Sean's Running Blog

Another trip to Green Lake for a workout Ran with Danny Mackee who is a pretty fast dude. 2:20 marathoner and ran in the Olympic Trials in 2007 when i did. He's moved to Seattle to coach the brand new Brooks Beasts, an elite handful of men and women tracksters. He is married to Katie Mackey, perhaps better known as Katie Follett, a seven-time NCAA All-American at the University of Washington, including a runner-up finish in the Mile at the 2010 NCAA Indoor Championships. Funny that the 2:20 marathoner in the house is the lesser talented of the two.

Anyway...decent workout. My coach calls it the Kenyan workout but it's just cut downs. 8 mile tempo in 2-mile segments starting at 5:36 and then dropping 8 seconds with each two-mile segment down to 5:12. Didn't quite hit the 5:12 but it would have been uglier if Danny hadn't been alongside me.

Another Dempsey Indoor workout. Great weather indoors.

Pretty crushing workout: 8x1000m. Goal time of 3;02-3:04 on 2:00 rest. First four went fine but I knew things were going to slow down. Last four were in 3:05, 3:07, 3:08 and 3:05. Pretty wasted afterward

Mostly missed the rain

8 on a cool but dry morning. 8.5 more on a cool sunny afternoon

My last mileage as a 39 year old. Masters running here I come.

Another workout at Roosevelt High School. Rather than another tempo run around Green Lake, my coach had me do 3x2M on 2:30 rest targeting 10:30 on each rep.

Got 10:24 on the first, 10:28 on the second and then things went a little less well. First mile of the final repeat was in an ugly 5:19. Finished with a string second mile though ending the final rep in 10:33.

I wish I had had someone to run with. The others there were a little slower so after the first two laps, i was on my own.

Hard to believe all my pre-masters miles are behind me.

A wonderful run though the flats of Fall City on my 40th birthday.

Last Dempsey workout for the season. Brutal workout but got to run again with Danny Mackey.

1600-4:54

1200-3:34

800-2:22

800-2:22

....repeated twice. 2:00 rest between each distance and then 5:00 rest between reps. Hit or beat the times on the first one. But knew doom was imminent. Danny had to drop. That made me feel a little better. Nailed the second mile but the 1200 was a horrendous 10 seconds slow and the next to last 800 was six sands slow. I redeems myself a little bit on the final 800 hitting a slightly less miserable 2:25. My legs have not felt that bad in a while.

8 in the am and 10 in the pm

Beautiful sunny day today and almost 60 degrees.

Was planning on just running an easy 20 today but I wanted to check in on my fitness and get a better feel for what marathon pace might be in Boston. So ran 10 miles at 5:34 pace. It was a lot harder the first five miles but things got relatively comfortable e back half. Longest single run in over a year. Good to log 20 again.

Longest weekly mileage in over a year.

Had real trouble getting my glute to warm up this morning so I had to call it quits after just four miles. Ugh.

Tried again this afternoon to get in a workout. Felt good during the three warmup miles but 1.5 miles into the 4.5 mile tempo run sharp pains returned. Even during my cool down. Ugh. No time for injury with Boston just two months away.try again tomorrow.

Well. What a difference a day makes. Not even a hint of problems. Pretty easily got through my 4.5 mile sim run ahead of Saturdays 15 mile race. Feeling fortunate.

8 in the AM

10.5 in the PM

First race in many months. Good to get one under my belt. Hard to do workout after workout in the winter without something to show for it.

It was also my first race as a masters. It was sleeting at my house when I left but by the time I got down to Tacoma for the race, it was sunny...not warm...just sunny.

I have run this race several times and still hold the course record as far as i know. I now hold the Master's record too!

My goal going in was to run 5:25s and get a sense for what that pace felt like over 15 miles.

Fortunately, there was a pretty good crew of local guys who showed up to run. Ran the first four miles with Josh Ricardi, Spencer Walsh and Phil Olson. Spencer dropped back after four miles but the rest of us stayed together through mile 8. It was a good thing because miles 5, 6 and 7 got a bit breezy. It was nice working together.

At Mile 8, Josh dropped off the pace and it was just Phil and I. Phil is a guy I love running with but have a hard time beating. He's almost 10 years my junior and he tends to have a stronger kick than I do.

This is where I was really pleased. On three occasions he made a move to gap me. Each time my body said it couldn't go with him and just to settle for second place. But my mind said otherwise. I covered the gap each of those three times which was a huge thing for me. As I get older and it becomes harder to keep up with the younger guys, being mentally tough is an even more important component.

Mile 12 features a grueling hill that we were both dreading. We ran it in 5:43 giving back ~20 seconds from the pace we had been running. That's the one part of the race I wish I had run more agressively. My legs just felt like dead weight though. I will have to figure it out though prior to Boston.

We crested the hill with three miles to go. This is when Phil made his third attempt to gap me. After about 10 seconds trying to figure out how or if to respond, I went for it and closed the gap pretty quickly.

But with two miles to go, Phil gapped me pretty hard running a 5:07. I had no answer but I was fine with that. I had answered every other challenge and my body simply didn't have anything left to give. That happens and it is what it is. I was very comfortably in second place and still had a chance to break 1:21 which became my new goal.

As I came up on the 300m to go mark, i knew I had to be at 1:20:00 or better to have a chance of breaking 1:21. I was at 1:20:05. I crossed the finish line in 1:21:04 happier than usual at the end of a race. I missed a negative split by just four seconds. I rarely finish as strong as I start so this was another positive from the race.

I was happier at the end of this race more than others because I both ran it smarter and didn't mentally give up even when my body wanted to.

This was one of my funnest races because Phil and I really battled it out through 13 miles. We crossed the half marathon mark in 1:10:45. Most runners will kill for that time. We battled and battled and it made it really fun.

One of my favorite thing about running is how friendly the competition is. Phil and I both wanted to win but we both knew we needed each other to do our best. This is something quite unique to running. On one hand you want to beat the person you are racing, but on the other, you go out of your way to work together to help each other achieve the best.