Easter Long Run

This weeks training has been a rollercoaster ride.  I would feel fresh one day, and everything would feel easy, and the next day I would be sluggish and exhausted.  The worst day was Saturday.  We were supposed to do 2x3 miles at half marathon pace.  One mile into the first interval, my legs were done.  I was supposed to hit 5:10 mile pace, but ended up hitting 5:20 average for the first 3 miles and a little over 5:30 pace on the next interval.  I left the workout thinking of it as a total waste of time.

Today Scott got a hold of me to run 20 miles.  I was a little reluctant at first, but decided to show up.  Luckily, I was back feeling good, and we had a successful run.  We ended up running 20 miles in 2:00:07, which is basically 6:00 per mile pace.  The good thing about the run was that it really felt effortless.  The long run was a good way to finish up the week, and I ended up with 92 miles for the week, all on singles.  Maybe the higher mileage is the reason that my legs have been feeling trashed.  I will probably run one more week at higher mileage and then throw in a small taper for the Indy Half Marathon.

Revelation...Women pee on porto pottie toilet seats

So...I have ran a lot of races, and have used a lot of porto potties, and something that I always notice is that a lot of the seats have pee on them.  Up until now, I have always thought that it was because men do not lift up the seat, or don't know how to aim.  But then I started to think, and remembered a comment that a female friend made about "hovering" over the seat, and now I have completely switched my stance.  No man has ever peed on the toilet seat at a road race, and women pee on the seats all of the time...and this is why.
1.  I have always used the urinal, and I assume all men do the same.  There is a 0% change that you pee on a seat if you don't even use the toilette.
2.  Men have years of practice aiming, and unless they are drunk, they would successfully aim at the water.
3.  Hovering exponentially increases the radius of the spray zone, and men do not hover.

4-0 at Race for the Cure

Every year, Auto-Owners insurance signs up as a team for the Lansing Komen Race for the Cure, and for the past 4 years, I have entered the race as well with them.  This years race had the worst racing conditions yet, but I actually ran my 2nd fastest time of the 4 years that I have ran it.  We had a steady 25-30 mph wind during the race and I still managed to eek out a 15:56, giving my my 4th win in 4 years.

Going into the race, I had every intention of trying to dip under 15:00, but after looking at the weather station, I knew that plan was going out the window.  I started out the race by tucking behind Chris Stoddard for about the first half mile.  Eventually, I realized that I was being kind of lame by making him take the wind and do all the work by himself, while I drafted off of him saving up my energy, so I decided to man up and start racing a little.  When I finally made up my mind to go out and take the wind on my own, I threw in a hard surge to gap us, so that we would both be taking the wind and he couldn't use me, like I had been doing to him for the past few minutes.  From that point on, it was just me and the lead biker.

I came through the first mile in 5:10, which was a surprise.  I really felt like I was going 10 to 20 seconds slower than that.  My two mile split was 10:28, so my last mile must have been under 5:00.  Every time that we were running into the wind, I could hear Chris getting closer, but then when we got the wind at our backs, I would pull away.  My race plan at this point was to chop my stride and take it kind of easy going into the wind, and then open up and run hard with the wind, and it almost felt like his strategy was the opposite.  He ended up 11 seconds behind me in 16:07.  Following the race, Chris and I ran an 8 mile cooldown.  This capped me out at 15 for the day, so I might or might not need to do a long run tomorrow.    

Afterward the race, I went to Edens Juice, on the corner of Michigan and Washington, and had a complimentary smoothie and "Grand Slam" juice shots sampler.  The shots were pretty intense, and I think they could be surprisingly addictive.  It started with wheat grass, followed by ginger, lemon juice, cranberry juice and pineapple juice.  The pomegranate smoothie that I had after the sampler was really good.  If you get a chance, I would definitely recommend you stop in there sometime.  

