Wheeler Farm Loops

AM - 13 miles. First part w/ Andrea (who is looking smooth again!), then a bunch of loops around the horsepark, and finished w/ the Home Depot mile in 4:51. Definitely my fastest mile ever wearing capri pants (or as my girlfriend desperately wishes I would call them - "3/4 tights").

Feeling pumped up today after seeing so many friends run well yesterday at StG, then watching the last part of the Chicago webcast this morning. Two minute PR for Ritz is huge... if he can figure out the nutritional aspect of the marathon and not fall apart at the end, then I can too! Watching Kebede jump around while waving to the crowd just minutes after running a 2:04 and shattering the course record was pretty funny. Simply amazing what the top guys can do. 

PM - 4 miles easy. Achieved my goal of running less than 100 miles (98) for the 5th straight week. Its going to be a challenge, but I'm going to try and keep this streak going.

AM - 9 miles up to work.

PM - 6.2 miles down to SHP and a loop around the park. 

AM - 8.5 miles up to work... a couple of them w/ Andrea and Allie.

PM - 6.2 miles down to SHP w/ 4 mile tempo in 20:50... first three downhill, last one uphill - 5:10, 5:14, 5:09, 5:17. Essentially this was another hamstring test. I didn't feel it at all, so it passed.

Tonight = 9.79* 

AM - 10 miles up to work.

PM - 4.5 miles down to SHP, then 8 x 8 second hills on the grass. 

AM - 9 miles up to work. Uphill efforts: 1 - 3/4 - 1/2 - 3 x 1/4 mile w/ 1/4 jog. Can't remember exactly what the splits were, but they weren't fast.

PM - 4.5 miles down to SHP + 8 x ~50m strides on the grass. 

AM - 4.3 miles on the grass at SHP, most of it w/ Andrea... then took the bus up to work from there... no need to run up the hill today, I'll get my fill of that route tomorrow.

PM - 4.3 miles down to SHP.

Tomorrow I'm doing the old Half-Marathon / 5K double at the Fittest State Festival to try and move up in the circuit standings. Since I missed a lot of the early races, and the schedule wasn't very robust this year, I sort of abandoned the idea of trying to place high... until a few weeks ago when I realized it was possible to run both the half-marathon and 5K. So I don't even think its mathematically possible to win the overall since I won't be able to get in 7 races, but I should be able to move up from 5th place, unless some guys double back from St George :-) These are the current standings...

Races Total
Ken Richardson 7 247
Riley Cook 7   238.25
Albert Wint 7   199
Benjamin Van Beekum 6   161.25
Jake Krong 3   157
Nathan Hornok 4   128.25 

I've also always wanted to run a race that follows my route up to work, straight up the hill :-)

The last chance addition to the circuit brought out pretty much everyone trying to place in the money! As I said yesterday, I was trying to bump up my total # of races and maybe move up a few spots while getting in a decent workout. Running a Half/5K double a month after the marathon isn't exactly advisable, but it ended up being a pretty fun morning. Allie and Devra were doing the same thing as me, so we all shared the misery of finishing a half marathon and then having to run a 5K 30 minutes later :-)

Besides the circuit points, my goals for today were to - 1) Beat Andrea's PRs, and 2) Not get hurt. Mission Accomplished! 

Half-Marathon: 1:15:50 (2nd place) - We started in pitch darkness. Brett H was there so I knew at some point he would pull away and I would be running by myself, but the first 2 miles were nice and casual as we chatted and laughed about how the flashing motorcycle lights were going to give us a seizure. Then the stupid motorcycles led us off course (onto the marathon route)... luckily we realized the mistake after about 30 seconds and turned around. We then had to catch everyone who had gone the correct way, but that only took another mile or so. Brett was long gone after 3 miles and I was just trying to get in a nice steady run. First 5 miles (actually like 5.2 b/c of the detour) was 31:46 (~6:20 pace), and then the last 8.1 miles was 44:04 (5:26 pace). Then we had about a half-hour to get nice and tight before the 5K...

5K: 16:57 (2nd place) - I was not responsible for plowing over any of the little kids who lined up in front of us. Ken R opened up about a 20 second gap in the first half-mile, and that was it for me. Splits were 5:58, 5:21, 5:04, :35. I'm glad I got second in both races because I'm not sure how I could have entered "1.5th" place into the race report form.

Overall a good workout and a fun morning with friends. Devra won like 6 medals... I also won that many but only came home with two. Somehow Kevin (despite not being in any of the races) ended up with 2-3 medals as well. We'll probably melt them all down and make a sword. And major kudos to Andrea for beating her 5K goal time by 4 minutes! 

Oh, and the courses were super easy...

So there you have it - the Fittest State Festival was a smashing success. Rumor has it that we passed Alabama to move into the Top 5 fittest states, but official results won't be up for a few more days. And I'm definitely not ready (mentally) to run fast / race hard yet. Its gonna take another week or two for me to get that edge back and feel totally recovered from the marathon.

Some other nuggets... 

-Favorite part of the morning was the group cooldown run back to Allie and James' house. Its been a while since we've had a big crew running together.

-Least favorite part of the morning was nearly getting taken out by cyclists riding the bike tour on almost every single turn of the course!