Monthly Archives: April 2012
Assessing my coach
Nearly 3 weeks ago I quietly mentioned that I was joining Coach Caleb’s team, and I haven’t said anything since.
I wanted to see how the first few weeks went before I made any comments about him or get into too many details about specific workouts. I think it’s unfair to the both of us if I did so.
It’s also been a weird few weeks as I have transitioned to Cleveland Half Marathon training with a short, but specific time frame for it; threw in a “for fun” race in an orchard and another non-race that kicked my ass; and just tried to get into a normal routine of running in the morning.
All that crap aside, these first few weeks with Caleb leading the show have been awesome. I’ve missed a couple of runs mainly to me getting off schedule and I’ve changed/shortened a couple of workouts due to time shortage, but in these few weeks I have pushed myself to do things I haven’t done on my own in a long time.
My long run yesterday, for example, called for 12 miles with the final 3 miles at a moderate pace. After 4 relatively easy miles with my dog, I set out for 5 hilly miles; after 9 miles I was wiped out.
It kind of reminded me of last week’s race — as I entered the home stretch then I had nothing left. Yesterday I had Coach Caleb’s voice in my head (although I’ve never heard his voice) telling me to step it up in the final 3 miles.
I flattened out my route and finished the final few miles in an 8:36 pace. Not bad for tired legs in a “normal” long run. Normally I would have packed it in with the way I felt, and maybe cut it short.
Where I have failed, as I mentioned, it giving myself enough time in the morning. Earlier in the week, a workout called for 12 400-meter repeats, plus a mile at a hard effort. I started about 10-15 minutes later than I wanted and got in seven of the repeats.
That said, my repeats were mainly consistent at 1:47, 1:47, 1:45, 1:50, 1:50, 1:52, and 1:50 and my mile was in 7:37.
At next week’s Carytown 10k, I hope I’ll see this little bit of extra hard work pay off. It’s a race that I’ll actually race; I’ll set a specific goal time around mid-week as I assess how I feel.
Coach Caleb is doing some great things for me and others on the team, and I can’t wait to see how all this transpires over the next few weeks before the Cleveland Half and this summer for Richmond.
3 things: Changes
You may have noticed a few changes around here if you’re a regular visitor. After two years of the same design, and as a way to celebrate 5 years of blogging, I worked with Ryan Sullivan to give my site a fresh look.
My request to him was to keep it simple: keep it easy to read, easy to share posts with others, easy to navigate, and easy to leave comments.
I also wanted to keep a “green” theme as that has become my go-to color for many things in recent years.
So far, so good.
Since it’s Thursday, I thought I’d introduce 3 changes to my blog that you may not have noticed:
1. Email subscription
I’m a huge Google Reader fan, but in the past few months I’ve had a few questions about getting an email subscription. To sign up, simply fill out the box on the top right of the page. Enter your name, email address and click “Subscribe.”
You’ll get an email to confirm your subscription. Whenever I post, you’ll get a link to the latest post. The first post went out before that part was finalized, so I apologize to the few people who had already subscribed for getting a weird email. The one for this post should show up as normal.
2. Upcoming Races page
It’s as simple as it sounds — if I’ve signed up for a race, you’ll find it on that page.
3. Blog Archive
This is a section I’m still working on as I re-categorize old posts, but this will be a quick and easy way to find older posts.
Thanks to Ryan for some great work on these changes. As far as my blogging goes, don’t expect anything major to change.
Socializing at Blue Ridge
Despite not having the best feeling race on Saturday, the Blue Ridge Half Marathon was fun for so many reasons beyond the race. This event turned out to be one of the most social races I’ve been a part of, finally meeting quite a few people from Twitter and dailymile.
It was also special because the company who pays me in my day job had a huge part of the marathon, so I got to hang out at the expo for several hours. I also go to be behind-the-scenes of shooting a course video, which you can view here on YouTube.
As part of being at the expo I got to once again meet running legend Bill Rodgers, who I first met in October at the Baltimore Marathon expo.
I got Bill Rodgers to sign my Blue Ridge Half Marathon sticker.
Check out an interview a couple of my co-workers did with Bill following the race.
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While at the expo I met Tim, aka The Beer Runner.
Tim has a great interview with Bill here and an excellent recap of his Blue Ridge Half experience here. Tim was 3rd overall in the half marathon. We didn’t get to drink together, but I’m hoping he’ll return next year.
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Also at the expo I met Kevin of Just Finish (pictured below) and Mike (aka DirtDawg50k), both of whom were running the Blue Ridge “Double.” Yes, that means running America’s Toughest Road Marathon twice. Back to back.
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During the race I met Krissy, who blogs at Shiawase Life. Krissy was actually running this race thanks to me as she won my race entry giveaway last fall. She recognized my green shoes and my #runchat sticker I had on my back. About a quarter mile into the race she tapped me on my shoulder to introduce herself. We ended up running most of the first mile together. Her recap is here.
