Posts Tagged ‘Baltimore Marathon’

I know for the second straight month that I’m getting away from my goal of “11 things” posts, but with the Baltimore Marathon just days away, I made a promise to myself the other day to do some reflecting.

There’s no better way to reflect than an 11 things posts. Here are 11 things that have happened during training, lessons I’ve learned, things I never posted and other random thoughts.

1. I listened to this song a lot on my long runs in the last month or so. To hear it when the sun is coming up often gave me a sense of peace and helped me find strength when I needed it most.

2. I’m pretty sure I experienced the biggest variety of weather this time around. With a majority of mid-week runs in the middle of the day, I had the hottest conditions I’ve ever run in, with temperatures often near 90 or slightly above. These past two weekends, it’s been half that at the start.

3. In a 16-week span, I ran 456.7 miles, which is 51.9 more miles than the 16 weeks prior to the Richmond Marathon last year.

4. I’ve been much more diligent about recovery runs this year with running a couple of miles or so the day after big runs.

5. I have walked 117 miles since the beginning of July 1. That’s just walking miles logged on Daily Mile. That’s miles I’ve walked at work and family walks on Sunday; actual mileage is probably a bit higher. I’ve also hiked a few times too. I wrote a long time ago about walking more and how it would impact training, and I have nothing but great things to say about it. All this walking silently pushed me over 1,000 exercise miles for the year recently.

6. As a weather junkie (see No. 2 above), I’ve been looking at long-range forecasts for this weekend as soon as they were available. Accuweather’s 15-day forecast and the Weather Channel’s 10-day forecast have surprisingly stayed consistent. Saturday is looking good right now, but I know things can change. After seeing hot weather for Chicago return this past weekend, I’m mentally preparing myself for the worse.

7. I’ve never once doubted setting my 3:45 goal. In fact, it was one of the best decisions I’ve made in training. It made my training much more intentional and focused with every run. Whether all this pays off Saturday is obviously to be determined, but I like heading to the start line in this mind frame.

8. I took my first ice bath after one of my long runs. I can’t bring myself to ice bath No. 2.

9. I stretch after all my runs — sometimes it’s just a few minutes for short runs, often it’s about 10 minutes after a long run. I rarely stretched before.

10. I ran 148 miles on Saturdays. That’s more than Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays combined. The lowest day was Monday, with 37.4 miles. In August, I stopped running on Mondays (besides 8.3 on Labor Day) when that became a regular core day.

11. I talk a lot about having fun and encourage people to always have fun on a race or run. In looking back at the past 16 weeks, I can honestly say I had fun. From the sunrises, to seeing families of deer, to laughing with co-workers on lunch runs, this has been an awesome experience.

Way back on June 25, on the first long run of Baltimore Marathon training, one of the first streets I ran on was Baltimore Avenue in Bedford. Today, 15 weeks later on the final long run of training, I revisited that street as one of the final streets of my run.

I have a lot on my mind that I want to reflect on next week. I know I’ve been staying quiet, but I realized this morning that I need to hammer out my thoughts about training. No matter what happens next week — good or bad or anything in between — I’ve had a tremendous 16 weeks of training.

Do you hear that? I do.

It’s me, not having much to say.

Today marks nine days until the Baltimore Marathon and I’m staying quiet about it. I feel good; I’m eager to run more; and I’m just trying to not get wrapped up into the taper madness.

Sure, it makes me crazy, but there’s nothing I can do about it.

If you want something better to check out, head over to the #runchat blog for some great photos of our trail challenge.

Despite all my thoughts this week about tapering, I knew that one more double-digit long run loomed. While running 10 or more miles for a long run is something I’ve done nearly every week since July, I still had this weird feeling about this one.

Last year I couldn’t do another double-digit long run after my second 20-miler. Not running was the right thing to do then; this year it was all about fear.

Turns out, I ran a little more than 10 miles with no big issues at all. It was a clear, starry morning at 6 a.m.; it was about 30 degrees colder than a mid-day run earlier this week; and the miles ticked by fairly quickly. I didn’t focus on my time or pace — it was a run just to run. I should have left my Garmin at home.

Now is the time where the taper is important. My mind is ready to do 26.2 miles again; my body needs rest. While my running has been great lately, I can tell that another week of even lower mileage is going to have me ready. Through 15 weeks of “official” training, I have more than 40 miles on my legs than I did through 15 weeks last year. The extra mileage will pay off, but I can feel those extra miles with various soreness.

My plan for the next couple of weeks will be to take several Epsom salt baths, something I’ve done a lot of in the past month, but haven’t mentioned. I feel so relaxed after doing that and I can then stretch and foam roll with comfort. I also hope to get an adjustment from my chiropractor.

From a running standpoint, I plan to have a short run tomorrow (just shy of 30 miles for the week) and then about 20 miles next week. Race week — which I am calling week 0 — will have just a couple of short runs.

