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Last Week in Running – March 9, 2018

After last week’s pull-back week, this is where shit gets real. The Tuesday and Thursday runs are much longer, as is Friday’s run.

Monday was my normal day- form drills, 4 miles, and 7 strides. I kept it mostly in the park, running through Sawyer Point and Yeatman’s Cove and Smale Park out west, around the perimeter of the Bengals practice field, and back through all the parks into Friendship Park. The weather was cold – 29F or so. 5.1 miles in 43:29.

Tuesday was a huge increase over the past several weeks- 8 miles. Weather was nicer – 41F and within the first 2 miles the sun was out. This is obviously the last week before Daylight Savings Time begins and the RunLites continue being one of the more important accessories I own. I ran out through Sawyer Point and Yeatman’s Cove and Smale Park again, and continued like I was going around the Bengals practice field except I continued down West Pete Rose Way to Mehring, back Mehring past the practice field and around Paul Brown Stadium to Freedom Way and to the Suspension Bridge where I crossed into Covington. I used some side streets to get to the 4th Street Bridge and crossed into Newport where I ran on the floodwall to the Newport Levee and up a ramp to Newport On The Levee and to the Purple People Bridge, which I used to cross back into Cincinnati and I finished the last of the final mile in Yeatman’s Cove. 8 miles in 1:09:38.

Wednesday was a normal day – form drills, 4 miles, and 7 strides. It was cold and a little windy. Since I decided I wasn’t going on any really-hilly routes on Thursday or Friday and since it was on my mind from #bibChat the evening before, I decided to run up Gilbert, through Eden Park, and back down and into Sawyer Point, where my watch screwed up as it was attempting to save the run. 5 miles in 43:06.

Gilbert Avenue Hill. Miles 6-8 of the Flying Pig half and full marathon.

Thursday was an 8 mile M pace run (which means 9.5 total – 1 mile warm up, 8 miles at M pace, and 0.5 mile cool down). This was a cold day with a lot of wind and some snow and my hydration belt digging into my side. I generally stay in the parks (Friendship, Sawyer Point, Yeatman’s Cove, and Smale parks) and in the area west of the park on Mehring and West Pete Rose Way, and this was no different – did a loop down into Friendship Park and ran all the way through to the “triangle” and ran it twice before going all the way back to Friendship park and back through Sawyer Point and Yeatman’s Cove and back to my normal stopping area. 9.5 miles in 1:19:39, M pace portion in 1:06:29 for a pace of 8:19 min/mi.

The triangle. Paul Brown Stadium for scale (and location).

Friday was the long run. After the 15 mile run, which was a debacle, I decided I’d do a few things differently. For starters, Thursday night, I had a big bowl of spaghetti for dinner – carbo loading! Also, I prepared a bottle of Gatorade Endurance to go with me. I took three Gus and the Gatorade and decided to run across the bridges. Across Purple people, down the floodwall and down to the east-of-the-levee area and around the parking lot and back through the Newport Levee to the west floodwall, where I ran up the handicap ramp and across the 4th Street Bridge into Covington, where I went down to the river and across onto the new path until I saw wet mud in my way. I turned around, pulled out a pack of Gu and consumed it while running back up to the surface streets and to the Clay Wade Bailey Bridge to cross into Cincinnati. From there, I ran around Paul Brown Stadium and onto West Pete Rose Way where I was going to do the triangle, but I decided to head north to Linn and Dalton and across the 8th Street Viaduct and back down to the tip of the triangle to proceed down Mehring, taking my second Gu on the way down. From there, I headed back up Plum to Freedom Way and down to the Suspension Bridge to cross back into Covington. Once back into Covington I promptly left it for Newport by way of the 4th Street Bridge where I continued down to the new road to get to the Taylor Southgate Bridge. From there I went around US Bank Arena to get back to Smale Park and ran back down to the Triangle. I shortened it by going along the Bengals Practice Field and returned back through Smale Park into Yeatman’s Cove and through Sawyer Point to go around the Boathouse to finish off 17 miles in Sawyer Point. 2:29:20 for an 8:47 pace. WOW. I didn’t (and still don’t, after a few hours) feel as bad as the 15 mile run, and this was 4 minutes longer (but 2 miles longer!). There was one mile that was oddly fast (around US Bank Arena), and the GPS track is off, so the average pace is probably a little higher in reality, but I’m more concentrated on how I felt post-run.

