Getting back to Boston

January 02, 2026

Recent EntriesHomeJoin Fast Running Blog Community!PredictorHealthy RecipesSpiderpig's RacesFind BlogsMileage BoardTop Ten Excuses for Missing a RunTop Ten Training MistakesDiscussion ForumRace Reports Send A Private MessageWeek ViewMonth ViewYear View
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
2008200920102011201220132014201520162017
15% off for Fast Running Blog members at St. George Running Center!

Location:

Fort Smith,AR,USA

Member Since:

Jan 01, 2008

Gender:

Male

Goal Type:

Boston Qualifier

Running Accomplishments:

Dec. 5, 2009 -- St. Jude Memphis Marathon, 3:31:56. Boston qualifier for 2011. Two-time Boston finisher. 19 marathons so far in 10 states, Canada, Germany, England and Sweden. Next up: London (4/25/17)

5K -- 21:57; 10K -- 45:54; 20K-- 1:42:39, Half -- 1:39:30. All subject to improvement. Maybe. Or maybe not.

Short-Term Running Goals:

Short-term: Just get my motivation back and go from there

Long-Term Running Goals:

A lot of marathons, and other distances, slowly.

Personal:

Physician assistant/hospitalist, divorced since December 2010, one child (son). Ran high school track, took 10 years off, ran a 15K on my 25th birthday, took off next 21 years.

Ukraine Can Win With Crowdfunded Drones!
Click to Donate
Miles:This week: 0.00 Month: 0.00 Year: 0.00
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
3.370.004.883.2511.50

Well, I did a full set of ladders. Three, to be exact. Plan was for 3 x 1600 at HMP, 3 X 1000 at 10K, and 3 x 800 and 3 x 400 at something faster than that.

Let's see how I pulled this off. Had to take a notebook out there and write this down, because no way was I going to remember the splits without the Garmin to do it for me.

1600s -- 7:42, 7:23, 7:43. Don't know what happened on that second 1600. First one I was still warming up, last one was the last rep I ran (reversed the order on the last set). Ideal would have been roughly 7:30.

1000s -- 4:32, 4:35, 4:40. That's probably about right.

800s -- 3:37, 3:35, 3:42. Around 3:35 would have been ideal.

400 -- 1:40, 1:41, 1:39. If I strung 12.5 of those together, I'd get my 5K PR by about 7 seconds, so that's where I wanted it.

Took me two full hours. Don't think I've ever done two full hours of track work without a break, even when I was on the track team. Jogged the warmup, went into the reps, kept moving between reps except for two very brief stretch breaks (and to write down my times).

I don't want to look at the calendar and see if I'm supposed to do this again. I hope not. But I got this one done.

Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00
Add Your Comment.
  • Keep it family-safe. No vulgar or profane language. To discourage anonymous comments of cowardly nature, your IP address will be logged and posted next to your comment.
  • Do not respond to another person's comment out of context. If he made the original comment on another page/blog entry, go to that entry and respond there.
  • If all you want to do is contact the blogger and your comment is not connected with this entry and has no relevance to others, send a private message instead.
Only registered users with public blogs are allowed to post comments. Log in with your username and password or create an account and set up a blog.
Debt Reduction Calculator
Featured Announcements