I decided yesterday to get some consistent hot weather running in for a while so what happens....the weather cools significantly. Only 65 or so when I went out although the sun did finally break through to warm things up a bit. Decided on a hilly trail run, with four loops up a ~150' incline over 2/10ths of a mile. Felt pretty good all things considered. Got some core work in afterwards.
Ankles definitely got a workout yesterday from the rocky trails. Legs a bit fried too so I vowed to take today's run easy. Warmer today with the thermometer reading 76F in the shade and 96F in the sun. Last few miles were a slog...could tell I overheated and started feeling like I had at Sunday's race....wanted to quit and walk, tired legs, etc. Lost 3.2 lbs to sweat so I guess it's time to start carrying some water along on these runs.
Thunderstorms rolled in overnight. Unfortunately, one of our dogs is scared of thunderstorms and while she's gotten better in her old age, the big booms still scare her which causes her to bark and whine, so sleep last night was fitful at best. Power went out at around 9am this morning, so I decided to get run #1 done. Good SS miles over my normal hilly route. Slower than last week's SS on flat terrain but overall I think the effort was pretty close to the same with the time increasing by 10 minutes. A cool 60F and cloudy but near 100% humidity, so I lost 3.2 lbs again on today's run. Later today I intend to go for another 3.5 miles.
Adrenaline 8s (Blue) - 56.61 miles.
3.5 miles in 28:44, 8:12/mi, HR 146.
VFF run while wearing Injinji Tetrasok microcrew socks in an attempt to spare my feet the beating they take in VFFs. It worked as this is the first run in them without blisters afterwards. Calves felt pretty good too, probably because I changed course and ran the first mile downhill. I think running uphill immediately without a good warmup overstressed my calves/achilles in previous VFF runs. At least I'm learning.
Bad news....my Forerunner 305 died. It started scrolling uncontrollably towards the end of the run. I managed to get the workout downloaded before it shutoff completely. When I turn it on, I can tell the screen has power because the pixels light up, but they it basically just changes the shade of the screen. So now I'm faced with the decision:
Repair my current 305. $99 + shipping costs + insurance. 90 day warranty.
Purchase a new 305. $210 + tax. 1 year warranty.
Purchase a new 405. $300-350 + tax. 1 year warranty.
One other minor factor that affects this decision is the fact that I can't find my wall charger for my 305. Hmmmmmm.......
Oops. Somehow I managed to mess up how long I was supposed to run for and wound up going for 60 minutes. Dang it....I didn't have my Forerunner 305 to keep me straight for today's workout. Oh how I depend on technology.
Technologically deprived, day 1. Garmin still broke. Had to find my watch before running and during the run realized how much I distracted myself looking at things like HR, instant pace, avg pace, etc....60 minutes seemed like 3 hours today. I don't think I can wait the couple of weeks sending it in for repairs will take. I'm not sure I can wait until tomorrow.
Oh, and some minor pain on the outside of my left foot, undoubtedly resulting from the VFF run yesterday. I'm beginning to wonder if the risks outweigh the benefits of running in them, at least for me. Perhaps if I could find some grass to run on instead of the asphalt road...
Good solid uphill outbound climb into the state forest lands for 7.5 miles. Elevation gain about 1150' overall with some rolling ups and downs intermixed. The last bit to the turnaround point was pretty steep but everything else wasn't too bad. Return was a nice downhill where I could stretch out a bit.
So I bought a 405 yesterday at REI in Seattle (completely fixated, I bounced from Ft. Lewis to Tacoma REI to Seattle finally before I found one). So today was my first run with it. Acted pretty good until just after the 13 mile mark when it decided to freeze, wouldn't let me navigate using the bezel, didn't show any data, and just plain wouldn't respond, other than allowing me to use the push buttons to pause/start the time and to trigger a lap. Got it back home and managed to get it to sync using the USB power cable (not the wireless) and now it seems to have reset itself. This doesn't bode well. Hopefully this glitch was random and temporary.
