This blog is dusty and I'm having trouble keep up with all the blogger peeps.

I don't have anything interesting to say right now. Working takes up all my time! I'm back to working out 6x a week (actually this is week two, but it'll stick), so that feels good. I'm gonna lift 2x a week and run 4x through the winter.

That's all for now.

pictures etc

Thank you everyone for your comments, they did help me down off the post-marathon ledge.

I am more convinced than ever that my poor tapering was a key factor. Not only the volume, but the poor quality. I dialed back the effort to 'save' my glutehammy.

The weekly mileage leading up to the race was:
66
44
40
30
16 (+ race)

I know it doesn't seem drastic but it felt horrible to go from avg mileage of 60 down to 30 and 16. I was supposed to run 30 miles in the 6 days leading up to the race (vs. 16).

I gave it what I had on race day though, and while that doesn't get me a better time, it has helped me get through the disappointment.

Next year I'll have a big decision on trying to hone in on just the right program to follow. Maybe I go back to pfitzinger's 55 mile peak program. If I can get in 3-4 20 milers, I think 55 miles / week might help me to stay healthy. We shall see though, its a long way off!

Anyway, that's boring stuff and more for me to read through. I've been resting physically and mentally from the long grind of training, and looking to get back to some consistent workouts this week.

I heard that I beat out about a dozen qualified candidates including a profess0r and lawyer. Good thing I didn't know that during the interviews! My whole attitude during the interviews was along the lines of I'm awesome, you guys all suck, and I don't even know if this is going to be a fit for me so bring it on with your dumb questions. As per the usual, I won't be talking about work here but things seem going fine and I'm learning a lot of interesting things. My days fly by, its crazy. Ok, that'll all be deleted.

Here are a few pictures! I can't get them in order for the life of me but one of them is a candid shot of me bodygliding up the toes (had no idea my wife took that picture), then keeping loose by being goofy before getting ready to leave, then 2 shots of me after the finish (one tired, leaning on a car door contemplating my epic failure), then last night picture of wife and I at a wedding. Later dudes!

TCM '09

Well, what can I say. The marathon did not go as I had hoped.

Tapering went horribly because I kept resting my glutehammy and really cut back on mileage for 3 weeks leading up to the race. I got sick a few days before the race as well.

When you know you aren't feeling great, 'they' say to adjust your goals accordingly.

Did 'they' train hard all freakin summer? I knew no matter what, I was going for it. I promised myself I wasn't going to look back at the race and wonder what would have happened if I had really went for all the marbles. I'm always conservative...but not THIS time I told myself. I wanted the marathon of my life so badly.

Like I mentioned, things just didn't feel right even the morning of the marathon. I wasn't feeling very confident. But I stuck to my routine.

Weather was perfect too. I got dropped off at just the right time...waited a short time for the rest room, sat down inside the dome and collected my thoughts for a few minutes and then went to the starting line.

The very front of the 2nd corral starts with 3:30 or faster runners. So I was lined up at the very front of 8,000+ runners! The first corral was off (maybe couple hundred people?), and then they brought us up to the front of the starting line to wait for GO. Seriously, there was not a runner in front of me at the start of the marathon. HEHEHE. 8,000 people chasing us front runners down right from the gun baby! I just kept thinking, I put in all the training, I deserve to be here.

Of course, I started too fast. How could I not? I blew through the first mile in around 7:30 vs. my goal pace range of 7:57 - 8:00.

Mile 2, quick stop to empty the bladder, maybe took 20 seconds?

I felt like the wind for the first 5 miles. Doesn't everyone? This was my day baby. I tried to settle into a groove after that but I just couldn't find a comfort zone.

Regardless, my splits were pretty stead-eddy through 17, with a cumulative average of 7:54.

(Ignore mile 1 split here...innacurate due to tall buildings downtown...it was about 7:30. Mile 2 slower due to emptying of bladder).










Mile 18 in 8:24
Mile 19 in 8:35
Mile 20 in 9:14
and the rest of splits worsened.

Its like I had never run a marathon before, or I didn't know how to fuel myself to prevent a meltdown. But I had a good race last year, I thought I had it figured out.

If it weren't for my support crew, I might now have even finished. I felt so disappointed with another 6 miles left to run, knowing that my training over the summer would not pay off in proportion to my finishing time.

Its pretty hard to run miles 20 to the finish under those conditions. There is no joy or triumph. With 2 miles left, I quit looking at my garmin and told myself to just jog it home as steady as possible. I was going to finish this thing. If not for me, then for my support crew that cheered me on all summer long when I had to get out there every saturday morning to put in a 3+ hour run. And for cheering me on all day long with bright enthusiasm and encouragement out on the course. You guys are awesome, thanks for helping me push through when things got tough. Three cheers for my wife, sister, parents, and also my friend Shawn and his daugher for making it out to the race.

Here's the rest of the story:









Almost forgot to mention, I finished in 3:40:xx.

Tapering always messes with my head. In mid to late August I yearn for it, and then when it gets here my body and mind yell out, why are we slacking/what's going on here?!!

The short runs are feeling tough and labored. It could be due adjusting to a regular working schedule again? Last night I ran 5.6 miles at 8:20 pace but it felt like a medium-high effort. On a lot of my recent runs, the first mile while seemingly tough is taking 9-9:20. Dang!

Recent "phantom" tapering pains include a sore knee (which wasn't sore for 5+ months of high mileage training), and a sore left foot (brought on by a new pair of shoes).

The weather forecast for the marathon is always changing, but if we go by the recent trend all through September, it'll probably be warmer than average. Not brutally warmer though. Weather.com says high 65/low 50 but I wouldn't be surprised if it gets closer to 70. While not ideal (or even average...why can't it just be average?), that's not a marathon wrecker in my mind.

