12 wins, 5 CR's, plus four 2nd, five 3rd, 4th, 4th, 5th, 5th, 9th, 16th, 20th, 28th, 38th, and 62nd place, with 1 DNF
Short-Term Running Goals:
Goals
Enjoy running, stay fit (and maybe lose a few pounds). Play ultimate frisbee.
4 year coach of Langston Middle School- love it
Long-Term Running Goals:
Unretire at some point
Run a sub-6 hr 50 miler
Win a 100 mile ultramarathon
Personal:
I have five cute kids. And I have some rockin short green racing shorts- I wear them mainly because it embarrasses my wife so much. I like ultimate frisbee, trail running, reading, and cheering for the Denver Broncos! And I have the absolute best wife in the world. And I used to run for the now-disbanded national Team Pearl Izumi- Ultra!
Lunch 8. Didn't run at all last week while on vacation, walking all around Washington DC. Not having any races on my schedule is really causing a drag on my motivation and training.
It's Tuesday, which means a night run at Paris Mtn with Barry. Enjoyable, as always, with perfect weather (50 deg or so). Unfortunately, it also meant tons of mountain bikers- we saw more than 2 dozen on the trail. The run was very enjoyable and seemed to fly by- I looked at my watch near the end expecting to see 1:15 or so, but instead saw we had been going for 1:53, and weren't done yet. Longest run since the start of November, I think. Good times. I even had a few encounters with a bunch of east coast thorns. My legs definitely aren't Barkley Ultramarathon bad...
... but they did get rather chewed up. Definitely worth it, though.
Lunch 8 with Todd and Jim. Still undecided about doing the 5k in 2 weeks. It's a big race around Greenville- 2000 runners, loops around downtown on roads. What does the FRB think?
On a related note, some runners may be able to relate to this video. And some wives, including my own.
AM- Trail run with Barry. We planned to drive to NC to Dupont forest, but learned it had 10 inches of snow. So we drove to Croft State park, instead, which was very muddy in spots, but overall very runnable. It was our first time there- we went on the Southside mountain bike area for a while, which was splendid, then crossed over to the state park side. The trails there were generally muddy and has lots of horse traffic, so the trails were extremely chewed up. Between the mud, poor trails, and bad footing, we turned around twice on various trails before finally going back to Southside to finish up. We saw 3 deer and 0 people on the trails the entire time- a wonderful, quiet trail run all to ourselves. The temp was around 35 deg with a slight breeze and felt rather nice. Great place to run- I'm sure I'll go back again. No climbs of any significance, but tons and tons of little rollers. Finished with 16 miles in 2:29:48 and 2000 ft climbing/2000 ft descending.
I ran 60 miles this week, which feels good. For me, I feel like I start getting in shape above 60-70 mpw. Surprisingly, this is my first 60+ mile week since the Bear in September, 15 weeks ago. That's a long time of low mileage to come back from.
PM- Boy, I'm starting to doubt these people who say the South is hot. It snowed 6 inches last night, and 2 more during the day today. I went to work, but only about 10% of the people joined me (no Southern natives, either- the ones I saw were from Michigan, Chicago, New England, and Russia). Greenville has no snowplows, so the roads were rather bad, and the freezing rain that started a noon didn't help. But at least the people here know it, so the roads were empty- quite literally, empty. I drove home at lunch and worked from there. Finally went on a run in the freezing rain/wind (17 deg windchill in South Carolina?), doing a bunch of loops around the GE track. Finished looking almost Paul-esque, then came home and made a snowman while the kids watched. I really enjoyed myself, both on the run (running itself, plus the strange looks I got) and playing in the snow. Felt nice after living in Logan for 8 yrs.
On a related note, I think my kids are getting soft already when it comes to dealing with the cold.
I put some goals and potential races for this year on my Green Shorts Running blog. Basically, it's a whole lot of "I'm not really sure what races I'm going to do this year but will have fun."
PM- Snow day again, worked from home. Roads are pure ice, and even the snow has a .25" thick layer of pure ice. Ran to GE and did loops around the track again at 8 pm. The city is still basically shut down. 6.5 miles or so.
