Back on track, maybe :-)

I had laid out a reasonable 10 week plan and all was going well until I returned from San Jose to below zero temps and a nasty cough last weekend. I had to abort my long run as I couldn't breathe in the cold air without causing an instant (not very pleasant) reaction, so that led me to re-juggle my schedule yet again and today I sloshed, slipped and even ran on occasion to get in a 13 mile run on an absolutely beautiful day. The temp hit the mid 40's, what a difference a week makes, now it just needs to continue to warm gradually to melt all of this snow and ice. I love spring.

So I am close to be being where I wanted to be I just consumed a weekend with a shorter long run, oh well, who needs a step back week. Anyway, here are the plans for my long runs over the next 7 weeks to get to my first marathon of the year:

I have built my mileage faster in the past but I had a better base and yes I was also in better shape. The good news is I have 6 hours to complete the marathon and I may need every minute.

One thing that I thought about today is how much I love running and pushing myself to get through longer distances, the other thing is that I didn't have any real pain during the run, just very wet and cold feet and legs that kept telling me, are you sure about this?

No calf pain on a run longer than 10 miles is a delight. I wore my New Balance 870's which have a 9 mm drop, I had bought the NB 870's hoping that the higher heel drop would help, they are a supportive shoe with a decent amount of space in the forefoot and for this run they worked out great. My only complaint is that they are so blue and I like my shoes to look dirty and with all of the water I ran through they still look like brand new shoes. I hate running in what look like new shoes, normally I will run into the woods and find some mud but there is still too much snow and no mud is visible, maybe next week I will get a chance.

You gotta have hope, the nice part is that spring is coming and within a month or so, I will have my wish and if we get lucky maybe in just a few weeks.

Bring on the rain and the mud, go away snow and ice, I know I can't wait!!!!!!!!

Winter Blahs - 10 weeks to my first Marathon of 2014

Well it happened again this year, I went into January with great expectations for my training and I was working to get into weekly routine, for the first 3 weeks, it was an ok but not a good routine, I got in all of 46 miles. For the next 4 weeks I have gotten in the grand total of 21 miles and 6 of those were running with Wayne last week.

So what happened, the normal and the not normal. The not normal was at the near the end of week 4 my back went south which led to a poor week 5. The back was better by week 6 but between the weather, work, robotics and an obvious lack of commitment, well,  I just haven't gotten my runs in.

So from here on most of my margin is gone and with my first marathon just a little under 10 weeks away, the time is now to get focused on sticking to my plan. So with maybe just a little room for adjustments, here is my planned weekly mile totals, you can see my long runs are either on Saturday or Sunday, the good news is once I get my training in for the first event, the rest of the events pretty much take care of themselves.

So for those that be wondering how I am going to ramp to this mileage, that is pretty simple, back on January 19th, I had gotten in a 9 mile run so you can see I am resuming from that point and ignoring the last 4 weeks, after all with my base being what it is (meaning not so good) I probably haven't lost a lot of training.

And as for the remainder of the year, in looking at the calendar, I will be able to keep it on cruise control with maybe the need to add a longish run in August.

The nice thing about taking the time to look at where I am, is that it gives me some time to consider what I want to do, although I am close to going beyond the point of no return, I still have time to get it together. The other nice thing about looking ahead is it allows me to think about what do I expect to accomplish this year. Is my goal to simply run all of the events or do I want to have a time goal. I have run marathons between 4 and 6 hours over the years but have not gotten under 5 hours since my last knee surgery back in 2003, I have also not trained very well or consistently nor worked to get the weight down either of which would make running faster easier. So a reasonable goal would be to simply get under 5 hours.

I had originally thought that I would push the pace at TCM but since I signed up for the Ultra Loony that might not be the race to do so, in looking at the calendar, my other options appear to be Grandmas or the St. Paul Urban Trail Marathon, of course my other option is to just take what I have on the day I run and let things take care of themselves.

Missed One & Mankato

I was double checking my plan for this year and realized that I had missed a marathon, I forgot all about it as last year was the first year. The race I missed is the St. Paul Urban Trail Marathon.

I clicked on the link and they haven't updated the registration page with this years race but since they added the date for 2014, it look like I have one more race to add. So that would mean 12 Minnesota outdoor marathons this year. I am little concerned though by the date as that might be the weekend we take our daughter back to school. Well, it's on my radar now, we will just have to wait and see if everything works out.

And for those thinking about running Mankato this fall (Oct. 19th), now is the time to sign up to save a few dollars as between now and the end of the month the marathon is $48, a 40% discount. After this signup period ends, the price keeps increasing until it hits the max of $85. So I will be signing up this week.

Oh, I should add some info for a couple of future posts, first, new shoes but these are road shoes (Pearl Izumi EM road H3's and New Balance 870v3), I have to admit it was weird to be looking at road shoes, somehow it just didn't feel right, now I just would like to see the snow melt off as the sloppy paths are a nuisance. And the other post will be a 2013 year in review summary which I am overdue to get out.

So stay tuned.

2014 Goals Confirmed

I haven't done a very good job of posting to my blog, I think it reflects that after the injuries a few years back I got off track and basically lost my motivation. I had met my goals up to a point and couldn't get my motivation up to push through the injuries to finish up my ultra goals. Now I think that had as much to do with work and other things but the bottom line is I wasn't putting in the time. It also had a lot to do with the concept of running 100 miles is still hard for me to comprehend, so this year I decided on a different approach. Not to resume my 50 state quest which may need to extend beyond age 60 but a much simpler goal.

So to help me out this year I set a conceptual easy goal, run all of the outdoor marathons in Minnesota. The easy part is getting done now, I have signed up for the first 5 (of 11) marathons. I signed up on 12/31 in order to save a few dollars but went ahead and signed up for Grandmas and Twin Cities. Grandma's price goes up at the end of January but by signing up in December we had the chance to win a free hotel for this year's race. Well no notification thus far so it probably isn't going to happen. For Twin Cities, I wanted to do the Ultra Loony Challenge so decided to ahead and sign up in case it fills up quickly (it's limited to the first 500), so I went ahead and signed up for that. For those not familiar with the Loony Challenge, it just means I am going to run the 5k and 10k the day before the marathon, kind of a Minnesota version of the Goofy for Disney.

So as of today, I have signed up for the following events:

Date	Event
04/26/14	Brainerd Jaycees Run for the Lakes
05/10/14	Lake Wobegon Trail Marathon
05/25/14	Med-City Marathon
06/21/14	Grandmas Marathon
10/05/14	Medtronic Twin Cities Marathon

I will probably sign up for the Minneapolis Marathon next followed by Mankato when registration opens on January 20th, Moose Mountain after registration opens on March 15th, then Walker before April 1st, Bemidji before May 1st and whenever Eugene Curnow opens I will sign up for it.

Beyond the 11 marathons I am sure we will do the annual Gobble Gait run on Thanksgiving and I am faily sure I will do something at Surf the Murph and maybe run the 25k or volunteer again at Afton. I may not get in a new state this year but that's ok as I still have a lot of fun races to do.

Since the commitment to enter races is underway, it's time for my commitment to training to begin as well. I have a lot of runs and a few pounds to lose before the end of April gets here. The good news is regardless of my outside distractions I am looking forward to the training for the first time in years.

Should be a fun year.