A map. Because that wall of text is probably hard for anyone that isn’t me to follow.
Woo hoo!

For the week, I’m just under 45 miles with a whopping 6.25 hours spent running. I think this week was supposed to break me down.  In some philological ways, it probably did. However it did the opposite psychologically. Hopefully I can walk down stairs tomorrow!

Cheers!

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Last Week in Running – March 3, 2018 – Special Bockfest 5k Edition

This is a pull-back week. I was supposed to take Thursday and Friday off and run a half marathon on Saturday, but I really didn’t want to run a 10 mile warm up for a 5k, so I decided to run 10 miles on Thursday, take a break Friday, and run the 5k on Saturday.

Monday was the normal form drills + 4 miles + 7 strides. Many places I normally run were underwater, so I ran where I could and ended up running a little longer. I crossed the Purple People Bridge, ran down 4th Street in Newport and Covington and across the Clay Wade Bailey bridge to Cincinnati and back into Covington via the Suspension Bridge, back across 4th Street into Newport and then back across the Purple People Bridge into Cincinnati. 5.4 miles in 47 minutes.

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Tuesday was a slightly nicer day, and I did 5 miles. Just ran. I did end up going through an area that was muddy due to floodwaters. I crossed the Purple People Bridge, ran across 4th Street taking a short loop across the Newport Floodwall (western side, from 4th to the end near the Taylor Southgate Bridge), and then along 4th Street in Covington and across the Clay Wade Bailey Bridge.  I did try to join up to a few guys running across the Clay Wade Bailey bridge, but as they slowed I didn’t, so I ended up passing them. I ran down next to the Schmidlapp Event Lawn and down to the riverfront parks where I had to slow down to go over some wet mud and then back to Pete Rose Way. 5 miles in 45 minutes..

Wednesday was a beautiful morning to run. Things are starting to dry out and I got some of my running areas back, although some places were still “closed” and some were closed to traffic. I did my form drills in the same area I normally do, and went through some of the flatter riverside area until I ran out of room to run, so I ran out of the park, running around a barricade from the ‘closed’ side (parcours style – hop up on a curb and then onto a bench and then back down to the sidewalk) and across the Purple People Bridge and then back across the Taylor Southgate Bridge, scaring an oblivious pedestrian (news flash, pal – there’s a sidewalk here!). Back into the park to stretch (running around the same barricade noted above two more times, the second time probably pissing off the park workers). 5.6 miles in 46 minutes.

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During my lunch on Wednesday, I went out for a walk to a local running store and bought two belt packs. I found that two of the belt packs I own have clasps, buckles, and loops in a very stupid spot – the side. This digs into me and becomes very painful very quick. So I made sure the two I purchased had clasps only on the front. Both are Nathan brand, which I already have a handheld water bottle that is the same as what is used in one of these.

Thursday’s 10 mile run started slow, and it was a rainy day. I was slow on mile 1, which was the start and going up the Purple People Bridge and then again in mile 3, partly due to going up a set of stairs up to the Newport Floodwall. After mile 3 and especially after mile 5, I sped up (not really intentionally until near the end). I’m starting to get back to my normal running areas, although I have to watch the mud still.  I ran across the Purple People Bridge, down to the levee and around the parking lot where Joe’s Crab Shack and Burger King are, back to the west floodwall and up the steps to the floodwall. Then across 4th Street into Covington where I ducked onto some side streets to get to the Suspension Bridge. Crossed the suspension Bridge back into Cincinnati where I went west to the Clay Wade Bailey Bridge and crossed back into Covington. Ran down 4th Street into Newport and onto the new portion of KY-9 to get to the Taylor-Southgate Bridge, where I crossed back into Cincinnati and ran along Pete Rose Way to the entrance of Sawyer Point. When I entered Sawyer Point, I had about 0.3 miles left, so I practiced my kick. Despite being 10 miles, I felt oddly good at the end. 10 miles in 1:26:48.

Flood Mud!

Friday was an off day. Since I didn’t run, I went to packet pickup during my lunch break.