Below is Krissy, me and Jay (@iJasonYu on Twitter). Jay and I have known each other for several years and met a few times while I lived in Richmond.
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Jay makes another appearance below with Shane (@ctnhd on Twitter), who I met and had a couple of beers with the night before. The three of us ended up literally opening a bar after the race, as you can see in the blurry picture below.
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During the race, I met Ginny (@ginny26_2 on Twitter), who like Krissy recognized the shoes. We ran together for about a half mile up the mile 2 hill until I made the half marathon turn up Mill Mountain.
Ginny has a great recap of her marathon experience on her Happy Feet 26.2 blog.
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Lastly my fellow co-worker Josh (@nsydyrhd on Twitter) was volunteering and hanging out at the finish area. Despite feeling pretty miserable, I made sure I was having a good time.
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Two years ago I called this race an “Instant Classic.” This year I feel exactly the same. My race performance aside, this is a must-do event for me for years to come.
13.1 miles of lessons
Up a mountain, down a mountain. Dead legs after that. 1:59:18. Still good enough for the top third of all males.
I don’t have it in me for any other details for today’s Blue Ridge Half Marathon. I feel defeated, yet very proud of the accomplishment of finishing the hardest road marathon I’ve ever done.
Instead, I’m focused on the lessons I learned today as I barely eclipsed 2 hours on this grueling course. Here are a few:
- The overly broad “just finish” and “have fun” goals are not for me. I certainly had fun out there today enjoying the awesome mountain views early on and running along side some friends on Twitter a few times, but I needed something to keep me focused.
- While this was a solid training run, it was not a good race at all. If I ever want to “race” this course, I have to train for it with more specific mountain and higher elevation runs.
- I need a checklist for where to apply BodyGlide. I had my first-ever bloody nipple today, which fortunately wasn’t bad and wasn’t obvious. I realized halfway through the race that I had forgotten that area of my body this morning, which is odd because it’s usually the first place I hit.
I actually have a lot more to say about this race and the past couple of days as this weekend became an awesome social event meeting some longtime Twitter #runchat and dailymile friends. I’ll give them all a shout-out in a separate post next week.
For now though, I’m beat and need a day to gather some thoughts and put my focus on the Cleveland Half Marathon.
3 things: Still here
Similar to about 6 weeks ago, I’ve gone quiet on the Internet. I haven’t tweeted much lately, I haven’t been leaving comments on very many blogs, and I haven’t been a motivator on dailymile.
It’s kind of my way of focusing on myself and making sure I’m taking care of the things important to me. Nothing wrong with being a little selfish from time to time.
Anyway, here are 3 things on my mind right now:
1. What will the weather do …
The forecast for this weekend’s Blue Ridge Half Marathon has been interesting. Heavy rain … 80% chances … mostly cloudy … warm … cool.
Right now, it’s looking like the morning will be fine, but I’ll be ready for anything. The forecast is similar to a year ago when the race had to be shut down due to huge thunderstorms.
2. Aiming for a 10k PR
After I get through this week’s non-race race, my attention will be heavily on the Cleveland Half for a month. As a way to prepare for that, I’m doing a race that will have every intention of setting a new PR — the Carytown 10k in Richmond.
It’s relatively flat and I’m in the shape I need to be in right now to set a new bar for this distance. The timing of two weeks before Cleveland also works out perfectly.
3. Coaching
The first week and a half of having a planned laid out for me has gone well. I know that it will take a few weeks to be totally comfortable having a training schedule, but I can already tell that I’m going to like it.
I’m really looking forward to getting to the summer and approaching marathon training with a different mind set.
Back on top of the world
One of my favorite places of all time is the summit of Sharp Top mountain in Bedford. To get there, it’s a 1.5-mile hike with about 1,300 feet of elevation gain.
Needless to say, it’s not easy, but it is a lot of fun getting there. It’s a continuous climb over mixed trails — gravel, dirt, boulders, tree roots, rock steps, and a very small amount of pavement. Once you get there, though, the view is just breathtaking …
Yesterday, I headed there with my dog, Duke. It was the first time I’ve been there since May 2010 when I went there with a group for a long run/hike.
Duke took to the trail like a pro. It’s amazing to me the instincts that animals have in an environment they’re not used to. While we’ve been on trails before, we had never been on anything like this.
Whenever we came to a point where we needed to go up rocks, he spotted an easier route. Duke, who has never even jumped in the back of my Ford Escape, had no problems jumping up or down over rocks.
As for me, it felt good to have this extra time on my feet without it being a run. After Saturday’s race I felt pretty good, and this just felt like extra bonus time in a higher elevation to help prepare me for Blue Ridge.
More importantly, though, I was just happy to be back on top of a mountain. I certainly hope that another two years don’t pass before I get back.
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