Random Inspirational Quote

Double day today - Plan is to do 2 of the same workout continuous 5mi.mod +5mi. MP-10sec

9 AM: moderate 3mi. followed by 5mi. @ slower end of threshold - about HMP+10sec. and cooldwon w/ 2mi.  Perfect weather this morning, and looks like all week.  55 degrees and sunny.  Loops around the fairgrounds.

7:09, 6:45, 6:49, 6:19, 6:11, 6:13, 6:10, 6:15, 7:16, 7:25

10 mi. total - 66:33.  Felt strong - we'll see about tonight's

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/471576391

PM: started at 5:30pm - 70 degrees!!  moderate 4mi. was already hurting I started off depleted on this run drained going in to the 5mi.  Did loops around Mill Race Park for the hard part - alot of people out on the nice day, so that kind of kept me going: 7:37, 7:24, 7:12, 7:37, 6:31, 6:16, 6:16, 6:13, 6:20, at this point I'm praying the water fountains are turned on at the park (nope) - I was done.  I seriously had to walk half the way home on the "cooldown", 8:11, 8:58, 9:57.

12.28 mi. total - 1:31:07

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/471936909

Off after yesterday - 2nd workout left me depleted to say the least.  Left leg injuries not too bad today.  10 miles on the bike trainer moderate effort - 30 minutes.  Broke a sweat and stayed off the feet.  2 easy days of running Thurs. and Fri. and a hilly half on Saturday in Bloomington coming up.

PM: 2 x 4mi. easy pace around the neighborhood - 31:10, and 29:30.  Left leg doind alright.  About 80%.  Stormy and 60 degrees today.   

Off - again, with the left leg pain - started out for an easy day and still feeling it.  8 mi. bike trainer - 26min.

Hoosier Half Marathon this morning in Bloomington.  upper 30s and overcast with a slight chilly wind.  Quaff race with a big group in attendnce today.  Our Half group stuck together for the first half of the race and started breaking up throughout the rest of it.  We also 2 of our top guys run the 5k and go 1-2 in 14:59, and 15:2x.  Our group was a little slower :).  We started with hanging back a little bit in the begninng, but it wound up being slow up hill and even it out on the downhill.  Target was around 6:10 average, but was all over the palce.  This was the hilliest half marathon I have ever run, by far. 

6:21, 08, 19, 17, 5:55, 08, 02, 03, 18, 30, 24, 29, 29, and 26 seconds for the last ? I have a GPSed distance of 13.07...

So it looks like  was good through about 9 miles.  Good prep for Boston, I guess.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/473999253 

AM: easy 5.1 miles around the neighborhood - recovery from yesterday.  The encouragein take away from yesterday's tough half is that I am not nearly as beat up after it as I was after PJ 10miler.  The half was hillier, the pace much moe sporadic.  I def. think its the couple of Quaff beers me and the guys had after! :)

Some more mileage planned for this afternoon - its supposed to warm up to 60 today.

Oh, yeah, and Go Cats!!!!!

PM: about 3.5 miles easy around the neighborhood.  About 60 degrees with lots of people out.  A nice spring day.  My left groin pain sounds like its an athletic hernia from the limited research I've done... :(

PM - easy 4mi. in a slight drizzle and 50 degrees around the neighborhood, no watch - it was about 30 minutes and actually feeling good in the painful spots. Ice and recovery goes along way (when you actually do it)

PM1: easy 5 miles around the hood - 39:10

PM2: Tuesday Track workout with a bunch of people out there today.  WU a couple of miles,

7.5 reps x 0.5 mi. @ 5k pace - 2:43avg (2:43, 37, 42, 42, 42, 42, 44) 400m in 80

7.65mi. total - 50:30

easy 6 mi. - neighborhood - 50:30.  60 degrees and sunny outside - wonderful!  Goodbye winter!!

So, I can't make it to Boston again this year :( 

Change in plans - Carmel Marathon on Saturday instead.  I've run this one the last 3 years, so I am very familiar with the course.  Also, it looks like the last 2 weeks have been a taper anyway.  Probably not as much recovery time from that hilly half last weekend and the hard workout on Tuesday as I would of liked, but, I feel pretty good.

PM: easy 3 miles easy around the neighborhood - 26 min.  Icing and rolling afterward.

Went and rented the new Hobbit movie - awful, just awful

Tough day in Carmel... again. :)  Terrible side stitches after nearly yaking up the gel I had just eaten at mile ten.  My stomach decided to flat out reject anything going in from that point... stopped my watch at 16.3 miles, and restarted after about a 0.5 mile of walking/heaving.

Think the final time was about 3:10-3:11.

First part:

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/478448945

Second part:

http://connect.garmin.com/course/6223350 

OFF - making sure I'm recovered from this "race" - pretending like it was my final workout for the Louisville Marathon on April 19!  Looking at the splits and assessing the condition of legs and fatigue, I feel like I just ran a MP workout for 10 miles and then jogged for 16 miles in Carmel... oh wait, that's what I did :)

Louisville Marathon on April 19 it is!

Lemons??  I'm gonna make lemonade! :)

One more day off and really hitting the recovery hard - 45 minutes of foam roliing and stretching.  Icing off and off all day.

PM: easy 2 mi. jog right after work around the neighborhood.

Test of the legs today with a high intensity but low volume track workout with the QuaffON! guys.

