Next marathon is up

I've decided to run another marathon in the early spring.  I'm running the Rock n Roll DC marathon on March 12th.  I've run the RnR DC marathon a few years ago, it's a great run and a little bit hilly.  Training starts November 23rd.

The training plan I'm using will have me running 660 miles or more over 16 weeks.

I've started to feel better since the TCS NYC marathon on November 1st and I'm anxious to try and see if I can get this marathon thing right.

New York state of mind

I'm in a New York state of mind.  On February 15th,  I entered the 2015 TCS New York City Marathon lottery.  I had no expectations that I would actually get in since less than 20% of all entrants get in by the lottery.  On March 3rd the lottery took place.  I was checking my NYRR account and e-mail account all day.  I didn't know how long the lottery process would go on, but was starting to give up by 6 pm.  At 7:15 pm my wife yells out OMG and I ran into the room where the computer was and looked at the e-mail which said I had gotten in.  I was so excited and started dancing around the house.  This will be my first World Major Marathon and I'm very excited to be running it.

On to the present where I am training for the 2015 Dick's Sporting Goods Pittsburgh Marathon.  It has been a tough winter in Baltimore.  It has not been easy to run outside and the trails I would usually use for long runs have been snow and ice covered since the middle of January and probably won't be ready to run on until mid-April at this rate.  I have been doing some long treadmill runs and was able to get a few longer runs around my neighborhood, but with the cold and snow, it's been mostly too difficult to run on anything but the treadmill.

I did run the Tim Kennard 10 mile run in Salisbury, MD on March 1st.  The race started in snow flurries, which turned into snow showers, which turned into sleet and finally a cold rain.  Overall it was a great race in some tough conditions.  I even set a PR in the 10 mile distance. 

I'm hoping to get some decent mileage in this week so I can can get back on track.

2 months to Pittsburgh.

Keep on running.

Finally getting to the training for Pittsburgh

I'm finally getting to the training for the Pittsburgh Marathon and it's about time.  The weather has been cold, snowy, or icy so I've been hitting the treadmill a lot.  It's hard keeping my mind occupied for long runs on the treadmill.

I finally got to the high 20's this past week with 27 miles.  I'm hoping to continue the trend if the weather holds out.  I've figured out a loop that I can go as low as 3 miles or as high as 5 or 6 miles and then repeat however many times to get to the mileage I need.  The NCR trail that I run on for long runs is icy and will probably stay that way for a while.

I also found an app called rockmyrun which has modern music and you can download music sets between 30 minutes and 1 hour.  I use it sometimes when I'm on the treadmill to keep my mind occupied.  That and I start watching old 80's and 90's movies on demand.

So this week I have a 30 mile or so week planned.  We will see how it goes.

Thanks for reading and keep on running.

Running through the cold

The last couple of weeks have been cold, snowy, and icy. That being said I was able to get over 20 miles last week. If my face wasn't so cold that I went inside I would have had some more miles. 

I'm really working on running more consecutive days instead of large chunks of mileage. So if I want to run 8 miles, instead of running 8 miles all at once I might run 4 miles twice in one day or 4 one day and 4 on a rest day.  There would still be longer runs over the weekend.  But if it's really cold or the NCR trail is icy then I may split the miles on the treadmill.  Overall I've been running a lot of miles on the "dreadmill". I don't like running in the dark and on icy roads.

Here's to more miles.

Happy New Year and back on track

2014 has gone and we welcome 2015 and a start for new goals and new aspirations.  My aspiration is to eventually qualify for the Boston Marathon within 2 years.  I need to drop about 65 minutes from my marathon PR set in Richmond in November, 2013.  I'm hopeful that I can accomplish it, but it will take time.

I always run the Resolution Run 5KI around Patterson Park on New Year's Day.  It's a fun run, even if it is a bit hilly getting to the upper loop.  My goal was to take it easy, have fun with it and look for people to run with, if even for a little bit.  As usual I went out way to fast, in chilly temps and then held on.  One day I'll learn how to pace myself so I don't blow through my energy so quickly.  I will need that as I prepare for Pittsburgh in May.  I finished the 5K in 28:42 or about 9:11/mile.  By far not my fastest but not too bad for what I was expecting and it was nice to get 2015 off to a nice start.

In training I am really focusing on keeping my easy runs, easy.  I tend to go out a little bit too fast but still feel comfortable.  This type of harder running on my easy days doesn't work the "right systems", so I'm not working the aerobic base I need to run 26.2 miles and instead I'm going into the anaerobic space where I use up energy more quickly than I need to.  I found that if I work both systems with slower easy runs and hard tempo and interval runs and slower long runs, I am able to drop my times.  I'm really trying to focus on that.  Eventually my easy runs will be a little faster and tempo and interval runs will be harder as well.  I just have to be patient.

I'm also continuing my strength training with the IronStrength workouts.  Humbling still but it is definitely making me stronger.

