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ING Hartford Half Review

Monday, October 12th, 2009

Hey there everyone.  It’s now two days after the race, and I’ve finally gotten a chance to sit down and write about it.  Since getting engaged, life has been pretty busy…and I’m only two weeks in!  Yesterday we signed the contract for our ceremony/reception location, and in doing so set the date…September 25, 2010!  Very exciting…less than a year away.  Lots and lots to do…but that’s not why you’re reading this post, so let’s get on with it.

PA120912

Stephanie and I drove up to Hartford on Friday night.  For some reason I didn’t map out the route ahead of time, so I had no idea how long the drive really was.  Stephanie laughed at my when I asked how far we still had to go…when we were more than an hour away.  But, we still made it to the hotel at a reasonable time.  I did, however, drop my gatorade and spill it all over the lobby floor…but that’s another story.  It was then straight off to bed for a 5:15 wake up call.  I pretty much woke up every 2 hours, on the hour, until the alarm went off.  Fun stuff.

Race morning we walked the few blocks to the expo center to pick up our race packets.  There is NO ONE awake in Hartford at 6:00 a.m. except out of town runners.  After picking everything up we headed down to the start area to scope things out, before we had to part ways for the start.  I think I’ll hash out the race via video, so click play below.

So yeah, that pretty much sums it up.  Now I’m taking a few days to a week off to recover, then I’ll take a week or two slow before starting the training for the ultra marathon!  Craziness I tell you, craziness.

So, until the next time I blog…Run on Friends!!

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Taper Town

Thursday, October 8th, 2009

3 runs this week and it took me until today to write. Seems my blogging is tapering just as much as my running. Guess I’m getting ready for the big blog post I’ll be writing after the race this weekend. Yeah, that’s definitely got to be it.

So my runs this week. Monday I decided to just let loose and see what pace I’d be at for 3 miles…didn’t matter to me if I went fast or slow. I ended up running 22:41, which I think was around a 7:34 pace. Felt nice and comfortable the whole way. It was a good mix of up and down hills, and my the weather was fantastic. Let’s just hope we have the same conditions on race day. Wednesday I ran with Stephanie…we did an easy 2 miler around my complex. Didn’t have my watch on so don’t really know how fast it was, but the main goal was simply to get the run in at an easy pace. Mission accomplished. Today I did another easy 2 without the watch, and everything feels pretty good. Gonna try to get some good rest tonight, and then it’s off to CT tomorrow night for the race on Saturday morning.

According to Weather.com, the high for the day will be around 63. So, with an 8 am start, it should be in the 50s for most of the race. The only negative is that right now it says a few morning showers. Hopefully that will be early early morning before I event wake up. I have to walk over to the expo center to pick up bib the morning of, and then walk about a half mile from there to the start. Stephanie is running the 5K, so I’m hoping we both have good races. My plan is to start out comfortable for the first few miles, then kick it into high gear after that, assuming the body is feeling good.  Below is the elevation chart.  It looks like the first 3 should be comfortable…I just need to remember from 3.5 till 5 that I’ll probably feel slightly fatigued due to the uphill, but then I have a mile downhill plus relatively flat milage from 5 till 9.  Should be able to make good headway there.

Well, wish me luck.  I’ll have a full report on the race sometime either Sunday or Monday.  Until then…

Run on Friends!,

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Running and Big News!

Sunday, October 4th, 2009

Feel free to skip straight to the video from some important news!

Day: Wednesday

Workout: 3.3 miles

Time: 26:24

So, I’m just including this workout for the sake of continuity, but I honestly don’t remember anything about the run…so, that’s all I have to say about that.

Day: Saturday

Workout: 6 miles

Time: 50:29 (8:21, 8:29, 9:20, 8:07, 8:05, 8:04)

So Saturday’s run was my last “long” run before the race this coming Saturday.  To be honest it was another day that I had to force myself out the door.  The weather was kinda bleh…very humid, not very cool, just not great running weather.  But, I need to get the run done so I got out there and did it.  The first 2.5 miles my lower right leg was very tight.  As you can see from my first 3 splits, it was affecting my run.  At around 2.5 I stopped to try to stretch it out some, and then I walked for about 30-60 seconds to try to loosen it up.  I guess it worked.  I then went on to have negative splits for the rest of the run.  The rest of the run was not easy by any means…I still felt tight and overall uncomfortable, but was still able to get my time in a good place.

