Category: Last Week in Running

Monday: 9 miles. It was kinda rainy when I started, and pouring rain for the last two miles. Kept it in the park and the subdivisions on either side. 9.34 miles in 1:20:56 (8:40 min/mile pace). Followed my run with squats as well as my stretches and 4 pull ups.

Tuesday: 3 miles. Rain was expected, so I ran in my neighborhood. When I finished, I noticed one of my neighbors had started running, which was good to see (maybe it’ll keep some of the lesser-intelligent people in my subdivision from blocking sidewalks or letting their dogs roam free). 3.26 miles in 27:49 (8:32 min/mile pace).

Wednesday: 8 miles. Ran in East Fork to get my hill on, and decided to change some stuff up a little. Ran down to the camper’s boat ramp (I was heading for the beach, but… see the pics), and then back up and onto the Batavia-Williamsburg path and back to the parking lot. 8.02 in 1:10:43 (8:49 min/mile pace). Followed my run with squats as well as my stretches.

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Thursday: 5 miles. Ran this in the park to give my legs a rest and prepare for the next day’s miles. After my run, I did 4 pull-ups on the bar in the park. 5.18 miles in 44:32 (8:36 min/mile pace).

Friday: 13 miles. Ran in the park, the subdivision next to it, and the someday-will-be-connecting subdivision. Of course some asshat over there backed their car out with ZERO regard to anyone around her (I don’t call this subdivision “Asshat Acres” for nothing… I hope I scared her straight with my angry disapproving look). Finished the run at the back of the park and did 4 pull ups. 13.18 miles in 1:53:47 (8:38 min/mile pace).

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That’s it for the week. 39 miles ran. Friday afternoon felt particularly rough, but I even mowed the lawn after.

I’m between plans, and this is an odd week that sort of went off the rails, but not in a bad way. I was in Portland, Oregon for a conference, and when near the Nike Headquarters, one should put on their New Balances and take a few runs.

Sunday: Planned 8 miles. Since Thursday was going to be a waste and I had extra time on Sunday, I moved some runs up. I intended to do 8 miles… a friend texted me in the morning ‘how far you going and at what pace?’, I replied ‘8 easy’. Long story short, we went running together. Ended up doing 9.5 miles and he put the idea in my mind to do an AppCon Half Marathon. Went across the Hawthorn bridge and headed down along the east bank of the Willamette River to the Sellwood bridge and then back up the west side of the river. 9.5 miles in 1:24:59 (8:57 min/mile pace).

Monday: Planned 3 miles. This was really a little bit more of sight-seeing. Went across the N Steel Bridge and then back across the Hawthorn Bridge. 3.23 miles in 29:12 (9:02 min/mile pace).

Tuesday: Planned 8 miles. Actual: the Biennial AppCon Half Marathon Fun Run. Yeah, it happened. We ran across the Hawthorne Bridge, which they started the lift process when we were in the middle of the lift span (the process starts with them blasting a horn, starting an alarm and announcing over an intercom for pedestrians to wait behind the gates). Since both of us running are engineers, we turned around and watched a little. Yeah, that first mile was a little long 😂.

Then, we ran along the river as far south as we could before proceeding north and back across the Sellwood Bridge. Once we made it to Tillikum Bridge, we crossed it and then ran up to the Steel Bridge where we crossed back and finished along the west riverfront waiting on his FitBit to get to 13.2 miles. Mine made it to 13.29. GPS inaccuracy! All that in 1:56:25 (8:46 min/mile pace, an 11+ first mile and sub-8s for the last 2).

Wednesday: Planned 5 miles. I was running a little short on time from being out too late on Tuesday (I took a large group to Deschutes as part of the conference dine-around, and then we closed down Backpedal Brewing and 10 Barrel Brewing). Ran 4.19 across the Hawthorne Bridge and back across the Tilikum Bridge in 36:02 (8:36 min/mile pace).

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Thursday: Travel day.

