Practice To Suffer So Racing Becomes Easy

Morning:  10 miles around Maple Grove, MN neighborhoods.  Cool to start the run, but got hot and humid toward the end.  Still not quite over the cold.  Should be past it in the next couple of days.   

 Evening:  10.8 miles under another heat advisory.  I managed to sneak out just as the sun went down so the heat wasn't near as intense, but it was enough to be uncomfortable to say the least.  I've been sick for just over a week with a cold that made me feel wiped out.  I just didn't feel on, a loss of energy was noticeable throughout the week.  I did my best to work through it with lower intensity running and less of my auxiliary exercises.  I loaded up on vitamin C and vitamin D3 and tried to get at least 8 hours of sleep.  

Tonight was all about feeling my way though the workout.  I wanted about 6-8 miles of mp pace, but I didn't want to overdo it with the heat being so intense and not really feeling like I'm out of the woods yet with the cold.  Started out with a 4 mile tempo 6:35, 6:21, 6:14, 6:07 then I decided to take it 1 mile at a time with the tempo efforts.  So I ran a steady 1 mile recovery and did another tempo mile in 6:15.  I did one more 1 mile tempo in 5:59.  Felt my body had enough in the heat, finished up the run with a steady cool-down for an average of 6:49 pace.  Not a stellar workout, but felt like a smart workout.   

Afternoon:  3 miles around St. Joe's.  It's been a good solid 4 weeks since I've done a double.  Avg pace 7:39

Evening:  7.71 miles on Hwy M and back + 5 striders.  Felt terrible, I think my body is still having a hard time recovering from being sick.  Avg pace 7:37

Came home to a fried main breaker and no power to my house.  I happened to be with an electrician so he was able to fix it for me.  Could have caused a fire if the main breaker failed to trip.  God was looking out for us.

Evening:  7.8 miles very very easy.  I wanted to do a hard workout today, but my body is recovering so slowly right now.  I still wasn't recovered from Tuesday's workout.  I think the slow recovery is partly due to the heat, but also from being sick. Avg pace 8:30 

Evening:  6 miles in the rain on bike trail in Janesville before St. Joe's CC meet.  The rain felt good, but the legs felt terrible.  I'm really in a slump right now.  I may not run the 30K training run I've got planned for tomorrow.  Avg pace 7:53  

This 30K was a very low key race; maybe 20 people ran the race.  It's an inaugural event, but you'd think with the Lakefront marathon 6 weeks away people would want to use it for a training run.  I think the race director thought the same thing because he was a little surprised by the low turnout.  I got to the race early to do a warm-up.  I was worried about how bad I've felt on my last 3 runs so, I really wanted to prep myself for a solid effort.  Temps were low 60's and windy for the race.  I was happy because it was much better than 90-100 degrees like we've had most of the week.  I started to run and felt a stabbing pain where the hamstring and upper calf meet.  It gave me some concern about actually running the race and I decided to take the warm-up very slow.  I was able to get the calf warmed up with only a minor discomfort when going uphill (more like a loss of power).  I cut the warm-up short and went into the fitness center to see if I could work it out with some stretching and massage.  I must have done a good job because I was able to get the start line and run the race with little to no pain and some loss of power when climbing the hills.  

 We started the race on some gravel, which we ran for about a mile.  The rest of the course was on a bike trail and through a park where we ran in the woods for a couple miles.  The 1st mile was with the wind and went out conservative to make sure the calf didn't cause any problems.  I ran with another runner named Gabe who was from Madison and we talked a little bit about marathon training and pacing for the race.  He wanted a 6:50 pace and I was shooting for a 6:20-6:40 pace.  I figured that would be a pace that gave me a good workout and wouldn't put me in a hole, since my real focus is the Twin Cities Marathon in early Oct.  Gabe and I split a 7:06, but got a little lost because the path to the bike trail wasn't marked for the 1st mile.  So we added about .2 to our total distance and everyone else followed us the wrong way. Somehow I had a hunch we went the wrong way and I turned everyone around to join the trail.  The rest of the race was straight forward.  Gabe dropped back to 6:50 pace after 1.5 miles and I went toward 6:30 pace splitting a 6:34 for mile 2.  I made a quick stop in the woods to use Mother Nature’s bathroom and Gabe passed me.  He held his lead through mile 3 and mile 4 when I finally caught back up with him.  I split a 6:41, 6:44. for those 3rd and 4th miles going up some hills.  Also the way out was into a strong wind, which was nice to have on the way back.  Those 1st 5 miles were about the flattest part of the race.  The course got much more difficult than any average marathon for the rest of the way out.  I passed Gabe going 6:32 for mile 5.  The 1st long climb came at mile 6 and I was able to put a lot of distance between Gabe and splitting a 6:46.    The 7th mile was a steep downhill and I split a 6:28.   My splits stayed pretty much where I wanted to be other than a little slow down in the park/woods we ran through.  The rest of the way I ran alone, but I loved having the aid stations every 1.6 miles.  For a race that only cost $35.00 it was well worth doing for the aid stations alone. The rest of the splits went:

Mile 8 6:33

Mile 9 6:21

Mile 10 6:29

Mile 11 6:24

Mile 12 6:55 (lots of steep up hill)

Mile 13 6:18 (more steep up hill)

Mile 14  6:00 (lots of downhill)

Mile 15 6:34

Mile 16 6:20

Mile 17 6:19

Mile 18 6:28

Last .98 6:12 pace 

Average 6:30 pace

The race turned out just the way I would have hoped.  I finished feeling pretty good and won a $50 grocery gift card and a $10 lunch along with a fitness membership and massage.  The gifts were worth well over what I paid in gas and entry fees to race.