it to the lake in 5 minutes run 6.2 miles trying to stay relaxed and slow and still trying to finish in 50-55 minutes. I ended up finishing in 49:26, 5 minutes drive, shower, and now while I waiting to leave again I am typing this entry. Tomorrow it will be another day, hopefully less stressfull.
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Another good training run 10 miles in 1:10:03 (dream marathon pace). My goal was to finish it in 1:12 but I always end up pushing the second half and even though I am alone I am really racing against time toward the end. It is good to be able to do so at a pace that is not relaxing yet but sometimes it would be better to stick to the original plan in order to stay more relaxed at the end and to recover faster in the next few days. I will try to keep this kind of workout for the next couple of months while I am going to slowly increase my weekly mileage in order to see what kind of results it will generate in fall. Time to go to bed.
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I didn't feel great, plus I realized tonight that the forth toe of my right foot is probably broken. Last week during a night trip to the kitchen (no lights) to get some water I hit with my right foot the corner of the sofa and I started screaming pretty bad, the day after the forth little guy was black and red and swollen, now is still swollen and there is a clear painful point. I doesn't affect my gait or my running but I am very careful in crowded places I don't want anybody coming close to my right foot or stepping on it. I digress...... going back to the beginning, I was not feeling great, legs were tired from yesterday and from long standing hours at work, I started my run with the goal of running for one hour, I ended up with 9 miles in 1:19:54, I am very pleased with the outcome and with the run itself.
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Just a slow, short, spent run. No much energies available, my brain is already focused on tomorrow's night race. Time to go to bed.
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| Race: |
StraViterbo (5 Miles) 00:32:55 | | This is a fun race, starts at 9pm and usually is held during a weekday. This race is "fun" because is a roller coaster, it goes up and down in the old medieval town of Viterbo, there are approx. 400 meters of flat terrain and it is also the only section with asphalt while the rest is cobblestone. The main "danger" is represented by pedestrian going to a restaurant, going home or walking around, in narrow streets while 300 runners are charging blind corner, 90 degrees turns at full speed. If you add that we run in poorly lit streets it makes the whole thing really challenging. I wanted to do a good time improving my last two years time (32:50 and 31:28), but it was clear since the beginning from the second km it was not going to happen. Last year I was regaining speed after every corner or hill, tonight it didn't happen. These are my splits/km: 3:54,4:00,4:01,3:59 (end of the first lap),4:22,4:21, 4:11, 4:03. I didn't taper for this race and my training in the last month was "hard" for my standards with lots of fast runs, I have no many regrets because I know I am in much better shape than last year, I have to keep my training strong and slowly increasing my mileage, I will keep using these shorter races as a VOmax training runs.
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| | I went to bed at 1 am last night, I couldn't fall asleep right away too much adrenaline still around.I will take a day off, while I am going to take care of the lawn and I am going to plant outside tomatoes, eggplants, cucumbers and cantaloupe plants. Spring is here to stay.
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Nice relaxing run on the beach 5.5miles in 59 minutes. Tomorrow back to a more regular schedule.
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| | No enough time to run, I managed to squeeze 5 miles in 41:13. I did my best tomorrow it will be a different day. |
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I took another marathon pace class tonight, I was the only one in the classroom but the teacher couldn't care less, the lesson was about consistency on the 4:30/km rhythm, we kept repeating over and over the 4:30 mantra for 1 hour 10 min and 26 seconds. I was very satisfied about the result and so my teacher because we finished a full minute and 34 seconds earlier. Tomorrow a more boring recovery run and entry.
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| | 10 miles in 1:23:56, good recovery run, especially the second half was 6 minutes faster than the first half. I felt very good from the beginning and finished strong at 9 pm when was already dark.
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This is one of those runs where the goal is just to finish the planned miles and nothing else. I felt my legs were completely glicogen depleted, no energy left, completely dead. I am glad when it was over. 8 miles in 1:14:07.
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| | 6.2 miles in 57:27. Another recovery run, I was trying to relax as much as possible, pretending it was not hot and humid. |
| | 6.2 miles in 1:01:16 and it says it all. I am going to skip tomorrow race to rest a little bit and regroup. Next three days I will be on vacation, it will be a good time to rest and relax and recover some energies. | |
| | I am back from a vacation, not the most relaxing one because I got sore throat for a few days, but it was a good relaxing time. I didn't keep a "consistent" running schedule but I tried to enjoy running as much as possible and to recover from my last bad runs at the end of the last week. Today I re-started with a trail run with many uphills and downhills, when I started at 3pm I was running under a thunderstorm (I thought it was going to last only a few minutes and the whole run was under a thick tree cover) fortunately I was right and after 15 minutes sun was back and the humidity was very high. I finished 13.1 in 2:12 nothing spectacular, but I felt very good at the end (at least one week of very low mileage paid off).
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| | I went running in the afternoon taking advantage of the afternoon storm to cool the air. I did the first 5 in 45 minutes and the last 5 in 37:30. Overall a great run. |
| | Anther 10.1 miles just before a storm. Conditions were perfect the sun was down light breeze, almost heaven. |
| | 8 miles in 1:14:07 around the lake. Not much else. |
| | I did my first Yasso test in two years. I started doing it again more as a fast workout for my half marathon training rather than as a real predictor of my marathon time. In the past it was always 10-15 minutes "optimistic" compared to my marathon time. I knew, given my last 3:24 marathon time and my 1:28 half marathon time, that I should not had any problem to nail a 3:10 for 10 repeats but fear at the beginning was definitively there. I decided to start with 3:10 and 3 minutes of jogging at whatever pace felt comfortable. This was the outcome: 3:02, 3:13, 3:11, 3:16, 3:11, 3:10, 3:05, 3:06, 3:05, 3:04. Average 3:08. Total mileage, including warm up and cool down was also good. Definitively I was cautious at the beginning and then I opened the gas at the end doing the last three repeats without any "rest" in between, just to finish as soon as possible. This is a confirmation that I can do a 3:18-3:23 marathon (Rome was 3:24 and it is slower than a pancake flat race), not a 3:08, at least considering my actual level of aerobic training(read lack of mileage). I am planning to use this training once a week for the next three months with the goal to improve my half-marathon time and as a tool to convince my brain that I can be faster in a marathon too.
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| | Run without garmin, the only goal was to cover ground and enjoy the cool evening. I ended up doing 8.7 miles in approx. 1:25ish, I was tired from yesterday but nothing really dramatic. |
| | "Rest day" 5 miles in 49 minutes. I wanted to go slow, short and finish early around 8pm, I accomplished all those goals. Ready to go to bed after a long week at work and running wise. Good luck to all marathoners. |
| | I ended up not having not enough time to run, I opted for a fast 10 k with some cool down. I did 6.2miles in 43:11 and then finished the remaining distance to get to 7 miles in whatever pace was left. |
| | This morning I went running on a big hill in the Appennini several miles away from my house, I ended up covering 5 miles up, but evey 1.5km up I turned around and run down for 1 km and so when I was coming down I kept going up. It was a fun run enjoying a beautiful scenery and overall a great day outside.
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| | I did 10 miles in 1:29 not exactly the fastest time on earth, but the mileage at the end was there.
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| | I did my second modified Yasso training, 10 800m repeats with 2:30 recover. These are my splits: 3:01, 3:01, 3:04, 3:03, 3:03, 3:05, 3:05, 3:05, 3:06, 3:01. As I said last week this is not a "test" but more like a standard training run using a speed between my 5k and 10k time. Compared to last week it was much harder because I decided to stay between 3:00 and 3:05 and cut my recover to 2:30. I ended up, on average, 5 seconds faster than last time but it was a lot more work. Last time I wanted to see where I was, today I wanted to see if I could push a faster pace and to be able to keep pushin at the end when the legs are slowing down (I desperately need this kind of mental training). This is one of my greatest problem, when everything is fine I am fine, when things are becoming difficult I usually mentally give up and enter in a conservative pace even if I can still push a faster pace. Overall I was very happy about the overall result, not giving up during the last five repeats in spite of some slow down at the end, and in general going home with a 10 miler for the day.
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| | I felt surprisingly fresh and good but I didn't want to push my limits, I stopped at 6.2 miles in 56 minutes. I felt really recovered from yesterday, tomorrow I will do more miles. |
| | It was warmer/hottish than normal at 7pm tonight, the first few miles I felt uncomfortable, than when the sun when down a light breeze came up and the rest of the run was just pleasant. 9 miles in 1:20 nothing fast, just miles in. |
| | 9 miles in 1:20 again, a good evening run, I am glad the week is over. |
| | I started at 9 am when was the sun was already up and hot. I did the complete loop around of the lake in 1:50 min. I was dehydrated at the end. Cold bath at home and now I am brand new.