Friday: Planned 12 miles. Since the week was crazy and I way overslept (9:30 PM bedtime, woke up around 7:00 AM), I just did 8 in the park and the neighboring subdivision. 8.03 in 1:07:08 (8:22 min/mile pace). Also did my stretching and squats (I was a bit lax on those during the trip) and did 4 chin-ups.

That’s it for this wild week. Planned 36 miles, ran 38, so I was close to the plan. Next week is like this week but maybe I’ll close the gap a little between planned and actual.

I’m in week four of the five-week recovery plan. The rest of the summer schedule is now up in the air thanks to vacation and work commitments.

Monday: 7 miles. I kept this in the park and the subdivision next to it. My legs were a little tired from the weekend – Saturday of work and Sunday at King’s Island. 7.05 in 1:00:40 (8:36 min/mile pace).

Tuesday: 5 miles. Hazy shade of winter or something like that. It was just below 50F outside, and worse I ended up parking my car outside overnight. Also, I’m not 100% sure my car has heat 😬. Got the gloves and a long-sleeve shirt out for the run. 5.06 miles in the park in 43:08 (8:31 min/mile).

Wednesday: Rest Day. I felt like running, so I went to the park and ran 3 miles. It wasn’t fast, but I enjoyed it (and the 57F weather was perfect for a short easy run. 3.11 in 27:06 (8:43 min/mile pace).

Thursday: 7 + 8 strides. So my watch is 🤬. I make a lot of use of the Garmin Connect calendar and workouts for this. I currently cannot copy the calendar OR individual workouts to my watch using either my phone (Android) or my iPad. So I ended up running 5 + 7 * 30 second strides (since reading Advanced Marathoning, I’ve converted to 100m strides) and then running the balance of 8 miles. It was getting a bit warm, and there were some very warm and very humid spots. Hydrated with water. Overall, 8.04 miles in 1:11:14 (8:52 min/mile pace).

Friday: 10 miles. Ran this one in the park and the subdivision next to it. Unlike Tuesday, I wore a sleeveless shirt and I would have considered going topless if it wasn’t for the vest. It was also foggy, which meant I was clearing my glasses often. Around 7 miles in I needed to stop in a port-o-let, so I took my gloves off and stuffed them in the unused pocket on the vest where they stayed for the last few miles. Hydrated with Gatorade Endurance Watermelon. 10.05 miles in 1:27:11 (8:40 min/mile pace).

That’s it for the week. 33 miles and a range of temperatures from 49 to 70F. Next week is the last week in the recovery cycle, and it’ll probably be similar to this one (except the plan calls for 5 running days, so I won’t have an unscheduled ‘I just felt like running’ day.

I don’t truly know what race is next. It sounds like my wife wants me to do the Candy 5k just for the medal. I kinda want to do the RedLegs 10k because it’s one of only a handful of major 10ks in the region (the others being the Flying Pig 10k and the Turkey Day 10k, and of those two others one is a 6 mile parade). I’ll figure it out someday, and hopefully before these races happen. Otherwise, the next races might be the Bulldog Blast 5k and the NKU XC Series. Fall marathon training starts June 24.

Anyway, on to this past week.

Monday: 5 miles. Apparently I felt like running off my lasagna, because I ran 5 at a pretty blistering pace (and it was a progressive run). I kept it in the park since it’s not the longest running I do. 5.12 miles in 42:03 (8:13 min/mile pace).

Tuesday: 5 miles. Woke up late, so I kept it in the subdivision. Fortunately, no dogs or idiots. 5.01 miles in 41:04 (8:12 min/mile pace).

Wednesday: Rest.

Thursday: 7 + 8 strides. Got my hill on at East Fork. It was a cold 50F – I originally put on a short sleeve shirt and went to leave I stepped out of the garage and decided I wanted a long-sleeve shirt. So up to change. 8.01 miles overall in 1:08:07 (8:30 min/mile).

Friday: 9 miles. I drove to West Lafayette, Indiana yesterday, and scoped out the riverside running path. I specifically booked a hotel along the path, because priorities 😊. It looked good. After dinner, I scoped it out a little.

