The Next Step

Warm and windy this morning (68). After taking a day off yesterday I was interested to see how my body responded to a little extra rest. Starting out it was pretty much the same story as the last couple of weeks and it didn't get any better. Just don't seem to have any energy when running. I feel fine all day just no legs when running. I tried a few stride outs while I was running and there was nothing there. I will continue to cut back before my race on Sat but at this point unless I have a huge turn around things don't look good. Today's thought was hydration. I will try drinking more water to see if that might be a problem. Starting to get frustrated by this but it is what it is. I will keep plugging along and see what happens.

55:09 (7:53 avg)

Light rain and cooler today (62) but a good day to run.  I felt better today so maybe the rest and the cut back in miles is doing the trick.  I mostly took it easy during the run but threw in 2 x 1/2 pickups just to see how I felt.  They felt ok.  I wouldn't say strong yet but ran them around 6:45 pace.  I am thinking about taking a couple of rest days before the race on Sat.  I normally only take one.  I thought of two different approaches.  1) rest, easy day, rest or 2) easy day, rest, rest.  Just thought the two rest days might help my body respond better from being tired.  Anyone have any thoughts or experience with this?

38:18 (7:40 avg)

Warm (68) and sunny today. I just did an easy 4 miles. Felt ok nothing special. Hard to tell if the taper is helping but hopefully it will pay off on race day. Decided to take tomorrow off then do a short run on Friday before the race.

32:05 (8:01 avg)

Raining and 62 this morning.  I just ran a couple of miles to get warmed up and to stretch out.  I did a few strides to get the legs awake after a real easy week.  Hard to tell how I am going to feel tomorrow based on the short run today.  I am looking forward to giving it a go tomorrow.

Tomorrow's Half Marathon Plan:  When I signed up for this race earlier in the year my thoughts were to set a new PR and make the top 500 in the race (if I run a PR I should make top 500).  I haven't had a great buildup to this race so my thoughts might be foolish but I am sticking with my goals.  I will plan on going out right at PR pace and then see if I can hold it.  I figure the worst thing that can happen is I blow up and have to jog in.  Based on the last month of training my expectations were dropping anyway so I don't have much to lose if it doesn't work out.  I would however be more upset if I lower my goals and then half way through the race realize that I could have ran much faster if I would have been more aggressive.  So I am excited to see what happens.

The short version is that I set a new PR and got in the top 500 which was my goal for the race.  It was a great day for the race.  Right around 50, cloudy with no wind.  Couldn't ask for better conditions.

I went into this race concerned because the last couple of weeks I just felt tired everyday while running.  My legs just seemed to be wiped out.  Because of this I really cut back the mileage the week before the race and ran easy everyday.  I was hoping that this would freshen my legs back up for the race.  I decided that I would go out on PR pace and just see what happened.

I did a short warmup and felt pretty good.  I was very relaxed for some reason.  Maybe because of the last couple of weeks my expectations were kind of low.

I was in the first corral so got off to a good start and just tried to run the pace of everyone around me and not try to fight the crowd (there were 35,000 runners).  I was checking the garmin often so that I could settle into around 6:40 pace.  I felt good starting out and seemed to be running comfortable.  Here are my splits for the race:

1st - 6:38 (good mile considering all the people)

2nd - 6:38 (just trying to relax and stay on pace)

3rd - 6:42

4th - 6:44 (dropping off a little so started to get concerned about holding this pace)

5th - 6:48 (really starting to wonder if I started too fast)

6th - 6:43 (on the track and trying to get back on pace)

7th - 6:48 (still feeling ok but holding back, took gel)

8th - 6:45 (starting to believe that I can hold this pace to finish)

9th - 6:40 (decided to try to work the next two miles to see if I could hold faster pace)

10th - 6:37 (starting to pass a lot of runners and using that as movitition)

11th - 6:37 (starting to feel it but want to keep pushing)

12th - 6:38 (on the edge so try to maintain pace)

13th (1.1) - 6:29 pace (big crowd and pushed hard to the finish, thought I might get under 1:28 but came up just short)

Needless to say I was very happy with the result.  I went in not knowing what to expect but the body responded and felt pretty good the whole way.  I even ran a negitive split which is a first for me in a race of this length.  Also, this is probably the smartest race that I have ever ran.  I usually go out too hard and pay for it in the end.  It was nice passing a lot of runners the last couple of miles.  I wouldn't say my legs felt good today but I noticed that I could push through the sluggish legs and hold the pace.  Maybe I am learning more about how my body responds at faster pace (who knows?).  I come out of this very excited for the future because I ran a PR on less than optimal training the last couple of months.  Now I need to get my act together and start getting the training where it needs to be. 

On a side note the local TV station broadcasts the race live and I taped it then watched it when I got home.  I got on TV a couple of times during the broadcast so that was cool.  Now for my reward I get to go out and do yard work the rest of the afternoon since this is the first day it hasn't rained in about a week.