New Year, New Goals

Welcome to 2015! I rang in the New Year with a tidy 16:08 at my club's Resolution Run back on New Year's Day. It is the fastest outdoor time I've run in years, and fastest 5k since my indoor 5k time trial of 15:58 in March. I ran splits of 5:11, 5:11, 5:15, :31 (hunch is last 1.12 is off slightly, as 31 is... Super goal pace!).

Winter break is done, long gone actually. I amassed weeks of 74 and 86 during the two weeks off from teaching. What I didn't do was sleep enough, making me quite run down that first week back. Now the fun starts of balancing home, work, and run. 6am wake ups for 7:15am runs of a 90 minutes are done. It's back to squeezing in 60-75 minutes right after getting home (sometimes at that in between- not real easy, but not marathon pace). 

What are my goals and resolutions for the year?

Goal 1-A shiny new 5k PR. As far under 15:58 as I can go.

Goal 2- faster at 10k-1/2 marathon. Goes without saying, but they pale to the 5k. In my opinion, if the 5k goes the others will follow.

Goal 3- 2:29. Marathon. Next.

Resolution 1: Aim for 2 or fewer days off a month. Consistency breeds success. Rest can be days off, or can be days of easy miles.

Resolution 2: Core & strength work 3 times a week. It's the work I need to do for form, efficiency, but I often slack off in doing.

Resolution 3: write about running more often- 1x a week. Telling others what you did, and how it went is another mode of accountability.

What's next?

Rage Against the Machine- treadmill edition

There are two camps when it comes to the treadmill: tolerate it, or hate it with a passion. Love isn't in the lexicon on 99% of runners when it comes to the treadmill. From unchanging scenery to constant pace to sitting in front of a TV, it is what most runners will avoid at all costs.

I was one of those "hate it" people, but have moved into the "tolerate it" camp. Some explaining is in order...

Working as a teacher, your hours are set yet flexible- you need to be at school from 8-3:30, but you're often there early or at a meeting late. Daylight in the winter is scant, so you need a headlamp, or clear path, or an indoor area. For me, the treadmill is that alternative. Even in the city, it is a quicker and safer alternative to the darkness. To me, it's a mileage saver.

There are also real running benefits. The main one is that you can mix pace a little easier than outside. Why? The alternative to running the pace is falling off. Sometimes you need a little pace shift to move the run along on your easy 5-8 miler that you, quite simply, didn't want to go out for anyway (everyone has those days).

Coping with the indoors:

-doing time based intervals. Whether at 3k, 5k, half marathon, or marathon pace, you can knock out 1-10 minutes worth of solid running, take a short jog rest, the. Go at it again.

-adjust your incline. Moving up or down can make for just the challenge you need to get through the slog of the machine. I opt for changes every 5-10 minutes, sometimes shorter. Go up to 3 or 4% (maybe higher), then work down every few seconds or minutes.

Reflections Eternal

on 1st Ave in NYC en route to 2:39:21, photo cred Lisa Kenyan.

Since the year is about up, its about time to take a look back at 2014. I'll start with the quick and dirty...

MILES: Currently at 3,178 miles, but should be at 3,323 miles by the end of the year.

RACES:
-Valentine's Day 5k: 16:11, 12th place
-Mercer Island 1/2 Marathon: 1:14:42, 7th place
-Seahawks 12k: 42:30, 7th place
-Rock n Roll 1/2 Marathon: 1:14:14, 5th place
-Fremont 5k: 16:17, 7th place
-Shore Run 10k: 33:23 (PR), 5th place
-Seafair 8k: 25:58, 7th place
-Railroad Days 10k: 33:51, 7th place
-Labor Day 1/2 Marathon: 1:13:14, 6th place
-NYC Marathon: 2:39:21, 110th place (39th US, 95th Male)

Plus an indoor 5k time trial in 15:58 (new PR) in March, and another in December in 16:28.

Not a bad year for me. Apparently I have a stranglehold on 7th place. So when I race, just pencil my name in. Overall I can see lots of improvement. My 5k was right around 16:15 on the roads, with a nice PR indoors (just need an official one now). My 10k was a PR of 25 seconds, and my 1/2 marathon moved down another 43 seconds. Marathon wasn't what I hoped for but there were some extenuating circumstances with that aggressive wind.

Looking at those times, I need to make the next leap from 15:58 to under 15:40, from 1:13 to 1:11-1:12 low. You can't run 2:29 with the PRs I have, even with the mileage I put in during marathon cycles.