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Friday: 9 miles. Well, the pictures above make it look really good compared to the reality. I started across the pedestrian bridge to the east side of the river and went north. First off, there was a lot of bugs.

Then, I started slipping on mud. I stopped and realized that right ahead of me was the shimmer of water (and we’re not talking a small puddle, this was several feet and I couldn’t go around). So I turned around and headed back across the bridge and then north. All seemed good until I noticed I was going down and then… water. So I turned around and went north and all seemed good until… yup, you guessed it – water. So I decided to run up to Purdue University, which started with going uphill. Finally, with some additional light and lack of copious amounts of mud, I got some good miles in. Overall, 9.37 miles in 1:22:35 (8:49 min/mile pace).

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Overall, the week was 27.5 miles of my legs getting over the marathon I ran late last month. On to next week!

So I’m technically in a recovery plan…

Monday: 5 miles. Ran in the subdivision, and managed to find the one asshat that can’t be bothered to buy a leash for his dog. So adrenaline does interesting things to pacing, since I went from 9:05, 8:35 (had to stop for the fucking dog right past this and start yelling at it), 8:19, 7:50, 7:41. Overall, 5.02 in 41:13 (8:17 min/mile). “Recovery”.

Tuesday: 5 miles. Not wanting to repeat yesterday (although instead of silent judging, I’d probably tell Mr. Asshat to make that the last time or one of the county Sheriff might be paying him a visit), but also wanting a change of scenery, I ran in the park. I also set my watch for the entire workout instead of an open auto-lapped workout. Started the morning with some form drills (it’s been a while), a several-minute delay from the watch updating 😡, ran 5.13 in 43:02 (8:24 min/mile pace, closer to an even pace according to Strava), and then did some stretches and squats.

Wednesday: Rest. Since I’m in a recovery plan and it was supposed to rain all day Thursday, so I decided to run today. And since I’ve run on mostly-flat courses all week, I decided to run at East Fork and do some hills. Then, since I was ‘only’ doing 6 miles instead of the normal 12, I decided to make a real run for a Strava segment going up a hill. It was a great run, and I PRed the hill segment! 6.02 miles in 50:56 (8:28 min/mile pace).

Thursday: It didn’t rain.

Friday: 7 miles. It rained a little, I was mostly running through drizzle and around asshats parking across the sidewalk in the neighborhood next to the park. I was kinda pushing towards the end and then tried to back off a little when I had a mile split come in just under 8:00. Overall, 7.11 miles in 59:04 (8:18 min/mile).

The week was 23.28 miles of nice recovery miles. I’m up to 789 miles for the year, which is probably the highest I’ve been this soon. Cheers!

My week started sore as heck. I guess that’s expected after a marathon, but I thought maybe marathon 2 would be better than 1. It both is and isn’t. I’ve been just as sore, but for a shorter time after the marathon.

Monday and Tuesday were rest days. Tuesday also involved driving to Indianapolis for a meeting.

Wednesday: 4 miles. Oops, I thought it was three. Since it was trash day, I ran in the park. I had a 10 minute delay thanks to my watch 😡. 3.15 sore miles in 29:23 (9:20 min/mile pace).

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Tuesday: 3 miles. Since I ‘Oopsed’ yesterday, I made up for it today (I know, I shouldn’t, but I did). It was foggy, but I could run in the neighborhood. 4.16 miles in 36:34 (8:47 min/mile pace).

Friday: Little Kings 50 West Mile. So this is a fun little race that kicks off the Flying Pig Weekend. Being less than a week out from the marathon, I didn’t know what to expect. I went into it thinking I had a PR of 6:20, too. Prior to the race, I ran around (literally) the riverfront area – to packet pickup, back to the car to drop off the shirt, back to start. I was placed in Corral A 😮. Goods and bads there – I’ve gotta run fast (bad?), but I’m close to the front of the line for beer (good… er AWESOME!). I started at the back left of Corral A. The back part was not a mistake, but being on the left was – about 480 feet into the course, there is a sharp turn that’s nearly a hairpin. I was very close to the curb there and had to slow to get around it. I didn’t make up my pace, but that might also be because mid-5s to low-6s isn’t really sustainable. Time: 6:32. Then at the end of the weekend, I found that my memory of last year’s race was more optimistic – my prior PR was a 6:39. So I PRed by 7 seconds. NICE! Also nice, while I was there I met fellow Runnitor Ricard0 and we talked for a while and watched the elites. Then, after complimenting another runner on her “I SWEAT IPA” headband, she handed it to me, saying she could get another one for free through some free brewery runs in Minnesota. 😊