Bockfest 5k

Saturday was the Bockfest 5k. First race of the season. I parked at my work’s parking lot, used the restroom in the office (there was a lot of people there for a Saturday, but I think they were all in the accounting company… tax time), and jogged about 1.5 miles to Bockfest Hall. Tried to use one of the port-o-lets before the race, but the line was longer than the race. I held it and ran hard. According to my watch, 23:05 (which I’d link to Garmin Connect, but it appears to be having issues), according to the official results, 23:13. Per the watch, 7:37, 7:07, 7:31. I’ll take those splits any day! Also, 25th in my division and 148th (out of 2,428) isn’t bad either!

Post Race Beers!
Post-Race Band – Just Add Beer

Link to Race on Garmin Connect (will be updated when I or Garmin fixes stuff) • Link to BibRave Review

Cheers!

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Last Week in Running – February 23, 2018

This is it. This is the week I break my all-time long-time longest run of 14 miles.

Monday was a five mile fast-paced run in the Batavia Township Park. It was my first run with my AfterShokz Trekz Air (which I love, BTW). I didn’t intend on actually going as fast as I did, but the near-flat terrain combined with the nice weather (short sleeves!) combined with music (for the first time in a long time), I guess it just kinda happened. 5 miles in 40:36 (8:07 pace).

Tuesday was a slower 7 mile run in the Ohio River area. As I mentioned last week, the river is rising, and today was no exception. Part of my slower-ness was because I was looking at some of the flood ‘carnage’, and some was because I was looking at what was flooded to make sure I had a place to run through! I used the Trekz Air again (this time with some podcasts), and actually had some trouble hearing one that had a lower-than-normal volume level (I had to ‘crank it up’).  That being said, I was able to hear the rushing river water under the Purple People Bridge AND hear the podcast I was listening to and I was also able to hear traffic and the podcast on 4th Street in Covington and across the Clay Wade Bailey Bridge. Considering where I run, that’s a good thing! Additionally, I don’t have any problems with Trekz Air + glasses + glasses strap (because my glasses suck and don’t like to stay on my face). 7 miles in 1:02:34 (8:56 pace).

Tuesday morning at the Ohio River. Several of my normal running spots are closed off due to flooding.

Wednesday was a short run – form drills + 4 miles + 7 strides. As I found on Tuesday, the new road they opened in Newport has nice wide sidewalks and makes a decent connection to the Taylor Southgate Bridge. I ended up running a little bit longer, I wasn’t where I wanted to stop and told my watch to continue tracking after the last stride thinking I’d round it off to 5 miles… then I didn’t pay a lick of attention to the watch and ran right past 5.0 miles. 5.07 in 0:43:11 (8:31 pace)

Thursday was somewhat interesting. For starters, I woke up to the sound of a torrential downpour. Glasses + downpour = difficult to see.  I knew from the prior evening’s weather report that it should clear up by lunch, so I ran my 7 miles then. The run was just to run, not “M pace” (which I’ve been using as tempo runs). The floodwaters were supposed to have receded, but they weren’t, and around this time the weather forecasters realized that and stopped telling us that the waters were going down and instead that they were going to continue to rise. Because I’m kinda out of my element, I ran 7.4 miles because I wanted to stop at a spot near my office (where I tend to always stop) in 1:03:43 (8:36 pace).

Probably the most common area I run is along those little concrete pillars sticking up out of the floodwater.
That boat is stuck – it can’t get under the bridges!
The scale says 45 feet vertical clearance. Normal vertical clearance is over 70 feet per the Army Corps of Engineers.

In the video above, I had intended to go through the floodwall gate (it was open Tuesday), but instead of turning around, I took the video and then climbed up the rocks on the floodwall and hopped the fence to get to the path on top.

Friday began with torrential downpours. Originally, I had intended to just run in the rain and deal, but as I thought about the route I intended to run, I decided it was probably pretty stupid to do in the dark because I would end up on Eastern Avenue and Riverside Drive, both are near the river. So I ran at lunch. I felt under nourished and slow, and I ran up the big hill and on the marathon course. I ended on the Purple People Bridge. The most important part of this is that I didn’t come away from the run with a stress fracture in an obscure part of my body! However, it was slow (for me) and my watch paused at some point and I figure I ran about 0.75 miles before it bugged me about going into power save mode.  15 miles in 2:24:46 (9:39 pace), not including the part my watch skipped.

I ran through the left arch on Thursday, picture taken Friday.
There is a path behind all this that I tend to run on often…

The week totaled to 39 miles. Probably my longest ever.