I did have my physical in the last week of December which turned out fine and the labs came back fine.  I did find out that my body is changing for the better due to the endurance exercise so I will keep it up. 

It's time to get serious about my training and see what I can really accomplish.  I'm ready to see what I can do.

Happy running.

Last couple of weeks

The holidays have crimped my training a little bit.  My family and I have been doing the holiday stuff and enjoying the season.  What this has meant is there is little time for training.  While I wasn't going to go hard or even very long I did want to get a few more miles than I have gotten the last couple of weeks.

Overall it's OK since it's early in training and I've enjoyed some of the downtime.  I've done a lot of training on my treadmill in the basement.  I've never been able to go over 7 miles on the treadmill but hoping that it will get easier to go farther as I do more treadmill training.

I've got a New Year's Day 5K through Patterson Park which is always a great way to stay motivated for the year ahead.  It's a fun race with a great post race spread of chili and cookies.

Here are my New Year's Running Resolutions.

1. I want to stop drinking a lot of soda.
2. I want to continue doing the strength training at least once a week.
3. I want to consistently train no matter the conditions.
4. I want to start keeping a food log to see what I eat and how much I eat.

That's about it.

Happy New Year and happy running.

End of the year, how did it go?

The Celtic Solstice 5 mile race on December 13th was my last race for 2014.  It's time for a unabashed look at my race year in review.  I'm also in week 2 of marathon training for Pittsburgh in May, 2015.

The Celtic Solstice 5 mile run is a great, fun race with about 3,200 people that start at the Stieff Silver Company, run on the Druid Hill park trails, around Druid Lake, and then back to Stieff.  It's a great end of year race, with hot soup and warm wine at the end.  This year the temperature for the race was in the low to mid 30's so it was an ideal end of year race.

My friend Rob and I ran together and due to congestion, the first mile was very slow.  The race opened up for the rest of the race and I didn't really have a goal time, so this was just going to be fun.  We starting hitting mid to high 8's for the rest of the run.  I kept telling Rob I wanted to slow down and Rob would say OK.  Rob knows me better than that, so while I tell myself we slowed down, we really didn't.  We finished in 44:38 which is 8:56 a mile.  A new 5 mile PR for me. 

I also ran my work fun run 5K, which really doesn't turn out to be a fun run, but more like a race for me.  I work at University of Maryland, Baltimore, which is the Medical School, Pharmacy School, one of the Law Schools, Social Work School, and Dental School for the University System of Maryland.  There is always a bunch of young 20 somethings running this to blow off stress.  They always decide to take off at some pace much faster than I want to run.  I also can't let these kids get away from me easily, so usually I try to stay up for a couple of miles.  I also catch those that aren't in great shape, who blow up after a couple of miles.  I get asked, how old am I, and then wow you're pretty fast.  Makes an older guy feel proud.  This time I let the kids go at their fast pace and I drop into a tempo run pace and keep it.  A lot of the students who went out with the faster group started to drop off and I was able to catch them.  The route is a little short for 5K, so I always go around the building one more time to finish off the 5K.  I'm almost always the only one who goes around the 2nd time, but this time I was joined by a few students who ran my pace for the last bit.  It was pretty cool to lead the pack to the finish and then some mint protein shakes that are given out.

I finished off my marathon training week with 22 miles, most of which were done faster than marathon pace.  I'm still staying with my strength workout and getting better at it.

So how did my year go?  It was very much an up and down year.  January, February, and March were a great three months.  I set PRs in the 5K and at the Kennard 10 miler.  I was feeling confident going into my half marathons in April and May.  Unfortunately April started off a 5 month group of bad races.  I hurt my calf in April, but limped through a half marathon.  In May I had two half marathons that were no better than the April.  I wasn't able to train at all and I started Chiropractic therapy as well to which I had some bad reaction to.  In June I had two 5Ks and I did OK, not great, but felt like I was about to turn the corner.  July and August I was on some a oral meds for a toenail problem and I had a side effect reaction that made me feel like I couldn't run well nor did I want to run.  It took about 4 weeks to get myself back to normal.  In September I won 3rd place in Age Group in the Race for Every Child in DC and a new 5K PR.  The next week I also finished 3rd in AG for the 10K at the Race for our Kids in Pikesville.  I ran the Baltimore half marathon in October and while not a PR, it was certainly the best I had run in Baltimore by about 2 minutes.  I was back on track. I ran a few more 5Ks in which I was consistently back in the mid 8 minutes per mile to complete.  November was the Across the Bay 10K and I set a 10K PR.  Then the December Celtic Solistice where I set a 5 mile PR.

Overall I was pretty happy where my racing went this year.  I cut back on the half marathons and focused more on the shorter distances.  I set PRs at the 5K, 10K, 5 mile, and 10 mile distances. 

I'm now focusing on the marathon/half marathon for 2015.  My goal in the next two years is to drop about 65 minutes in the marathon and hopefully qualify for Boston and of course stay healthy while doing it.

Thanks for reading and happy running.