It's all relative

Fort DeSoto Beach Halfathon

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Location:

FL,United States

Member Since:

Feb 08, 2015

Gender:

Male

Goal Type:

Other

Running Accomplishments:

Certified course PR's:

Mile: 4:28.0 (Florida, Jan 2020)

5K: 15:12 (FL, Jan. 2020)

10K: 31:44 (FL, Feb. 2020)

15K: 49:03 (FL, Feb. 2020)

1/2 Marathon: 1:10:34 (FL, Feb. 2020)

Marathon: 2:26:57 (WA, July 2019)

100k (63.7 miles, trail): 9:11:00 (FL, Jan. 2019)

Personal:

I started running in 2010 and have (mostly) kept it a habit ever since!  

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Miles:This week: 0.00 Month: 0.00 Year: 0.00
Slow milesFast milesTotal Distance
319.6562.38382.03
Slow milesFast milesTotal Distance
5.000.005.00

AM: 2.4 miles with the group and then led them through a workout.  Had 15 runners today!  

PM: 2.6 miles before the gym.  Then did tris, chest, and shoulders.

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Slow milesFast milesTotal Distance
8.000.008.00

PM: Nice easy run in East Lake.

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Slow milesFast milesTotal Distance
4.002.006.00

AM: Track- basic 1-mile fitness test and then some 300s with trivia with the group.  Would have rather gave them a real 12 minute test, but the mile worked just fine I think.  I then sat out a couple of the 300s- relegating myself to the sidelines out of frustration- and only did 6 of them total.

Mile- 5:10, each 300 was done at 5-minute per mile pace.  

Certainly not proud of that mile time.  I did try my best.  That's the toughest pill to swollow.  However, thinking about it, nothing this entire season has been any good for me workout-wise, time-wise, or effort-wise, so it's pretty par for the course.  I don't know why my expectations were so high.  

For 3 months it's been a pretty grueling, sad experience to be a runner.  It's oddly depressing to be going the other way while still working hard, but then I remember all of the dedication and effort I've put in in the past two years.  The miles and time on my feet.  The mitochondria and red blood cells built/increased.  The efficiency of stride and form.  The fitness and muscle gained.  I know it's all there.  Now just to fit the pieces together- little by little if I need to.  It's just not worth it right now to waste all of that, particularly now that I'm healthy.

 

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Slow milesFast milesTotal Distance
8.101.009.10

PM: run in East Lake. Through a faster mile @5:30 in there for no real reason.

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Slow milesFast milesTotal Distance
1.800.001.80

PM: some very easy miles

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Race: Fort DeSoto Beach Halfathon (13.109 Miles) 01:17:16, Place overall: 6, Place in age division: 2
Slow milesFast milesTotal Distance
7.1913.1120.30

Race Report Fort DeSoto Beach Halfathon

Did the race with the intention of running about 5 beforehand and then using the half as a tempo and finishing up with 2 recovery miles.  I had some bowel issues before the race, so that changed to about 2 miles beforehand followed by the half, followed by the final 5.  So basically inverted.  

The race:

My goal was to hold my placing (5th) for the money awards (hopefully) in the series or move up to another level.  There were only 2 runners I could realistically catch and move up in the series: Sean and Chris Y. who were both a minute or so ahead of me in the series, so I just focused on those two during the race and the time between us.  I thought the best thing to do would be to go out fast and see if they would bite into going too quickly early on.  I knew I'd been putting in the miles, so I could hopefully hang on to a slower pace in the later miles and make up the ground.  Well, funny thing- Sean is apparently in much better shape than I expected and I am in much worse shape than I thought so that was a hilarious joke as I watched him fly away at a 5:25 opening mile- in other words, I had no chance.  However, Chris didn't partake after the first mile, so I think I made a good decision, as he ended up finishing over 3 minutes behind me.  Fortunately, this means I earned 4th place in the series!  This is relatively exciting considering I was not running 2 months ago- and when I did run I was making things worse.  

In the end, I would rather just throw this race away and never think of it again, but it should provide a good starting point for my next marathon to at least maybe hit a respectable time.  

Splits: 5:33, 5:51, 5:34, 5:39, 5:39, 5:53, 6:04, 5:59, 5:45, 5:49, 5:59, 6:19, 6:15, Finish (60 seconds-ish).  My splits were ridiculous for this race, as you can tell.

Comments(1)
Slow milesFast milesTotal Distance
13.200.0013.20

PM: Run in Safety Harbor and saw the old track team I used to coach and watched them run for a bit.  I appreciated the nostalgia.  I ran quite quick today for a day after a long run with (effectively) speed work, with the majority of the run in the 7:30 range.  