Next week is a pull back week, and I have the Bockfest 5k on Saturday. But also next week is more flooding, they’re expecting about two more feet of water by Tuesday. Cheers!

Recovery!
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Last Week in Running – February 16, 2018

Week 7 is in the books. If there was any week that says “this shit is gonna get real”, THIS is it.

I skipped running Monday.  I had a combination of calf tightness from last week and a tinge in my back from working on my wife’s car over the weekend, so I thought it better to give my body an extra day. I did go out for a walk at lunchtime (which felt good to both the back and the calf) and got to see how high the Ohio River is…

There’s supposed to be a few more steps down there… 

Tuesday was a 7 mile run. Because of the tight calf, I kept it slower and in the park. It was a chilly run – I was concerned that maybe I should have been wearing pants instead of shorts for it, but I did warm up.

Also on Tuesday, this happened :-):

Wednesday was a morning 4 miles + 7 strides run. The temperature was up to 43, which was nice. There was a ton of runners out. I kept to going slower and easier, although I ran across the bridges.

Thursday was interesting.  First off, 60 degrees in the morning, so shorts and a short sleeve shirt. Second, the Ohio River is flooded and with the cold water and warm air, there were pockets of lower-lying areas that had a significantly lower temperature.  It wasn’t ice-cold, but cooler and nice for that seven mile M pace run that I keep turning into a tempo run. It was misting, however, and that sucked, as did the asshole that couldn’t be bothered to use the other of his two lanes – even as I was using my RunLites to attempt to get him to move – we were the only two using the road, and there’s 4 lanes (2 ea dir). Thank God I was facing traffic.

Thursday at lunch, I stepped outside to get a similar pic as the one posted above for Monday…

The Ohio River on Thursday… Seats visible on Monday: 9, seats visible on Thursday: 5.

Friday was a 14 mile run. I did a new route, which was the route from Hell and makes the big hill look small, but it had some cool views. My calf was looser and feels a lot better. I also ran listening to a podcast, and I found that my phone is not going to make it through the entire run next week (the battery died during my post-run stretching).

The weird dips in the middle are where I was going over a really high bridge over a freeway.
That bridge, the one way TF up there – I ran across it.

So this week was 35 miles. Slower than last week, but I called that.

Cheers!

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Last Week in Running – February 9, 2018

Week 6 of marathon training is in the books. I’ve spent 176 miles training for the marathon, and there is only 438 more miles to go.  The entire training plan is 610.5 miles…and that 0.5 is pretty damn important!

Monday was cold. Because I failed to turn my alarm on and it was icy out, I ran at lunch, which was nice and sunny. After doing my form and mobility drills, I started my watch and it told me “4 Mile Run + 7 Strides.” This was unexpected, as I had been running 3 miles, but I shrugged my shoulders and started running. 4.9 miles. On Tuesday, I looked at my log and realized I had the distance incorrect – it was supposed to be 3 miles + 7 strides. Oh well.

Tuesday was my weekly run up the hill.  Since it was cold, I slightly overdressed and ran at lunch.  It was overcast. Apparently, my legs wanted to GO because I ran it at 8:20 min/mile and I normally run this route a lot slower (8:45 – 9:00 min/mi).  Part of it was going down – since I could see, I could go faster.  My left calf was tight during the entire run, even after pausing to stretch it. Hopefully the tightness doesn’t stick around, but it was just tightness, not pain. 5 miles.

Tuesday evening continued to be good…

Wednesday had all the makings of a dreadmill run. Before going to bed Tuesday evening, the weather people were in freak-out mode over an impending snowstorm. I left my pullover, gloves, and hat at the office, figuring I’d be in or on the dreadmill. The snowstorm was mostly a disappointment, but I was the only person in the office for a while. So I ran at lunch. The sun had come out and it warmed up. There was ice all over the trees (I tried to take my phone with me, but it doesn’t fit in my pocket). Most of the path in the park was plowed, although I think it was plowed by Mr. Magoo – there were plenty of odd spots where it wasn’t touched and I can’t figure out where the quads they use went (unless they turned around). 3 miles + 7 strides in too fast of a time.

The park plow truck driver. Actual footage. Idiot was clearing farm fields miles away from the city park, but not all of the park.