Tired from being up late last night. Every 4th of July Dianna goes out to the barn to watch the horses and make sure nothing happens with the fireworks going off in the surrounding areas. Since she accompanied me on my 405 quest today, I went with her last night. Now she's told me previously about the quantity of fireworks that get set off in the area, but I had no idea. For about 90 minutes, I felt like I was in the final bridge scene from Saving Private Ryan....I don't know how the horses managed to stay as calm as they did. Only a couple of the more hotheaded ones got a bit worked up, but fortunately the old "feed them" trick worked long enough to get thru the worst of it. By the time we got back home it was after midnight and I woke up feeling pretty tired this morning.
Feeling the effects of this week's mileage and a bit of stiffness from yesterday's long trail run, it was easy keeping the pace mild today. Cooler overcast skies remain (59F) so this one was a good recovery run. 405 is working fine now.
Felt more rested today, yet still kept things on the very easy side. Warmer (66F) and sunny.
I've noted in a few races that the cant of the road really affects me negatively in longer races. Back when I began running, I'd always ran opposing traffic which yielded a down-left cant. This gave me an achilles issue in short order. Later, I took to running on the right side of the road to make up for the fact that my left side was weaker. After many months, I decided to even things out and would run certain stretches of road on certain sides, giving me a relatively "even" amount of cant to deal with. I also chose the side that was the flattest.
What I didn't realize at the time was that I wound up running uphill with more left-side cant and downhill with more right-side cant. I decided to switch things up today and run on the opposite side I normally run on. Boy, what a difference. My right ankle was working hard to stay stable on the downhill (left-side cant). Long story short: I need to do more of this to make sure I'm developing stability and strength in both sides equally.
10.3 miles in 1:22:30, 8:01/mi, HR 160. 30 minute warmup, 3.47 mi, 8:39/mi, HR 149. 15 x 30 second Strides w/ 1 minute rest. 30 minute cooldown, 4.02 mi, 7:28/mi, HR 165.
The heat is back. Sunny and 75F in the shade for the run, so the warmup/cooldown were both kept easy. Fortunately, the Strides were over so quickly the heat didn't affect things much, but I was terribly thirsty when they were over and glad I'd brought along some water.
On a much more frustrating note, my brand new Forerunner 405 locked up again. Bezel navigation quit working (yes, I checked to make sure I hadn't accidently locked the bezel) and it lost track of the GPS satellite constellation and my HR monitor, although the time kept running and it actually completed the workout once the time ran out. I suspect that a hiccup in the wireless/GPS functionality is causing this problem but these are so new no one has posted anything online about how to fix other than to return it, so I will. Unfortunately, it'll take REI another week to get a replacement in, so I'll have to limp thru with this one until then. Ugh.
Deceivingly hot today....temps read 75F but much warmer in the sun. Kept things easy until the last 1/4 mile when I noticed that a little pushing would help me catch and beat the 8 minute guy.
Got an early start for today's first run. Temps around 62F and sunny. Felt a bit tired and stiff on the warmup but settled in nicely during the Steady State portion. Started getting tired in the final third and noticed I kept dropping my head as a result (staring at the ground). Focused on keeping the effort up, good form through to the end. Nice cooldown. I think I managed to ease off just slightly from last week's Steady State and that the effort is right where it should be.
4 miles in 32:44, 8:11/mi, HR 148.
Early evening run after work. Temp 68F w/ some clouds which made it feel much cooler than this morning's run in the sun. Very hard to get started....stiff and sore adductors that finally loosed up after a mile. Wondering how my body is going to handle the 3 relay runs.
Decided against running in the VFFs for a while. My feet literally take too much damage and getting this close to the relay I don't want to do anything stupid. I need to find some grass-running opportunities to wear them. For now, they'll just be my walk-around-the-house shoes, which helps strengthen the calves too.