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| Race: |
Woman in trail (6.2 Miles) 01:10:20, Place overall: 9 | | I didn't plan to do this race until 7:00 am this morning when I discovered that rain and fog would make pretty difficult to go out and run. This race was on a trail 20 minutes drive from my house, so I called my running buddy, we changed our plan and we headed to the top of the highest mountain around to the start of the race. Half of the course is part of the trail marathon I did in april and it has this name because the main sponsor is Estee Lauder offering good prizes (parfumes and make up) to all women. Once up there we where shivering in shorts and shirt, we payed 5 euros, got our goodies bag and bib number and we went back to our car until 15 minutes before the race. Because it is a tough race, fall weather and temperature and on a trail there were only approx. 100 men and 20 women. My plan was to try to finish around 1:10, I started conservatively the first 2km are crazy technical downhill, but on the way up I was the only one around running (for the first 400 meters), and immediately I gained several positions, even when I started walking I was still passing people and until the end nobody passed me. After km 4 when I was passed by a 70 y old german guy (and then I passed him again) I was on my own not knowing that I was in 9th position, I was just trying to maintain an honest effort and when I saw I was finishing in 1:10 I relaxed a little bit on the final downhill. I was happy about how I felt throughout the race, I didn't expect to be in the top 10 (and winning two bottles of wine), but honestly it was the result of lack of competition and my final time shows. It was a good training run overall.
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8 miles in 1:19 and my legs were really sore, I was just happy just to be able to slow jog that distance.
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My legs were really sore tonight, much more than yesterday. This is common for me the second day after a race, it is always the worse day, while the third one I am usually feeling OK. I am really looking forward to verifying my conditions tomorrow night. 5 miles in 50 minutes, not exactly fast.
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I felt much better than last night but not completely recovered. Today it was very hot during the day, after sunset temperatures dropped immediately and running was much more pleasant. 8 miles in 1:14.
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10 miles in 1:29:40, not much else. Ready to go to sleep before another long day at work tomorrow.
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| | Another 10 miler in 1:30 minutes, with the excuse of slow recovery runs I am piling up lots of miles. |
| | 13.1 miles in 1:50ish, no Garmin, I checked the time in my car. I started at 8am and it was already hot, it is a good mental training.r |
| | This was my rest day, just a short run and nothing else. |
| | I didn't sleep much during the weekend and this morning I felt miserable at work from lack of sleep. Plus today the heat was on outside and running 6.2 miles was much harder than usual. |
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Great workout 10 800m with the following splits: 3:00, 3:02, 3:00, 3:02, 3:02, 3:03, 3:07, 3:08, 3:08, 3:02. 2:30 minutes recovery jog (for at least 400m). Total mileage was 10. I felt really good even though the last five were more difficult (and slower).
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| | No work today because is St Peter and Paul and all offices are closed. Day at work at home. I went running at the usual time in the evening for a short 7 miler, my legs were kind of dead after last night.
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| | A good 8 miler, my legs feel better than last night the big problem was the heat and humidity, survived through the run but I at the end I was in miserable conditions.
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Lots of excuses for not running tonight: long day at wok, long week, nausea and headache, humid hot weather...... I went anyway for a slow 10k and the end I didn't feel any better but at at least I wasn't feeling worse. Time to go to bed.
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10 miles in the morning around the lake in 1:12:39. At this point of the year I was hoping this pace (my dream marathon pace) would feel easier, it is not. I will keep training at this pace once a week, but honestly I don't think I will be able to keep it for 26.2 miles in october.
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| | I did an uphill run 4 miles up (about 300m total climb) then 4 miles back down. Overall a good experience trying to avoid the heat. |
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Today I went to the sport medicine doctor to get my certificate to keep racing (this is mandatory in Italy for racing and for 36 euros you can get some peace of mind). I have some mild heart problems related to border line high blood pressure, I accidentally discovered this two years ago after 9 marathons and 6 years of running during my first visit to the sport medicine doctor, so every year the outcome is uncertain. I am usually the "star" of the morning because I am doing almost all available tests, all medical students and young resident are there to see the whole set of exams. As a bonus they have right now a machine to test oxygen consumption so I tested that too. At the end lots of good news: my blood pressure is well under control, my heart is still in good conditions to run and race and my O2 is 43ml/min/kg according to the doc 110% for my age. Tonight my run was mentally much easier after the visit. 6.2 miles in 52 minutes at a very happy pace. Happy 4th of July!!!!
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A huge thunderstorm with hail this morning destroyed my tomato, cucumber, pepper plants. The whole road around the lake was flooded with mud and rocks, in many places the black top is gone inside huge potholes. This pathetic introduction just to say that my plans for a speedy workout were gone as soon as I got to the lake, I wanted to do a running tour of the road but it was impassable even on foot, I retreated back to the car and run an half km stretch of clean road back and forth until I reached the 10 km limit. It was like running on a treadmill.
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| | My speedy workout didn't end up as fast as I wanted but for sure was intense. Goal: 5x1600m at 6:10-6-20 with 3:00 of jogging recovery. This was the outcome: 6:20, 6.23, 6:30, 6:32, 6.34. It was difficult since the beginning to maintain the pace, I am glad I finished it, doing my best effort to maintain whatever fast pace was left in my legs after each one. I need this kind of "punishment" to learn to keep my fastest pace even when I am slowing down (without giving up).
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| | Started at 7:44pm done by 9pm. 8 nice recovery miles. |
| | Trail run, 10 miles up and down the crater around the lake in 1:45, it was a good escape from the heat, the whole trail was in the woods. |
| | I didn't wake up early enough, so I headed for the hills to beat the heat. I drove to the top of the crater ridge line and run out and back for 11.2 miles in 1:35:22. Up there (at 900m above sea level) temperatures were around 21 degrees Celsius compared to the usual lake road 300 m below with almost 33 degrees. | |
| | Back from a vacation on the Appennini. Weather was hotter than expected a 900m above sea level, but for sure more pleasant than Rome. My running was on a low maintenance mode, with a 20 miler peak up and down a couple of hills that made the whole thing quite challenging. Today I did a short 10 k just to relax and enjoy the usual scenery, tomorrow morning back to work.
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| | 9 miles around the lake in 1:24:51, cooler temperatures and light breeze, it was a perfect run. |
| | After two weeks I attempted again a 5 X 1600m series. The average time was exactly the same with the following splits: 6:16, 6:21, 6:29, 6:38, 6:36. Recovery time was 3 minutes. Two weeks ago I felt a little bit depressed, I thought I was faster (between 6:10 and 6:20) today it was a reality check and I have to conclude that this is where I am right now. At least I managed to do 8 good miles and another tough run is done.
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| | The worst part of the run were my legs, they were fresh and rested. Usually after a 10 X 800 I am tired for at least a couple of days, tonight I felt good, in spite of this I don't think yesterday I could have pushed any faster pace. 8 miles at 5:24/km nothing really fast but overall a good training run.
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| | Another good 8 miles in 1:07:36. Good weather too, about 72 degrees and light breeze. |
| | 10 miles at MP, the first half was done not paying attention to my speed and time, at the turnaround I was only 4 seconds behind then in the last 4km I started pushing and gained 42 seconds at the end. 10 miles in 1:11:18 4:28/km. |
| | I was tired this morning but the "good running weather" (it was raining and the temperatures were below 70) pushed out of the door to do another 10 miler. I ended up with 11 just to finish the week with 60 miles. Good luck to all Deseret News runners next monday.
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| | 6.2 miles in 57:38, good relaxing run. |
| | Congratulations to all DNers, my legs were in Utah today with all you. The rest of me was here running 10 miles in 1:30.
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| | A huge thunderstorm is trasforming the town in a huge pond, no way I could go out and run tonight. |
| | 5X1600 with 3 minutes recovery (jogging between 400m and 500m). This time it went much better than last two times when I did a similar run. These are the things were different this time: I just did only 600 meters as a warm up and then I used the first 1600m to get blood in my legs, in this way in my first lap I was not sprinting all out as I was chased down by a bear. First lap in 6:22. Another thing that was different instead progressively accelerating toward the end of the recovery time I started going when the time started, in this way I used the first 200m to reach the cruising speed and then maintained, accelerating a little bit at the end to make up for the first 200m. Second lap 6:19, third 6:18, forth 6:20, fifth 6:18. Much better than the previous times when I could barely hold 6:28 average.