Thursday was supposed to be an M pace run.  I expect to run the full in somewhere around 3:49, which is an 8:45 min/mi pace. All of my runs this week have been in the 8:20 range – 8:20 Monday, 8:20 Tuesday, Wednesday I thought I should slow down a little because I knew I’d be doing speedwork Thursday, so 8:22 (yeah, I really slowed down!), Thursday I was pushing a little… 7:50 min/mi during the M pace portion, and adding in the warm up and cool down, 7:59. God knows what Friday is bringing.  But it was a nice lunchtime run along the river and three laps around the triangle of the Bengals practice field and the industrial buildings west of there.

Friday started cold, so I ran at lunch. I tried to slow down (I slowed down by 10 seconds over the weekly average pace, woo hoo!). The weather was nice – somewhat sunny and mid-40s that may have warmed into the 50s, so I was wearing shorts, long sleeves, and gloves until I felt like I was baking and I decided to carry the gloves.  Around mile 6, my watch decided to reset itself, so something is wrong with the splits…

I ran 9.04 miles, there are 10 full-mile laps listed and one lap of 0.04 miles. 

Finished out the week with 30 miles run in 4 hours 12 minutes, at an average pace of 8:18. This will probably be an outlier week of speed. Next week I have a 14 miler to look forward to in addition to my M and W runs increasing by a mile each… well, really just Wednesday increases by a mile because I screwed up Monday.

Cheers!

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Last Week in Running – February 2, 2018

Week 5 of Marathon training is in the books. The weather decided to get warm this week. And cold too. And warm again. And cold again. Because Mother Nature appears to be suffering from Bipolar Disorder.

Monday was a normal day with form drills, 3 miles, and 7 strides. It was chilly, but at least I could wear shorts while running in the morning.

Tuesday was up the hill and back down before dawn. I turned the loop around (went all. the. way. up. Gilbert. Ave.), which is sometimes a little faster. It was snowing a little, but nothing was sticking. There was a nice color to the sky coming back down into the Eden Park roundabout/reservoir area, a nice shade of lavender/pink. 6 miles.

Wednesday was like Monday but with the route reversed. 3 miles and 7 strides. Wednesday was 1 second less than Monday and 0.01 mile less than Monday. Guess the route is ever so slightly faster if I cross the Roebling Suspension Bridge before the Purple People Bridge and not the other way around.

Thursday was a nearly perfect morning for running – 45, breezy, no precipitation. I felt fast but calm (not grueling), despite gorging myself (a little) on some pizza the night before.  I started later than normal (by about a half hour). 6 miles.

Friday was cold, so I ran at lunch. I ran in a lesser-ran part of the riverfront that happens to be miles 22.something to 25.something, and I ran it out and back. I had to make a pit-stop sometime in mile 9, which slowed miles 9 and 10, but it was pretty fast overall, 12.08 miles, 8:32 min/mi pace.

Friday was cold, so I ran at lunch. I ran in a lesser-ran part of the riverfront that happens to be miles 22.something to 25.something, and I ran it out and back. I had to make a pit-stop sometime in mile 9, which slowed miles 9 and 10, but it was pretty fast overall, 12.08 miles, 8:32 min/mi pace.

Friday was cold, so I ran at lunch. I ran in a lesser-ran part of the riverfront that happens to be miles 22.something to 25.something, and I ran it out and back. I had to make a pit-stop sometime in mile 9, which slowed miles 9 and 10, but it was pretty fast overall, 12.08 miles, 8:32 min/mi pace.

Friday was…

Bill Murray in Groundhog Day smashing his alarm clock
F%^&$#!ng Groundhog Day!

The week was 32.5 miles with 4 hours 36 minutes spent running.  This week, as was the last two, was right around 8:30 min/mi overall (8:31 this week, 8:28 last week, 8:33 two weeks ago).  I’ll take those paces!

Looking forward to next week, I have a pull-back week before getting to the week with the 14 miler. The farthest I have ever run was 14.02 miles on 4/3/2015. I did a subsequent run on 4/17/2015 that was supposed to be 14 miles, but I stopped just before that and hobbled back to the office. I found out later I fractured my sacrum. Back then, after stupidly taking 3 Advil and running a half marathon (I PRed so it was worth it… or something like that), I was off of running for 3 months, then refractured it and was off another 2. I’ve been under care to a doctor, so I’m hoping that changes I’ve made (following doctor’s orders) will mean that the next few months will be injury-free. However, next week and going into the week after is going to feel like this (and you’ll have to click ‘play’ because cover image =/= the point)…

(PS: The coaster is Valravn at Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio. If you like coasters and haven’t been there, you should go. This one, Gatekeeper, Millennium Force, Top Thrill Dragster, Maverick, and even the older Raptor are awesome coasters. Even better, they did work on Mean Streak and it’s probably a lot better now than it was. I do not, however, recommend their half marathon – everywhere in Ohio in June, July, or August is a sticky version of Hell – if you want to do a theme park half marathon that isn’t Di$ney, hopefully Kings Island will bring back theirs this October).