Somehow I got my shoe mileage on this pair wrong...luckily I log the miles on another site as well that tracks it automatically, since I obviously can't count.
One of those days where I felt like I was dragging but was not. Sunny and warm (74F) with little shade so the asphalt was cooking, but a breeze on the return downhill felt good. Sleep last night was restless, undoubtedly from yesterday's efforts. Must get some good sleep for tomorrow 2 hour run.
Warm hill run today. 71F at the start and sunny, 78F at the finish. Out and back with a large hill early (mile 1-3), some gentle inclines (3-7.5), some gentle declines (7.5-12), the large hill again (12-14) and the finish. Everything went pretty well except the return hill, by which time I was roasted and spent and I wound up taking a few walk breaks of several seconds to get to the top. The heat really cooked me....I lost 5.4 lbs over the course of the run and consumed 24 fl oz of water enroute for a total of 6.9 lbs of sweat over 2 hours. I'm not sure these runs in the heat are getting any easier but perhaps slightly more tolerable? Time to go move a couple pallet loads retaining wall bricks around the yard.
Sunny and a bit cooler (77F) with some nice intermittent breezes. Was a bit aggressive early on so wound up overheating a bit towards the end. Some pain in left shoulder blade/back that won't go away these past few days....may need a revisit to the chiro soon.
10.24 miles in 1:20:00, 7:48/mi, HR 157. 25 min warmup, 3.09 mi, 8:05/mi, HR 144. Hill Fartleks: 10 x 2 min on @ 5K effort, 1 min off, 30 minutes total, 3.96 mi, 7:35/mi avg. 25 min cooldown, 3.19 mi, 7:50/mi, HR 154.
Fartlek
Distance
Pace
Avg HR
Max HR
Grade
1
.33
6:08
167
174
Up
2
.33
6:07
171
177
Up
3
.32
6:11
169
176
Up
4
.32
6:16
169
177
Up
5
.29
6:47
169
178
Up
6
.31
6:27
167
177
Up
7
.29
6:55
171
179
Up
8
.37
5:23
172
179
Down
9
.35
5:47
171
179
Down
10
.37
5:25
171
178
Down
Didn't quite get started as early as I'd intended, so a bit warmer (sunny and 67F) than I'd hoped. Some good hard efforts. Felt like I was able to keep the effort fairlyconsistent throughout, so the pace/distance variances are mostly due to the degree of incline for each repeat. There was some fading towards the end, especially on the last few uphill segments where I felt like I couldn't get any more oxygen and was at my max respiration rate, heavy legs, just couldn't push more but my HR was still below max. As a matter of fact, my max HR for each segment was only a few beats higher than my average HR for my Steady State run last Thursday. Hmmmm........
Adrenaline 8s (Blue) - 94.85 miles.
4 miles in 31:52, 7:58/mi, HR 148.
82F and sunny but felt cooler, probably due to increased shade on the route. Easy, but not too easy, so I shouldn't have a problem keeping it really easy tomorrow. Does that make any sense?
A nice foggy and cool morning to run. Unfortunately, I didn't get out the door until after noon, wrestling with some software for work all morning, so I got 66F and sunny. I also got to suffer through some GI cramping this morning...my only suspect, the small ice cream sandwich I had last evening. So, in an excellent frame of mind, I set off on my SS run. The first 23 minutes were run uphill, the next 7 or so were on some rare relatively flat ground, and the last 15 were on the downhill. So I expected my overall pace to be a bit slower than last week given the 10 minute duration increase and the overall elevation gain to the run. As expected, a 6:57/mi average, compared to 6:50/mi last week. I was starting to struggle as I finally crested the hill about halfway through the run and really needed the flat . The last 10 minutes my legs were really getting tired but I focused on staying in the moment, collecting feedback and keeping focused on the task at hand. I tend to fight through negative thoughts on these longer efforts and if I can hold them off complete the runs, but I can also let them slowly overwhelm me until I'm convinced to just take a quick walk break, and then it's over.....I've lost. Good mental toughening training.