April ended during this week, I ran 173 miles in April. Not my highest, but still higher than all but one month last year. May and the first half of June will be pretty easy, July and August will have a few races – most notably the NKU XC Series and the Batavia Bulldog Blast. Beyond that, the Hudepohl 14k is coming up in the fall, as is marathon 3 – Columbus Marathon.

This past week was 8 miles. Not my highest week!

I’ve signed up for the Glass City Marathon in Toledo, Ohio, and I’m on week 17 of 18 in my slightly modified Pfitz 18/55 plan. The marathon is on April 28, 2019.  I’m in the tapering phase. THIS IS IT.

Monday: Rest. This is what happens when I switch to a final week workout – I end up with an odd rest day.

Tuesday: 6 miles. Ran pretty easy in the park and the subdivision right next to it. Nice morning in the upper 50s, which is a bit warmer than the current Sunday forecast.

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Wednesday: 7 miles with 2 @ M Pace. Kept this in the park on a chilly low-50s morning (it was in the low 50s, but it felt a little chillier). Did an easy warm up and then 2 miles at a 7:46 min/mile pace (the goal was 7:50 – 8:15, so I was a little fast). It didn’t feel like it, though. After finishing and running through the field, the run was 7.11 miles in 59:35 (8:23 min/mile pace).

Thursday: Rest. See Monday.

Friday: 5 + 6 strides. It was pouring rain when I woke up, and my phone said it wouldn’t let up until 5 PM, so I went out to run in my neighborhood. I wore my new Bib Boards since I didn’t want their first use to be a marathon. 6 miles in 50:18 (8:22 min/mile pace).

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Saturday: loose 4 miles. Ran from the hotel to one of Toledo’s Metroparks and ran a short trail loop and back. It was a chilly 40 out. 4.04 in 34:07 (8:27 min/mile pace).

That’s it for the week. 23 miles so far, but I’m not counting the little race tomorrow.

I’ve signed up for the Glass City Marathon in Toledo, Ohio, and I’m on week 16 of 18 in my slightly modified Pfitz 18/55 plan. The marathon is on April 28, 2019.  I’m in the tapering phase.

Monday: 7 miles. I ran this one starting a little earlier than normal and in the park and the neighborhood next to it. I didn’t go all-out, but my times suggest otherwise. 7.17 in 1:00:34 (8:27 min/mile pace).

Tuesday: 8 miles with 3 x 1 mile @ 5k pace. Ran this entirely in the park. My goal pace for the 5k splits was 6:55 – 7:15, I was 7:15, 7:18, and 7:13.

Wednesday: Rest! This still feels weird to rest in the middle of the week, but there’s probably some reasons for it.

Thursday: 5 miles + 6 strides. Ran in the park and the neighborhood next to it. Overall, 6.02 miles in 51:55 (8:37 min/mile pace).

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Friday: 12 miles. I woke up to the sound of rain hitting the side of the house. I went out to run in East Fork, taking the bike path to Williamsburg and back and then when back in East Fork I ran down to the lake. 12.04 miles in 1:45:42 (8:47 min/mile pace).

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That’s a wrap for the week. Next week is an easier one until Sunday… 33 miles this week, which is a big change from a few weeks ago when I was 20 miles more per week.

I’ve signed up for the Glass City Marathon in Toledo, Ohio, and I’m on week 15 of 18 in my slightly modified Pfitz 18/55 plan. The marathon is on April 28, 2019.  I’m in the tapering phase.