In completely other news, I decided that this blog was no longer a lower-priority blog for me and I bought a domain name for it.  This is now www.runningonbeer.blog (it used to be run.runningonbeer.net.

Cheers!

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Last Week in Running – January 26, 2018

Week 4 of marathon training is in the books. As I alluded to last week, this week was a huge increase. The looming feeling going into the week was like being in the station of a launch coaster, like Top Thrill Dragster, where all of a sudden we’ve gone from 0 to 120 in less than 4 seconds. All this and according to the blog widget, there are 100 days until the marathon.

Monday was a normal 3 miles and 7 strides.  I finally got back into the Meb For Mortals form drills, and thanks to a meeting that has changed it’s time six times, I ran in the morning. Nothing really of note here, but I did run across the Suspension Bridge in Cincinnati during this run. Total distance: 4.0 miles

The Roebling Suspension Bridge in the daytime

Tuesday was interesting. As I was arriving at the office around 6:00 to run in the morning, many traffic signals and streetlights were out. It was windy, but not “zOMG BATTEN DOWN THE HATCHES” windy. I ran up a large hill – those that have run the Flying Pig Half Marathon or Full Marathon know the hill I ran up. Running around the Eden Park Overlook with no streetlights was interesting. This was, by far, the warmest run of the week. 6.14 miles.

Wednesday was another morning run due to a lunchtime conference call. I did the same route as Monday, only backwards. 3.94 miles.

Thursday the weather broke. 20 in the morning, so I ran at lunch. After launching my general complaints about life on the Runnit Complaints and Confessions thread, I looked at the McMillan Run Calculator, giving it my time for the Flying Pig Half last year (1:48:53) and my marathon goal (3:59:59). It told me I can already run that. I decided to adjust my watch’s M pace range, down to 8:25 – 8:40 min/mi from 8:35 to 8:50 min/mi. This run went up a mile (from 5 to 6 miles). I ran the M pace portion at 7:52 min/mi. 7.69 miles by the time warm up and cool down were done.

Friday wasn’t too bad in the morning, 35 or so. I ran in the morning because I could get started early and I have/had stuff to do in the midday (I’m typing on Friday mid-morning). I didn’t eat anything in the morning because I was running a little late to the office. I felt fine through the first half, although my paces were suffering (I didn’t know, I tend to not look at my watch when it beeps to tell me the prior mile’s time). I took a Gu after my watch hit 5 miles and it definitely helped – the last few miles were much quicker and I wasn’t pushing that hard. 11.01 miles.

As I was looking in my tracking spreadsheet, I noticed that this was only the second round of a six round fight. February is going to go from starting at a 12 mile long run to ending at a 15 mile long run. This will be tough, but nothing worth doing isn’t. Weekly mileage 33 miles, 4:38 spent running.

In other news, I bought running shoes over the Internet for the first time. They get delivered today (the day I’m typing this).

New Shoes!

Cheers!

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Last Week in Running – January 19, 2018

Week 3 of marathon training, which means there’s 15 weeks to my first marathon, here’s how the week went.

Monday was a dreadmill run. We had about an inch of snow, which wouldn’t have stopped me from running outside if it wasn’t for the sheet of ice we got the prior Saturday combined with laziness and/or idiotic fear that one can be sued for shoveling their sidewalk. 3 miles and 7 strides… which were near the maximum speed of my dreadmill.

Tuesday was a cold run in the park during lunch. The snow was beautiful, and it was half-assedly plowed. However, it was faster and less slippery than expected. I felt good during the run. Unfortunately, the building I work in had no hot water. I was concerned that the hot water was out, as every time I washed my hands after using the restroom I couldn’t get hot water from the faucet. I wanted to believe it had something to do with being on the fourth floor and the hot water heater being in the basement, but after letting the hot water run in the shower long enough to do hamstring stretches and quad stretches, I assumed it was out. Our HR person had already contacted building management (BM), but as of Wednesday morning, they had not responded. BM is apparently just shit.