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Slow milesFast milesTotal Distance
13.053.5016.55

AM: Track session with the group.  800s.  Only 8 of us there today, which made it tough, since not many could stick together.

Workout: three 800s with 200 jog recovery in between each item, 400 recovery in between the set, next set was four 800s with 200 recovery in between each item.  The times are still terrible, but, I held them.

Splits: (set 1) 2:47, 2:44, 2:40 (set 2) 2:40, 2:40, 2:40, 2:40

 

PM: Slow roll in East Lake, just for the sake of miles.  9 total.

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Slow milesFast milesTotal Distance
7.130.007.13

PM: Solo in East Lake.  Shhhhlow.

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Slow milesFast milesTotal Distance
9.003.7512.75

AM: Track in Safety Harbor.  

Workout- 4x100 (100 rest), 2x200 (200 rest), 2x300 (100 rest), 4x400 (200 rest), 2x300 (100 rest), 2x200 (200 rest), 4x100 (100 rest).  All 5:24 mile pace or faster.

 

PM: 4ish miles with the team, 1 fast 200.

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Slow milesFast milesTotal Distance
4.050.004.05

PM: Fun run

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Race: Armadillo 5k (3.25 Miles) 00:16:40, Place overall: 1, Place in age division: 1
Slow milesFast milesTotal Distance
10.223.2713.49

Armadillo 5k

This race was stupid. It was certified and I ran fine, but I just made two huge errors in this race. My running nightmare happened twice- I ran off course two times in this race. Twice. 180 degree mistakes both times and both in the final mile. They were not quick fixes either.

I understand it's important for me to know the course, but come on. At each mistake a guy was there to literally watch me screw up and did not make any attempt to correct and make the right turn until after I had gone down the wrong street. No lead bike either. The first was demoralizing, the second was just plain annoying.

I literally threw away time today. Twice. I threw away a certified PR. I threw away a sub 16. And I even didn't gut it out and sprint it in during the finish. I'm really at ends with myself recently with how my effort in training and now in races has been. I know running is about peaks and valleys, but this valley is a veritable Dead Sea. I want to persevere, but this is getting overtly challenging.

Splits: 5:15, 5:19, 5:06, finish 0:60ish.

Comments(1)
Slow milesFast milesTotal Distance
20.051.0021.05

AM: Twas a really early run with the time change. Was up at 3:30am (effectively) to head to Clearwater for some bridges. Christina, Lee, Steve, Anthony, Jim, and then an hour later the rest of the group joined. We accomplished 7 bridges. I suppose I wanted that number to be higher, but it's some at least.

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Slow milesFast milesTotal Distance
9.050.009.05

PM: east lake, recovery.

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Slow milesFast milesTotal Distance
10.723.0013.72

AM: Track workout in Safety Harbor

Workout: Alternating 200s and 600s with 200 jog recovery.  6 sets with a 600 recovery between sets 3 and 4.  200s at 33-34 seconds, the recoveries were faster paced, and the 600s were at 10k-15k pace.  

 

PM: 5 miles.

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Slow milesFast milesTotal Distance
13.000.0013.00

PM: 13 slow.

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Slow milesFast milesTotal Distance
11.103.0014.10

AM: Track in Safety Harbor.  Cory joined which made it a little better, as I didn't and wouldn't have even pushed myself even a little bit without him.

Workout: "Mile" repeats.  3x1600 with 400 active recovery.  Fast recoveries, descended pace on every mile at about the 800m mark to keep things interesting.  

Splits: 5:36, 5:29, 5:19

 

PM:6 more with the group  

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Slow milesFast milesTotal Distance
13.250.0013.25

PM: Clearwater bridges. Ran 8 bridges at a decent effort.

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Slow milesFast milesTotal Distance
8.000.008.00

Early AM: 5 recovery miles, solo in Safety Harbor

Late AM: 3 miles with Celia in SH

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Slow milesFast milesTotal Distance
11.269.0020.26

AM: long run in St. Pete with the group. Anthony signed on for a 3x3mile workout with me within the run. It was not the best day for it as it was good ole Florida-level humid, but I'm happy I got the workout in. Started the workout at mile 5 with a mile running recovery in between each set.

Splits:

set 1- 5:57, 5:52, 5:51

set 2- 5:45, 5:52, 5:48

set 3- 5:55, 5:50, 5:55

Today was important. Before I even started today, I was tired, sore, and didn't think I would be successful. I had high mileage and effectively 3 workouts this week- 2 on the track, 1 on the bridges, so it was important to me psychologically going forward to get something like this in on tired legs. Although Boston is pretty much shot, I think I can build off this training cycle to propel myself into an awesome cycle for Chicago once I recover.

