This is the thirteenth week of my marathon training plan for the Columbus Marathon. The marathon is October 20, 2019. I’m following the Pfitzinger 18/55 plan again. This is a week that departed from the norm because of one of the funnest races on my calendar: the Hudepohl 14k.
Monday: 8 w/5 x 600m @ 5k pace. Kept this in the park to keep it relatively flat. I somehow got my watch’s calendar to sync and was able to use the workout on the watch (and the audio coach). Interval paces were 7:02, 6:57, 7:12, 7:06, 7:12; the goal was 6:55 – 7:15, so all were within pace. Overall, 8.05 in 1:10:12 (8:43 min/mile pace).
Tuesday: Medium Distance 11 miles. Ran this at East Fork to get my hills on early. It was a weird weather day, as most of the run was on the chilly mid-60s side, but there were some places where it felt very warm. I probably negative-split this one. Saw two skunks near the road, fortunately they were running away from me. 11.03 miles in 1:40:01 (9:04 min/mile pace).
Wednesday: 4 miles + 6 x 100m strides.
Thursday: Medium Distance 10 miles. I struggled as to what to do with this day of running. At one point I was going to do a 17 mile long run, but I decided I wanted to have a great race on the weekend and 17 miles is not the way to do that! So I settled on 10. I ran this in the park and the subdivision next to it. I didn’t push hard except one mile when some asshat backed out right in front of me. 10.26 miles in 1:30:40 (8:50 min/mile pace).
Friday: 3 miles easy/shakeout. I kept this in the subdivision because I was running a little later than I wanted and it’s only 3 miles. One of my neighbors must made several calls to the police and complained that cars were going too fast past their house and the police put up a radar gun. I did try to get it to register me going at about 5:50 min/mile (which is around 10 MPH), I was unsuccessful. Perhaps I should have yelled, but I’d prefer to wake people up over unleashed dogs and stupidity that can cause me harm (drivers doing stupid things).
Saturday: Hudepohl 14k…
Hudepohl 14k Race Report
Woke up to 70 degrees at 5:30 AM, which ultimately became a sunny day. Did my normal race-day routine of coffee (which went with me) and peanut butter toast. Drove downtown and parked at Sawyer Point, which gave me a mile to walk/run as a warm-up. Visited a port-o-let at the right time (no lines and open potties when I entered, lines when I exited). After a few minutes of mingling with my old boss and a Runnitor, we were off with some Polka music in the background.
My basic strategy was to take Gatorade at all stops, since it was a scorcher.
Miles 1-2 are uphill. I handled these better than I thought I would. The second hill – up Reading and Liberty – are a doozy and I traded places with another runner or two during this stretch. 7:27 and 7:48.
Miles 3-4 go down and back up to a hairpin turn. This is one of the two traffic-heavy places on the course, with one stupid person driving around an officer and into our way (I hope he was ticketed, but I doubt he was). 7:31 and 8:03. Damn, blew my streak of sub-8 minute miles on this race. After the hairpin turn, I got a view of all the people behind me. There was quite a few.
Miles 5-7. This is all downhill with some slight exceptions. It seems that the race decided to put more cheerleaders (volunteering) along this part of the course. It was becoming more difficult due to the sun and heat. At one point, I started pushing a little to be in a group when going through some of the intersections. This is the other of the two traffic-heavy places, and sometimes the cops will allow people to cut through between runners. 7:26, 7:36, 7:55.
Miles 8-end. This is downhill, but about 0.75 miles into this segment, we’re reunited with the 7k course, and of course it’s all walkers at this point. There was a water stop through here that I completely skipped due to the walkers in the way and knowing that I was not far from the finish. The end has a slight uphill, but it’s difficult to slow down with other runners and cheerleaders along the course through here. 7:36 and 5:07 for the final 0.69 (7:25 min/mile pace). Overall official time was 1:06:24. Last year (which was 10 degrees cooler and overcast), my time was 1:04:51, so I was up 1:33.
