40 Half Marathons and Counting

I completed my 40'th half marathon last month in Juneau, AK. This is the first time in quite a few years that I don't have a 1/2 marathon on my training schedule. My first half was completed at Disney World in January 2001, a year after running my first marathon at Disney as well. Of the 40 1/2's that I've run, February has been the busiest month by far: 9 were run in February. April was the next closest month with 5; I've run at least one 1/2 in each of the calendar months.

2003 was the year that I decided to run 1/2's or fulls in the 50 states; I was also focused on runnng the 1/2's under 2 hours and eventually breaking an 8 minute per mile pace. It took over 5 years and 15 attempts to finally break the 8 minute mile pace/sub 1:45 barrier. I ran 1:44:07 at the Texas 1/2 in Dallas in February 2006. In June of 2006 my other goal of running sub 2 hours was busted at Hospital Hill in Kansas City, MO. 2006 (11 yellow) was my most productive year in running states closely followed by 2007 (10 purple).

I will complete my 34th state this October when I run the Chicago Marathon. I hope to run 2 to 3 1/2's a year after that and complete my 50th state when I turn 50.

Hump Day Run

I got out to run a couple hours later than I planned; this work thing keeps getting in the way. I was somewhat concerned that I didn't fuel up enough for the run put it turned out fine.

Before heading out, I looked over my lunch routes over the past couple of months to find something close to 7 miles, today's distance per my training plan. I found something right under 7 that included the Nature Trail and only one major intersection crossing so I decided to run that route. The route also has 3 water fountains which definetely came in handy today. I actually added a 4th water fountain and a little mileage to get me to 7 by going to Creekside Park once I got out of the Nature Trail.

My left Achilles has been somewhat gimpy all week so I was concerned about it. It didn't hurt at all the last couple of miles and was barely noticeable earlier in the run so thats great news. With a mile to go I realized I have completed 1/2 of my mileage planned for the week; 17 out of 34 miles are now in the books!!!!!

Weekday Runs Flip Flopped

I was supposed to run 3, 7, 3 and 7 weekday runs this week with 14 miles for my long run this weekend. I met the weekday group to run the Nature Trail this evening; this route is normally right under 5 miles. I didn't know of anyway to cut the run short and was feeling good running a 9 something pace so decided to make this one of my 7 mile runs tonight. This was accomplished fairly easily by adding the Millbend loop into the route. To make sure I got to 7 I took a right on Grogans Mill when I got to the GM/South Millbend intersection and ran under GM through Grogans Mill Village Center to get back to South Millbend. Turns out that probably wasn't necessary as my mileage came closer to 7.5 than 7. It will be easy cutting the 4 mile Flintridge run down to 3 tomorrow.

I think I've got the script error from the Runners World website being posted on my blog figured out. Monday runs and runs on the first of the month are not being included in weekly and monthly totals. I'll probably switch to Running Ahead at some point for my online training log but will probably wait to make a year end switch.

Sunday Day Off

I set my alarm last night for 6:30, an hour before I was supposed to run trails at Burroughs Park this morning. Went through my checklist when I woke up this morning:

Body glide and tape
Garmin
Trail shoes
Valet key
Driver license
Towel
Deep woods Off

I didn't bring my cell phone but didn't worry about because I knew where I was headed. Well after driving down Kukendahl awhile and not seeing the Burroughs Park sign, I drove another mile or two and passed a fork in the road which I was almost certain I don't normally see so I decided I had missed the sign and the turn. I turned around and headed back but never saw the sign again. I called Coach Sara when I got home and found out that the turn was Huffsmith? I believe. Anyways, I could've slept in for the amount of running I didn't get in this morning. My achilles was a little tender so taking the day off was probably for the best. I fed the dogs, made a pot of coffee and watched the 2nd stage of the Tour de France instead of getting soaking wet running in this humidity.

Saturday Long Run

When my alarm went off at 5:00 this morning, I put on the weather channel and found the temperature in the lo 70s. It actually felt decent when I went outside. That all changed once I started running. I believe I was soaking wet 2.5 miles into the run. The plan was to run 13 but I missed a turn somewhere on the route; I ended up adding something at the end to get it to 12.25. Close enough for me.

I finished reading the second book that I took with me last week for the flight to Seattle and cruise. I finished Tim Van Wagoner's in the long run late into the cruise last week. Its a running novel; not bad but the race day stats are definetely fiction imho. The second book I read on my running cruise was Marc Bloom's God On The Starting Line. I preferred this one of the two; I got both over a year ago so glad that I've finally read them.

The plan for tomorrow is a little bit of slow lite mileage on the trails at Burroughs Park. Hopefully its somewhat dry out there; I probably should bring my swim gear just in case!

Where Are All the Horseflies?

I need to get my marathon training schedule squared away. I filled out a calendar months ago using Sunday as my long run days but that the long run has moved up to Saturdays now that Woodlands Fit started the fall marathon program. I checked my calendar and noted a 6 mile run for Wednesday which is now Tuesday given the day shift. I met Grant and Brit at Forestgate Park to run Flintridge last night. We normally run 4 miles when doing Flintridge, turning around a little past Falconwing. I continued on last night and ran a loop in the George Mitchell Nature Preserve. It had been a couple of weeks since I had run on the trails. To my delight, I didn't encounter even one horsefly on the trail last night. I don't know where they all headed but certainly did not miss them.
Wearing the Garmin again since the ban on the GAMM cruise last week, I saw that I would be a little short on the 6 miles so I stayed on Flintridge and entered Forestgate Park by the tennis courts. That got me within a tenth of a mile of 6. I finished my run right as Mick and Carmen finished as well from the normal Forestgate finish.

Back in the Heat & Humidity

What a difference 2,000 + miles makes on running conditions. I think I sweat more yesterday in less than 5 miles than I sweat all last week in Alaska running over 26 miles. I got to the overflow parking lot at St Simon and Jude a few minutes late yesterday; I saw cars there but no one was around so I hurried up and got my running shoes on and took off trying to catch people. I ended up running faster than I planned but it was good to be back on flat land. I ran over 10 seconds per mile faster than I did on the last 10k run outside of Ketchikan; walking those inclines really slowed me down up there.
I ran 125 miles for the month of June; that's the first time that I've run over 120 miles since September last year. If all goes as planned, I should log around 150 miles this month with my Chicago training plan.