3 goals set, 3 goals met.

In June and July I fell so short of so many goals that I was setting for myself that I knew things had to change in August. I didn’t document things this month as much as I thought I would, but that doesn’t mean things weren’t going well.

In fact, I’m ending August very happy. It wasn’t perfect, but it wasn’t a disaster. I set my mind to 3 goals and I hit every single one. I immediately want to talk about how I could have done even more, but I think that’s just a natural thing when actually hitting every goal. Here’s a look at how they all played out.

1,000 push-ups
Enlisting the help of friends on Facebook and a shared document was key to keeping me focused on this. There were times in the month that I thought my arms were going to fall off, but now that it’s done, I’m ready to do it again in September with more variety. I feel stronger and I can see the difference in the mirror.

All told I did 1,039 push-ups, hitting 1,000 with a couple of days to spare. The 10 of us who did the challenge did more than 10,500 total push-ups, with a few people needing to log the final few days. The women pretty much kicked everyone’s asses, but that’s one of the many fun aspects of this.

10 mile map

10 miles for a long run
It’s weird to have such low running miles for a month (61), but have my long run re-established at 10 miles (officially 10.1).

I normally wouldn’t recommend this approach, but having so many miles on my feet from the past few years and being injury free for a while now, it was worth the risk to increase my long run to double digits.

I knocked that out on Aug. 24, so that feels like a nice bonus to not have waited until the last possible day. Plus the weather was amazing that day for August.

Bike more than I run
I did 10 miles this morning to get to 67 for the month, beating out running by 6 miles. By running less in the past two months, I really got an urge to start running more in the second half of this month, and I debated on whether to drop this goal. After thinking about it the past couple of days I opted to forgo a long run today and close it out on the bike to mark all of these goals as DONE.

On to September
I have a few goals in mind for next month, but with a new baby coming SOMETIME during the month, I’m not quite sure yet how much I want to push myself. I had such a good time hitting August’s goals, that September may carry a similar theme.

Long run … quietness

After I ran 10 miles yesterday, I had a lot to say. At least I thought I did.

I opened my computer last night, put the NASCAR race on in the background, and no thoughts came out.

I did the same thing this afternoon. Nothing. Here I am again tonight.

Dare I saw that I’m just so content about yesterday’s long run that I really have nothing to say about it? It was one of my 3 goals for the month and it was my first double-digit run since April.

Perhaps it’s because I was running with my friend Josh for 6 of those miles and got caught up in our conversation that I didn’t have to think about what I was doing. It was the 3rd weekend in a row that I had a run with someone else and the 3rd weekend in a row in which I walked away feeling extremely satisfied.

After so much time of things feeling wrong and not having much to say about it, it’s nice to have things going so right … with not much to say.

I’ll just let it be and roll with it.

Two-week countdown begins

My mind is ready to do 26.2 miles again; my body needs rest.

I wrote that last year a couple of weeks before the Baltimore Marathon. It rings so true today.

My last double-digit training run of this cycle came and went without any bad happening, nor was it that great. It was just a slow long run on tired legs.

Book-ending a seven-day span with long runs — the Runner’s World Half on Sunday and 12 miles today — was tough. It’s not that I haven’t done that before, but the marathon-paced effort on Sunday finally caught up to me today.

Today’s run aside, I feel better prepared for this year’s Richmond Marathon than I have in my 3 previous marathons. With more miles at or faster than my goal pace, I’m not going out there and just seeing what happens. There’s a better plan in place for race day than usual.

All that’s left is 2 more weeks …

Dress rehearsal success

A collection of medals and bib from the whole family.

There are so many things about the Runner’s World Festival weekend that were just simply amazing. It was truly a weekend to celebrate running and runners of all levels.

With so many other things going on this weekend with my wife and son running, as well as the first-ever #RunChat meet-up, running a half marathon today became a small part of why I made this trip to Bethlehem, Pa.

Scott and I discussed how we’d approach this and probably never really came up with a plan other than go out somewhat easy and see how we feel. For me, my ultimate goal was to finish at a marathon goal pace.