Overall I felt great about this training run but I felt I was cheating because last night I was forced (by the weather) to rest, tonight my legs were much fresher than usual. At least now I know that on rested legs I can go sub 6:20 for 5 repeats.
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| | Nice recovery run around the lake, 8.5 miles in 1:22. Nothing fast but just enough to enjoy the cool evening out. |
| | 2X5000m at 4:30/km with 1000 recovery at 5:30. First set was at 4:31, the second one at 4:25. Overall I felt great at the end. I wanted to do 4 sets but I didn't have enough time today. Next weekends I am going to use this scheme (increasing the number of repeats) to do my long runs.
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| | Rest day at the beach, I run a few miles on the shoreline just to enjoy the light breeze. |
| | Nothing really special about tonight's run, just 7.5 miles in preparation of tomorrow night fast training. As added bonus I run with a guy who does only 800-1500m, he was doing his "long" run, it was really nice to share a completely different running perspective. |
| | Great workout tonight 5 x 1600m with 3:00 jogging in between. These were my splits: 6:25, 6:18, 6:14 (at this point I was feeling really great and I was hoping I could keep lowering my time), 6:18 (still good but definitively a reality check) and final one in 6:21 (I really wanted to keep it under 6:20 but the final 200 m were slightly uphill and my legs were already done). I am very happy timewise about this training, I hit the same splits did last week but the feeling this time was great throughout the whole workout, I had no problem to maintain the pace.
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| | 8 recovery miles in 1:13. Today I had the "after-a-big-training-run" blues. Yesterday I was on top of the world, today after the first 1600m in 11minutes I started doubting about my progresses. I know that yesterday training run was not fake, but it takes a while and more similar training runs to completely trust them, in order to go faster in a race.
Enough mental micromanaging, time to go to bed.
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| | Busy day at work and at home. 8 miles in 1:12. My legs are recovering very well. |
| | I didn't have enough time to run my usual 8, 6.2 in 59 minutes and change nothing fast in preparation for tomorrow long run. I am really tired right, time to go to bed (9pm).
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| | Longish run with the following scheme: 4X5000m with 1k recovery. These were my splits: 1k 6:11/km 1X5000 4:30/km average 1k 5:25/km 1X5000 4:30/km average 1k 5:54/km 1X5000 4:27/km average 1k 5:52/km 1X5000 4:25/km average A few hundred meters of cooldown for a total of 15 miles in 1:53:00 4:42/km average. One of those training run when everything went as planned, especially because I was alone and even at 7:30am when I started it was already hot.
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| | Tonight I went running just to enjoy the run, no watch, no garmin, I checked the time when I left my car and when I came back. The whole purpose was to enjoy a good summer evening and nothing else. I have to admit I cheated on my way back, the first half was a little bit too relaxed so with 6k to go I definitively started pushing overall I did 8 mile in 1:15. It was really a relaxing one.
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| | 8 miles around the lake, the first half was very nice because I met an old friendI haven't seen in a while, we spent a couple of kms to catch up and then we enojoyed the beautiful sunset while a storm was approaching. Second half by myself was just boring and unfortunately no rain.
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| | Tonight was the 5X1600m night. These were my splits each one followed by a 3:00 recovery jog: 6:14 then 413m recovery jog in 3:00 6:13 then 456m recovery jog in 3:00 6:10 then 498m recovery jog in 3:00 6:14 then 502m recovery jog in 3:00 6:17 then 500m recovery jog in 3:00 A couple of miles between warmup and cooldown. I wanted to stay close to 6:15 and covering at least 500 m for the 3 minutes recovery jog. I have to push a little bit more on the recovery, but overall I felt great.
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| | Just 8 miles in 1:16 with a perfect breezy evening. |
| | To break the monotony of 8 miles I did 8.1. 1:08:13 I felt relax and confident, a very good run. |
| | 6.2 miles in 54:34. Good relaxing run before tomorrow long run. |
| | Long run with 4X5000m intervals at MP (4:30/km) with 1000 recovery run 1 minute slower. At the end I was in decent shape and not too sore, I added another 1k recovery plus a 3000m at MP. These were my splits: 1k 6:21/km 5k 4:30/km average pace 1k 5:18/km 5k 4:30/km average pace 1k 5:24/km 5k 4:29/km average pace 1k 5:19/km 5k 4:28/km average pace 1k 5:31/km 3k 4:29/km average pace I did 17,4 miles in 2:10:57 with 14.3 miles at MP. Overall I felt really great. It is also a great excuse to have a nap in the afternoon.
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| Race: |
Civita di Bagnoregio race (5.4 Miles) 00:38:23, Place overall: 31, Place in age division: 5 | |
I just got back from a week in Paris. While in Paris a couple of times early in the morning I went running along the Seine river for a few miles just to enjoy the city while was still sleeping. There was this race tonight and the captain of my team needed a few more people, so I decided to start running with this race after a week of endless walks and doing a good speed workout. I drove to the town of Civita di Bagnoregio, known also the "dying city", the race was supposed to start at 8pm, but when we got there there was an announcement saying that the course was slightly changed and the start postponed at 8:30pm. Instead finishing running up the top of the old town on a bridge we would start walking up there and then walking down and there at the bottom of the canyon between the old town and the new town we would start the race going up and then we would finish in the new Bagnoregio. At 8:30pm we took off on a steep uphill for 1km, then we entered in a circuit of about 3.5 km with constant uphills and downhills, to be repeated twice and then the last half mile to the finish line. I didn't have any watch with me, but my plan was rather simple, going out hard and trying to keep an honest pace without racing all out. The plan was well executed until the beginning of the second loop when I started fading and to keep the same pace I really had to push much harder, at the point I realized that was not worth it, and kept fading until the end. I finished with the third woman, 5th in my age group, I don't have my time (37 minutes is an educated guess based on other people time), I have to wait for the final results to be posted. Garmin of other runners indicated 8.8km not to far off from the 9km advertised. A good training run, slighly under par, but considering I was not in racing mood-mode, after a week of vacation I was happy with the run.
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| | Today it was a hot day the wind from Sahara brought the temperatures around and above 100F under my porch. This is not very common, I waited to go running until 6pm when a light breeze made the heat more bearable. The plan was to go out slow and easy around the lake after last night race, but I met a couple of running friends that wanted to do something faster and rather than going by myself I drafted after them, we did a roller coaster route for 10km at 4:35/km pace (45:47) and then one of them stopped with the other companion with did a 6km cooldown at a more relaxing pace finishing 10 miles in 1:18 and change. At the end I was very happy about this "recovery" run, at least going fast had the advantage of making the sweating time shorter.
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| | 8.6 miles in 1:13:48. My goal was again to go nice and easy, instead I met two other friends, not the same ones of last night, but the outcome was the same: the pace was a little bit too fast. I was happy to run with one of this guys, he doesn't race but he is always there every night for a run and I was really surprised to see him keeping sub 8min/mile for the whole run without any problem. I tried to convince him to start racing, but he wasn't converted at the end. It is always nice running and chatting with someone else, it makes running much more enjoyable and faster, even during recovery runs.
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| | Back to my usual solo run, no friends tonight. After 2 miles I felt the temperatures unbearably hot and humid, I still managed to keep moving for the rest of the run at a very slow and relaxing pace. I finished 8 miles in 1:19, I achieved my goal to keep the pace under control and finally I started my recovery after three consecutive days of faster pace. I hope that this african weather pattern will go away soon, is becoming annoying.
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| | Fast workout night. 5X1600m with 3:00 recovery jog. These were the splits: 6:07, 6:10, 6:12, 6:19, 6:18. During the recovery I covered between 430m and 490m.
I wanted to average below 6:15 and no interval above 6:15, the first goal was accomplished, I have to still work on the second one. Two weeks ago I was more consistent running around 6:13, this time I tried since the beginning to push my pace around and below 6:10 but as it is clear from the fourth interval I don't have it in my legs yet. Overall I was very satisfied about the outcome, plus tonight temperatures and humidity were higher than two weeks ago. As added bonus this is the first time since 2003, when I started running, that I am keeping a good mileage, with some fast miles during the month of august, heat is the best killer of my good running intentions, if I can survive for one more week august will be over and hopefully the saharian wind will be replaced by a much cooler and refreshing atlantic jetstream. I hope this "character-building I-don't-want-to-go-running-with-this-heat" will be translated in faster times in the upcoming races.