Adrenaline 8 - 338.81 miles.
4 miles in 33:08, 8:17/mi, HR 146.
Sunny and 71F. Poor cooldown from earlier run and sitting behind a desk for a few hours, so I was stiff starting out. Finally loosened up around 1.5 miles in. Chased by dogs at mile 3.
Cooler (62F) and cloudy. Actually wore a long sleeved shirt and a hat. Another run on the opposite side of the road to get more accustomed to various road cants.
Cool and misty morning (55F) run on logging roads. Big hill at mile 2-3/13-14 and gradual 500+' incline from 3-7.5. Felt good about halfway through so threw in a MP mile.....but wanted to save myself to tackle the big hill towards the end. Tackled it much better than last week and at 14, decided to run fast...last mile in 6:15. Rest of the day spent loading/hauling/unloading hay for some rescue horses.
Warm (69F) & sunny. Having taken yesterday easy and skipped core exercises, I can only imagine that pre-relay jitters are starting to manifest as their cousins, the pre-race aches and pains, do.....in strange places and for limited duration. So I'm dutifully ignoring them.
11.48 miles in 90 minutes, 7:50/mi. 25 minute warmup, Fartleks: 20 x 1 min on, 1 min off. 25 minute cooldown.
Last hard session before NWP on Friday. Fartleks felt good...1 minute duration just long enough to start getting tired but not too long so that it outlasts the recovery period. 10 were uphill, 4 on the flats, and 6 downhill. Interestingly, the uphill/flat ones were limited by the amount of O2 I could suck into my lungs, whereas the downhill ones seemed limited by the muscle strength of my legs. Probably averaged around 3K speed on most of them (5:38/mi).
The new 405 I picked up on Sunday to replace the first one decided to work fine during the workout, but then wouldn't transfer the results and locked up when viewing the history on the watch. Sigh...I've had this happen before on my 305 (rarely) but I'm still not happy about it. Last chance for the 405 series for me. So I'm guessing on the Easy versus VO2Max miles.
Asics GT 2120 - 562.23 miles.
4 miles in 32:10, 8:02/mi, HR 143.
Cloudy and cool (60F) all day today. Hope this lasts....perfect racing weather.
0.68 miles in 5:12, 7:39/mi, HR 128. 7.5 miles in 59:31, 7:56/mi, HR 147.
Easy run to rest for NWP relay on Friday. Unfortunately, I witnessed a cat getting hit by a car about 1/3 mile into my run when a car speeding down our road wasn't able to stop in time, then proceeded to keep going anyway. I wish the cat had died instantly but unfortunately it was only mortally wounded. I've seen death before but it's still not something I'm too terribly comfortable dealing with, especially when it's an animal that had been trained to rely on humans and subsequently abandoned. Wound up running back home in a state to collect a car and have the wife call the local vet telling them I was bringing in a stray that would likely need euthanised. Of course, they were too busy to be bothered since the vet had left early for lunch...trying my best not to drive down there today to let them know how I feel about that. Perhaps the best news was that the cat was gone when I returned....the neighbor who had been feeding it told me it was dead when he found it and he'd obviously disposed of the corpse....believable since the poor thing was in such a bad state when I'd last seen it. He also told me someone had abandoned it a few months ago and it had 3 young ones running around somewhere. So now I feel like a complete heel for not searching for it's 3 offspring to make sure they've got a better chance. And how does this relate to running? Despite managing to go out on my run after a calming down period I know it's going to bother me for months every time I run in that area...not very manly but I really don't care...
The sun is back and warmer today at 70F. Felt nice and energetic through 1 mile, then tired and uncoordinated for the rest. A good night sleep tonite is called for...
