The Next Step

Enjoyed the day off yesterday and had some good time with the family.  I did get out and walk a couple of miles with the family so that was good after the long run on Sat.  It was cool (38) this morning but the wind was down so that made it feel really nice.  I felt good this morning.  Probably the best I have felt on a Monday after a long run.  I just took it easy and wanted to make sure that I recover before pushing it again. I am running the half marathon this weekend so will run normal the first part of the week then do a mini-taper for the race. 

1:19:30 (7:57 avg)

Woke up last night sick at my stomach and then couldn't sleep so was tired this morning.  I felt pretty good running but just took it easy and then added in 6 x strides at the end.  Stomach felt better after running so hopefully just something I ate and not a bug.  If I continue to feel better I will try to add a run this afternoon.

7m in 53:45 (7:41 avg)

PM:  Stomach still feeling a little quezy but wanted to get out and do a few tempo miles to shake the legs out.  I felt flat starting out and did a couple of mile warmup then did 3 miles at tempo pace.  The goal was to run around 6:30:  Here were the splits:

1st - 6:31

2nd - 6:27

3rd - 6:28

The first mile didn't feel very good but I felt better as I went along.  Hopefully I will feel better tomorrow and be ready to race on Sat.

6m in 42:30 (7:05 avg)

It was pretty good morning for running (39, light wind).  I felt better today but my legs still seem sluggish.  Hopefully just running easy today will help. I seemed to feel better as I went along.  I had some pain in my right foot toward the end so need to keep an eye on that. 

63:35 (7:50 avg)

Cool morning (37) with some wind.  I am going to do a mini-taper for this Sat half marathon so I will just run short and easy today and tomorrow.  I have been feeling a little beat up this week for some reason.  I had been feeling great the last couple of weeks but the last few days just had several aches and pains that came up.  I still felt flat this morning getting going but felt better as I went along.  I am hoping that a couple of easy days will snap me out of the way I am feeling.  On a positive note my foot felt better today and I didn't really notice it at all.  I will see how tomorrow goes and then decide how I am going to run the race this weekend.  The main purpose of the race is a tune up for the marathon in Dec but I would still like to run a decent time to build some confidence.

39:20 (7:52 avg)

It was cold (29) this morning with a light wind.  I decided to stick with the mini-taper for the race tomorrow so just ran 4m today easy.  I added some strides at race pace.  I still feel sluggish running so not sure what to expect.  Maybe its just from cutting back here at the end of the week. 

The plan for tomorrow is to go out at PR pace and see how I feel then take it from there.  If I feel good I will continue to push.  If not, I might back off and do it as a long MP run.  The weather looks good so I hope everything comes together for a good race.  They ended up with about 5500 runners so it will be a nice size race.  They have a pretty even split between the half and the full. 

31:20 (7:50 avg)

Ran a new PR of 1:25:58 at the Monumental Half today.   It was a good day for running temperature wise but it was very windy (around 20mph) and that would come back to get me toward the end. 

I got down to the race early and ran about a 1.5 mile warmup with a few strides.  I felt pretty good warming up but still a little flat on the strides.  I really felt that I had a shot at 1:25 so I decided to go out at 6:30 pace and see how I felt.  I was hoping to get to mile 9 on pace and either hang on or push it depending on how I felt.  The race got off to a good start.  There were many people that started too close to the front for their pace so I had to work my way through them.  Even with that the first mile was good and right on pace.  I set my Garmin to do auto laps every mile so I didn't get the splits at the race mile markers.  My Garmin had the race as 13.37 so it was way off from the mile splits.  After the first mile I was able to settle into a comfortable 6:30 pace.  I had to watch myself because a couple of times I was getting a little quick and had to ease it back.  I was hitting the race mile markers consistently at 6:30 pace and by mile 8 I was about 15 seconds ahead of 6:30 pace.  One cool thing is they had a timing mat at 10k and I went through their in around 40:10 which is a new PR for me in the 10k.  I guess I need to run a 10k soon and see what I could do.  During this stretch we were supposed to be running downwind but it felt like it was swirling off the buildings and would sometimes be in our face.  I knew when we made the turn back to the city we would be running around 3 miles dead into the wind on a very wide city street with little protection from the wind.  This was my concern going into the race and I was hoping that I could just hold my pace during this stretch.  As we made the turn and headed back to town the wind hit me coming out of the curve and stood me up.  I knew then that I would have my work cut out for me to stay on pace.  I tried lifting my effort which kept me on pace for a little while.  I was passing some people during this stretch so that felt good but I was slowly droping off of my pace.  I continued to try to push it but ended up losing around 15 seconds per mile over this 4 mile stretch into the wind.  Even though I didn't hit my goal I felt good about the effort.  I passed alot of people during this stretch and only got passed by one other runner and that was in the last 50 meters by a young guy who I couldn't hold off in the sprint. 

Here are my splits from the Garmin but they are off because of the distance difference but at least shows that I stayed fairly consistent throughout the race. 

6:20, 6:22, 6:17, 6:27, 6:25, 6:26, 6:25, 6:28, 6:25, 6:26, 6:37, 6:37, 6:16

This gives me some confidence because this is 2:47 faster than I ran in the same race last year in better conditions.  Also, I am starting to believe that I really have a shot at a 3 hour marathon.  I am not quiet there yet but feel like I am starting to get closer.