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| | 8 recovery miles around mount Venere, not much else to report. |
| | Nice relaxing run at 5pm, it was hot and humid, 6.2 miles in 1hour. |
| | Very simple run: I wanted an half-marathon at marathon pace (4:30/km) and this is what I got. I woke up later than I planned and I didn't start until 8:40 am when the sun was already up and running, I didn't have any problem to keep the pace until mile 12 when dehydration, heat and the perspective of having two big black toe nails materialized. I didn't have any water with me in the car and by the time I was home 10 minutes later, I was really dehydrated, I usually check my weight before and after medium/long runs and today I lost 2.5 kg. My toenails on top of that were,as expected, dark and gingerly painful. This was related to the new wave inspire shoes, last week I bought the wave fortis and with those I got two huge blisters on my left foot, so right now I don't have a good new pair of shoes to run long distances, without having foot problems, except for my 2000 miles old wave inspire. The only good thing it was my time it took me 1:35:00 for 13.1 miles (I intentionally slowed down big time during the last 0.2 miles to finish exactly in 1:35:00). Now time to ice bath and a few napping hours.
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| | 6.2 miles along the sea, after 10 days the african wind went home and we are back to cooler temperature. |
| | Good recovery progressive run. I started at 6:00/km finished at 4:00/km. I felt progressively stronger and better as the temperatures were going down. Unfortunately at 8pm is cool but right now is already dark. In a few weeks I will retreat to a more ugly area to run at night and that will last until next april at least during the weekdays. |
| | Good workout, 5X1600m with 3:00 recovery jog covering between 400-500m. These were my splits: 6:11, 6:14, 6:14, 6:12, 6:11. Overall the average was very similar to the last two workouts (6:13 AP) this time the feeling was different, first of all I managed to do all of them under 6:15, then the fastest ones were the last two and I was always in control of my pace until the end. Short digression: this is the time of the year of hazelnut harvest and the rural road around Vico lake I am running on every night is flanked left and right by hazelnut trees, so this time of the year the road is really crowded with cars, tractors and dust they make picking up the nuts. During the third repeat after dodging and passing at double speed countless tractors going home I had the road completely blocked by a tractor and its trailer, instead stopping trying to walk around I did a 180 turn almost losing my shoes, during the turn, fortunately the shoes remained with my feet and I quickly regained speed and confidence. It was a big boost because at the end my pace didn't suffer too much and I felt so strong that I knew I could finish the last two under 6:15. I am very happy about this month with >200 miles and well on track to be above 2400 miles by the end of the year.
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| | Long day at work, tonight just 7 long recovery miles, I am going to sleep soon. |
| | "Rest day" 5 miles in 46:00. |
| | Long run interval style. I did 5X5k with 1k "recovery jog" 30-40" slower than my previous pace. The goal was to start the first set of 5k 20" slower than marathon pace then increasing 5" each interval and finishing the last set at marathon pace. The last 2k were just a cool down. These were my splits: 1k 5:59/km 5k 4:50.3/km average 1k 5:23/km 5k 4:45.3/km average 1k 5:17/km 5k 4:39.8/km average 1k 5:24/km 5k 4:32.8/km average 1k 5:31/km 5k 4:30.2/km average 1k 5:25/km 1k 4:52/km I did 20 miles in 2:34:29 4:50/km average. I am very happy and not too tired at the end.
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| | 5 miles at 8pm the heat was still unbearable. |
| | This is the highest mileage of the week. Tomorrow a few fast miles to test my half-marathon pace and then the rest of the week will be a mini taper before sunday half-marathon. My taper consists in a few slow miles (3-4) every day, no real rest day. It is always nice to have an excuse to rest for a few days and enjoy the extra time available, until running cravings start again.
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I did a general reharsal for next sunday race, shoes, shorts, shirt and race pace. I did 1 km as a warmup and then 5k at race pace (4:07-4:10/km): 4:11, 4:10, 4:06, 4:06, 4:04. 3 more km as a cool down. Overall I was tired and demotivated at the start, but as soon as I started the tempo run everything was going according to the plan. I whish I had at least a 10k training run at that pace during the last two weeks, it would have been a great confidence booster. | |
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A few days of low mileage (even with some speed yesterday) gave new life to my legs. Tonight 4 miles but I am getting really anxious to go longer and faster.
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| | Another 4 miles a slow pace. The mental topic of tonight's run were the goals for the upcoming race. Goal A 1:28. It is my PR done last february. It will be hard going faster than that on a tougher course. Goal B under 1:29:18. It is my second best time for the half, I would really like to finish faster than that. Goal C under 1:30:07. This is my fastest time on this course and it would be really nice to beat at least that time. Everything else it means something went wrong and it will be just a training run.
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Another 4 miler, it was relaxing.
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Final run to check the weather, I started from the starting line of tomorrow's race went slowly over the first 2.5 km and then turned around. At 9am that part of the road was in the shade and it was completely flat and I was running >10:00/mile, in spite of that I was sweating big time. Tomorrow it will be hot.
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| Race: |
Half marathon Lago di Vico (13.1 Miles) 01:32:30, Place overall: 129, Place in age division: 19 | | At a certain point I thought this race was one episode of the Tv series Disaster Date on MTV . I was set up on a blind date with this "hot" and "mean" half-marathon girl, the jokes were getting worse and worse but at least at the end I expected the reward of the 92 euros for lasting 92 minutes, but when the RD didn't say: "those are hidden cameras and these people are paid actors" I realized that it was just a hot race and nothing else. This is the closest race to my home (just 3km), I run on the course every weekend throughout the year and also every day from march until october, this is my home race. I arrive at the start with just 20 minutes to spare, and the thermometer in the car in the shade indicated 26°C. At the starting line packed with other 1200 runners we were all already sweating. My plan was to start at 4:10/km and then half way reevaluate my conditions. Unfortunately by km5 keeping 4:10 was no longer realistic without a major crash at the end, the sun was hot there was no shade and my pace started slowing down and this was the easiest part of the race, the flat one. Half way I was already 1:20 behind my goal, I decided to do everything possible to keep the pace under 4:30 and for the next two kms was still doable (it was slightly downhill) then the first hill arrived and all my dreams crashed at 4:40/km from that point on I was in survival mode/mood. I finished in 1:32:30, my slowest HM time during the last 5 years. I am not too depressed about the outcome everybody had a 4-5 minute slower time, this training cycle since january is solid, this race it will be a great motivator for the upcoming marathons hoping that this heat will finally stop. These are my splits (as usual per km): 4:17, 4:10, 4:06, 4:11, 4:10, 4:15, 4:14, 4:19, 4:12, 4:30, 4:24, 4:26, 4:47, 4:29, 4:36, 4:40, 4:38, 4:38, 4:39, 4:35, 4:05, final 20". | |
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4.5 easy miles. I felt almost completely recovered but I didn't want to go longer or faster. My feet, the bottom part, were still sore. I hope to resume my regular training schedule in a couple of days.
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I really needed a good workout tonight after a long day at work. My legs were fine, I decided to do a tempo run at MP. I started trying to keep 4:30/km, I wasn't sure how far I would last at that speed, but after 5k I knew I could keep it for 10k and actually I ended up speeding up finishing a 10 k in 44:00. Then I did a slower km in 4:57, and without thinking I pushed again the pace finishing 13km in 57:30. It was funny how this 13k were much faster than my last 13 km of my last race. Time to go to sleep.
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| | Not enough time and will power to run longer than 5 miles. I kept a 5:00/km average pace, a good pace in spite how I felt. |
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Today I was on a "shopping spree" as a result of it I am officially registered for the Pescara and Florence marathon. Tonight I went running at 7pm, the sun disappeared behind the hills 10 minutes later by the time I finished at 8:20 it was dark. I was on a rural road around Vico lake with only few cars passing at that time but it was unsafe. 8.5 miles at 5:30km
Tomorrow night it will be the last evening I will run upthere, next week I will move to the winter running zone around the industrial area. It will be very depressing the idea of running the same 1km loop until next march 5 nights a week.