Northwest Passage Relay (184.5 Miles) 20:31:02, Place overall: 2, Place in age division: 1
Easy Miles
Marathon Pace Miles
Threshold Miles
VO2 Max Miles
Total Distance
0.00
0.00
13.40
0.00
13.40
My first relay and what an incredible experience. This will be a long, long read so forgive my verbosity!
First, many thanks to my teammates for all their efforts in running the relay. I know no one left a single drop in the tank and everyone ran their guts out and for that, I'm truly thankful and inspired.
Second, many, many thanks to Paul Peterson for sponsoring our entry into the race. I didn't know what kind of a $$$ sacrifice Paul made for us to run for him until I got the scoop in the relay and I was humbled by his ENORMOUS contribution! Paul, I hope we did you proud!!!
Last, thanks to my van-mates for saving my butt from myself and my own driving!
After a restless night of anxious sleep, early Friday I left the house and proceeded north picking up a couple of teammates at the airport (Cody and Matt), one in Seattle (Aaron), and our final "van"-mate in Bellevue (Tim). We headed north to Blaine, WA just south of Canada for our 2pm start time where we lined up against a dozen other teams.
Since our team was short-handed (9 of 12), some of us were running an extra leg or two. I was picked to run legs 1, 13, 14, and 25, so my extra leg was going to be a back-to-back effort. My legs also got progressively harder as the race went on....leg 1 was 6.2 miles, 13 and 14 combined were 7.2 miles, and 25 was a 7.8 mile beast with some "rolling" hills to combat and a final uphill one mile climb to my personal finish.
So knowing I was the leadoff runner was a bit intimidating. Early on, I'd asked Paul how best to estimate an average pace and he emailed me that using a half-marathon pace was usually a good estimate. So I promptly used my best race ever to-date, my 15K last March, plugged it into the McMillan race calculator and came up with a 6:29/mi half-marathon projection, rounded it up to 6:30/mi and submitted that. Of course, that 15K race turned out to be a peak and I had some tough races after that where I never quite got back to that level. Then, a short break after my marathon during some vacation time set me back quite a bit and needless to say, I was quite nervous all the way into the relay about being able to hold up to my leg projections. Part of me wanted to let myself off the hook and to revise my estimates, especially with picking up an extra leg, but I really didn't feel like I had the right and didn't want to let my teammates down before we even started. As I lined up at the start, all these thoughts ran through my head for the millionth time. My first leg was essentially a 10K and Paul's magical race spreadsheet formulas took my 6:30/mi projection, crunched the difficulty of the leg with the expected temps and spit out a goal time and pace of 41:46, 6:41/mi.
Promptly at 2pm the horn sounded and we were off. Heading down the gravel path for the road I watched about 8 of the other runners take off and quickly found myself in 9th place! Wha??? About a quarter mile in I checked my garmin and saw I was running slightly below a 6:00/mi pace and it was already starting to feel like it. The sun had come out and the 70F temps were already starting to feel warm as I watched the crowd rabbit away, but I knew I had to run my race so I settled back into what felt like the hardest pace I could carry for 6.2 miles and told myself to relax and that I'd be able to reel them back in. Fortunately for me, I was able to reel all but 2 of the runners in by the end of my leg and I finished in 40:32, a 6:37/mi pace and well under my projection for this leg, picking up an extra 1:14 for the team, handing off to Cody "The Machine" who promptly dusted the competition I'd been unable to catch.
Having raced before but never back-to-back-to-back legs, I was very concerned on how I'd run the next two legs given what would be a short recovery period (not the typical 2 week minimum time between races but rather 7 hours, many of which would be spent riding in a truck. Fortunately, the excitement of watching my teammates smoke the competition helped keep my mind off things and made things really fun! Cody ran a blisteringly fast leg (one of his extra legs already) and handed off to Tim, who started out on a long 8.2 mile stretch in the heat of the day. Which is when I nearly completely derailed our entire race with one turn of the steering wheel.
