Back to a bit of running...

Talk about a long slump! It’s the 22^nd of August today and since I last posted on the 27^th of June (57 days ago) I have run just 160 miles. I raced only once in that span (on the last day of my 20s) and clocked a 17:53 for the 5k, nearly a full minute off of my PR. While my running life hasn’t been remotely interesting over this period I have done some stuff in my non-running life (what? I have one of those?) Here’s what’s happened since I last posted.

1)      Sarah and I bought a house.
2)      I turned 30.
3)      Sarah and I went on vacation to Ireland and Northern Ireland.

First: the house. It is small but we’re right by Oak Grove in Malden so Sarah can walk to the train to get in for work (this cuts ~30 minutes off of her commute each way). We’re also up on a hill so every run I do (though there have not been many yet) ends with an uphill sprint. From our front door it is only a 3 minute jog to get into the Fells (or Oakdale Park?). Even if it is Oakdale Park instead of the Fells, I can pick up the Cross Fells Trail (blue blazes) and get just about anywhere in the Fells I want.

Sarah gave me a BBQ!

We have a TV but so far have only connected Netflix. The lack of new programing has helped us to be productive with setting up the house. We will either get cable at some point or I’ll actually start getting more things done once the house is sorted…who knows which way this will go.

Second: turning 30. Shit. Now I have to race against Bash and Bui…no more AG awards for me for a while. It was nice running in my 20s where you can get a medal at almost any local race just by showing up and running <6 min/mile (you can still do this in your 30s for half marathons, full marathons and so forth but not 5ks).

I was 20 years old when I ran my first race (10/4/03 New Hampshire Marathon 4:57:39). Yes, my first race was a marathon and no, I had yet to log 1000 miles in my life when I ran it. I set the goal of qualifying for Boston before I turned 30. At the time I needed to run 3:10:59 to get in. My first “brush” with qualification came in 2008. I ran 1:33:34 for the first half of the Maine Marathon before falling apart over the last 6 miles and walking it in for 3:24:05. I had no business running 1:33:34 over the first half because I had run a Half Marathon PR one week earlier at the Wicked Half Marathon. That PR was 1:35:46.

At my next 2 marathons (2012 Napoli, Italy 3:48:32 and 2012 Cape Cod 3:40:31), I ran the first half progressively faster (1:31:41 at Napoli, 1:29:33 at Cape Cod) without getting any closer to actually qualifying. A week after Cape Cod, I ran the first half of Manchester City in 1:37:00 to see if a slower first half would produce a faster finish. It did. I came home with 3:17:30 which was a PR but not a whole lot closer to qualifying than my 3:24:05 had been because the standard had been tightened to <3:05:00.

After Sarah and I got back from Machu Picchu I started training with Mike Toomey and took another stab at the marathon. At the Maine Coast Marathon I went through the half in about 1:25, faded and finished in 3:02:47. I got the qualifier before turning 30 (yay) but when Boston rolls around I will need to run a much smarter race.

The joy of qualifying and the disappointment of dropping from 3^rd place at the half all the way back to 8^th place at the finish were hard for me to process together. I could make excuses about how my mixed emotions played into my lack of running over the past ~2 months but in reality it was mostly that I was (a) busy buying a house, cramming work in to be ready to leave for Ireland and then on a 2 week vacation all over the island and (b) lazy. It was mostly the lazy thing.

While my mileage hasn’t gone up I have check off some more Massachusetts cities and some more countries in my goal of running in all 351 Massachusetts cities, all 50 US states and all 197 UN recognized countries. I am now at 62 MA cities, 13 US states and 12 Countries.

Third: Ireland. It was awesome. We saw ruins. I drank many stouts and a bunch of whisky. I ate a LOT of stew, brown bread, pie and chips and a lot of carrot cake. I really need to work on getting my base back in place for my next racing goal.

 

 

MY NEXT RACING GOAL!!!

I haven’t really had one of these in a while but now I finally do!

I am going to race the mile over the winter.

I have my eye on 5 meets. The plan will be to run the 800m at the first two meets as a tune up and then race the mile at the last three. Dates have not been released for the meets yet but here is my tentative schedule based on when the races were last year:

12/14/13: BU Mini Meet #1 - 800m
12/21/13: BU Mini Meet #2 - 800m
12/28/13: BU Mini Meet #3 - Mile
1/19/14: GBTC Invitational – Mile

12/28/13: BU Valentine Meet – Mile

I’m meeting with Mike Toomey early next month to put together a training plan and a set of goals for these meets but for now I’d like to cut 1 second off of each quarter for my first 800m race. That makes my goal 2:14 for the 800 at Mini Meet #1. I’m also planning on changing from a Monday – Sunday running week to a Saturday – Friday running week with 6 days of running and my rest day on Sunday.

I will plan on starting up weekly training updates again with the hope of putting out an update every Saturday. I hope this thing keeps me honest to my training so I can actually get some speed going this winter.

And finally, I can’t keep hiding from the start line just because my fitness is gone. Racing is a skill and I need practice so I’m off to run the first USATF NE XC GP race of the year this Saturday. Cheers and happy running!