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Slow milesFast milesTotal Distance
18.190.0018.19

AM: 8 with Dow and Michele in Safety Harbor

Noon: 10 with Drew and Quint in Tampa/Rocky Point. Perfect weather minus the wind.

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Slow milesFast milesTotal Distance
12.733.5016.23

AM: 5 miles in Safety Harbor on the grass, slow

PM: track in St. Pete with the group- Drew, Lee, Anthony, Sean

Workout: 400s with descending recovery times, 90 seconds down to 10 seconds with the extras at 60 second recovery.

Splits- 1:18, 1:16, 1:18, 1:15, 1:15, 1:15, 1:15, 1:14, 1:12, 1:10, 1:12, 1:11, 1:10, 1:16

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Slow milesFast milesTotal Distance
12.220.0012.22

AM: 7 recovery solo in Clearwater

PM: 5 miles in East Lake

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Slow milesFast milesTotal Distance
14.250.0014.25

AM: 8 miles running with people at the track. Still sore, so I took it easy.

PM: 6 miles in SH, easy, mostly with Ronnie. Always an interesting experience running with a deaf man.

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Slow milesFast milesTotal Distance
10.000.0010.00

PM: 10 miles with Anthony in JC.

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Slow milesFast milesTotal Distance
11.120.0011.12

AM: 6 bridges in Clearwater at a moderate effort with Sean and Anthony. Did the bridges at a quicker pace, but nowhere near what those two were doing- I was tired and it showed.

Ideally I should drop the mileage for a week, and then ramp it back up for three weeks and then taper for 10-14 days. However, 3 weeks and 2 days out of my marathon, I'm in a weird position as I have had a challenging 3 months going from the couch to 100 miles, so I've left myself with zero wiggle room and clearly a month behind in training... But I am out of time. I knew this would occur as of 2 months ago, but now that it's upon me it's difficult to accept. I just want to have magically have put in the work. Where's my elder wand when I need it.

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Slow milesFast milesTotal Distance
11.009.0020.00

AM: Long run St. Pete with Anthony and Sean again. Added a workout in there too. I wanted a 4x3 mile, but no one was really interested in that, which is fine particularly due to the humidity, how I felt, and that it was Easter in St. Pete.

Traditionally, Easter Sunday is difficult to navigate running-wise by the beach due to all of the Easter services. Sincere déjà vú today as a result, as I had a memory of our similar run last year where we had a large group imposing on a bunch of services. Unfortunately today there was only 3 of us.

Running with Sean and Anthony has been tough the past couple weeks. It seems one of us is always "on," so it makes it difficult to resign a workout when someone is in front of you kicking your ass- which means we're always pushing in workouts. I can tell if we continue this, we are either going to gain some serious speed and fitness or we're all destined for injuries. It's always been a fine line between the two...

Workout was 3x3 miles with 1 mile recovery starting after a warmup.

Splits:

Set 1- 5:55, 5:48, 5:57

Set 2- 5:58, 5:54, 5:51

Set 3- 5:52, 5:51, 6:00

Comments(2)
Slow milesFast milesTotal Distance
10.000.0010.00

PM: 10 miles in East Lake, about ~7 with Anthony who I randomly saw.  We ran too fast, in my opinion.  I don't like doing that a day after a hard workout.

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Slow milesFast milesTotal Distance
13.324.0017.32

AM: 6 miles in SH on the track with Michele, Rick, and Alan.

 

PM: Track in St. Pete with Drew, Anthony, Sean, Jim, and Quint.  

Workout: 3 mile warmup, then 4x1 Mile with 400 active recovery between items.  

Splits- 5:16, 5:18, 5:18, 5:08

I think this workout was a confidence booster. I consciously decided to set the tone on the last one from the beginning of the last mile and not hang back and that seemed to be the way to go. Pacing is a really taxing in my opinion, but I appreciated the opportunity to be out in front.

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Slow milesFast milesTotal Distance
5.100.005.10

PM: treadmill "hills" followed by gym: chest, tris, shoulders... Holy crap I'm out of shape.

Comments(3)
Slow milesFast milesTotal Distance
14.553.2517.80

AM: Safety Harbor Track, mostly with Alan.  I stayed in lane 6 on the outside to try to get some extra time in on each interval.

Workout: Descending ladder- 1600, 1200, 800, 4x400 with 400 rest between the 1600 and 1200, 1200 and 800, and then 200 rest after the 800and the 400s.  Started at a little slower than 5k pace and worked my way down. 

 

PM: Safety Harbor with the group.  It was fun pushing the runners in the group tonight- it's nice to see strong effort from people to the point where they want to do MORE than they set out to do, which I saw tonight and it was inspiring.  I can take a page from their book.

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Slow milesFast milesTotal Distance
319.6562.38382.03
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