PM2: Tuesday track workout:

4x200, 2x400, 800, 2x400, 4x200 - full recoveries, and all at 5k pace: 40-42 on the 200s, 82-84 on the 400s, 2:44 on the 800

CD jog afterward - all systems go - feeling good!!

Easy 3 miles after work - no watch.  Feeling good (the 3 days off actually recovered some cummulative pains and they're gone!) - yeah!!  Tapering for real this week :)

PM: easy 3.2 - 25:30

AM: easy 2.38mi. with a pickup - 17:52

PM: easy 3 mi. 4xstr. - 24:30

Carb load and ready to go tomorrow - no whole box of brown rice this time.  Sticking to the basics.  Scetti and nanas

My Spring Marathon curse continues.  I kind of got lucky and got an actual race bib (for Free) from someone who had to back out of the half marathon at the last minute - thank you facebook and all the random run clubs' groups on there, and especially the person who gave it to me!!  So I was Samantha Steele and I was wearing a half marathon bib.  I only got yelled out 3 or 4 times by race volunteers at the half/full splits... :)  I'm just glad the bomb squad didn't tackle me at some point!

Caught up with Tim Proctor and a couple random strangers prior to getting in the corral.  Tim was going for sub -1:18 in the half!  I warmed up a bit by jog-weaving in and out of the crowd in the corral about 15 minutes before the start.  I made a conscious effort to go out at a pace that felt comfortable, whatever that might be.  Fortunately, it was about 6:30's.  This course is pretty neat - it goes through (around the infield) of Churchill downs, and through mostly nice shaded neighborhoods in downtown Louisville.  I found a group of guys to latch on to at about 6:30's, but had to leave them when we started hitting a couple of 6:38-40's.  Which was wierd, because they came back later on at sub 6:30 in a hilly portion of the course.  Yes - the dreaded Iroquois park is a part of this course.  Fortunately, it was in reverse of the difficult lap direction.  So, you climb from 8.5 to 10.4, and then a huge climb from 11.5 to 12.25, and then rolling hills (mostly down) through the next 3.25 miles.  Unfortunately the second place female was right in front of me a decent size group of guys.  She happened to be wearing a tutu!!  Well, this really threw me, and several other guys off apparently and we decided that we were'nt going to get left in the dust by a girl in a tutu !! :)

6:29, 28, 31, 38, 31, 28, 34, 13, 23, 31, 26, 53, 36, 43, 31, 25, 39, 54, Girl in tut has crushed my spirits !!

I realized at this point that I was in trouble.  I had put too much effort in through these hills trying to keep up with the group and tutu.  I try force down a horrible chocolate Clif Gel or two.  I won't use these again - even with water, they are very hard to get down.  The strawberry and mocha caffeine clif gels were awesome however, and really went down easily and propelled me on to fight through later in the race. 

It got ugly after that, but I was really giving a good fighting effort:  7:02, 7:23, 7:31, 7:35, 7:31, 7:04, 7:19, 7:13, and 2:27 for the final 0.35 miles.  2:58:56 for 26.35 miles

Take aways: Struggled in the second half. 1:25:40 first half, 1:33:16 for second half -- Apparently, still learning about what works for me nutritionally, and where my current fitness level is (compared to where I want it to be, or where it was when I PRed).

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/482921846

Good luck to everybody in Boston tomorrow - I am jealous!!

OFF - Yeah, I'm hurting.  Went for an easy bike ride - about 14 mph for about an hour

easy jog today - 2.2 miles at about 10 minute pace

Met up for the Quaff Tues track workout at Central Middle Track only to discover ta lacrosse game going on infield.  We jogged over to the people trail about a mile and started the wave workout there - 3-5 miles with 0.5mi. at 10k pace, 0.5mi. at moderate.  I made through 1.5 of these (half way through the second 10k pace) and shut it down.  I still clearly need to recover from the previous couple weeks.

It wound up being about 4.5miles in 40 minutes.  It was mostly slow jogging, and was what I should've been doing the whole time.  Post workout beer at Joe Willy's with the guys was fun.  One Busted Knuckle in record time and on home.

PM: easy 6 mile jog down Terrace Lake and back - 48:20.  Taking a much needed recovery week.

easy 2miles easy - recovery week for real.

OFF - recovery week wrapping up. 

easy am jog aorund the neighborhood - 2.1 miles in 17 min.  Beautiful day developing this morning.

AM: easy 7 miles out and back to CR 400 - 54:36. 60 degrees and sunny

PM: easy 10.5 miles from house over to Mill Race Park and then loops - 1:27:54.  Met up with the wife and baby for some quality swing time at the playground.  75 degrees and sunny.  Chipotle and choc milk on the way home.  Good day. :)

PM1: easy 4 miles slow-  starting to rain a bit.  More after dinner if the weather holds

PM2: moderate 4 miles - 29:50.  Yes, 7:30s feel moderate... I am def. still recovering

Took off work half a day for Jude's first birthday!  Happy birthday big guy :)

Got home and he and mommy were napping, so I went for my run.

PM: moderate 11mi. hilly run in the grass and ditches in the trail shoes about 90 minutes - practicing for the 50 miler coming up in a week and a half.  Hopefully, the marathon training and back to back marathons will be adequate training for the 8 - 9 hours of run/hiking that will be required to complete this race May 10th...

PM: easy 6 mi. w/ a pickup in the last mile. Cut it down to about 6:00 pace and felt okay.