SRD for me baby...

Well I'll be doing my 16 miler tomorrow morning before I head into work. Many people have asked me if I'm ready and if I can make my goal of 3:30:59 at Philly. My answer to them is "I'm as ready as I can possibly be right now. My work and family schedule kinda restrict me from doing any speed training during the week. That is why I tend to put in longer miles than most during the week. I'm not sure how I'm going to perform in Philly. I guess I'm my own little experiment in progress. I may be onto something. Then again, I may not. :D

My mileage for the month of October is 173.54 and 1362.56 for the year..

My last 20 miler is finished.....

Well, yesterday was my last 20 miler and it couldn't come soon enough for me. I'm kinda going through that over training stage right now. You know the one where you say I feel like I need to take a break from running for while? Well, this is just not the time for that. My taper couldn't start at a better time. I will do a 16 on Thursday morning and head into work a little later than usual. I'll be heading out of town for business which is the reason I want to do my last long run while I'm home. That takes all the guess work out of it. Where to run, how to get the time to run and having the energy after a hard day of work.
I'm down to 19 days and a wakeup. The battle for me now is to control my eating so I don't gain any weight before my race. Actually I'd like to lose a few pounds before I race. According to RW writer Amby Burfoot, you trim 2 seconds per mile off your time for every pound you lose. Now that may not seem like much but over 26.2 miles it adds up to almost one minute. I know, I know, you are saying "Deck, that isn't that much either" but for me that 1 minute may very well be the difference of me making Boston or not. Right now I think I'm very close to being ready. I will be running at just under 8 minute miles to qualify. I need 3:30:59 or less. Many of my races this year have been well under that but none of them have been for 26.2 miles. My legs are pretty strong right now but they definitely need the taper.

Great Morning run..

I had a very nice run this morning. No stiffness from Sunday's 20 and the temp was cool but not cold. Perfect... My schedule calls for this to be a pretty high mileage week. I did 12 this morning which is my longest mid week run. I hope my body keeps holding up... 25 days and a wakeup....

Long Run Sunday...

Well I put in my long run this morning. It started out nice and cool but by the end of the run it was very warm. My splits are not that great. I hope that my plan during the race works out better than my training runs.

Mile #1 8:17
Mile #2 8:45
Mile #3 8:36
Mile #4 8:36
Mile #5 8:39
Mile #6 8:39
Mile #7 8:29
Mile #8 8:30
Mile #9 8:17
Mile #10 8:22
Mile #11 8:27
Mile #12 8:48
Mile #13 8:46
Mile #14 8:44
Mile #15 8:51
Mile #16 8:50
Mile #17 8:51
Mile #18 8:45
Mile #19 8:51
Mile #20 8:49

Total.. 2:53:05

What a difference a day makes....

Man, yesterday morning's run was cool and crisp. My legs felt great. This morning, a totally different story! I stepped outside and it felt warm. I could smell rain in the air. We are suppose to get some much needed rain today and tonight. It only took a 1/2 mile before I realized the humidity was very high. My breathing was labored and legs just didn't seem to have the energy they had yesterday. Into mile 3 and I was fighting the urge to head back to the house. But at this point in my training I must stay focused on my goal. I toughed it out and finished my 10. It felt like I had just done 20. You know, it's funny how your mind seems to adapt to the distance you run. If you are running 5, it seems like that is all you can force yourself to do. If you are doing 10 it seems like you can't take another step. If you are doing 20,,,, well, that never seems all that easy to me. :D It is all in your mind.

29 days and counting...

Hello there!!!!

Wow, it's been a while since I've posted. Busy family and work life just doesn't leave much time to post. Right now I'm well into my first of 3 long mileage weeks before my taper. I did 10 this morning in 1:21:17 and it felt pretty good. My legs feel strong and rested with no aches or pains at this point. "Knock on Wood!" I'll be running 10 tomorrow before my SRD on Saturday, then 20 on Sunday.

