Old Man Still running

With my string of five Saturdays in a row with at least 35 miles, that got me wondering.  How many times in my life have I run long runs on a day?   I'll call 20 miles a long run.   It turns out that I have 180 days with 20 miles or more.  My biggest year was last year, which might explain why I PRed at RR100 last month.

2002	3
2003	7
2004	25
2005	24
2006	28
2007	26
2008	21
2009	38
2010	8

 

I have a ton more between 15-20 miles because of all my Timp runs and early morning training runs.  But 20 miles or over seems like a much bigger effort, so that is what I'm calling a long run.

Treadmill.  Four miles at 5:53.  Backed off the pace after that because quad complained.

Did it a little different this morning.  I ran to the rec center, ran the treadmill and then ran back home.   The rec center is only a mile from home, so I don't have to get all bundled up.  However running back all sweaty was a little brisk.  It was nice to get outside, even it was was pavement.  The lights across the lake are great see before dawn.

p.m.  Fast four miles of pavement with the dog.

Treadmill.   Mixture of speed and hills.  Two fast miles at 6:15 and 5:58. That is all I could take with speed.  One tough much slower mile with incline at 25% for much of it.  Fun stuff. The rest of the miles were about 7:30 pace.  I did notice the 10k mark went by a little after 45 minutes, so I guess overall I was going pretty fast.  (I didn't do the hills during that stretch). 

I'm starting to think of going into a taper.  Antelope Island 100 is just 16 days away.  I don't have any firm expectations.  Well, I do expect to win, since I'm the only one running it.  Do I expect to PR?  Probably not.   Pretty tough to push hard when I will be the only one running the course for the first 60 miles.   I'll start around 7 p.m. the evening before the big race.   I should finish the first 50 miles before 5 a.m., so I'll have a head start on the Antelope Island 50 runners.   The front runners will catch me around 60 miles or earlier, and then I will have plenty of company as people catch up to me.   Hopefully it will motivate me to try to keep pace with runners who have 50 fewer miles on their legs.   Should be fun.  I expect that I'll finish with the back of the pack, so I'll have some nice friendly company when I'm almost dead.

Eight easy treadmill miles while watching basketball.

I was really focused on this 10K because I really believed I could PR and break 43 minutes.  To make a long story short the race organizers cut the course short this year, didn’t tell us, or even mention it at the awards.  It turned out to be a 9K.  I would have been rather angry, but the race is for a good cause and in the name of a man, Rex Lee, who I really respected.  His wife also grew up with my mother.  So, I chilled out.  But the race was a mess.   I had a super race and was on pace to crush my PR, I mean crush!   I believe I would have finished in at least 41:55 if the course was the correct length.

The long story is, that I went to Provo, checked in, and then warmed up for two miles.  I felt great and fast.   The first thing that confused me is that they moved the start back about a half block further down the street, so I worried that the course would be long.   The gun went off and I started well.  The first mile is the toughest, with a hill during the second half mile.   I hit what might have been the one mile mark at 6:57.   I thought I was going faster than that, so I immediately didn’t trust the mile markers.   Next up was a very long downhill.  I found some good speed and started passing people.  I keep a tall runner age 48, in my sights who I have never beat.   I hit the mile 2 sign at 11:11, clocking a 4:15 mile.  I yelled out, “No way.”   I knew something was wrong.  I hit mile 3 at 18:01.   No way was I averaging 6-minute miles, but I knew I was averaging well below 7-minute miles.

The rest of the race went great.  I never hit a wall, and around the real 4-mile mark was passing people.  The legs felt great and the lungs were working fine.   As I was nearing the finish, I looked at my watch and concluded that my watch must have stopped at some point, no way was I on pace to break 40.  I finished in 37:50.   I was very confused.  I talked to another runner with a GPS and she explained that the course was 0.6 short.  I then remembered that in past years there were to detours on the course to add that mileage in.    I was very disappointed because I knew I would have had a PR.

The next disappointment was that they allowed 10K racers to switch to the 5K but didn’t change out their chips.   So there were several 5K racers who finished ahead of me clocking 10K placement times.  Michelle Lowry was cheated out of recognition for winning the women’s 10K because 5K runners claimed the price.  What a mess.

Well, the good news is I won my age group!  There were about 500 9K runners.   My mile pace was about 6:45 on a course with some good hills.   If the course was right, I know I would have pushed even harder.   No other old guy was even close to me and I think finished about five minutes behind.

So, I go away with a pleasing feeling that I would have finished in 41:55.   This is a great indication that my training is going very well, even for short distances.   I’m still getting faster.  If they throw out the 5K runners from the 10K standings, I probably finished around 30th place.

Oh, and I did get a kick out of the reaction of the crowd when they called out my name, Davy Crockett, during the awards.  Lots of laughing from the BYU students.   Laugh it up kids.  I bet I beat you all!