Failure to Launch

Failing to plan is planning to fail....
I woke up at 4 yesterday morning in order to pack and hit the road to my moms for 6. I packed the running close; have to get a 20 mile long run in sometime this weekend. Yesterdays 10 mile run never happened. I got to my moms around 10:30; family came over for lunch. It was after 4:30 by the time they all left and I didn't particularly feel like running. Plus I hurt the top of my right foot horsing around with my 14 year old nephew. So I soaked the right foot in ice a couple of times last night. It's feeling fine this morning. I briefly considered doing the 20 this morning but think I'll wait and get it in tomorrow morning. It's definetely more important to get in the 20 long run than worry about the missed 10.
Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. Trying to watch what I eat with my annual physical taking place Monday morning.

So far so good

A week and a half into running in my custom orthotics and everything seems to be going well. Last night was my 2nd track session with them; I completed 12 400's all within 1:28 to 1:32. That's very consistent for me. Before the workout, coach Dana mentioned that if anyone was running the 5 mile Thanksgiving race here in The Woodlands, they may want to do only 2 or 3 400s last night. In the middle of the 2nd 400, I briefly considered running the 5 miler in order to not have to run anymore in the cold last night. Unfortunately I'm heading out of town around 6 tomorrow morning so the Run thru the Woods race will have to go on without me. I ran it last year for the first time and headed out of town after and didn't get to Thanksgiving lunch until 3:30. Maybe next year.
I've got my first 20 miler on the schedule for this Saturday. It will be a solo run as I'll still be at my moms; she turns 71 Saturday so gotta hang around for that!!!! Gotta love the Garmin for running in unfamiliar territory; just turn it on and go.

Ten for Houston

Now that the 10 miles for Texas race in The Woodlands is behind me, my sights are once again on the Houston marathon. In the month or so since the Chicago marathon, I've managed to somehow put on a quick 10 pounds. Starting post race in Chicago, I had the "I just ran a marathon so I can eat anything" mentality plus I was on vacation up there. The eating just carried on when I got back home. Halloween definetely didn't help as everyone brought their leftover candy or their kid's candy surplus to the office. I spent several days post Halloween trick or treating. Leftovers from coworkers' group lunches in the office, birthday celebrations, United Way kickoff party, and company this past weekend all contributed to the 10. So, with the help of fitday.com, I kicked off my 10 pounds for Houston campaign. I would like to be at or below my Chicago weight come January.

My custom orthotics came in late last week; I ran my first run in them yesterday. I can definetely feel the difference (not sure if its a good or bad difference); I'll see how they do at the track tonight. 6-8 600's are on the schedule tonight. I got the orthotics in order to help balance my weight more evenly and hopefully take care of my recurring achilles issues.

I wore the orthotics in my work shoes after running yesterday. I put them in another pair of street shoes today; they squeek really bad in those shoes so I put my running shoe inserts in the street shoes instead. I'll have to experiment with which shoes I can wear them; I've got inserts all over the place after just 2 days. Will definetely be interesting.

Ten for Texas

This morning I was able to run The Woodlands 10 mile race for the first time. I had conflicts with either training or other races the past 2 years. A cold front came through last night; weather channel temperature was 52 when I woke up at 5:30 this morning. Other than being a bit breezy at times, race conditions were near perfect. I ran a fairly consistent pace throughout the 10 miles with my mile paces falling between 7:07 and 7:26. Total time per my Garmin was 1:13:43; official chip times have not been released yet. The good news is that based on today's result my marathon predicted time per the McMillan Running calculator is 3:26:20. That gives me a 4 minute cushion for my Boston qualifying marathon time. We need similiar weather here in Houston January 18th for the marathon!

Remaining 16 States Recap

For me last week was one of those times when you discover that the internet can be dangerous. I had a spur of the moment flight booking for my 35th state this coming February.