The Start of a Good Week...Question Mark

Well, the legs feel pretty good after yesterdays race.  I was feeling a little sore last night, but I think that it was more from the car ride than the race. I was hoping to run 18 easy today, and started out with a 6:33 first mile.  My effort stayed the same throughout the run, and by the end, I had averaged 5:55 pace for 18, with the last half being right at or under 5:50 pace...so hopefully that will give me some confidence to get through the week.

Making Strides...Kind Of

This weekend I raced the Shamrock Shuffle 8k, in Chicago.  My first race of the season was a big let down, but since then, I have progressively been running better times.  For the first time in a long time, I raced without a watch, which might have actually been a good thing.  The goal was to focus more on racing than on worrying about what my splits were or if I was falling off of pace or whatever.   My finishing time was 25:22, which is probably quite a bit slower than what I am capable of, and about 20 seconds off of my PR, but is still better than my 10k last week, so I will take it.  Improvement is a step in the right direction, I suppose.

At the start of the race, I managed to get myself into the second row, tucked behind Simon Bairu and Lukas Verzbicas, and after a short surge, I was clear of a lot of the mess that happens in a race with over 30,000 people in it.  I got through the first mile in 4:48 feeling surprisingly smooth...I always feel smooth through the first mile, and then I die off.  This time though, I threw in a surge to try to keep the pace going.  I wasn't successful in maintaining pace, but I only slowed down to a 5:00 for the second mile, and at least for once I was "racing" and trying to get at it.  My third mile was a slower, about 5:15, and the next two miles of the race was basically a schizophrenic combination of "I think I can" confident surges and "oh no I'm dying" slow downs.  I didn't see the 4th mile split, but my pace was definitely all over the place at that point.  At least I saw a faint glimmer of the mental toughness that I need to start having in races.  I am really good at running well when I feel good, but at the first sign of discomfort, I back off, which is the exact opposite of what I need to be doing.  Racing is a hugely mental sport, so I have to work on getting my head into it.

The Playmakers A team took 4th place for $1,000, with the B team taking 9th.  I was 28th overall, out of 32,405 people.

Baby Steps

Well, apparently blogging is the cool thing to do, so I am going to try to jump onto the bandwagon and see what happens.

Two weeks ago, I opened up the race season with a 5K, at the Spectrum Irish Jig.  After a disappointing 15:52 finish, I decided that my legs needed a rest, so I did my own thing all week and skipped out on the weekly workout.  Basically, I just ran how I felt, and tried to run some strides and a few 200s during the week.  On Sunday, Scott convinced me to run 21 miles with him, which although I was reluctant to the idea, it was something that I needed to get done and it kind of got the ball rolling in the right direction.

After taking a down week, I bounced back reasonably well.  On Tuesday I ran 8x1600 with 400 meter jog rest, averaging about 5:04 pace for each 1600.  The rest of the week was pretty standard, 8 to 10 mile runs at around 6:10 to 6:30 pace.  On Saturday, I toed the line at the Meteor 10K with pretty legs that were a little tired, but not too bad.  I ended up running 32:17, which is actually an official 10k road pr, ignoring the 31:20 leg that I ran at Hood to Coast last year, and even though it wasn't what I wanted, I will take it since it was an improvement from my last race.  My splits were 5:02, 5:06, 5:12, 5:15, 5:20, 5:15.  Really, I think that I just got lazy in the middle of the race and I don't feel like I quite have that race mentality yet.

The week was capped off with an 18 miler at 6:09 pace.  I did not look at the watch the entire run, and was surprised that the pace was as quick as it was.  Hopefully that means that my fitness is starting to get to where it needs to be.  The 84.5 miles this week is the highest that I have ran since before my marathon, and hopefully I can soon be in the 90-100 mile range.  This upcoming week, we are going to do some shorter intervals, on the Tuesday night workout, so the legs should be fresher going into the Shamrock Shuffle next Sunday.  There will be a lot of competition in Chicago, and it will be a good opportunity to take some more baby steps forward.