Thanks to Brooks Running for the support of the Fanatics, and onward to working with Team Nuun in 2015!

Super goal pace all the way.

NYC Recap #windWindWIND

I said I was going to recap the NYC Marathon at some point. So it is now or never. The results can be found here. I opted for the Overall Men's results. I'm at the bottom- 95th.

Nutshell: I'm pleased with how I fought through it, and how I ran over the last 8-10 miles when the race got tough. I'm happy to be in the Top 100 Men at NYC; that's something! I'm happy to be under 2:40. In the same breath I am disappointed. I thought 2:33-2:34 was doable. I was likely in the best shape of my life. If not for a poor weather day, I would have had a massive PR.

Pre-Race: Well, a Polar Vortex rolled through that dropped temps to the low 40s during the day and 30s overnight, with winds that whipped through at 20-30mph! Race day the rain had disappeared but the wind was a steady 25 mph head on. Not ideal. Far from.

The Race: I made the amateur mistake of starting about 4-5 rows too far back. The result was being behind a ton of riff-raff at the start on the Verrazano. First mile was 6:30 or so, which was tough work getting blown sideways. As I kept rolling down the hill I was asking people what they wanted to run and the general mood was "shrug"- aka "this wind has thrown my plan out the window." So I settled into a group around 4 and realized I was going too slow. If I wanted to make any sort of attempt at the mid 2:30's I needed to move up.

There's one problem with moving up: wind. When you moved to the front of a group you got stuck taking the brunt of the wind. Over the course of a mile or so, somewhere in Brooklyn, I made the move to hopscotch up a group. It took me a solid 25 blocks to latch on. But my perseverance paid off as this was the group I would stick with into Manhattan. I sat in the back and tried to zone out, just listen to the rhythm and go. Problem with that strategy: everyone in the back was dangling off, so you needed to be ready to skip up to the back of the guys in front as people peeled off.

From 14-20 I struggled. It was. Tough stretch into Manhattan over the Queensborough, and then down the wind tunnel that is 1st avenue. By the time we turned around in the Bronx I was trying to count down miles. At 23 in Central Park I realized I needed to get a move on to make 2:40. I started to count down guys as I upped my tempo. If not for that realization 2:41 was happening, as I had no motivation to keep going.

Bottom line: Fun in retrospect, terrible during. I'm good with NYC for a while.

December Re-Start

The past 2 weeks have been up and down. After hitting 70 miles to kick off December, I hit another 70. Somehow or another I felt that a month out from the marathon was a good time to amp back up. I would come to find out I needed a rest week.

How did I get to the realization of needing to rest? Upon finishing my long run my Achilles seemed tight. So I went through MONDAY expecting to run only to feel dog tired (day off number 1). Then on Wednesday I ate poorly, leading to poor energy (day off number 2). After a short Friday run, I was back at the workout grind for Saturday- 5 sets of 5 minutes in 5:40 pace, with 2 minutes off followed by 2.5 miles at 5:55 per mile.

Bottom line is I need to reboot. As December rolls around, staying on track is tough due to family, and work demands. I just need to stay focused on getting a good start heading into half marathon and 5k training. 

Later this week I plan to sketch out some training modifications- ie ways to hit super goal pace.

It's cold outside...

We ventured indoors today for our workout. By we, I mean myself a few clubmates. We're fortunate to have the Dempsey indoor in town at the University of Washington. 

While not that cold out, the chance to run inside with your shirt off in December is pretty great. The goal of the workout? 5k at 5k race pace.... 5x1k with 0 rest. If nothing else, I wanted to gauge where I was at fitness wise coming off the marathon.

Result: 16:28. Back in March I ran a PR indoors at the Dempsey, going 15:58. So this is a good starting point. With no speed work, I was able to hit 60 second laps (307 or 308m), putting me under 5:20 per mile (5:18). Considering I did a 3.5 mile progression last week and struggled to go under 81 per 400, this is great. I didn't kill myself to do it either. Up next will be a good December block of training leading into a potential January 1/2.

On the road...

Back on the horse. My NYC recap never happened, or might happen, or... Alas I'm back.

The road to 2:29 is being paved each day. Might be a short country road or a long interstate. Goal is to build to it.

This week is 70-75 miles, a step up from 45 the week before. Much is made of the 10% rule. During regular training cycles, it is a handy rule of thumb. When rebuilding from a peak? Less helpful. Your body can tolerate more, otherwise you'd do 25...+2.5! Etc. Tomorrow is tempo. We'll see how that goes. Should be easy, but it's in the cold so who knows.