Getting back to Boston

After taking the weekend off from running, if not work, got in 16.4 today. Cold enough that dehydration wasn't an issue, but cramping was, at least after I finished. Three miles (total) of GMP, with 2.5 after the second lap of the golf course loop, and the last 0.5 pushed on the third golf loop. Then I went grocery shopping. I think walking around Walmart was harder than the last lap of the run. I thought it went pretty well for my first 16-miler in forever, especially throwing in some GMP.

Eleven laps around the lake at Carol Ann Cross Park. Real, real slow. Legs very sore and stiff after 16 yesterday. Garmin cutting out in mid-run, which is nice; will try to reset it and see if that fixes anything. Just a get-er-done run, as Larry would say.

Four inches of snow today and more coming down. Outdoor run just isn't happening, not unless Gellco is selling snowshoes. So I drove over to Harbortown for the dreadmill session. Got in there and realized to my delight that someone had turned the heater off, which made it much more bearable. Not that I still didn't send sweat flying everywhere for nine stationary miles, but it wasn't nearly as smothering as it could have been.

Hudson's plan today was 5 X 1 mile at 10K pace. Good thing about dreadmill intervals is that you can kinda force yourself to hit your pace, and I did. Set that mutha on 8.1 mph and off I went, well, after 1.5 mile warmup, anyway. Then I did 440 jog recoveries at somewhere between 10:00 and 11:00 pace, then a 1.5 cooldown at 9:45 or so. Had to take two pitstops after intervals 2 and 4, so I'd have to do math to figure out total time. Which seems to be about 77 minutes, give or take a few. That's OK.

Didn't seem to take all that much out of me, so hopefully legs will have some snap Saturday morning at Russellville. Assuming that Russellville happens, that is.

Four slow in the snow at SHS. Still probably 3 inches left on the track; it was really hard work shuffling through it until I got a path stomped down after several laps. Even at that, 10:00 pace was about all I could manage. It's supposed to melt before the 5K at Russellville, although not sure how much snow they got compared to here. All in all, just one of those runs you just get through and chalk up.

Three easy laps on the road loop around the tennis courts at Ben Geren. Garmin acting up, so used the old wristwatch for timing. I guess the pace was around 9:20; I just ran what felt comfortable. And for once, I wasn't along out there. Two women were out training circling the same loop in the other direction. Talked to one of them, who finished her 12-miler at the same time I finished my run. She said she was training for the half at Little Rock, and the other woman, who ran 20, was training for the full. Should have gotten her phone number, she was kinda cute. Married, I'm sure, though.

No idea what I'm gonna be able to do in Russellville tomorrow. First race since Toad Suck, so that's a long time out of the competitive saddle. I'll just try to run 7:00 pace and see what happens. Apparently the course is pretty flat, no traffic concerns, etc., so that's good. And the 12:30 start gives things a chance to warm up into the 40s.

Surprised heck out of myself. Drove over to Russellville for the race, and there's snow everywhere. Including quite a lot on the trails. I'm thinking, OK, my legs are a little sore from the tempo run the other day, and now I've got to dodge white stuff? This is not going to go well. Plus the Garmin was malfunctioning, so the pace would have to be by feel. Decided I wasn't going to worry about the time much, just run as well as I could and pass as many people as I could. There was chip timing, but no mat at the start, which is kinda screwy.

First mistake was lining up too far back. That was an issue because the trail was only about 10 feet wide, and there was no going off the edge to pass somebody unless I had snowshoes on. So there was a lot of dodging traffic -- and ice. I was really surprised to get to the 1-mile mark and see 7:09 (started my watch when I hit the line, not at the gun). By then, the field had thinned out and I only had to dodge frozen stuff, which wasn't too often once the course got out of the densest woods.

So now I'm just trying to pass people. Kids, adults, just pass people. But no women; the women's race was separate and an hour earlier. Did a good job too. Passed plenty, nobody passed me in the last two miles. I was not entirely happy with my effort (thought I could have pushed it a bit more), but was not too disappointed to hit my watch button at the line and see 22:37 (with no mat at the start, chip time would be 22:42). I was just about a minute slower than my goal, but as I said, I left some of my race on that tempo run Wednesday afternoon, and this was my first race in nine months.

I talked to Alex from the hospital and her husband for a few minutes, then ran the course again, slowly, to get in a few more miles. Get back to the start and they're beginning the awards ceremony. I thought maybe, just maybe, I might get some AG bling, so I hung around. Was surprised when a guy walked up beside me and said, "Are you Spiderpig?" Turns out he's a RWOL lurker from West Fork named Lance who is also training for Boston. Also turns out he's a lot faster than me; he won the 41-45 AG in 19-something.

So they're running through the awards, women, kids, then men. Lance collected his award. Then they get to the 50-54. He announces first, and I'm thinking, OK, I'm not TOO far behind that. Then second. Then third, and he calls MY name. I think I had to pick my jaw up out of the snow. I was really stunned.

After the awards, double-checked my time and the overall finish. I was 56th out of 126 men.  The main thing is I got the hardware, and a nice shot of confidence going into the last nine weeks of training.