Puttin' Money In The Bank (L.A.D.)

East out and back today from my parents cottage (we're now in Traverse City, Michigan) on Lake George to "The Shoe Tree" (A huge tree where people tie their shoes together and toss them into the tree. There must be at least 75 pairs in the tree -- including 3 pairs of ours thrown in last summer). Temp was in the 80s, but a dry dusty kind of hot with a moderate breeze. The run was considerable rolling hills. A change from Dundee and Hudsonville where all my runs were on flat terrain. The pace was consistent throughout the run with a 29:50  (8:03s) out and a 29:03 (7:51s) back for a total run of 58:53 over 7.4 miles.(7:57s)

Nike Elite - 92.65

Tough little easy run today. A nice comfortable pace over the 7.8 miles but hit all hills around 5k pace. I would guess this put my recovery pace and easy pace in the 8:15 range. Man there's a lot of rollers here around Lake George and the temps and humidity were equivalent to St Louis. Very humid and fairly warm in the mid 80s. Tomorrow will be another easy run, maybe in the 7 mile range and then some hill repeats on Wednesday followed by another easy 7 miler or so on Thursday, off Friday and the 15k Race on Saturday. Todays total run time was 60:13.

Nike Vomero - 103.1

6.6 mile run today over those rolling hills again that I hit yesterday. Mostly the same course with some alterations to make it shorter. No pace increases up hills, just a steady pace with some mild build ups to cruising speed and then backing down to a slower pace and building back up again. Total run time was 48:34 (7:21s) which was actually a pretty solid run given the hills. Instead of doing some hill repeats I may do some 1.25 mile repeats around the lake which will bring in 3 small but effective hills into the mix and should give me a good build up going into Saturday.

Nike Elite 99.25

Did some AT speedwork around Lake George today. Man those hills are killer. All told the run was 7.2 miles with about 3 of it being AT work and 4 of it being warm up/cool down and recovery. AT work was in 4 bouts. The first was 1.2 miles, then .3 miles, then 1.0 miles, then .6 miles. Tomorrow and Friday will be 1 day off and 1 day of about 4 miles easy -- I just haven't decided what I will do what day yet.

Nike Elite 106.45

Rest and recovery day today to get ready for the 15k Cherry Festival Race on Saturday.

2.8 mile out (7:56s) and back (7:23s) to get the legs loosened up for tomorrow's race.

Nike Vomero - 108.7

Ok, so here's the updated info on this race. Temps were fairly comfortable at race start in the mid 70s, but it had rained all night and the humidity went through the roof as the temps rose to near 80 by 30 minutes in. I dumped my singlet at the top of Mt. McKinley with my parents who were there waiting for me and grabbed it back from them with about .3 to go because my bib # was on it.

I ran this race with my brother-in-law whom I raced with 2 weeks ago. He again got out to a 15 or so second head start by mile 1, but I caught him by mile 2, we ran together through mile 4 where we hit Mt. McKinley (aptly named, this beast was a full mile up with the first 400-500 yards at a significantly steep climb. About 25% of the runners in my view as I turned up it were walking halfway up this first section of the hill.) I hit the hill strong and passed probably 10 runners on it. My brother-in-laws IT band has been bothering him and by the top he was about a minute back of me. By the time I got to the top my singlet was soaked, weighing me down, and restricting my movement. I used the backside of the hill to recovery before attacking the back half of the course. This route was out one side of a penninsula, over the top and down to the other side and back in. Outside of McKinley it was a completely flat course.

Overall I was very pleased with my time. I did not achieve my short-term goal of sub 63:00, but only missed it by 36 seconds. Considering that I set this goal a while back and then missed 5 weeks of running and was only able to get in about 4 and a half weeks of running in the last 11 weeks I should consider this race smartly run and a great jump forward in getting back to form. 5th in my age group in a race of over 2500 runners is nothing to shake a stick at either. Well, enough of the overview and on to my splits.

No mile marker until mile 3 (Ugh!) 20:38 (6:53s)

Mile 4 - 6:46

Mile 5 - 7:22 (All uphill, very steep -- pleased with this time up the hill, I passed a good 15 racers going up.)

Mile 6 & 7 - 13:29 (6:45s)

Mile 8 - 6:34

Mile 9 & 9.3 8:40 (6:40s)

Got in a 2 mile warm-up and the race in my Asics Gel Speedstars 54.3

Got in a 1.5 mile cool down afterwards in my Nike Elites 108