I'll be on my way in 2 weeks

It's hard to imagine but I'll be headed to the airport at this time 2 weeks from today.  I'm looking for my umpteenth trip to the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World as well as my 4th and 5th times I'll be running through Cinderella's castle as part of either the 1/2 or full marathon.  5th time running through the castle, 5th marathon, 10th anniversary of my 1st marathon and 1st run through the castle.  Nice way to wrap up my first long distance running decade!  And, no, not start my 2nd long distance running decade.  Rather, a start to my mid distance only running!!!!

Speaking of wrapping up, I had to say goodbye to Dottie Sue Tuesday mornng.  Her health had been in decline and it was time to put her down.  She lived  a great 15 years and 9 months; she was a calming influence at my side for the past 1/3 of my life.  This is one of my favorite picture of her along with Waldo earlier this summer.

I hope everyone has a safe and wonderful holiday season.

Tapering?

I don't know that I can call this less than 3 week to race day period tapering as there hasn't been much mileage to be tapering from the past 3 months.  Nonetheless, I ran a high mileage weekend logging 9 miles Saturday and 19 Sunday.  I am confident at this point that I will meet my goal of completing both events next month.  This wasn't the case 10 years ago when I was heading to the same place to compete in my very first marathon.  I don't know what my training mileage was or how many miles I had on my race day shoes as I wasn't tracking mileage back then.  I think I ran one run over 16 miles and paid for my lack of training dearly.  I was the sorest after an event that I have ever been.  I compounded the undertraining by returning to my hotel room and sleeping for a couple of hours immediately after the race.  I'll be hitting the parks now post race to keep the muscles moving albeit very slowly this time around.  Depending on the weather conditions and the way my body feels, an ice bath may be on tap as well.  I'll leave that for a  post race decision.
Speaking of weather, Houston had chamber of commerce days both Saturday and Sunday.  I waited until 10 Saturday and noon Sunday to get out for my long runs.  The temps were near 50 both days at the start of my runs.
I just need to make it through this next week without any additional weight gain.  It'll be hard to do heading home for lots of sweets but hopefully I'll run enough to balance the additional food.

Taking it Inside

With feeling finally returning to my extremities, I packed my gym bag for a treadmill workout yesterday.  A nice evenly paced 10 minute per mile pace recovery run was what I needed after Saturday's 10k sprint and then run/walk struggle in Mississippi's cold and rainy weather Saturday.  I plan to get another slow 4 miles on the treamill again this evening.  Weather looks promising for my planned 21 miler this Saturday.  This will be my longest distance run since January's Houston Marathon.  No 20 Milers was my planned Goofy Challenge training this fall but since the high volume mid mileage plan has not been followed since early October I figure a 21 miler is in order.

MTC Half Marathon

Saturday I ran my 46th half marathon in Madison Mississippi on a cold rainy morning.  Mississippi is the 40th state that I have now run a 1/2 marathon or greater distance in since January 2000.  If this were 1889, I would have completed my run at chasing states.  However, its 2009 so I still have 10 states (and DC) to run before my goal is complete.

I've run races in colder conditions as well as wetter conditions, but this race was the coldest/wettest combination that I've run to date.  Saturday morning started with a steady rain and 37 degree temperatures.  The race start and finish was in the parking lot of Madison Central High School.  I arrived about 45 minutes before the start of the race.  I picked up my packet and went back to my rental car to wait for the start.  I opted to run with thigh tights rather than full length tights due to the rainy weather.  I wore a short sleeve shirt with a long sleeve shirt over it and a light shell to protect me from the rain.  I wore a skull cap to protect my head/ears from the cold and wore a hat with a bill to protect me from the rain.  I made a last minute decision to leave the Garmin in the car as it was raining a good bit and I didn't want to risk messing it up as it is not waterproof.  I also wore gloves to keep my hands warm.

The race started on time in the parking lot.  There were puddles covering the parking lot so my feet got a little wet right at the start of the race.  My fingers and toes ended up being the coldest parts as I ran the 13.1 miles.  The race course was a straight out and back on Highland Colony Parkway.  This was only the 2nd long distance event that I've run without a watch.  I really went out too fast and was pretty much done by the time I reached the turnaround point.  Too bad there wasn't a relay option.  I did a lot of walking on 2nd half of the course.  I managed to finish in 1:57:56; I looked up the results today and I was 5 seconds out of a 3rd place age group finish.  Amazing.  This was also my first 1:57 finish in 46 attempts; I had several 1: 56 and 1:58 times but never a 1:57 before this weekend.

This trip to Jackson was incredibly similiar to my trip to Louisville back in April 2005.  It was also a 1 night trip in rainy and cold conditions.  Aside from running the race, I really had no desire to see anything else in the area as the weather was just so miserable.  As predicted, I was delayed in both heading to Jackson and the return flight as well.  Both problems were on the Houston end.  On the bright side, I was able to print my return flight boarding pass when I arrived in Jackson as I fell within the 24 hour checkin time frame.  I was also able to change my seat to the emergency exit row seat, giving me more room to stretch my legs on the flight home.