I found out part of my fall work schedule this week. I'll be heading to Kings Bay GA the first week of November. Then I'll be heading back out to Bremerton WA at the end of the month. This all is neatly wrapped around a very big event for me. I'm exactly 1 month away from Philly as you can see by the ticker. I haven't even started my taper and I'm already second guessing myself. Fortunately I've been through this before. You never feel like your ready I guess.

I'll try to post more pictures of the kids sometime soon. They are getting so big. Cody had his scans this week to look at his back. He has what appears to be a muscle that is larger on one side of his back. You only see it when he has his shirt off and moves a certain way. The doctor says that he has a slight curvature of the spine. They believe that it may have been caused by the radiation treatment he had. They also think that the muscle issue may have been caused by the spine. It's believed that the muscle is over compensating for the curvature of the spine.

More later.... :D

Army 10 Miler

Well I meant to write this report a couple of days ago but I just have been too busy to sit down long enough to write it.
The day started off early. I got up at 4:30 so I could get down to Steve's house were we all were meeting. There were not as many of us running this year as last. Steve and Shelah were late trying to sign up for the race so they didn't make it. They ran an alternate race of 10.2 just so they ran like we did.
After finding a parking spot 8 blocks away from the starting line we headed to the Pentagon for the race. The weather reports were calling for the low 90's at noon. This was one time I wish they were wrong but they were not. I won't bore you with the minute by minute play by play so I'll give you my spits.

Mile #1 7:46
Mile #2 7:28
Mile #3 7:25
Mile #4 7:18
Mile #5 7:54
Mile #6 7:23
Mile #7 7:52
Mile #8 7:51
Mile #9 7:44
Mile #10 7:48

Total 1:17:10

Throughout the race there were many young men, most of whom were Army personel falling out being over come by the heat and humidity. It wasn't until yesterday morning that I found out that a young man from Fairfax VA had passed away during this race. On a similar note, for the second year somebody died at the Chicago Marathon. While waiting for one of our group's runners I noticed and ambulance at the finish line. I didn't know it at the time but they were attending to the man who died.
I thought going into this race that I was going to PR it. My recent training and races had indicated that I was making improvement in my pace. I was hoping to keep my pace just under 7:45. This is faster than I would've done a marathon to date but I figured I could keep it up for 10 miles. It turns out that I ran a little too fast in the first 3 miles and I paid for it at the end. I can not make that mistake in Philly next month or I will not BQ. I think that the heat took it's toll on me and I failed to adapt. I've got to learn from these mistakes in the future.
Well that's really all there is to it. Despite the heat I feel as though I did pretty well and that I am on track for Philly. I started my last 6 weeks of training this morning with a 10 mile run. The temperature was fairly cool but the humidity was already pretty high. I was totally soaked by the end of my run. I weighted myself after my run and I was 189.8. I know that it is about 2 pounds less than what I really weigh but I just like seeing that scale get lower numbers. From here on out most of my daily runs are 10 milers. I have 2 more 20 mile long runs and 1 more 16. Stay tuned... :D

Wow, I'm such a slacker!!!!

I've been very busy as of late with work, the kids homework, running in the early morning hours and the weekends are used for social events and work around the yard.

Last week I started ramping up the miles and did my first 20 of this training session. I put in 46 miles last week that included my 2o. I did it pretty fast at a 8:25 pace and finished in 2:48:32. This is really too fast for a long training run. Long runs should be 1-1.3 minutes per mile slower than your marathon pace. It felt great until the last 2 miles. That is a pretty good sign that I ran too fast...

Well I put in a 1o this morning and I will do 10 more tomorrow. Then I'll take an SRD before the Army 1o Miler on Sunday. I will race this one pretty hard because it's my last race before Philly next month.

We may be heading up to Shenandoah this weekend to let the kids play and the dog experience the river for the first time.. It all hinges on Cody and weather he is healthy enough to go. He's got a little bit of a cold so I don't know if Diane is going to want him to go.