Looking for a pull-off point about 2 miles into Tim's leg where we could hand him some water and cheer was difficult....a narrow country road with no shoulders. Fortunately, a small pulloff appeared where I saw a yellow gate that normally indicates a dirt track to enter forest or other unimproved land. Figuring I would swing in their but wanting to get off the road entirely, I completely missed the fact that the pulloff was only wide enough to drive into perpendicular to the road and wouldn't accomodate my parallel parking maneuver. Tall grass masked the 4' ditch on either side of the turnout. So despite having a big 3/4 ton 4WD pickup truck, I managed to stick the front right tire into the ditch getting us completely stuck.
I completely panicked. When 4WD didn't bail me out and neither did having the guys stand on the rear bumper to increase the weight in the back in the hopes that I could drive out, my only coherent thoughts aside from how I'd just completely screwed our entire team was to get on the phone and get a tow truck rolling ASAP. A call to AAA finally yielded an operator who promised to dispatch a tow immediately but indicates a 1 hr wait was usually the minimum.
Fortunately, my team was much more organized and level-headed. Cody managed to flag down another team and convinced them to shuttle our next two runners ahead to the exchange. The fact that it was the high-school team that'd taken second place last year and knew we were one of their most dangerous competitors was all the more impressive.....a big shout-out to the N.U.D.E. runners from Tahoma school district in Maple Valley, WA and their coaches for their incredibly sportsmanlike gesture. Next, Cody managed to flag down a couple of security guards from a nearby plant, one who was a self-described "country redneck" who quickly retrieved his personal pickup truck and chains to drag us back onto all four wheels. We took an extra 2 minutes so I could thank him profusely, give him $40 for his kindheartedness to save my bacon, and to get some required video/picture footage of the scene of the accident. Tim managed to push thru his long grueling leg in the heat of the day sun without the promised water stops while we were able to get through to the next exchange and retrieve our runners without missing a leg. Aside from never being able to forget "the ditch incident" because of the horror I felt at putting us in that situation, I'll also never forget the quick thinking my team displayed and the fact that instead of giving me a hard time, they all kept telling me it was no big deal, probably on seeing I was completely out of my mind horrified with what I'd done. I couldn't have asked for a better crew to run with and I'm truly humbled by the experience already.
Aaron, Tim and Cody (again) ran the next three legs, each exceeding their pace projections, giving us a substantial time cushion over our projections as well as a lead on our 2pm competition. We'd even begun to catch some of the 1pm teams in the process and the "coolness" of passing "roadkill" definitely kept us psyched up and feeling good. We linked up with our Van 2 teammates Andy, Mark and Craig (Dave to join during their legs as he rushed from Friday work to make it in time for his leg) at the first major exchange. These guys were definitely studs....they were prepping to run 2 runners short and all faced 5 legs to the normal 3 with calm confidence.
Short break while Van 2 ran their first set of legs cut even shorter when the Van 2 runners gained around 15 minutes on their first set of projections. Uh, wow!!! My next run started around 9:20pm and was going to be a double....legs 13 and 14, both thankfully short at 3.6 apiece. Still, a 7.2 mi run mere hours after a 10K race had me worried how I'd respond, especially given a lack of any time to sleep. First half was had some minor uphill but the second made up for it with a downhill. Oh, and it got dark while I was running, so it'd be my first race experience in the dark.