Now it's back to 3 solid weeks of training for my January 1/2 full combination. 

Tis The Season

Back in July and August I'd be licking my lips at the thought of getting to run in temps near 40 with a 90% chance of rain.  Fast forward to now with my trying to get over a nasty cold, not so much looking forward to cold and rainy conditions.  Of course, all rains are not created equal.  Misty rain is most welcome to keep me cool.  Sideways stinging rain will be a pain for any part of 13 miles.  90% chance throughout the day seems like I'll be getting some kind of rain.  I may run my first race in a windbreaker or maybe even a garbage bag.  If all these races were the same, there'd be no adventure. 

Chances are I'll be delayed at some point in my air travel this trip.  With rain expected tomorrow here in Houston on my flight to Jackson and thunderstorms predicted around my return flight home, delays seem likely.  With this being the quick trip that it is, I may end up spending more time in airports than anywhere else.  Even with delays, air travel rocks.  I wonder how many 50 state runners would be around without air travel.  Looking ahead, I mapquested a route from Texas to Rhode Island.  I believe you cover 14 states on the trip which would take around 3 days driving 8 hours or so a day?  Train travel?  You'd have to leave Wednesday to make it in time for a Sunday race.  Talk about eating vacation days!

Going Backwards

A quick review of my monthly mileage in Buckeye confirmed my suspicion that my mileage has been decreasing since my marathon training began.  My program began early September and these are my  monthly run totals and mileage through the end of November:

September runs/miles: 19/121
October runs/miles: 13/83
November runs/miles: 12/77

The trend has continued with my December mileage at zero as of today.  What started as a lack of motivation turned into an injury then turned into a cold that has really cut into my training.  In the entire month of November I did not run twice the distance of what I'm going to run on the 9th and 10th of January.  If there is good news, it is that I am better prepared at this point than I was for my first marathon 10 years ago.  I also have a month to get in some quality training. I'll be running a 1/2 marathon in Jackson, Mississippi this Saturday and then no more races until the marathon weekend.  Hopefully December numbers will look more like September than October or November.

The good news is that my legs are feeling fresh and injury free.  Now I just need to get some miles in them.

GE Run Thru the Woods

I just realized typing the title above that the Run Thru happened on Thur, Thanksgiving Day.  Thru and Thur are typical typos for me....not sure if the name was intentionally made as such since its always on Thursday? probably just a coincidence.
As forecast, we had awesome running weather race morning.  In my pre race post, I mentioned wanting to run smart to avoid injury in order to not miss any training for my upcoming January endurance weekend.  More on that later.

With my family living in Louisiana, I only get to run this race every other year in order that I can make it back home in time for Thanksgiving lunch the years that my mom has everyone over.  I ran this event for the first time in 2007 on an even colder morning.  That year, around 4200 people participated in either a 1 mile kids run, a 5 mile run, a 3 mile teen run or a 3 mile walk.  This year they had 5500 people participating.  Pretty impressive for a home town event.

The local YMCA puts on this event.  I have been able to obtain a Heart & Health Grant through my employer to further support the sponsor.  This year we had seven people from my company participating in one of the events.

I ended up having a good race.  I watched the kids 1 mile race which started 1/2 an hour before my 5 mile race.   That put my warmup a little later than usual.  I entered the start line area from the back right from my warmup.  I weaved my way through lots of people to get at what I thought was a good starting area.  In hindsight, I should have kept weaving a while longer.  I often forget that these lower mileage events have lots of first time or people that don't run regularly.  I spent probably my first 2 miles zig zagging through runners of many different paces before the race thinned out somewhat.  About that time, I felt something rubbing both my achilles.  Turns out it was the zippers from my running tights that were rubbing my skin.  It wasn't a factor in a 5 mile race; it would've been raw had I run a half or full marathon.  Simply tucking my socks under the tights would've solved the problem; this may come in handy for a future long distance event.

I ended up running a 37:57, 7:35 pace for the 5 miles.  My pace was definetely slower than the Nike Human Race 10k that I ran in October.  I finished that 6.2 miler at an average pace of 7:39 but I hobbled in at the end of that race with a pulled left calf muscle.  I enjoyed the post race pancake breakfast, visited with friends and then headed home to pack for my Louisiana trip.  I got back in town Sunday afternoon and ran a 5 miler that evening.  My legs felt fine even though the weather was balmy Sunday.  Monday morning I woke up with a sore throat and 6 days later I'm now hacking up colorful stuff.  I have no miles logged since Sunday.  My legs are ready to go but this cold/bronchial funk has me sidelined anyway. 

I may try and run 5 miles or so Sunday just to see how things feel; I have a treadmill stress test scheduled Wednsesday morning that I should be able to keep.  Friday I fly to Jackson, MS to run a 1/2 Saturday morning.  Sounds like it will be another run smart event as I don't feel like I've trained enough to run this one all out either.