faster with age

    My lower hamstring was a little sore yesterday and still is today after Saturdays run. It seemed to be the steeper downhill when I picked up the pace to around 6:35 pace that got the hammy burning.  I guess it was good to find out when I did or I would have been a DNF next Saturday [which could happen anyway]. When I finished last saturdays run I was planning a cooldown mile and had to pass on it because of the tightness.  I think I need to keep everything above 7:00 pace and maybe close to 7:20.  Hopfully with a good easy week my injury will at least be back to where it was before that last run.

    This morning I went hunting and did about 2 1/2 hours of hiking. After I got home I ran 1 mile at 8:50 pace but decided to leave it at that for the day.

    I went hunting again last night and this morning. Real close to getting a nice bull this morning. Today's the last day of the bowhunt. My hamstring didn't bother me hiking this morning like it did yesterday. I did a 15 mile mt. bike ride after I got home. I'll try running some more tomorrow. I want to get the hamstring as healed as possible this week.

    Ran 5.25 miles. Just wanted to keep it easy and comfortable around 8:30 pace but my pace ended up being a little faster than it felt and everything felt good probably because I haven't run since saturday after I made the hamstring sore again. It felt good today and I felt like running a couple miles around 7:00 pace but resisted the urge because I felt the risk of reagravating the hammy outweighed any possible benefit at this point. Average pace ended up at 7:59 for 5 miles. I'll probably do one more easy run tomorrow and either take fri. off or something very short.

    Ran 4 miles this morning at 8:35 pace. I felt fresh and ready to go and felt like going faster. My back, calf and hamstring all felt great. I'm not even going to attempt sub 3 Saturday after my hamstring flareup last Sat. I plan to keep everything above 7 min. pace closer to 7:25 pace. Under the circumstances I would be very happy with 3:15. My PR is 3:24:59 so lowering that by any amount would be good. I plan to go out very conservative and if my hamstring is doing good late [and my legs in general after my lack of mileage latley] I might try to pick it up a bit. I have really only had 2 good training weeks in 9 weeks of only 44 and 48 miles running and about 55 miles total for the other 7 weeks combined. I am glad to just be making the start line and wasn't very sure that would happen until last week. 3 1/2 weeks ago I was considering canceling for gauranteed entry next year so I already feel somewhat successful. I'm not planning a run tomorrow we have about a 7 or 8 hour drive. Hope to see and meet some of you there.

    The wind and the rain turned out to be the story of the day. I went into this race figuring I would be very happy with a 3:15 finish after tearing my hamstring badley nearly 9 weeks ago. I wasn't sure I would make the start line until the last couple of weeks. In the past 9 weeks I only got in 2 good weeks running in the 40s mileage wise and 1 week in the 20s. I did do a ton of biking though while I couldn't run. I only did any MP miles the last week and a half before marathon week.

    The race started very dark in the rain with a driving headwind that never quit. I enjoyed the rain and temperature but definatly could have done without the headwind.  I decided I was going to just start out at a pace that would be good enough for 3:15 and after the halfway point see how I felt and go from there. The pace felt very easy to me the first 10 or 11 miles and it was tempting to pick up the pace but I resisted. In an MP run one week before the race, my hamstring tightened right up to the point I had to quit running and I didn't want to risk that happening today. As I got close to the half I started feeling the effects of my low mileage a bit and the pace quit feeling so easy. I crossed the half in 1:37:06. Pretty much on target.

     Around miles 14 and 15 my hammy started to tighten slightly, but worse than that was my quads starting to get sore. My hamstring never got any worse but my quads seemed to get worse with each mile. With about 4 miles to go my calves joined the party and started to compete with my quads to see who could cause me the most discomfort. I still felt like I had plenty of energy but my legs sure were hurting. I just tried to maintain the pace the best I could for those last miles.

    Here are my splits :

1-  7:09

2-  7:18

3-  7:01

4-  7:06

5-  7:10

6-  6:54

7-  6:53

8-  8:09

9-  7:55

10- 7:44

11- 8:01

12- 7:38

13- 7:13

14- 7:26

15- 7:02

16- 7:03

17- 7:25

18- 7:32

19- 8:05

20- 7:17

21- 6:58

22- 7:34

23- 7:26

24- 7:14

25- 7:32

26- 7:28

26.2-6:32 pace

With my lack of mileage the past few weeks I was expecting sore leg muscles I just didn't expect it to start so early in the race. I was training toward a sub 3 before my injury but all in all I was quite happy with 3:14 considering all the conditions. It was an 11 minute PR for me so I guess I can't complain.