Review of my 16 remaining states:
States with top 25 half marathons as listed in various publications: 3 [WV, MA, DE]
States close enough for potential back to back halfs: 7 [ND, SD, NE, KS, IA] [RI, CT]
States that I should have gotten when I lived in New Orleans: 1 [MS]
States with National Parks that I'd like to visit: 3 [MT, OR, WY]
States with LSU football away game same weekend: 1 [WA]
States other than above: 1 [HI]

I opted for the other than above state and booked what I've been told is a pretty cheap nonstop round trip flight to Honolulu last Thursday. I'll be participating in the Run for the Whales half marathon along the scenic coast of south Maui Saturday, February 7th. It looks to be a nice local around 500 participant event from what I've seen on the website. It should be a nice change from the 33,000 plus runners that were in Chicago and the 18,000 expected in Houston.

At some point, I'm going to have to knock out all those midwestern states with no big races. Just looking briefly at races in those states, there does appear to be potential to get another Saturday/Sunday back to back trip in. I've really enjoyed the 2 back to back races that I've done so far.

Tonights track workout has 8-12 400s on the schedule. Hopefully the weather will cooperate as there is a 70% rain chance out there. I should opt for the 8 as I've got the 10 for Texas 10 mile race on my schedule Saturday morning. Should be great racing weather Saturday.

Back to the Track

I participated in my first speed training workout at College Park last night for the first time since early February. The February workout was a 3k time trial that ended up being run with hail at the end. I did something to my left achilles that slowed me down for 3 months. Chicago training started right around the time my achilles was feeling better; with Chicago being my first marathon in a couple of years I opted for adding only distance and not speed to my workouts.

Post Chicago recovery and my achilles are once again somewhat tender. Tight calves are the primary cause; I'm taking the time to stretch after every run these days. The workout last night was 5 1600's near my 10k pace or 7:20 miles. Being away from speed training for most of the year resulted in my losing my sense of pace. I ended up shadowing Tommy Rice for the first 4 as we had the same goal pace. I paced the last on my own and felt comfortable keeping the pace after doing the previous 4. All 5 were done within plus or minus 3 seconds of the goal pace so I was pleased. I was also able to get out of bed without limping this morning which is always a good thing.

Grave Concerns

I just found Amby Burfoot's article in the December 2008 Runners World issue. The subheading "Most days, on my noontime run, I don't worry about dying" won't apply to me today. I don't know that I'll worry, but the thought will certainly be there today. Today is the first anniversary of the death of Ryan Shay at least years US olympic marathon trials the day before the NYC marathon. In yesterday's NYC marathon, one runner died after completing the marathon and 2 other runners suffered heart attacks.

New York City Marathon

Congratulations to Marilson Gomes dos Santos for winning the New York City Marathon again this year. I ran NYC in 2006, the first year that dos Santos won NYC and had my closest brush with an elite runner that year. I was staying at one of the 2 host hotels. After walking what seemed like forever to get to my UPS baggage gear truck in Central Park after the race, I walked back to the hotel to get cleaned up. A group of us crowded into the elevator to get upstairs; on our way up I learned that dos Santos and his manager were on the elevator with us and that dos Santos had won the marathon. He actually got off on the same floor as me and was staying a few doors down. That was my second elite runner siting that weekend. On a carriage ride in Central Park, my niece, a friend of hers, and I saw 2004 Olympic marathon gold medal winner Stefano Baldini doing pick ups the Saturday morning before the marathon.

Run For Your Life

While at work yesterday afternoon I realized that I'd have to wake up around 4:30 this morning to get 4 miles in before the 12 mile group run from Lukes Locker at Marketstreet. So the house was dark early last night and I watched the Run For Your Life documentary. If you've ever run NYC or have any interest in its history, it's a good watch. The world's longest urinal brought back memories of my 2006 stay in the NYC start village on Staten Island.

My 16 miles turned into 17 this morning. Weather was in the mid 50s with 100% humidity; not bad weather for Houston. There was some fog out there.