Got the handoff from Dave and I was off. First problem.....Garmin 405 had gone into standby and I spent some time and energy fumbling trying to get *something* to start. Finally had success a couple of tenths into my leg. Managed to catch and pass 2 other runners by the halfway mark but my legs were very tired.....I shortened my stride and tried to increase my turnover because I was really afraid they would give out on me or I'd pull something but I didn't back off any. Some dark backroads, passing 4 other runners, nearly choking on some gatorade, and a double-tractor trailer UPS truck that decided not to slow at all nor to budge an inch out of the lane I was in were the only significant things I remember. The downhill stretch was desperately needed and helped me gain a bit of ground and overall I was a bit under my combined projection of 47:42 (fast on the first one, slow on the second). I've forgotten my exact time but will fill it in later when I get a copy of the splits spreadsheet. ***Actual time was 23:09 and 24:00, so 47:09 total....under by 33 seconds!***
The rest of our van ran excellent legs and we handed off to Van 2 again having gained a bit more ground on our projections, although not as much as the first time. We hit the Deception Pass State Park and everyone promptly passed out for a quick 2 hour nap. Continued on tomorrow's page...
Northwest Passage Relay - Day 2 (184.5 Miles) 20:31:02, Place overall: 2, Place in age division: 1
Easy Miles
Marathon Pace Miles
Threshold Miles
VO2 Max Miles
Total Distance
0.00
0.00
7.80
0.00
7.80
Got the phonecall from Van 2 at around 3:10am that they were on their last runner, so a quick scramble to wake up, redress, load the truck and drive the short distance to the start. Just in time but some confusion at the start.....got there with literally no time to warm up, which was probably a good thing since I was tired and half-asleep, so I couldn't really grasp how tired I really was. I heard someone say that two runners were coming in and thought I heard that ours was the second. The first came in and blew by me, followed shortly by Andy saying "There's Dave" or something similar, and sure enough Dave turned around and I managed to snap out of my stupor and took off. I heard the exchange volunteer someone say "blah blah turn left blah" so I did, and got about three steps before a chorus of voices shouted "Wrong Way!!!". I was clearly not thinking well and missed the part about running on the left side of the road and turning left at the *next* left up the hill! So I lost a few seconds but finally got started.
Again, Garmin struggles.....this time with the short time to get ready, I'd forgotten to set it up so a longer struggle a bit later down the road to get something started on it. Probably just as well because I knew it was 7.8 miles, I was tired, didn't bother relooking my projection so I could just concentrate on enduring as much pain for as much speed as possible this leg. My goal: Leave everything I had on the road this leg. A fairly brutal leg that had a few hundred feet of rolling elevation gain, some nice downhills, followed by a significant 200+' uphill for the final mile. Things I remember about this leg include passing several runners, it being very dark and desolate, the power lines literally humming and crackling (presumably with the dew from the night air), my legs feeling better than leg 13-14 but being more drained, and feeling like I was crawling up the hills. When I finally got to the 1 mile left mark at the base of the final climb, I knew it would hurt but also that my team was waiting and I had to put that hill behind me as quickly as possible. Developed the wheeze in my breathing that has only happened a few times while running, always previously in a marathon when the end is near (both the race and my ability to run!). Managed a feeble kick at the end and finished 8 seconds over my projection (53:27 versus 53:19). My body promptly quit, legs stiffened substantially and I couldn't go at faster than a slow jog for the remainder of the race, so I guess my timing was great. ***Relooking the times, I finished in 53:28 so I was 9 seconds slow. But I was 98 seconds fast overall....pretty darned close estimating, I'd say!***
The rest of our guys ran their remaining legs well. Aaron and Matt both smoked their sections, Matt surprised us all into thinking he'd be a couple minutes behind his projection on his hilly leg only to appear while Cody was still getting ready to take the handoff (and under his projection on a killer leg!), and Cody hammered his to finish us out. Then Cody hopped into Van 2 to run a 5th leg as a Van 2 runner to help carry some of the burden they were enduring....amazing!
The remaining 4 in our van selfishly ate some crappy breakfast and showered at the exchange, drove to the finish and ate some excellent breakfast at a local diner before meeting our Van 2 teammates to run across the finish line in 20:31:02. We knew we'd definitely beaten every team except the ultra team that started at 3:30pm, so we planned to wait an hour and a half to see if we'd won. An hour and a quarter later, the ultra team arrived indicating their last runner was about a mile away. Sure enough, they beat us by a measley 6 minutes! Nonetheless, we were able to claim the course record for a little over an hour and had a blast doing it!