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| | 6.2 miles in 55:36, just a relaxing run after a long stressful day at work. |
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Fast long run interval style. 4X5000 with 1km recovery run and then final 7.2km. These are my splites: 1km 5:55/km 5km 4:45/km + 3" 1km 5:07/km 5km 4:42/km 1km 5:08/km 5km 4:35/km -2" 1km 5:19/km 5km 4:30/km + 4" 1km 5:15/km 7.2km 4:27/km +1" Overall 20 miles in 2:30:48 4:43/km. This is my fastest 20 miler I have ever done in my life. The most important thing I was pushing until the end and I was not slowing down, the last 7km were my fastest ones. I am tired right now and ready for an ice bath but not completely wiped out by this run. I hope to transform this solid training run in a solid race time in a month.
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| | Slow recovery run in the heat. It was still hot, around 90F. Tomorrow temperatures should finally drop, I am looking forward to that. |
| | Last night a huge thunderstorm finally lowered the temperatures, but the rain came down so fast and furious that created mud slides everywhere. The road where I go running was just a muddy stream with rocks and debris. I managed to do a 10k finishig at 8pm when was completely dark and the visibility close to zero. I felt I "stole" those miles to this strange weather. Good recovery run. |
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Tonight was the "atypical" perfect day for running, temperatures were around 50F, the road that yesterday was a mud stream has been completely cleaned up and a strong wind helped keeping the sky clean and the air crisp. I wanted to do a big tempo run keeping 4:30/km for 10 miles. My legs were ready and I hit 4:30 only for the first km then all the remaining 15 splits were much lower. The wind was a tail wind going out, coming back was a headwind, it is the first time I can say a headwind was a big help because trying to fight it all the way back I kept pushing harder and harder, it was like having someone to fight and at the same time it helped me to keep my brain focused and entertained. I finished 10 miles in 1:08:45 4:18/km average. | |
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7 miles in1 hour. Temperatures are going up again.
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6.2 miles in 58 minutes. I am still running around the lake at dusk.
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| | I wanted to rest tonight then I ended up with shorts and shirt and I went running for a few miles. It was a warm up for tomorrow long run. |
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Fast long run interval style. 6X5000 with 1km recovery k at slightly slower pace and then final 2km at whatever pace was left. These are my splites: 1km 6:08/km 5km 4:45/km - 1" 1km 5:04/km 5km 4:40/km +3"
1km 5:04/km 5km 4:39/km +4" 1km 5:00/km 5km 4:37/km + 1" 1km 4:59/km 5km 4:39/km +4" 5km 4:40/km 2km 4:53/km
Overall
23 miles in 2:56:12 4:46/km. I went for the last three sets of repeats slower than last saturday to be able to extend my long run up to 23 miles. During the last 2k I was definitively done and "ready" to stop. I started at 7:25am, definitively at least 25 minutes too late and I felt at the end the effect of higher temperatures. I wanted to do 23 miles ideally around 2:55, if I could have pushed the last 2k I would be there. During the last km I started playing, in my anoxic/hypoglicemic state, with the idea of finishing with 26.2 miles with the goal of finishing under 3:24. Fortunately as soon as I hit 23 miles my legs stopped and decided it was good enough. I am very happy than I am
just tired and sore but not injured. I felt I was really done only once at home when I dived in the tub filled with ice and water and I finished screaming, due to the cold water. The most interesting part happened after 20 minutes when I was ready to take a warm shower, after 2 minutes of having warm water on my legs immediately all my muscle in my left leg started cramping and seizing like crazy, they were fine a few seconds before and seconds later they were locked. I managed to stretch the whole leg, turned off the warm water and I finished the shower with lukewarm/cold water and my muscles went back to their resting/relaxed state. Definitively warm water was an incredible trigger of muscle cramps.
I am pre-blogging a mandatory powerful nap in the afternoon.
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| Race: |
StraccaVejano (6.2 Miles) 00:45:08, Place in age division: 14 | | I decided to do this race for the following reasons: to help my team to maintain its ranking (we are currently in first position with 5 races to do), to help to drag my sorry body out of the door this morning after yesterday run. It costed only 7 euros (that will be refunded by the team) so it was a no excuse situation. This race is perfectly measured but it is really slow, 9k are uphill and the remaining 1k is downhill. The weather at 9am was already around 20-25°C, I did 3k as a warm up and to test my legs, they were tired but not sore. My goal was to try to keep MP for the whole distance (4:30/km). We started on time at 10 and I was already sweating, the first km had one big downhill leaving the town of Vejano and then we entered a rural road doing a long loop of about 9km to go back to the start/finish line. The whole course, except for the initial downhill and a second downhill section 1k from the end, is uphill, with big and small bumps, short or long but you keep gaining altitude, without loosing it. I was halfway in 22:04, about a minute faster than anticipated then I progressively lost my advantage and finished the whole thing in 45:08, just 8" slower than planned. I was very happy, I did a quick system check, breathing was fine and my legs were tired but not dead, I immediately went for a 3k cool down to finish the day with 10 miles. Combining the first 32k yesterday and the 10k today I have "done" a marathon in 3:18 and change. I know doesn't mean much but it is always good for my dreams.
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| | I came home early so I went for another run by the lake. 8 easy and relaxing miles, before a thunderstorm started rolling in. |
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Tonight I officially started the winter training season, it means that there is no enough light at 7pm to go running around the lake at night and I had to retreat to the ugly loop 1k long around an industrial area, well lit and without traffic, but overall very depressing. It will be my running ground every evening for the next 6 months. 8 miles slow and easy.
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| | Too many things to do tonight after work, unplanned rest day, but I will take it. |
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I did my first fast workout at the industrial area, 10k in 43:50 then 3k cooldown. Temperatures are still too high.
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Rest day, I drove in the evening to Pescara.
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| | I am in Pescara for the weekend, I decided to do a good general reharsal for the marathon in 2 weeks. I went around the starting line of the marathon and I wanted to do an half marathon at goal marathon pace (4:37/km, 3h:15m total) starting at the same time (9am) and doing exactly the same course. For the first 10k I was on cruise control sun on my back and wind in my face, I extended the distance to 13k because I was feeling good and I thought going for 26k at that pace. As soon as I turned around, face to the sun and wind in my back, things started going south almost immediately, at mile 10 I decided 13.1 was enough at this pace, but during the last 4k I really struggled to keep the pace. It was definitively hot (many thermometers indicated between 30 and 32°C) and as soon as I hit 13.1 in 1:37:30 exactly, I stopped at a drinking fountain and spent the next 5 minutes drinking and dousing myself in a too-late attempt to cooldown. Because I had to go back to the car 5k away I started running at a slow speed more depressed than actually tired. I felt really bad and depressed, because I thought it was going to be much easier to maintain that pace (as I did in some of my long runs in the last few weeks), the "two" excuses are the usual suspects: the heat and being tired after lots of mileage (for me). For sure if the temperatures won't go down at least 10-15°C in the next two weeks I will reassess my goal to a slower pace for the marathon. I have already decided to move my goal from 3:10 to 3:15 because I am not feeling very confident and I also have another attempt at the end of november in Florence. But if the heat will the same as yesterday even with some more rest and tapering things won't change much, I have already done three races in the heat in the last two months and I know I don't do very well when the temps at the start are above 25°C. At least I can't blame taper madness because I haven't start tapering yet (and probably I should).
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| | In order to try to kick the bad feelings away about yesterday run, I went running at higher altitude to have some cooler temperatures on some of the hills around Pescara. The temperatures were already 10° lower but my mood didn't change much. I went 4 miles uphill and then came down, but I was tired and demotivated. No energy in my legs and in my brain, I wanted just to be over with the run, have lunch and take a nap. I really need some rest to regroup. Tomorrow I will take a day off from running.
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| | My legs are not so bad today, but I will take a day off, the rest of the week I will maintain my mileage around 40, but no speed until next saturday. |
| | This will be the mileage I will be running everyday for the rest of the week, I am trying to recover my energies while moving my legs on some minimal, non-stressfull miles. I hope it will work because after 6.2 miles in 58 minutes, my legs are still heavy and my desire to run is close to zero.
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| | Another recovery run 6.2 miles in 59 minutes, my legs are still heavy, breathing is fine. |
| | Running these days is really hard, my legs are constantly tired but tonight I concluded that it is just a mental problem. My brain is trying to convince me that I am tired and I have to rest, it is just a life saving mechanism. Even if I would like to push the pace, my brain is telling me to slow down because is concerned about the upcoming marathon. I will go through the next 10 days with whatever pace feels good there is not much I can do about this, and I would rather getting at the starting line well rested and "hungry" for some good old fast miles than tired and demotivated. 5 miles in 48 minutes. |
| | I got home at 6pm tonight and I went running around the lake taking advantage of the last hour of light, it was really refreshing compared to the 1k loop in the industrial area. Legs are still tired. |
| | Finally a cold wind kick the summer out, at least for the weekend. I waited until 9am before going out running, last time I started so late on saturday morning was probable back in may. Another slow 10k, enjoyed the sun and the crisp air, I am so tired of this out of season heat.
