Trying to Get Back to Respectable

This was a great trip.  The race itself was neat, but it did not compare to the rest of the weekend.  I got to meet Wes and his family which was really cool meeting someone that has been a driving force in my training for the last year or so.  We had the best tour guides in Pittsburgh and we saw some incredible things.  There were fireworks after the Pitt game, we got to see a bunch of colleges, the beautiful city of Pittsburgh, and the Incline.  It was a wonderful time.

Started a new training plan.  I am looking to do the Run for the Diamonds on Thanksgiving and then a Half Marathon in State College on December 2nd.  This should get me prepared for my newxt training program that will let me finally run a marathon.  I am hoping to complete the Pittsburgh Marathon next May!!!  Time to get this done.

I felt good through the run.  I tried to shorten my stride towards the middle of the run and noticed that I slowed down and my hips began to hurt.  After reading the No Meat Athlete program that I bought, they suggested that the way to stay injury free was to get 180 strides per minute and when I shortened it, I was coming in about 150 per minute but it didn't feel natural and made my body uncomfortable.  I think I will try to keep the stride at my natural stride and see how it goes through this training plan.

Okay, since I don't give updates every day, I guess I should give an update now because I have some time.  Everything is feeling pretty good.  During some of my runs lately, I have noticed that if I change my posture and shorten my strides, I am getting rid of the pain.  In the same vein the posture change has also decreased my time.  I find that I am picking up speed by elongating my body.  I am not going to complain at this point because it helped two of my more recent problems (speed and injury).  The pacing has been about 7:30-8 for slower runs and then speed it is about 7-7:30 per mile.  The speed work could be a little better but at this point, I am not going to complain about it.

Overall, I think I think I should be good to go for both the Run for the Diamonds and the Half Marathon in December.

Today was an interval training day.  I wanted to hit about 7-7:30 pace but instead I went about 5:56-6:20 pace.  The intervals are below:

1:33.7 
1:33.1 
1:33.9 
1:32.3
1:30.1 
1:29.1

I did slow quarter mile repeats in between each interval.  This was a nice idea when I have been used to waiting until the next interval.  The Garmin was fantastic for doing intervals.  I give many many kudos to the wife for a great birthday gift.

This was supposed to be a race but I was A.) not paying to run a race and B.) not going to find a race. 

I ran this in the usual place I do my runs so it was familiar but it was definitely the best choice.  I ran it in 21:51.  This is good but I feel like I could do better.  The best thing about this is that I have a reasonable baseline to use for the rest of this training and somewhere along the line I will need to do a good race before the end of the year to get a baseline for marathon training.  I think I will do the New Year's Eve 5k at the YMCA.

Tried to get this one done nice and quick so that we could go to the fair and get X-Mas shopping done.  I ran on the road right outside my house and my foot didn't like it too much. I don't know if it was the rolling hills or the slope of the roadway.  I know where I need to run and that is not right outside the house.  I will need to find a good place for the rest of fair week. 

Things are going well so I cannot complain too much!