Psalm 91:1 NKJV He who dwells in the secret place

Today's run I felt like I was shoot out of a cannon I run the first 4 miles at a 6:30 to 6:35 pace. I thought someone needs to close-line me to slow down even though it was comfortable, but I did slow myself down. I was hungry when I woke up, but I didn't want to eat anything before the run. I slept till 9am this morning, because of the holiday I didn't have to work. I really woke up hungry, then I realized the last time I ate was Sunday around 2pm. That was probably why I was running at a faster pace to get back at the breakfast table. This run was suppose to be easy miles, but like I said I did focus and slow down.

I ran 9.1 miles at a 6:48 pace in 19 degree weather. Then once I got home my daughter wanted to run a mile around the block, so I compromised with my stomach, "you can wait another mile before inhaling food". We ran 1.3 miles in a 9:30 pace (she's 10 years old). Then the breakfast delight began.

Total miles 10.4

Hill speed work tomorrow.

Today I did hill repeats and I really wasn't motivated to do anything, because one of our systems was having issues, and I was up till 12:30 am last night. But I got up and did 7 miles at 6:41 for the hill repeats. I did 6 X 400's and 1 X 800, in 20 mph of wind going up. This was very tough, by the time I was at the top I was winded except on the last 800 that felt good (strange with that being longer).

I also did 2 miles at the gym at a 7:20 pace, and did strength training on my quads and hamstrings to
prepare them for Boston.

My job has been making training tough with being up so much lately in the midnight hours. It seems like I'm always training with tire eyes, but just the thought of Boston will not stop my motivation, and the help of God behind all my training.

Later tonight I took my two year old son to his Mommy/Daddy and me tumbling class, where the parents get to do everything too. I always take him so that I can have time alone with him, because my wife is always with him all day. I really enjoy it, just him and me.

Second speed day in a row today well actually a tempo run. Although, it took a fork lift to get me out of bed this morning, because I didn't sleep all night, because of 30 pages from this one system that had the Network Time protocol all out of sync. I was mad, I'm not getting any sleep and today I had to wake up and do a 9 mile tempo run. Well enough of my complaining I'll get back to today.

I first did a warm-up mile of 7:15 then the following;
6:23 (just easing into it, my legs felt tired)
6:14 (better but still felt tire)
6:17 (slower but I felt a little stronger)
6:01
6:06
6:08
6:02
6:08
6:07

Cool down mile of 7:10.

The tempo miles where an average of 6:09 per mile not bad, but I could have pushed harder, but I was tire and I didn't want my form to suffer and risk injury. Face it I was just being lazy.


My wife ask me why I pick to run 9 tempo miles, I told her it just sounded like a good number, and running that many can only make me stronger.

How many tempo miles to other runners run?

Total of 11.1 miles

Well today my main focus was to run slow, and break-in my new Mizuno Wave Rider 9 shoes, so I ran 9.1 miles in 7:13/7:14 (don't have my Garmin with me so I don't know which pace average it was). I felt like I was running in place. I actually wanted to average 7:30, because today's run was just to log some slow miles and get ready for tomorrow mornings Long Run of 16-18 with probably 12 miles being at marathon pace. But I'm getting better at getting the slower recovery runs in at a slower pace, because it's all about spending more time out there on your feet than on how many miles you run on these recovery runs. I want to have a good endurance factor to my advantage.

The run was pretty boring the temperature was 46 degrees and the weather said that there were 20 mph winds, not when I was running that was incorrect. Well I guess the last three miles there were some considerable times the wind would pick-up. The shoes seemed to be fine. I definitely felt that they were heavier than my other two brands of shoes.

Sorry for the delayed report, but I’ve been busy along with other things. It’s been an emotional two days.

February 23
Well today's run really had me wondering if I was going to be able to accomplish what I wanted, a good marathon pace run. First off I started to develop a cold yesterday afternoon and by night I had a headache. Later on that evening my stomach started hurting, and by that statement I'm sure you know what's going to proceed next. I wasn't able to sleep, and at 1:30am my stomach hurt so bad that I jumped out of bed ran to the toilet and vomited everything I ate that night. That woke my wife up and she said, "your not going to run tomorrow morning", and I thought that was probably the case.
Well, I woke up at 6am and had a stuffy/runny nose and a little bit of a headache, but my stomach was fine. I decided to run, because I couldn't run my long run on Saturday or Sunday I would only have enough time for a recovery run on those days. I thought to myself Boston is important, and If I can run a marathon sick I can surely do this long run.

Now it even gets better, we got dumped on last night almost all the roads were covered in snow and it also rained a little last night so to top things off there was ice underneath the snow (it’s still snowing hard right now). My goal was to run 12 miles at marathon pace in an 18 mile long run.
Anyway, the wind was blowing about 15 to 20 mph, so I started out at 7am at 23 degrees with a warm-up pace.

Mile 1 7:26,
Mile 2 6:59 (still warming up and the wind made it difficult to keep a consistent pace.)
Mile 3 6:56
Mile 4 6:54
Mile 5 6:38 (Marathon pace miles start)
Mile 6 6:40
Mile 7 6:42
Mile 8 6:36
Mile 9 6:36

The next two miles I decided to change my strategy a bit by climbing some major hills about 300ft. I wanted to see after these hills if I could maintain my marathon pace. This would be a good test on the quads and hamstrings. Well this was a stupidity strategy, because those roads were icy and snow-covered and made my pace suffer and made me work extra harder for miles 10 and 11. But that’s okay, because I was able to maintain my marathon pace afterwards fine and the run seemed very comfortable, other than my stuffy, runny nose.

Mile 10 7:02
Mile 11 7:10
Mile 12 6:22
Mile 13 6:22
Mile 14 6:30
Mile 15 6:29
Mile 16 6:39
Mile 17 6:25
Mile 18 6:59
Mile 19 7:30

My total average pace for the 19 miles was 6:47, and marathon pace 6:43, which I really could have easily ran at a faster pace. If I wouldn’t have made a course change on icy/snowy hill roads (I don’t know what I was thinking) it would have been better. At least I know this pace I accomplished well. I really feel confident that I can get well below the sub three goal. But one step at a time there’s a lot of training left. I really felt good that I did as well as I did for not feeling the best, and only having a bagel with honey to fuel my body.

February 24,

This morning I woke up not feeling good. With a full blown cold: runny, and stuffy nose with a headache, and feeling weak, but I didn’t want to miss my training so I run anyways. I ran 8.2 miles at a 7:28 pace. This was a good recovery run, and a good way to end the week. I was going to run seven days this week, but I better be smart and rest and get better.