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Another 10k at whatever pace was comfortable slow at the beginning and then progressively faster. A few more running days and in one week the marathon.
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| | Rest day. Walking around Rome as a tourist guide all day, it was not the best way to rest my legs. |
| | Short run just to move my legs and keep my brain entertained. |
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It's about time to look back at the training cycle leading to the upcoming maraton and try to evaluate in an "unbiased" way positive and negative aspects. Positive things: this is my first fall marathon ever (I am keeping my fingers crossed), I am unjured and since april all my training was uninterrupted. It is the first fall marathon because it was always hard to train throughout the summer months, last year I tried and I signed up for Florence, but three days before the race I fell sick with high fever, but my training was not as consistent as this year. This year I also maintained high mileage and good speed in july and august. I have doubts and questions in my brain right now (as a side effect of not running much), but I will have a second chance at the end of november at the Florence marathon, for this reason I am not too worried about this race. Negative things: I wish I had more slow/base miles in may and june, but I was afraid to crash and burn as I did during the last three years failing all the attempts to run a fall marathon, so I kept the mileage more manageable. I feel I lack some endurance (I wish I had 200 more miles on my board). Racing was really bad, I didn't race much because I felt always tired and the two races at the end of august and the half in september were really sub par due to the heat. I wish I had a couple of good (in terms of feeling at the end) races to better evaluate my training. Other than these two points I don't have many regrets. I am going to write down my three goals just to keep my mind focused: #1 to finish in 3:15:00 maintaining a constant pace of 4:37/km, #2 to finish in 3:19:59 this would open the door of the first corral at the Florence and Rome marathon, #3 to finish under 3:24:21 and beat my most recent PR done in Rome. The most important thing for me is still to finish, if uninjured would be even better. I get a very special mental reward even when I don't reach my goals, I am progressively slowing down, but I am still able to fight until the end, until the finish line. Being able to do this kind of activity is a blessing and I will try to enjoy it while I can.
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| | 4 miles 36 minutes. The weather forecast looks promising cooler temperatures and cloudy sky, the only open question about the weather is the strength of the wind.
I am almost there, no real pain or problem, the only concern is my lack of excitement and anticipation, but there is not much I can do about it.
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| Race: |
Pescara marathon (26.2 Miles) 03:14:40, Place overall: 44, Place in age division: 11 | | It was a great race in spite everything, as added bonus I did better than my goals. I stayed at a friend place, woke up at 7am to find a cloudy sky and cold weather (about 50F) and some light wind. As soon as we arrived in Pescara the wind was stronger especially on the main marathon road along the sea. My mood was totally flat no excitement whatsoever, I was just determined to repeat 4:37/km for 20 miles as I did three times during my long runs and then evaluate my situation and trying to get the best out of it. This race included also a half-marathon with 800 people, a non competive walk with some 200 people and a marathon with 200 people. It is a 3 loop course, first one of 13.1 miles along with half-marathoners and then 2 shorter loops of 6.5 miles. The course is completely flat, at sea level right in front of the sea going north for half of the distance and south for the remaining one. The only "hill" was a bridge 200 meters long 30m high the rest was pancake flat. No crowd support except for the last 100 meters before the finish line, the rest of the race was a time trial with a few runners here and there, the wind and the roaring sea. The race started at 9:25 and immediately I settled in a relaxing pace that I discovered soon was a little bit faster than I wanted, in spite my efforts to slow down I thought we were going south we had a tail wind, so I decided to maintain the 4:30ish per km. As soon as we turned around (mile 4) going north the wind was definitively making an impact on my efforts, but I did my best to stay behind my wonderful fellow half marathoners and I passed the bridge with the hill with about 1:30 of advantage respect to my time table. Still heading north the road was wider it was really difficult to stay behind anybody so the whole line of runners moved right next to buildings or parked cars, whatever was offering a better protection. At km 17.5 first 180 turn and we were heading south again, my advantage was the same meaning that I kept a more honest pace. First passage in front of the finish line and goodbye to the half marathoners, I was at mile 13.1 in 1:36:02, now the fun begins (so I thought). We were going south (tail wind) and there were 3 people in the next km in front of me and about 2 behind, and no one else around, just a few cars trying to run over the volunteers at the intersections. Going north was a fight against the wind, my times went from 4:37/km to 4:50/km, but I was OK with that, another 180 degree turn and going south my times and my speed were good again hovering around 4:28-4:30. I passed in front of the finish line (again for the second time) to start the last loop and at mile 20 I was still 1:30 ahead of my schedule (2:26 and change). I got a big mental push out of that, I calculated that with 5:00/km (8.00/mile) I would still do a great time, so I decided while I was still going south to keep pushing as fast as I could (around 4:30), going north the story was the same of the previous loop, my times went immediately up, but I was picking up people (most of them were marathoners still in their first short loop) and my times never went above 4:55/km. Third 180 degrees turn I was heading south with 4.5 km to go and wind under my wings, I wanted to go down to 4:30/km again but it was not going to happen, I could do just 4:35-4:37. Final 2 km were on some kind of cobblestone, but I couldn't care less I was flying again until the finish line. This is the end of a journey started in Ogden in 2006 when I did 3:20 and change. Since then I couldn't put together a strong training plan or race day was just bad. I thought at certaing point (last year) that going under 3:20 would be near impossible, but I kept pressing on and finally all those long runs at MP and all those miles finally paid off. I can squeeze a few more minutes out of this training, because today's conditions were hard (the wind), no crowd and no runners around, the course was flat but monotonous. It was really like one of my long runs, where I am by myself going out and back on a 6.2 mile stretch. In Florence in 40 days I will try to go after 3:10, this time I have nothing to loose. My splits from the official timing service: Distance Position Age group Time Average pace
Lap 1 17km 52 11 01:17:01 4.32 Lap 2 27.5km 51 12 02:05:43 00:48:41 4.34 Lap 3 38km 47 11 02:54:31 00:48:48 4.35 Arrivo 42.195km 44 11 03:14:40 00:20:08 4.36
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| | Rest day. Legs are still tired especially my hips. I didn't sleep very well last night too much adrenaline and my hips every time I was turning reminded me they were in pain. For sure the 3 hour drive back home last night didn't help. Every marathon for me has its signature pain: Ogden and Des News quadriceps on fire (Ogden 3/5, Des News 5/5), Rome calf cramps/pain, two different trail marathons (BoSho and Monti cimini) knee and ankle tenderness, Pescara hips, Park City except for the usual being dead tired didn't leave any specific pain or tenderness. I will take a couple of days off or until pain is gone and then I will do a reverse taper. A few more days of vacation from running will be good.
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| | Another good rest day. Hips are almost back to normal, legs are just tired, my sleeping pattern is almost back to normal (I hope that the next 8 good hours of sleep will help to normalize). Tomorrow I will probably do my first running steps. |
| | First miles post marathon. I took advantage of a great sunny afternoon to go to the lake to shake out whatever was left in my muscles after the race. A 5k in 30 minutes not exactly a run, it was more an excuse to get some sun and a light breeeze. Legs were heavy but no residual pain not even in my hips. |
| | A huge thunderstorm flooded Rome this morning and transformed my normal 1h20m morning commute in a 3 hours hell adventure and this evening was the same. I got home and I went running just to relax. Tonight I broke the wall of the 35 minutes of continuous running for 3.5 miles total, in a couple of days I should get up to 45 or even 50 minutes. I am just glad my recovery is fine. |
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4 miles in 40 minutes, weird pain on top of my left foot around the fourth metatarsal bone. I hope it will go away.
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| | I am getting faster 5 miles in 48 minutes, first time under 10:00/mile since the marathon. My legs are still heavy without any desire to go faster than this. Pain in my left foot is coming and going.