For the Richmond Marathon I want to do between 3:40 and 3:45, so that meant I was aiming for 1:50-1:52:30 today.

The results …

In a word, I nailed it. I couldn’t be more pleased with how it all transpired.

Scott and I had a nice conversation going on for about 6 miles in a 8:30-8:40 pace through what was essentially mostly uphill. Around mid-way the conversation drifted off and we just got into our own separate zones.

Around mile 10 I picked it up and rolled off a strong final 5k with my miles right around 8 minutes each.

I screwed up early by accidentally stopping my Garmin, so I’m not sure how much of a negative split I rolled off, but it felt great to push it toward the end. So many of my races this year have been missing that.

I struggled in the 2nd half of the Blue Ridge Half, Cleveland and even the Virginia 10 Miler to some degree. My 5k in July had a weak finish as well.

Today, though, I set out with everything I intended to do and I can’t wait to see what that means for Richmond in 3 weeks.

Scott and I after the race - the medal-biting is for everyone!

Highs, lows, in between

Earlier this year when I was training for the Shamrock Half Marathon, I stayed relatively quiet. Sometimes — most of the time — it’s best to just STFU and run.

No analyzing. No complaining. Not too boastful. Not too hard on myself.

Just run. Sometimes fast, sometimes slow, sometimes both in the same run.

The reason I’ve made the somewhat conscious choice to not talk about it so much is because it’s easy to fall into a trap of obsessing about things. The past few days are perfect examples of how I could easily let my thoughts get a little out of control.

Nearly a week after the Virginia 10 Miler, I was feeling like I was running in mud. Going nowhere very fast. I cut Saturday’s planned 16 miles short by a mile because it sucked so bad. I was hot, I felt slow, there was absolutely nothing right about it.
The next day I filed that run to a special place in my memory, left the watch at home and felt much better. Plus the weather was tremendously nicer (read: cooler), I put on some tunes and just ran for the fun of it. Perfect way to reset myself.
Today normally would have been a day off, but since I’m off work (thanks Mr. Columbus!) I headed out mid-morning for 6 miles and included a sub 8-minute mile tempo run for 4 miles. Quite the opposite of how I felt Saturday. It was in the upper 40s and rainy too, and not once did I think about the weather being bad.

I know that running has a tons of ups and downs — it’s so rare to find that middle ground sometimes. In the past 3 days I’ve experienced all three.

It’s quite exhausting sometimes going from one extreme to another, which makes me eager to get to the start line of the Richmond Marathon to put everything together and let loose. Then I can get back to talking a little more.

Racing to figure it out

For the second time in three years, I ran the Virginia 10 Miler on legs that weren’t really ready for racing. The major lesson learned today: how to really push myself.

That’s left me booming with confidence with 6 weeks to go to the Richmond Marathon.

Today I could have run another 16-or-so-mile long run for training — since I don’t “have to” do anything, I don’t know how many miles I missed with a “schedule.” I opted instead for a high quality long run in the 10 miler, an absolutely brutal hilly course.

My ultimate goal was to beat my previous best time of 1:22:49, which was 6 years ago. Two years ago, I ran this as part of my Richmond Marathon training and fell short of beating that time.

Today I ran the first 8 miles of this course right on target to hit or just break 1:20 — I was pleasantly surprised with each mile considering I haven’t hit big hills in a while.

When I got to the final 2 miles though, with a majority of that uphill, my legs reminded me that I ran 20 miles a week ago today.

While I didn’t really have a final kick and couldn’t finish as strong as I’d like, I crossed the finish line in 1:21:22, a nearly 90-second PR. More importantly than the PR, though, is how good I felt. I wanted to be faster today than marathon pace, but also leave the race feeling good about it.

Mission accomplished.

Now it’s on to the important final 6 weeks of Richmond Marathon training.

Running …

… because I can … because it's fun … because it's healthy … just BECAUSE.

Tag Archives: long runs