Monday: 8 miles with 5 x 600m @ 5k pace. Ran this one in the park because of speedwork. The weather has turned, and I was wearing short sleeves for possibly the first time in 2019 (except those dreadmill runs). The intervals were at 7:07, 7:13, 7:09. 7:15, and 7:06, so in the range of 6:55 – 7:15. Overall, 8.05 miles in 1:07:54 (8:26 min/mile pace).

Tuesday: 4 miles + 6 strides. Kept this one in the subdivision, partly because my car wouldn’t start. 6 laps around for 5.01 miles in 42:56 (8:34 min/mile, although it didn’t quite feel like it).

Wednesday: Rest. This feels weird, but tapering, yo!

Thursday: 10k tune race. Ran this one in the park, too. Weather was just on the threshold between long and short sleeves. The 10k portion was 48:59 (7:53 min/mile pace). Overall, 8.21 miles in 1:07:06 (8:10 min/mile pace). Since I didn’t have enough distance left to finish my cool down at the parking lot, I ran the last part through the soccer fields, which was nice and soft (but not too soft). Of course, that’ll change with tomorrow’s rain.

Friday: 16 miles. It was supposed to rain (quite a bit) in the morning and the rest of the day. So I prepared for it (contacts, etc) and went to East Fork. Ran to Williamsburg and back and then to the other side of the Batavia-Williamsburg Trail (which is a misnomer, it doesn’t actually connect to Batavia. I was running on little sleep and it was WARM – 71 degrees. When I made it to the second part of the last leg (past 12.25 miles), it started sprinkling. On my way back to the car, after turning around (past 13.5 miles), it started to lightning and thunder a little. Then, about half a mile away from the car, it started to rain pretty hard. I did minimal stretching before jumping into the car. 16 miles in 2:25:53 (9:06 min/mile pace).

When wanting dry weather, prepare for rain

–Bastardization of some internet quote about war and peace

That’s it for the week. 37 miles total. After the prior week’s 53 miles, I’m definitely in tapering!

I’ve signed up for the Glass City Marathon in Toledo, Ohio, and I’m on week 14 of 18 in my slightly modified Pfitz 18/55 plan. The marathon is on April 28, 2019.  I’m in the race prep phase. This phase has a lot more speed workouts.

Monday: 10 miles with 4 * 1.2k @ 5k pace. Ran a 10 mile “runch” in the township park and nearby subdivisions thanks to a cold morning. The paces were pretty good – 7:00, 7:15, 7:02, and 7:13. The goal was 6:55 to 7:15, so one was right at the upper end, the rest were in the range. Overall, 10 miles in 1:20:50 (8:02 min/mile pace).

Tuesday: 7 miles + 6 strides. Ran this entirely in the township park with a new pair of shoes. The weather was a little warmer in the morning, so this was in the morning. After the strides and run-rounding (runding?), 8.01 miles in 1:10:48 (8:50 min/mile pace).

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Wednesday: 11 miles. Ran in East Fork because I wanted a change of scenery. I’ve never been a fan of running this course in the dark, but I did it anyway since the weather was continuing to be somewhat nicer in the morning. 11.04 miles in 1:36:56 (8:47 min/mile pace).

Thursday: 4 miles recovery. Ran in the subdivision since it was just four miles. 4.18 miles in 36:38 (8:46 min/mile pace).

Friday: Last Chance 20 Miler. I adopted calling the last 20 mile run of a marathon training cycle the “last chance” after the “Last Chance” workouts that The Biggest Loser used to do – the last big workout before their weigh-in, which decided their fate on the show. Went down to Lunken Airport and ran into downtown. Had some GI issues and had to make a pitstop in mile 14 or so (and my GI issues continued throughout the day 😕). Fueled with Gatorade Endurance gels at miles 6.5 and 13, and hydrated with Gatorade Endurance Watermelon. Ultimately 20.04 in 2:56:19 (8:48 min/mile pace).

That’s it for the week and for the race prep phase. 53 miles this week. Next week starts the taper phase, so I’ll be going from a week of triple-doubles to a week with only one run over 10 miles.