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| | Today I wanted to break the 6.2 miles for the run, I went a little bit longer, but the feeling was still the same of the last four days, slow and heavy, last monday I thought I would be able to bounce back in no time, but it will take a few more days. I need to be patient, I need to be patient, I need to be patient. |
| | I have just got back home after spending two days in Bolzano. Yesterday it took 5 h to get there by airplane (driving from my house, waiting at the airport, flying and then cab to the hotel) and today about 6 h. I went out tonight just to do something and enjoy the breeze. It is funny because when I arrived in Salt Lake City in 2001 I felt the whole setting was very similar to Bolzano (a city in a valley surrounded by mountains), now I consider Bolzano like Salt Lake, even though the valley is very narrow and the mountains are just 360 degrees all around and you can reach the tops of some of them with a tramway from the city. I spent two good days upthere and yesterday I managed a few miles along the river, the main problem there are the bike paths (and the bikes on them), there are miles and miles of bike paths crowded with bikers going everywhere (to and from work, loaded with groceries, biking is an official way to go around town), I risked several times collisions with bikers coming from different directions, it was crazy and a few times I felt much safer running on the main road along with cars..... Back to a more normal schedule and probably my legs in a few days will be ready to resume a more regular running routine.
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Highest mileage in one day since the marathon and fastest pace too, 1:11, with the last half at marathon pace. Today I was at home much earlier than usual so I took advantage of the sun still out for the first 20 minutes of the run and the nice temperatures after sunset.
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| | No run today, last night I didn't sleep very well and this morning my throat was on fire. No fever (yet) but I am feeling as someone has beaten me up with a stick. I guess running a marathon and then flying is the perfect combination to catch one of the early bugs of the season. Tomorrow I have to go to work, dead or alive, this the worst part. |
| | Third consecutive day of no running, my chest is still congested, fever keeps going up and down and my muscles and bones are beaten. I think this is the way my body is telling me to relax for a few days, I don't even have the remote desire to put my nose out of bed. I hope this bug will be my early vaccination for the rest of the winter season.
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Today I felt better no fever and not feeling tired. Yesterday already I was without fever but I spent most of the day sleeping. I took advantage of the holiday and I postponed my first adventure out right after lunch when the sun was out and temperatures were really nice. The advantage of beeing sick for five days on NSAIDs is that my legs today had no pains or aches left, the side effect was that my legs didn't know how to run, but in a few more days they will learn it again.
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| | 7 miles in 52:24. Tonight I wanted to go faster, I felt no reason to keep going slow except laziness. For the first 4 miles, after struggling during the first mile, I was actually going around 7:00/mile then a suddenly strange/weird/totally unexpected pain in my left knee convinced me to slow down to a more reasonable pace, in a couple of miles pain was gone and I finished at whatever pace I was running at that point. Overall a great night of running. |
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I am slowly going back to a normal schedule. Slower run tonight to recover from yesterday. Actually I wanted to see in 1:00 how many miles I could squeeze in without pushing. I felt fine at the end.
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5 slow miles as an active rest day. Tomorrow I will attempt first 20 miler after the marathon, I hope it will go well.
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I wanted to do a long run, didn't happen. I wanted to do it at 4:50/km, didn't happen. And I wanted to be "easy" and it was not the case. I started at 8:30 in the morning with a cloudy sky, after 10 minutes the wind brought some heavy rain that lasted for the next two hours. At that point after I have already abandoned my glorious fast and "easy" goals and I was beyond miserable, wet and cold, I abandoned my last goal to finish with 17 miles in 2:15:21. Once at home I felt I survived this training. This is also the reason why I decided to do an early fall marathon and a late marathon, the weather during november can be really bad and doing a good amount of miles during this month can be challenging. In three weeks in Florence even with bad weather I can still enjoy the scenery (I hope so).
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| | Rest day, I was just too lazy and I didn't want to go out and get another hour or so of rain and cold weather. |
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Another useless day in the running department. After long hours at work, I got home and it was raining hard, I ventured out around my neighbourhood to test the "water" after a mile I was wet and miserable so I got back home.
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I got wet going from the train station to work, same story tonight from work to the train station (I know I should have brought an umbrella, but it was sunny when I left my house this morning), finally at home tonight there were clear skies and I went running without worrying too much getting wet. 7 slow miles, but it felt good anyway.
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| | First good running day since the marathon. I started at 4pm (that helped) and went out on a progression run, after doing 4 miles in 38 minutes and change (not exactly fast) I came back in 22 minutes. I was feeling really great at the end. |
| | After last night fast run, I thought I would be destined on a slow recovery jog for today, instead my legs were fresh and ready I didn't want to push the pace and still I have done 7 miles in 57 minutes. Very easy and very fun. On a side note considering the almost full moon I left for half of the run the "safety" of the industrial loop to venture on some adjacent rural roads using only the moonlight to see. It was eerie at the beginning but after a few minutes I was totally comfortble running with just the moonlight. |
| | 5 easy recovery miles before tomorrow 2nd attempt at running 20 miles (after last weekend failure). At least no rain in the forecast. |
| | Another disappointing training run. As soon as I woke up I knew that there was no way I was going to do 20 miles this morning I was already tired. I thought that I could do an half-marathon at marathon pace but after 6.5 miles in 48 minutes, keeping the same pace for just another mile would have been impossible, I resigned and finished the half in 1:48 and change and I was glad I was still able to run until the end. I really need to rest and recover (mentally and physically).
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| | I dragged my sorry legs for 10 slow painful miles, I friend of mine wanted to be paced for a 10 miler in preparation for a spring half marathon. Without this external motivation I would have stayed at home this morning. Now I am feeling even more tired than yesterday. |
| | I explored a new route through a residential area, the long loop is 2.1km the short one is 1.3km. Both loops are longer than the industrial area loop and have more variety (a long hill, a short steep one, a flat part and the corresponding two downhills), the down side there is lots of car traffic at 8pm because there is a gym and a swimming pool. It will be good to change scenery once or twice a week. 6.2 miles in 57 minutes. |
| | Second day without running, I am still sick again. Not much else to report. |
| | This morning I was feeling much better, my throat is no longer on fire, even though whatever agent caused the inflammation is still in my body. I went out for a short run and it took 2k to clear up my throat and sinuses from all the gunk accumulated in the last two days, after that I felt much better and I finished 7 miles in 55:34. I have to say I was really impressed by the outcome of this run, much much better than anticipated.
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| | 6.2 miles in 57 minutes, in spite of the cold air it was not too bad. |
| | 6.2 miles in 54:40, just maintenance until next week end. |
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Rest day, just enjoyed a relaxing day doing laundry, ironing and mowing the lawn last time before the winter months. This week will be stressfull between a trip to Bolzano, a big meeting at work and the marathon next weekend. Not time and mind to run.
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| | I got to Bolzano at 10:30 am quick 6 miles under a beautiful sunny sky and no snow on the mountains. Temperatures were around freezing but it was really nice, I ended up doing the last three miles along the river (slightly downhill) at HM pace. After that I spent the rest of the day at work.
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| | I had no time to run this morning in Bolzano and when I got back home at 8pm tonight I didn't feel like going out even for a short run. I am trying to convince myself I am tapering for a marathon that I really didn't prepare at all, considering all "planned" and "unplanned" rest days during the last for 4 weeks. This marathon will end up being a long run to restart my spring training.
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| | Last run before Florence marathon. My original goal for this marathon (a month ago while I was still high on adrenaline after Pescara marathon) was to go out and trying to hit 3:10 final time or dying in the process. After two episodes of sore throat and fever and sub par slow mileage in the last 30 days I lowered my goals: first and most important it will be to finish it in one piece without broken parts, second one finish under 3:30, third and near impossible finish under 3:20, but realistically no pressure to accomplish any goal time, I want to do it as a good training high intensity run. I am doing this race in spite my low mood because last year it was my first DNS because I was sick and this year I need redemption, the second and main reason is because I have relatives in Florence I haven't seen in a couple of years and this will a good way to have a nice family reunion. Happy thanksgiving!!!!
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| Race: |
Florence marathon (26.2 Miles) 03:38:42, Place overall: 2437, Place in age division: 2295 | |
It was a
strange race, I wasn’t expecting much in terms of results since mid october my
training was just low mileage maintenance and my mind was not ready yet to push
hard another marathon.