Wednesday started with my normal weekly weigh in, and the scale said 189.8. This is the first time my weight has been under 190 since I graduated high school around 20 years ago. To add to the day’s happiness, the hot water was fixed in the building so my staff didn’t have to smell me. I have a staff meeting on Wednesday afternoons, and the thought of my staff being shut in a room with me after 3 miles and 7 strides while I drone on about last week’s ‘frivolities’ at the Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting just stinks. The run was slippery because I ran across the river and plows are foreign to Kentucky.

Thursday was supposed to be a 5 mile M pace run. I ran it at a HM pace because I can’t manage to slow down. The weather was starting to break, though. 6.5 miles including the warm up and cool down.

Friday is normally my long run, but this is a pullback week, so it was half a mile shorter than yesterday when you factor in the warm up and cool down before and after the HM M pace portion. 6 miles. The weather was better, somewhere around the mid-30s, and it was nice to run with long sleeves and shorts.

I looked in Garmin Connect which said my weekly mileage has been going down, and I immediately thought “what the fuck?”.

Then, as I closed out the week at work and realized this might be the calm before the storm. Next week is 32 miles, only 7 miles more than this week’s 25 miles. 3 hours, 40 minutes spent running this week.

Cheers!

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Last Week in Running – Jan 12, 2018 Edition

It was an interesting week 2 of marathon training.

Monday started early with waking up in Washington DC at 5:15 to run 3 miles + 7 strides heading into the neighborhood north of Thomas Circle.

Tuesday also started early and in the same city, with 5 miles headed south towards the White House. That was a particularly difficult day to run because of slippery conditions and lots of disorienting fog. The run was a full minute per mile slower than my normal cruising pace. There was an additional challenge of needing to be at a breakfast meeting by 7 AM.

Wednesday started similarly early, 3 miles + 7 strides headed NW of Thomas Circle. It was a direction I’ve never run before, and got to see the Embassy of Tunisia and a Freemason Temple (seeing the Embassy of Tunisia put A Night In Tunisia in my head… not a complaint!).

Thursday was my flight home, and the weather broke, I ran 5 miles around my neighborhood, which was mostly because I didn’t want to potentially get soaked running in the park and then get back into my truck.

Friday was my long run, 9 miles around the Cincinnati/Covington/Newport riverfront area. It was raining, and while the temperature started nice at 51°F, it ended around 40°F and my fingers were starting to show signs of frostbite. To make matters worse, I twisted my ankle in Covington at the same buckled set of sidewalk they’ve ignored for the last 5 years.

Ran 27 miles over the week, 4 hours, 1 minute. 16 weeks to the Flying Pig Marathon.

Cheers!

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December Month + Year Recap

The Recap

The month of running is over. I set out to run 142 miles and I ran 147 miles. This was partly because I was so close to 1,400 miles for the year that I decided to do longer weekend runs (keeping up the #RWRunStreak) to hit just over 1,400 miles.

The Good Stuff

PR in the 1 mile (Little Kings Mile: 6:55), 3.2k (Brian Rohne XC Invitational: 15:31), 5k (Bulldog Blast 5k: 23:04), 14k (Hudepohl 14k: 1:10:19), and the Half (Flying Pig: 1:48:53). That leaves 4 races not listed. One was a personal course record (Bockfest 5k: 24:26), and two were PRs in a series and the following race of the series was also a PR (the NKU XC Series leading up to the Brian Rohne XC Invitational: 16:01 and 15:48). The odd race out is the Honor Run Half, where I ran easy with a strained back – the 1:52:01 is respectable given the situation.

I lost 15 pounds.

The Not So Good Stuff

Fucking back strain a week before a race…

Upcoming

On 1/1/2018, I start marathon training for my first. The first week seems easy, but it gets hard soon enough as I hit the first 14 mile long run in mid February and many 40+ mile weeks in March and April.

I’ve seen a lot in my reading about mindfulness and meditation. I don’t know if I’m going to try that or if I will stick with it. That remains to be seen.

Core strengthening! I know I need to.

Food! My eating could be a little better, and my wife agrees. Going to try a few things.

Cheers!