As I predicted, my free time during the week has literally shrunk down to a couple hours a day. Working is for suckers! And for those that want to buy things.

Summer '09

Hey remember in '09 when I almost made it through an entire marathon training cycle as a 'retired' person?

It has been an amazing experience, and there aren't many others that can relate to this experience, at this particular time in their life.

Things I Will Miss While Experiencing the Life of a Retired Person

-Enormous, record breaking amounts of high quality sleep; 9-10 hours every night. Turn in by 10pm and wake up by 7am feeling like a total rock star. EVERY NIGHT. Its likely that you may experience a couple days of awesome sleep as a worker-bee. But I'm not talking about a week or a month, I'm talking about month after month after month of 9 hours of sleep back to back to back to back. I can't even describe the feeling properly. Its not something I had experienced since college, and you can't appreciate it back then.

-Running free. In the middle of the morning. Or at 7am. Or at lunch time. Or in the afternoon. Or in the evening. Running whenever in the heck I felt like running, without sacrificing any other part of my life was amazing. Amazing.

-Eventually, time stands still and you realize racing here and there all of the time serves no end. Are we all racing around because we only have so much free time and we just want to get back home eventually? I don't know.
But, did I have time to sit on a park bench near my favorite running path with a cup of coffee for 30 minutes to think about life? I had all day. I can distinctly remember one warm, mid-week morning where the sun was shimmering through rustling tree leaves, while runners scampered by at random intervals as I sat on a bench with a coffee and nowhere to be. It was so peaceful and comfortable.

-Tons of high quality time with my new wife and my family. 2 week honeymoon in Europe, trip of a lifetime. Or how about the time when my brother wanted to know, can you play in a golf tournament with me? Sure can, I'm available man! Can you caddy for me in a pro-am event? Heck yeah, sounds fun. The list goes on and on. I probably participated in 30 activities this summer that any normal employed person wouldn't be able to swing. I'll never forget that. I wish I had every summer off.

Things I Won't Miss

-As much as you try to continue living life, you end up putting things on hold. Example: I love golf and I never golfed 2 full rounds. It surely wasn't for lack of free time. I just couldn't get myself out on the course knowing I was supposed to be networking.

-Feelings of guilt, feeling like a schmuck, feeling like I was letting everyone down (including myself).

-Indescribable boredom. Toward the end of this, I would have worked for free I was so bored.

-I will miss my old job, I already know that.

I learned a lot of things on this journey but I'll save those for another time. Meanwhile, the marathon is Oct 4, and by that time I'll probably have logged 100 to 120 hours in cube-land. I'm nervous, I'm apprehensive, I'm a little unsure, I'm....going to be less bored.

25k road race report

Good heavens I just re-read my last post and I sounded like a big whiner. Everybody has bad days I guess, and this is one of the places I go to vent.

On Sunday I participated in the annual marathon-tuneup race: a 25k road race that borrows a fraction of the Twin Cities Marathon course.

Starting line temperature was probably low to mid-60s with a dew point of 60 (kind of humid). Finishing temp was likely mid to high 70s?

Let's get the first part out of the way: my right hammyglute was bothersome the whole race from start to finish, but I never experienced sharp/acute pain and my stride didn't seem to suffer like it has on some long runs. Ok moving on..

On the first 8-mile loop I felt great. Breathing was under control, and I was hovering around 7:30 splits which was faster than I expected to start but I felt ok. My pace was very steady but I kept getting passed by people on the first couple miles. Either I started too far up front or these people were going to suffer later...I didn't do anything to try to match pace.

At the beginning of the second loop, I picked up the pace because I like to run negative splits at this race to help my confidence going into the marathon. I ran mile 8 in 7:22 and mile 9 in 7:19, but then gravitated back to 7:30 range.

My percieved effort and speed were higher than my actual splits in the second half of the race. I'm not overly concerned about this because it was kind of a warm day, and I started picking off other racers in the back half.

On the finishing 3 miles or so when I kept passing people, a lot of runners told me "good job" and so forth which was sweet! On the second loop I studied the runners around me and kept thinking, "man I'm running with the 3:30 marathoners right now! woo hoo!"

I didn't have much of a kick at the end, but I ran a steady race.

Check out accumulative average pace through each mile!
1. 7:30
2. 7:28
3. 7:33
4. 7:34
5. 7:34
6. 7:34
7. 7:34
8. 7:33
9. 7:31
10. 7:31
11. 7:31
12. 7:32
13. 7:33
14. 7:33
15. 7:33
15.74. 7:32

Pretty small variance eh? hehe.

My official time-- 1:58:xx (7:39 avg pace). Super excited to break 2 hours. My previous best, last year, 2:08:xx.

Garmin avg pace-- (7:32)

Garmin half marathon split-- 1:38:46 (7:32)

I give myself a B+/A- minus on this race. Now I hope to maintain my base but rest my glutehammy.

Next stop: Marathon

Splits graph
















1H-- 7:33 avg
2H-- 7:31 avg

Frustration

I'm feeling frustrated with my running. I've been dealing with nagging right glute/hamstring pain for 3+ weeks. The marathon is about 3 1/2 weeks away. Why can't I be feeling strong like I did in May and June? Very frustrating. I remember ripping off a 20-mile run at 8:30 pace and feeling super strong like I could go on forever.

Not only is it sore and uncomfortable while running, but it bugs me while walking around doing nothing.

I'm really struggling with how much to keep running to maintain my base vs. resting to see if the pain and soreness will go away.

I took both Monday and Tuesday off this week (so I had 3 days off in a row). Wednesday I ran an easy 10 and did not feel strong at all. Today I think I'll try for another easy 10 later this afternoon or early evening, but I know my leg is going to ache out there. I haven't been able to follow the schedule this week so that makes me feel even more crappy.