I went
anyway to Florence
because I wanted to visit part of my family and the marathon was the perfect
excuse. I woke up at 6:45 am, breakfast, prepared my bag and headed out of the door
with my uncle who drove me as close as possible to the start, otherwise if I
had to drive I should have abandoned my car around 2-3 miles from the starting
area. The temperatures were good on the cold side, around freezing but when the
sun came up made the weather really perfect for running. We started on time but
in spite of the new starting area and wider roads the first miles were still
congested. I wanted to keep 4:40-4:45/km to try to finish “relaxed” in 3:20 but
during the first miles it was nearly impossible to go under 5:00/km. It is
still a mystery to me how in spite starting in a corral with most of the people
faster than me most of them were running much slower. After 3 miles I picked up
my pace and I kept a decent rhythm until mile 10 when I realized that keeping
the same pace for the rest of the race was not going to be easy. I passed the half in 1:41 and I decided that I
was not going to fight to keep an already unsustainable pace. I really wanted to finish without suffering much. I moved back to
the 5:00/km pace and I stayed there until mile 20 and then I progressively
slowed down even more. I didn’t have any intention to suffer and all I wanted
was to complete this long run uninjured. I finished in 3:38:42
really sightseeing Florence downtown during the last 10km:
Ponte Vecchio, Piazza della signoria, Santa Maria del Fiore, il campanile di
Giotto e il battistero and finally Santa Croce.
It took me
almost 1 hour to leave the finish area walk 1km back to my bag and reach my
cousin waiting for my with his scooter to go back to their home for an italian Sunday
lunch.
It was a
nice long run, my legs were sore at the end like after a long run, actually all
my long runs in the last four months were a little bit shorter but at a pace 45sec/km
faster, the weather was great and made this run really a nice one overall. If it was raining like last year it would have been a completely different experience. One day (next year maybe) I
hope I will go back with a fighting body to conquer a better time.
Now it is time to start a more solid training for the upcoming early spring
marathons. For sure this experience turned my fire on again to push my training
back on track. I also discovered that when my mind is not there it is nearly impossible to run a "relaxed" marathon. After a big lunch and a couple of hours on a couch digesting I was almost back to normal and ready to drive for 3 hours to Rome.
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| | My legs are more sore today than yesterday, so no run. Last night I didn't sleep much and today at work I felt totally disconnected. I need a few more days with good sleep at night before starting training hard again.
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| | Another rest day, tomorrow I will start again with a few miles. Just some residual soreness in my legs. |
| | First run post race. 4.1 miles at a good pace overall, around 35 minutes (no watch). My legs are slowly coming back to life.
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| | 6.8 miles at slow pace, still recovering. |
| | Tonight the weather was humid but really warm. Good relaxing run. | |
| | After several days I went running in the morning, the marathon last week doesn't qualify as a normal run. Unfortunately it was foggy and humid with some light rain, but at least it was not completely dark. Legs are not back to life and were more tired than last night, I did 6.2 miles at the slowest pace possible (in 1 hour and few seconds). Now I have the whole day to recover. |
| | It was hard at the beginning my legs were still heavy and slow, after a couple of miles I started going a little bit faster and I finished with the last mile at 4:30/km. I hope it means recovery is really under way. As a side note last night for the first time in a couple of years I slept for 12 hours, and this didn't help. The weather was incredible I was running in shorts and short sleeves with temperatures around 70°F. |
| | Tonight it was a strange run.
I was wearing shorts and shirt because temperatures were around 50F even though was raining on and off all day. After 5 minutes I was under an heavy downpour that lasted for the next 3 miles, after that I started freezing and I kept running a little bit faster each lap just to try to warm up, after 3 more miles I was almost dry, almost warm and I didn't realize I wasn't tired at all. I finished 6.5 miles really happy to have done some many miles on a bad night.
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| | On the way home tonight I felt fine, my legs were kind of fresh after sitting for 4 hours at a meeting, and outside conditions looked great no rain, clear skies, crisp temperatures and a light breeze. I decided to go out and test again some speed with a mini tempo run. I wanted to do 5 miles in 36 minutes, goal marathon pace, and at the end I exceeded my expectations finishing in 34:21. I started on pace and then I progressively accelerated to hm/10 k pace. At the end I could have kept the pace for another 5 miles but I didn't want to exaggerate and finished with a couple of km walking enjoying the cool crispy air. |
| | 7 easy miles at night. Tomorrow is a holiday so it means a morning run with hopefully some sun. |
| | Today is a holiday and I took advantage of it going running in the morning when the sun was up. Temperatures were around 65F with a light breeze. I met one of the organizers of the Trail marathon I did in april and we did a few miles together, I discovered that the trail "marathon" was actually longer the 26 miles more around 27.5 miles. That doesn't change anything but I feel a little bit better about my performance, I thought I didn't slow down at all during the second half and still I was 10 minutes slower at the end, now I have the explanation. Good day overall so far.
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| | Rest day. 2 miles just to go out and loosen up my legs. |
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I wanted to restart my marathon training with a long run with most of the miles at marathon pace. I woke up with a thick fog no more than 10m of visibility and 51°F with 100% humidity. I drove to the lake where everything is usually worse, more humidity (if possible) a couple of degrees (celsius) lower and thicker fog. I was alone and really felt lonely in this surreal/eerie place. I did a repeat style training run and surprisingly all this negative things made me stronger, since my warm up km I felt really strong and determined and the fact that I was the only human being out there gave me some extra mental power.
1k (warm up) 5:37/km 5k 4:28/k + 3" 1k 4:57/k 5k 4:28/k 1k 4:59/k 5k 4:30/k 1k 5:04/k 6k 4:25/k + 3" Overall a great workout 15.5 miles in 1:54:10 at 4:34/k. I was really strong at the end.
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| | 6.3 miles in 1 hour, temperatures were like early summer, unbelievable. |
| | Not enough time to run and still recovering from saturday, 3.1 miles at slow pace. |
| | Tempo run at MP, I got carried away and finished with a pace in between HMP and MP. 10k in 43:06 + 1.3k cool down. Tonight was the first cool night of the season with high humidity and low temperatures (41F), I was forced to use a long sleeve shirt.
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| | 5 slow miles, my legs had no energy, no power, probably no glicogen, I was just glad to finish without walking without injuries, tired is good. |
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Another slow run, although leaving my house I didn't think I would be able to finish 6 miles I had planned. Overall I was happy about this run.
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| | A strike of the railways workers and the Christmas party of my running club, killed my running time at night. At the party we also celebrated the victory of our team in the local circuit of races, and the fastest guy, who dominated the competion and is part of our team. The menu featured lots of prosciutto, salame, and other cured meat won in the last few months, along with pizza and wine. This was the first time we won in over 10 years since this championship started, winning again next year will be tough.
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Bad weather rain/snow mix and a constant strong wind, I ventured to the lake dressed for running to check the conditions, but the wind was just crazy. I couldn't run on a straight line, I was constantly pushed to the left or to the right or stopped by the wind, after 200 yeards I turned around and went home.
I also decided to skip tomorrow race, I am done racing for the year.
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I am back to almost normal life after a couple of hectic days. Tonight was the coldest day of this season, 32-34°F, I actually enjoyed being out and just having to run without having anything else to think about. I signed up for a couple of spring marathons, San Valentino marathon on feb. 19 and Rome marathon on march 18, now it's time to commit again to more serious training. For every marathon I always added or changed something in my training, this time I really want to increase a little bit my mileage while keeping a couple of hard/fast workouts. To increase my mileage it will be harder doing it at night in one session, so I will try to add some easy miles early in the morning before leaving to work. I am writing this just to commit myself to this new goal. 7 easy miles.
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| | This won't be the first double of the season because tonight I won't be able to run but it was the first early morning run (5:30-6:00) anyway and probably my first early morning run during the winter months ever. I did a 1.1km loop around my house without any watch, it was cold but not humid, overall it was a good experience and I hope to keep this enthusiasm when the feeling of doing something new will be gone. 5 laps for 3.3 miles at slow pace.
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| | Tonight I went running to celebrate the "end"of the dark season, from now on days will gain minutes of light. I won't be able to go running in the evening with some light until mid march but summer is coming. 5 miles progressively faster, I started at 5:00/km finished at 4:30/km, total time 37:37.
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| | 6.2 miles in 58:58, nothing special, it was cold and windy. |
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Early morning run at 5:30, 3.3 miles at slow pace.
Second run in the evening 5 miles, felt good.
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I had big plans for today's run, but rain, wind and just don't feeling all that great lowered my expectations I ended up with 8 slow miles. Just in general my legs don't feel recovered, constantly tired and even running slow doesn't seem to help, I would really like to start pushing again, in terms of miles and speed, but everytime I try to bump things up I feel lack of energy, aches and pain everywhere. Anyway it is what it is, I will do what I can. Merry Christmas, buon Natale!!!
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