Boston Strong

Perfect Recovery Day.  Met a friend at the Greenway at 7 am, who is a guy in his 60's, a Vietnam Vet with a foot disability, but a dedicated runner.  We ran 7 miles at a 12:30 pace.  Upon return to the parking lot, met another friend at 8:30, who is striving for a BQ, using the Galloway walk/run method.  She runs for 4 minutes, then walks for about 20 seconds.  We ran 14 miles at an average running pace of 8:30.  I just stopped my watch for the walk breaks. 

While I am not a big fan of the walk/run method, this was probably perfect recovery for me after racing 13.1 yesterday.  I was out on the path for almost 4 hours, and completed my first ever training run of over 18 miles, even if it was slow and a little unconventional.  I have read before that time on your feet running is more important than pace on long, slow runs.  Not sure how the walk/run affects the mileage value, but figure the distance had to be beneficial for me in preparation for my marathon.

 Afternoon recovery:  Football & Beer!

Dear JG,

This is to notify you that your entry into the 116th Boston Marathon on Monday, April 16, 2012 has been accepted, provided that the information you submitted is accurate.

Sincerely,

Boston Athletic Association 

 6 mile progressive run with 1 mile cooldown at 9:45 pace

5 @ 8:20 pace, 1.5 @ 9:40 cooldown

I am establishing a new pace, which I will call High Sensory Pace - dedicated for runs exploring new trails, enjoying scenery, and just reflecting on life with creative thinking.  Something like a 'slow down and smell the roses theme'! Or yes, otherwise known as a Recovery run!

 Today that pace was 9:25.  7 miles around the trails at George Peirce Park.  Looping asphalt trails evrywhere, mostly shaded through forest, around some ballfields, and some dirt trail offshoots for a couple miles.  It was a cool run, lots of path intersections, didn't know where I was half the time, but they all loop back together at some point.  Very convenient to having access to cooler, a good place for a 20 miler.

Tomorrow will be Hill repeats, rest Friday, 10 mile race Saturday ... then maybe a long slow run Sunday to cap off a good mileage week.  30 Days to go, and the last 14 won't involve much.

I was looking at my mileage and noticed that yesterday I passed double the miles I ran all last year.  I ran  a Garmin report and realized that I have run over 3 times the distance ytd, as last January to October I only ran 400 miles.  I still struggle with higher miles, last week was the first time I put together 50+ mile back to back weeks.  I hope to make that a string of 4 weeks, before starting the taper for my marathon ... so at least they should be coming at a good time.

It will be interesting to see how this 'triple' the mileage pays off in my marathon.  It better pay off big in the last 6 miles, or I may never run over 30 mpw again!  Oh well, as they say, "trust your training" ... so I guess I am off to do some suicidal hill repeats.    

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Goal was to keep overall avg pace under 7:00.  This made me keep pushing on the uphills.  At the end of 5 down/5 up half mile inervals with approx. 190' elevation change, my overall AP was 6:57, so mission accomplished.  The two mile cooldown skews the data that mattered to me.

This is the identical workout I did Sept 8, except I did a longer cooldown, so I added a column with the splits from 9/8 ... overall I ran stronger ... unfortunately did not wear HR monitor on 9/8.

I purposely ran my 5th downhill interval at an easier pace, trying to find a pace I was comfortable at sustaining for a much longer period of time.  I was probably still a little fast, but my goal in the marathon is to be able to run about 7 of the steeper downhill miles around 6:00 to 6:10/mile.  I ran the last interval for my fastest time - 4:48  woohoo, time to cooldown!

Timing was perfect, after last downhill interval the sirens started going off advising people on river they were doing a water release from the dam ... which is a couple miles from where I stand, because I do this workout on a road that goes from the road at top of dam down to a parking lot at the base of the dam.  Why is this significant?  Because when tey release the water from the depths of Lake Lanier into the Chattahoochee river the water rises very quickly, and with that the temperature by the river colls down like 10 degrees ... you feel like you are in air conditioning!  So I ran on a trail along the river for a mile, before starting my mile journey back up the trail to my car at the top.

Easy 3 @ 8:45 to shake things out & loosen legs up for tomorrow.  Hopefully legs will have some more life in them in the morning, as I don't think they would have given me much more tonight if I asked!

This was a great 5/10 mile race put on by ATC, 2 loops for 10 miler.  This was pretty much designed to be a solid training run for me, and it served that purpose well.  My goal was to run 10 sub 7 miles ... and I accomplished that for the most part.

Alex ran the 5 mile, so we paced each other the first loop.  He had two classic lines ... first at 3.2 miles he said he was dying (he is used to cross country 5ks & has never raced over 5k ... I thought the timing of that comment was funny.  Second, at about 4.5 miles, he said, "I gotta take a crap, gotta go" ... at which point he proceeded to drop me!  He finished in 33:59, avg pace of 6:47, and won 1st in his Age Group.

Mile 6 was lonesome, lost my running buddy & no one else around, alot more people do the 5 miler.  Pace dropped off a little here.  Got passed somewhere in Mile 7, so picked it up a little.  My legs were really stiff from Thursdays hill workout, I kinda checked out mentally at the 7 mile mark & figured I would take an easy mile so I could finish strong ... I was really surprised I actually held onto a 7 minute pace here for Mile 8, as I was not really in the game & concerned about my legs.  Mile 9 I got passed by an ATC competitive team female, so I went stride for stride with her for a 1/4 mile.  Maybe she did not like that, as she quickened the pace & I fell in behind.  I knew she was an experienced runner that would finish strong, so I just tried to stay within 20 yards. 

In Mile 10, she passed a runner, who I drafted behind for a while.  He looked back and told me drafting was free.  I told him to just keep in striking distance of the girl, and I would repay the favor at the end.  About a 100 yards later, he said she was pulling away, so I passed him and told him to cmon ... he was hurting ... he didn't.  I gradually closed the gap from 20 to 10 to 5 strides ... then waited to see my son, to turn it on.  He was about 200 meters from the finish & told me it was time to sprint.  Well, I did not actually sprint cuz this was a training run, but I did make the pass and lengthen the lead to the finish. 

I forgot I had turned Autolap off on my last training run, so had to use the Garmin player to record my split times.  My Garmin said I ran a 6:50 pace & covered 10.15 miles, for purposes of my mile splits I just spread the extra distance over each mile, based on where I had a data point.

1.02     6:55     6:55

2.03     7:09     14:04

3.03     6:46     20:50

4.05     6:52     27:42

5.09     6:53     34:35

6.10     7:16     41:51

7.09     6:56     48:47

8.10     7:03     55:50

9.14      6:51   1:02:41

10.15    6:41   1:09:22

Glad I ran the 10 miler, but there were times I was thinking why didn't I just do the 5!  Well, obviously I need the mileage ... but I think it is also a good thing I did not have to race my son the last 1/2 mile, not sure I would have liked the result, and never would have heard the end of it!  It was great to be able to run the first half of my run with him though!

Oh, and I also met fellow FRB blogger Timp, that was cool, and I think we are both doing the ATC 10k next weekend.  Maybe I will chase him for as many miles as I can!