Overall, I was happy that I managed to beat my total time projection even with the extra leg, and with our 2nd place overall (1st in the Open category) finish. I had a great time, managing to make it home to collapse for 10 hours of sleep at about 7pm last evening. I saw my last teammate, Matt, off to the airport early this morning, and the glow of a great race and a grand time is still in full effect today. I really liked the relay experience, got to meet some great runners (yes, I'm still in absolute awe of Cody's running form.....nothing moves except his legs and they're a blur at full speed), and felt like I'm getting back near the top of my previous highest fitness level. A great way to spend a weekend!
Warm (71F) and sunny. Focused on keeping hips straight and not rotated forward, minimizing cross-torso rotation, and keeping shoulders relaxed. In other words, minimizing excessive energy wasting movement. It seemed to take more energy to do it, of course, but it always does because it doesn't feel natural (yet). Anytime I work on form I tend to run faster and harder than when I'm not, probably because my really easy gait is sloppy. In any event, this easy run was definitely on the faster and a bit harder side, although some of that was the sun. Hopefully, easy enough with tomorrow's Fartlek session approaching. Still no major relay induced soreness or other effects.....good news.
11.06 miles in 1:25:12, 7:42/mi, HR 154. 25:00 warmup, 2.92 mi,
8:33/mi, HR 139. Fartleks: 1 x 2 min on, 1 min off. 8 x 3 min
on, 1 min off. 25:01 cooldown, 3.24 mi, 7:43/mi, HR 148.
Fartlek
Distance
Pace
Avg
HR
Max
HR
Terrain
Extra
-2 min On
.30
6:34
169
176
Up
1
.47
6:20
167
178
Up
2
.48
6:11
173
179
Up
3
.51
5:55
173
178
Rolling
4
.48
6:18
173
179
Rolling
5
.48
6:13
171
177
Rolling
6
.47
6:22
171
178
Rolling
7
.48
6:12
171
178
Rolling
8
.53
5:37
169
176
Down
Cloudy and cool....a bit of wind and a couple of light showers today.
Managed to misprogram my 405 so that the first fartlek iteration was only 2
minutes long.....discovered the mistake and did some on-the-spot reprogramming
to setup the correct workout. Since that took some time, decided to just
make that extra and complete the full workout. This one was
tough....still a bit tired from the relay but good mental toughening.
Started fading towards the middle so the last few were a bit erratic but
managed to hang on for all 8. Overall, a 6:08. 5/mi average and I was
aiming for 6:07/mi average so I got a whole lot closer than I had
expected. Plus, more uphill than downhill so probably exceeded my goal
when accounting for terrain. Feels like all the hard relay running
actually helped boost my threshold and improved my faster running form but
perhaps that's just a mental illusion. Either way, happy with this
workout.
Adrenaline 8 - 376.1 miles.
4 miles in 32:09, 8:02/mi, HR 143.
First run in the rain in quite a while. I don't miss it.
Legs felt dead. Good turnover but felt like I was taking baby-steps the whole way out. A bit better on the downhill return. Overcast and cool again (58F). The next couple of weeks are VA is going to be brutal when the heat and humidity hit me...
Back to sunny and warm (71F). Pushed the pace a bit. Also threw in some 8-10 second uphill sprints on the steeper outbound sections. Legs started getting tired around 8 miles in and I concentrated on holding as good form as possible. A hint of left quad & adductor tenderness about 7 miles in so I stopped briefly to stretch. Thinking about 4 more this evening....dunno.
Adrenaline 8s (Blue) - 151.75 miles.
4 miles in 32:01, 8:00/mi, HR 148.
First mile was slow (nearly 9 min pace) but felt better once I loosened up. I think these easy doubles on harder/longer days actually help me recover quicker in the long run.