Lunch run on the treadmill, cause I was tired of the ice. 3 mile warmup, then 3x1 mile repeats with 2 min easy between. Pace for the miles was 5:49, 5:46, 5:38 (inc. 5:00 pace for a bit). Then did a few more miles. Rather than quit the run, I decided to do 1 more mile repeat (5:39 pace), plus cooldown. 10.5 miles total. Despite feeling crappy this morning, I felt surprisingly good during the run, a nice sign for the road 5k I signed up for next weekend.
AM- Met Barry at the zoo, and we did a few laps on the trails around Cleveland Park, then ran quite a ways north on the Swamp Rabbit trail. Stopped at 18, then I added on a few more by myself at the end. 20 miles total with 1300 ft climbing/1300 descending, in 2:38:15. Averaged 7:20 pace on the flat stuff (pretty good considering 1/3 or more of it was snow covered and/or ice packed), slower on the trails. Felt good the whole time. My first 20 mile run since Grand Canyon on Oct 11 (wow, that was a long time ago), and, sadly, my first long run with more than 1/2 on pavement since October 2009. 15 month streak ended today. Long runs are much better when you have someone to talk to. And we saw tons of runners on the trail (40+?), compared to zero last Saturday.
PM- Paris Mtn with Barry on a muddy, misty, drizzling, foggy, and very peaceful night. Unlike 2 weeks ago, we saw no people our whole run. The trail was muddy everywhere from the snow, but a runnable mud- better than I expected. It was so foggy at times that we could see the fog in our headlamps between us and the ground. Very enjoyable, peaceful run. Just under 12 miles with about 2000 ft climb/2000 descend in about 1:45.
Late lunch run with Jason. He took me back on the dirt trails/roads at the back of the GE property- there sure are a lot of them. Very nice. 9 miles total.
PM- 11.5 miles around Paris Mtn with Barry and Timber. 2200 ft climbing, 1:46 total time. Nice evening, with no one on the trail after the first 10 minutes. It's definitely staying light longer these days.
I put a few random thoughts about race entry fees on my GSR blog. I'd be curious to know what everyone else thinks.
Lunch- 3 mile warmup, then 6 miles in 37:00 (6:10 avg)- mile splits ranged from 6:15 to 6:02. 2 miles cooldown, giving me 11 miles total in under 1:15. Felt real good.
AM- Barry and I ventured to a new trail today, Issaqueena Forest, part of the Clemson Experimental Forest. It is has a smorgasbord of trails winding all over the place. Being unfamiliar with the region and finding an extreme dearth of any kind of trail markings, we restricted ourselves to a fairly small portion, though there was still more than adequate trails. Primarily beautiful, soft singletrack over constantly rolling hills, with a bit of fireroads mixed in. 32 deg at the start, 40 deg at the finish- perfect. Saw almost as many deer as people (including my first ever eastern Whitetail deer- they have HUGE white tails!). We spent some of the time ranting about the state of our country and the government (although, as anyone who has run with me will confess, I did most of the ranting and Barry mainly listened). Finished feeling pretty good with 20 miles exactly in 2:53 (8:39 avg) with 2300 ft climbing/2300 descending. Fabulous way to start a Saturday.
The high the next 2 days in Greenville is mid-60's. Perfect- this is how I imagined southern winters. I ran 24 miles Mon-Wed this week, then 42.5 Thur-Sat. I feel good and my body is wanting to do more, but I'm trying to be cautious and hold back so I don't do too much and get injured. But I'm starting to feel in shape.
Like I said, a smorgasbord of winding trails...
... with lots of ups and downs
I miss Logan's mountains, but I sure don't miss the winter air (shown here on the right)- and sometimes it would be like that for weeks straight. Blah.
Lunch- 6 miles with Fedor, then 4 by myself around GE. I signed up for a 6k trail race in Greenville this weekend- should be fun. Looks like I'm on a "short race" streak.
On a related note, I finish the month with 260 miles, of which 231 were running. This is my highest Jan mileage ever (2010 = 228 miles, 55 running; 2009 = 145 miles; 2008 = 199 miles), so that's a good sign. Although not being in Logan definitely made it easier.
