Thankful, grateful and a PR

I’m interrupting this month’s “Thankful for” posts this weekend to focus on one of the most amazing things that’s happened in my nearly 10 years of running — pacing my sister to a half marathon PR.

And not just any PR. Destroying a PR by knocking nearly 12 minutes off her PR and going under 2 hours by 56 seconds.

This is the second time this year I’ve run with my sister Heather and helping her notch a personal best — more than 6 months ago I paced her to a PR at the Monument Avenue 10K.

Saturday’s race was about the most well executed 13.1 miles I’ve ever run — all this coming after I overslept for an hour, forgot my Garmin, and stood in a downpour for nearly 30 minutes.

My friend Josh came to the rescue by letting me wear his watch, and we kept right on pace nearly the entire race. Josh, who was running his first half, ran the first 6 miles with us and cruised to a 1:52 finish. His race is deserving of a separate blog post.

There were a couple of moments just before 10 miles that I didn’t know if the sub 2-hour half would happen, but when we hit the 5K-to-go mark, the goal became simple: have my sister run a 29:30 or better 5K, something she’s done many times.

When he hit what I think is the most dreadful finish in all of racing — a sharp downhill for nearly a half mile — I knew she had this sub 2-hour half under her belt. It was all about not stopping or tripping on the wet pavement at that point.

I had so many emotions about crossing that finish line. Knowing she beat her goal and destroyed a PR felt as rewarding as any PR I’ve ever set. I also thought about last year when I crossed that same finish line in the marathon how much I had fallen out of love with running.

The last 5 miles of the half follow the same course as the full — running along those roads where I felt so bad last year gave me a sense of closure. Time to really move on.

And what better way to move on than celebrating a PR.

No. 1,000

I haven’t met a runner who doesn’t enjoy a milestone. Longest run ever. PRs. 500 miles. 1,000 miles. Finishing a first 5k. Running a mile.

I’ve had some great milestones since I started this in April 2007. Today is one of those that feels a bit weird — 1,000 posts. Of the previous 999 posts, there are many I don’t remember. Most are forgettable.

Every so often, though, I write something that I will bookmark and re-read. In a way, it’s how I measure my success, failures and other lessons learned. I don’t blog to please anyone; I blog for myself.

It’s no different than when I kept a journal when I was a teen, only this is public.

Sometimes too public. Sometimes not public enough for people who want more insight. Mostly, though, it’s just the right amount for me to be able to reflect.

And that’s what today is. A reflection on posts that I like — some are posts that hold special meaning and continuously help me evolve; some are here because there’s a memory attached to them.

In honor of my 1,000th post, here are some of my favorites:

My 1,000-mile journey
It’s bittersweet that my one-time huge mileage goal happened the way it did. I learned a lot of lessons in 2010 — both good and bad — and that post highlighted many of those moments.

Game changers
This post isn’t necessarily anything special, but for a couple of weeks in January 2010 everything changed. A cold long run in the rain; a mountain adventure with some friends through ice. It often takes getting out of my comfort zone to set me straight, and this post highlights those moments.

Sham Rocked III
This is the race where I realized that PRs really aren’t that important. Doing something that others say are impossible are. This was my first race as a dad in 2009 and one that I hold close to me whenever someone wants to talk about how busy their life is. Wake-up calls by babies in the middle of the night is not an excuse to not run, and I was determined to prove that in early 2009.

Attack of the gnats
This post is one of the main reasons I do not run in the evening often, especially in the summer.

11 things my grandfather taught me
Of all my 2011 “11 things” posts, this one is far and away my favorite. It’s full of a ton of life’s lessons.

I am a marathoner
If I write a race recap of 500 words or more now, I go through it with a fine-toothed comb and edit it. Nobody wants to read mile by mile recaps. Really. My first marathon, though, and what I felt in the final miles became worthy of my longest post ever.

That feeling I had when crossing that finish line is a memory I’ll hold onto forever.

This is one of my favorite post-race photos ever, which was after the 2007 Richmond Marathon.

Redefining “easy”

yin yang sign running One of the best things about running is feeling like I’m constantly learning something. Sometimes it’s about relearning something.

And sometimes it’s about starting from scratch despite what’s so ingrained in my mind.

One of those starting-from-scratch things is the definition of “easy.”

For way too long, running “easy” has been about pace for me. Just like a tempo run or intervals, easy has had some sort of range.

It’s changed over the years as I’ve focused on different races that I’m training for, injuries I’ve dealt with and where I am fitness wise. It’s also changed based on articles I’ve read and advice I’ve sought along the way.

I’ve realized, though, in the past few months that I’ve been approaching easy runs completely wrong.

Running “easy” isn’t always about pace; it’s also a state of mind. It’s also a physical state that my body needs to be in so I don’t overtrain.

When I think back to last summer and my long runs for the Richmond Marathon, the worst long runs were ones in which I didn’t hit a certain pace. While I know that race pace miles are needed, I think I was trying too hard to hit that pace too many times on long runs.

Simply put, I was running myself into the ground. It became a chore.

Last week I looked at my splits for the Richmond Marathon for the first time — there was nothing wrong with the first 14 miles of the race. While my pace was slightly above my goal, I started to let things slip because I was overthinking what I was doing. When I tried to pick the pace up, I didn’t go any faster.

