Three Weeks to Go

I have been extremely tardy in posting lately, however, it just hasn't been happening for some reason. That said, training has been going well for the most part. Yesterday, I ran my final big long run in preparation for Boston; a twenty miler.

I must say that the run was a bit of a mixed bag. For the first 9 miles I was on the verge of quitting - I just wasn't feeling good... energy wise and mentally. If it wasn't my last big run I probably would have packed it in. Then magically, something took a turn for the better around mile 10 - suddenly, I felt strong and speedy and my splits decreased by a fair bit.

Overall, I ran 7:24 / mile for the 20 miles with a huge negative split. There is a lesson to be learned there... starting slow is a strategy I need to employ in Boston. After the slow start, I actually ended up running an overall pace that was only 2 seconds per mile off of my PR for the marathon. I may be struck down for even thinking this, but I feel like I am now ready. Time to taper and let the chips fall where they may.

The 3 - 4 of you that regularly follow this blog, by the way thanks, may recall me making mention of racing Boston against a childhood friend. Truth be told, this is not the death match I have been building it up to be. Nothing would make me happier than for both of us to PR... even if that means he destroys me. Essentially, the occasional verbal jabs have been more about attempting to get the best out of both of us... that little bit of extra push that sometimes we all need. That said, if we were to both PR and I nudged him out, I wouldn't mind having the bragging rights ;-)

T-E-M-P-O

Just finished 10 miler. 8:32 warm up mile followed by 9 miles at a 6:49 pace. Overall pace 6:59 (warm up and pace miles together). Finally feel like my speed is picking up. I must say that my mood is picking up in conjunction with this.

As an aside, my first race 12 years ago (in my early 30's) was a 10 miler that I finished at the exact same pace without a warmup. Nice to see that I am getting faster as I get older as I can now run a tempo run at my former race pace.

Stiff and Sore

It has been a while since I posted. This is mostly due to things being quite hectic recently and just not having the time to sit down and put down some thoughts.

All things considered, training is going well. I did have some knee pain a couple of weeks ago that felt like a re-inflamation of my IT Band, but that seems to have disappeared after some concentrated stretching. I ran a 20 miler on Saturday at the pace I had intended and outside of some sore quadraceps I feel pretty good. As well, Spring is on the horizion which elevates the mood of any runner who has had to slog through Winter.

As of today, it is exactly 5 weeks to Boston and I am trying to finalize the rest of my training. The one thing that is forefront in my mind is a 25K  race this weekend. I am of two minds as to run it or not. Essentially, it is a risk vs. reward kind of thing. The reward would be a real good gauge of my fitness heading into Boston, the risk is the potential to injure myself. Anyone with any thoughts around running a 25K race 4 weeks out from your goal?

Winter Blahs

Enough of Winter already. I have found myself lacking motivation for the past couple of weeks. I am just not that excited to get out there right now. It is a bit of a struggle to get out the door. Funny thing is, I thought training for Boston would be motivation enough. It hasn't turned out that way. It is almost as if getting to Boston was the motivating factor, that now I have qualified, what I was striving for has been attained. This is also explains the lack of posts lately... I just simply don't have as much motivation for all things running lately.... at least not at my normal level.

With that rolling about in the back of my mind, I set out for a 15 miler today - I wasn't excited to get out there, but you know there is something to be said for just getting out there.... sometimes the magic just happens and when you least expect it. I planned on running the following, 2 warm up miles, 11 miles (at what I hoped would be race pace of 7:05) and 2 cool down miles. Going into it, I had my doubts that this could be achieved today, but like I alluded to already, sometimes the magic just happens.

As soon as I took my first 10 steps I knew I was going to have a decent day as I was reining myself in as opposed to struggling to get up to speed which has been the case far too often recently. Normally my warm up miles are in the vicinity of 8:00 - 8:30 min / mile. Today, my first two miles were 7:37 and 7:42 and this was while making a conscious effort to slow down. Then came the tempo miles. I ran the 11 miles at a 6:57 clip and felt comfortable doing it. Following this, I ran a couple of cool down miles. All in all a pretty good run considering how I had felt going into it. Including warm up and cool down miles, I ran at a 7:08 pace. Going into it, if I would have ran the 11 tempo miles at that pace I would have been satisfied... to have that be result for the entire run was really encouraging.

Hopefully, the blahs will be over soon. Perhaps today's run will do something to pull me out of my doldrums - I must admit to feeling quite a bit better now than I did previously. If nothing else, maybe it is a foreshadowing of a good race on Patriot's Day with my nemesis. Heck knows, he should be providing all the inspiration I need.