Just two more weeks …

Tonight’s run puts me at 134.6 miles for the month - a whole tenth of a mile more than August. With inaccuracies with a Garmin, let’s just call it even.

September was a great month — I maintained speed, no run besides untimed recovery runs were slower than 9:30-minute miles. My two 20-milers were more than 15 minutes faster than a year ago, and even then the pace felt fairly easy. My new easy and slow paces continue to get faster.

Also this week, I passed 800 miles for the year, just a little more than a week after I hit that mark last year. With the low mileage at the beginning of the year, I would have never imagined even thinking about 1,000 running miles again. It’s not a goal right now because it’s not important to me. Not yet anyway.

Just like a month ago at the end of the month, I have a choppy post at an attempt to reflect. Actually, all I want to do is look ahead. I have a marathon to run on Oct. 15 …

Sore, tired legs. Raging hunger. A bad run. Pains that come and go.

It’s definitely taper time. It’s not that anything is all that different right now, but I think physically my second 20-miler took a toll on me. Thus the reason for a taper, right?

I actually don’t have a problem with cutting back the mileage or taking an extra day off running if I feel like it, but I’m so ready to get to Baltimore and do this. I’d rather not run for a while and just go. It reminds me of being a kid and seeing Christmas presents under the tree waiting to be opened.

As I approached my second 20-miler of Baltimore Marathon training this week, I’ve been doing some reflecting on the past few months, and even years, but I’m also staying focused on the final weeks of training. I’ve been continuously paranoid about a re-injury occurring, but at the same I’ve been extremely excited about my progress.

I’ve made a promise to myself to stay quiet about a lot of things, so don’t expect many deep thoughts from me through my taper. Yes I’ll still post blogs, but I have a feeling there will be some more randomness to things.

So what about that 20-miler?

It was pretty good. I hit the middle miles a little too hard and the humidity got to me more than I was expecting. Overall, though, it was a good run — 2 minutes faster than a couple of weeks ago, no major pains and no crazy animal sightings for once. And with Bedford’s Centerfest setting up, I got to see things like this:

Yesterday’s run also included a road to one of the highest points in Bedford, as you can see below in the spike around mile 7. The hill didn’t seem all that big at the time, but thinking back is was definitely pretty big. Comparing this 20-miler to two weeks ago, yesterday’s had 100 more feet of elevation gain.

Today's route

This past Sunday marked 7 years since my first race — the Virginia 4 Miler in Lynchburg. My time was 34 minutes flat, an 8:34 pace. That experience forever changed me.

Today I had a great speedy run in Roanoke by myself — no co-workers, no dog, no music — and my time and pace put things in perspective to me with how far I’ve come in seven years, as well as what could lie ahead for the Baltimore Marathon. This experience is just part of my growth.

This afternoon’s 4.3-mile run was in 36:17, an 8:26 pace. There were two big hills that could have broken me, but I hit them harder than I’ve been hitting hills lately.

I’ve had several runs this summer that were quite a bit faster than races from the first couple of years of running. Those were races that would leave me sore the next day because I ran them so hard.

Defining progress is hard, and when it actually happens it’s tough to explain how great it feels.

With less than 4 weeks to go until the Baltimore Marathon and a big week ahead, I’m committing to keeping some thoughts to myself besides what happens on individual runs. I have a million things on my mind about running, this training cycle, what’s worked, what hasn’t … but I’m balling all those things up and keeping it inside my head a while longer.

It’s similar to my thoughts at the end of July when I didn’t put my flag in the ground and claim it as the best month ever. I know many people will disagree with me and others will completely understand, but this is part of my process. I have a big week ahead with another 20-miler (or more?) planned for Saturday. I have to nail this week and solid runs in my taper just to get to the start line.

All this “come back” hasn’t worked until I get through Baltimore in one solid piece.

I like runs that leave me with thoughts all over the place. I finished today’s 14.3-mile run feeling good, strong and eager to do more. Instead of fearing next week’s second 20-miler, I’m embracing everything about it.

Here are some highlights from today’s run:

• My time — 2:09 — was 38 seconds faster per mile than a 14-mile run from a year ago. It’s more than a minute faster per mile than either of my 20-milers from then; it was also 20-plus seconds faster than last week’s intentionally slower long run.
• My continuous intentional start slow, finish strong method of training was well executed today. The first mile was 9:43; the final mile was 8:47. All the other miles were within 26 seconds of each other.
• The weather was perfect — a consistent temperature in the low 50s and lots of clouds made this an ideal training run. I’d gladly take this for the Baltimore Marathon in 4 weeks.
• There were hills in Bedford I hit for the first time since last summer. It was part of getting rid of the injury fear factor that’s plagued me all year.
• Four weeks to go … all I have to do is stay focused, run smart and stay patient.