It’s taken me a long time to realize this, but I gave up that day. If I would have stuck with the pace I had set out on, I probably would have landed my best time, but for me it was hit my goal or go home.

And now I blame a lot of that on way too many non-easy miles over the summer.

I love being faster and setting big goals for races, but now I understand that if I’m going to put down more PRs, I need to run easy more often. Both in a physical sense and a mental sense.

Lately on days when I do speedwork, I’m back to a pace I was at a year ago. This week I did a 2-mile tempo in 15:15; a month ago I was at 16:09.

I think my easy days have helped give me a better experience on the days I’ve pushed it.

It’s probably too little too late to see results for the Shamrock Half next week, but for the first time in several months I am confident about where things are headed. And I have easy runs to thank for that.

2012: The good, bad & ugly

I’ve run nearly 1,200 miles this year — far and away the most miles in a 12-month span for me. What’s behind those miles, though, are a bunch of stories — some (really) good moments, a fair share of (really) bad moments, and quite a few that were simply ugly.

I’ve thought about all those moments and decided to do a “year in review” of sorts with “winners” of each of those categories and linking to a few older posts along the way.

The Good.

Record mileage with no major injuries is almost the biggest highlight for me. Getting a 10k PR in May is also up there as one of the big moments. PRs aside, the entire race weekend at the Runner’s World Festival in October was huge.

Nothing, though, can top that feeling in March when I set a new mark at the Shamrock Half Marathon. While I didn’t get my sub-1:40, nearly everything fell into place that day for my best race experience to date.

The bad.

While 2012 was mostly good, the bad moments were definitely forgettable.

This comes down to a toss up between the Cleveland Half Marathon in May and the Richmond Marathon in November. Miserable weather impacted Cleveland; exhaustion likely caused a miserable day for Richmond.

Richmond, though, had more elements that I could have controlled, so that wins out as the biggest “bad” of the year.

2012 Richmond Marathon bib

The ugly.

Here was my debate — do I go literal or figurative? Richmond was ugly. The weather in Cleveland was ugly.

But blood is also ugly, and way back in January I had an awesome experience in the Frozen Toe 10k in Roanoke. That awesomeness included blood.

Blood always wins.

Frozen Toe 10k

The Disney opportunity

Nov. 10 was supposed to be the last marathon for a while, but a few days before that a friend of mine asked if I would be interested in joining a Disney Marathon team through Comfort Zone Camp‘s Grief Relief Team.

My first thought was absolutely not. No more marathons for me. Then the marathon went down the way it did and I quickly realized that I’ve been taking running way too seriously for the past couple of years.

Running Disney would be the opportunity to do a race purely for fun. Then I thought about the opportunity of taking the family to Disney and then also supporting this great organization. It’s been way too long since I’ve run an event for a reason other than personal satisfaction.

Disney will not be an “A” race for me by any means, but I believe it will be a weekend to cherish for years to come.

Photos courtesy of Comfort Zone camp

I want to thank my friends at Comfort Zone Camp for reaching out to me to join the Grief Relief Team.

Headquartered in Richmond, Comfort Zone Camp is a nonprofit organization that helps transform the lives of children who have experienced the death of a parent or sibling.

Camps are held year-round throughout the country for kids age 7-17. I can’t wait to be a part of this special weekend.

In addition to their website, you can find Comfort Zone Camp on Facebook and Twitter. To donate to the Grief Relief Team, visit Comfort Zone Camp CEO Lloyd Osgood’s fundraising page.

Comfort Zone envisions a world where grieving children are not forgotten or left to grieve alone, and are supported by a wide community that understands and appreciates them.

Farewell 26.2 (sort of)

Saucony shoes, #runchat I can’t quite pinpoint the moment it happened, but somewhere between the Runner’s World Half Marathon and the Richmond Marathon, I became so intent on cutting back on running that the whole aspect of having fun went away.

In the past 3 weeks, I’ve run less, I’ve refrained from blogging much, I haven’t read many blogs and besides leading #RunChat over the weekend, I haven’t had much to say on Twitter.

And it’s been refreshing.

Not having to focus on a big goal for a few weeks has helped me reset my mind and has allowed me to enjoy my runs more. Aside from the knee pain I mentioned, I am feeling much more calm about running these days.

I’ll post more soon about my opportunity to run Disney, but I’m already approaching that with a “just have fun” approach. I’m not going to pile on a lot of miles to get to that race day.

I’m instead focusing on more cross training and strength training, as well as getting off a few post-marathon and Thanksgiving pounds. I don’t want, or need, a goal for that race.

In these past few weeks I’ve thought a lot about 2013 and really not setting goals. These past couple of years have had some great moments, but I think I’m ready to just step back and bit and not have “A” goals that eat up so much of my focus on every run.

This doesn’t mean I won’t train for races – of course I will – but I’m done consuming months of my time for the shot at an “A” goal in a fall marathon.

This is kind of my long-winded way of saying that no matter what happens in January at Disney, I’m done with “26.2″ for a while. It was my intent all along. But that was supposed to be after a strong Richmond Marathon and running 3:40 something and having a celebratory good-bye to the distance.

What happened that day doesn’t matter anymore, and I think I’m better because of that. I’m really looking forward to closing out an otherwise great year by just having fun.

Running …

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

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