Being able to recover from a rough start like that and come back with negative splits for the final 3 miles of a run gave me some confidence going into the race this coming weekend.  I’m looking forward to it.  I have kinda refocused my main goal to simply running a PR, which would require me running an 8:20 pace for the entire time.  I’m pretty sure I can do that.  The course has some hills, so as long as I stay around 8:30-8:40 on the uphills, I can more than make that up on the downhills where my pace has been averaging around 7:10-7:20.  So we’ll see it how goes.  I mean, I’d definitely welcome doing even better, but I will be very happy with a PR.

On a final note, the video I promised for Wednesday got a little delayed, but it’s below.  Be ready…it’s some pretty big news

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4 Miles Well Spent

Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009

Workout: 4 Miles

Time: 30:58

Splits: 8:04, 7:35, 7:28, 7:50

After a relaxing night off at my parents house last night, I decided that I’d put in a quality 4 miles tonight.  It had been a while since I ran at North Brunswick park, but I wanted a flat, non-paved course so I took a drive over there.  I started out at a good pace, but quickly stopped when my Garmin beeped at me.  I still had the pace alert on…and I didn’t want to be warned today.  I just wanted to run at what felt like a comfortably moderate/hard pace, without letting my Garmin dictate my pace.  So I turned it off and got back to running.  First mile went well, so I decided to pick it up for the second mile.  Pushed the pace a little, but not to the point of it being uncomfortable.  Mile 3 I thought I might back off some, but I was feeling good so I let my legs go with it…and ended up with another negative split.  Not too bad.  The final mile I forced myself to slow down some, but picked it up the last 0.2 to around a 6:30 pace…what I would call comfortably hard.  Definitely not sprinting…controlled hard running.  No wheezing for breath, no pain, but glad to be done once my watched beeped for mile 4.

All in all it was a very good, very productive run.  It showed me that my speed is where I want it to be, and that I can maintain it for more than a few miles.  My goal for ING Hartford is 1:44:00, or around a 7:56 pace.  Today I averaged around 7:45, which would bring me to 1:41:36.  I definitely feel as though my last mile would have been a little better had I taken some fluids during the run.  So if I can comfortably, on a training run, handle a 7:45 pace, I don’t see why I can’t hope for a sub 1:40, or around a 7:37 pace.  Guess it all depends on race day conditions and proper pacing…which, thanks to my Garmin, should work out well.  A fellow Team in Training runner ran 1:37:37 (7:27 pace) at Virginia Beach…dare I be that hopeful?  Perhaps that will be my ultimate goal…

runnerwithwakeGoal 1: Finish

Goal 2: Finish Under 2 hours

Goal 3: PR (under 1:50)

Goal 4: Beat my friend Colleen’s time (under 1:44)

Goal 5: Finish under 1:40

Goal 6: Finish under 1:37:37

We’ll see how it goes.  Well, until the next one…run on friends!

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25 Days Till ING Hartford!

Monday, September 14th, 2009

Workout: 3 Miles

Time: 23:55 (7:56, 7:45, 8:12)

So, today I figured I’d go for a short run, see how my body was after a week of not running.  The weather was phenomenal.  I can only hope it’s this perfect out for the race in a few weeks.  In any case, I thought I was gonna go out slow, just to work my muscles out, but speed just took over.  First mile was mostly downhill and flat, so it was easy to keep a fast pace.  Second mile was half up, half down.  Felt good.  At around 2.5 miles I started to feel a cramp in my upper rear left leg, so I backed off for a quarter mile before picking it up through the end.  All in all my body feels pretty good.  Need to stretch out a few things, but it’s good to know that I didn’t lose any speed by not running for a week.

So the ING Hartford Half Marathon is now only 25 days away!  Can’t believe it’s so close.  It’s been a year and a half since I actually raced.  Granted I did run the Belmar 5 somewhat fast, but I didn’t feel really prepared and the weather was horrible that day.  If things go according to plan, I’ll do 9 this weekend, 11-12 next weekend, 6-7 the following weekend, and then the race!  I have a hotel for the night before, then coming home that night.  Then a few weeks later its time to start training for the ultra!

That’s it for today.  Until the next one…run on friends!

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