3/25/10 - Day off

Needed a recovery day.

3/24 - 5 x 1 mile workout

Wednesday was my first 2nd hard workout of the week in quite a while and I had planned to do 6 x 1 mile in the evening after work. I found out something that rocked my world and it was kind of tough to focus on the workout. After a 2 mile warmup, my goal was to do 6 x 1 mile @ 5:33 - 5:39 with 1 minute recovery. My splits were 5:41, 5:37, 5:36. 5:34, 5:40. I was mentally and physically shot after the last one so I jogged a 1/2 mile, ran a 1/2 mile in 2:50 and then did a 1 mile cooldown. I was felt with the results considering the circumstances and that I hadn't been doint 2 hard workouts in a week for a while.

3/23 - 6.5 miles

I didn't get home until about 7:30 but made it out to the park for a couple of laps before heading home. The park was jam packed with people and I was really surprised how many people were still out there as it was getting dark. I'm glad I run to the park and don't have to sit in the traffic of everyone leaving each night. I ran the 6.5 miles in just under 47 minutes.

3/22/10 - Kenyan Way Hills

I was a little late getting to the workout Monday evening and only got a 1 mile warmup in before the workout. I ran 5 loops of the hills (20 hills total) running up every hill. It was a tough workout for me and I never felt really smooth and I felt like I was stumbling around quite a bit, but I made it through all 20 hills. I did an easy 2 mile cooldown after chatting with Sean for a little bit for a little over 8 miles on the day.

3/21/10 - 8 miles easy

Sunday evening I headed over to the park wondering how I was going to feel. My plan was to run anywhere from 3.5 - 8 miles depending on how I felt. My legs felt really good and my adductor didn't bother me at all so I did the full 8 miles at 7:15 pace which I was happy with for the day after 19.5 miles. These miles were definitely a lot easier than the long runs up in Conroe.

3/20/10 - 19.5 miles - bugs galore

I really didn't want to get up when the alarm went off and a 1000 excuses went through my mind. Friday night I had finally opened up a box of thin mint girl scout cookies that Jace forced on me and I probably ate between 1/2 and 2/3 of one of the sleeves of cookies. They were so good friday night but my stomach felt so bad Saturday morning. After dry heaving once, I almost went back to bed, but I decided that I really needed the run and didn't want to have to do it later by myself so I finally pushed myself out the door. I was running a little late so I just ran from the house and decided I'd try to catch the group on TC Jester since they were running from the base towards my house. My timing was pretty good and I got to Washington and TC Jester within about 20 seconds of the group I usually run with. I threw in a quick surge and caught the group right before the overpass north of I-10 that goes over the railroad tracks. I had pretty bad gas most of the run from my girl scout cookies so it was kind of fun pushing the pace and being in front of the group - kind of like my college days. We were running on the bike path along the bayou and there were tons and tons of bugs everywhere. A couple of guys had ditched their shirts at the first water stop, but fortunately I kept mine. When you ran through the swarms of bugs, you could pull your shirt up over your mouth and nose and have a filter to keep you from inhaling the bugs while everybody else was hacking and choking. We were moving at pretty good pace on the way back and got back to base with the last couple of miles at sub 6:30 pace. I was right around 13.5 miles at that point so I headed back to the park for some additional miles. I ran into my friend Benson at the park and ran about 2.5 miles with him before heading home and finished up the 19.5 miles in 2:21. My adductor/groin was a little sore after the run and the rest of the day, but felt better after a good night's rest Saturday night. After finishing the rest of the first 1/2 of the box of girls scout cookies, I put my other 5 boxes of thin mints in the freezer to wait until after Boston is done.

3/20/10 - 8 miles

8 miles in 57:20 friday afternoon. Felt much better after a day off to recover. Could have run quicker, but had a long run planned Saturday morning.

3/19/10 - Day off

Needed a recovery day

3/18/10 - 7 miles

7 miles in 54 minutes. Nothing special today. Easy run by myself at lunch.

3/17/10 - 8 miles

8 miles easy in 59 minutes. Still a little tired after last few days, but feeling ok.

3/16/10 - Evening Kenyan Way Hills

This is a nice week at work with a lot of people out on spring break. I was able to leave reasonably early and make the evening hill workout. The workout was over at Memorial and Shepherd which was a nice break from the Cloverleafs. I ran 1.5 miles for a warmup and made it there right before the workout started. My legs were feeling tired, but I was going to push it as hard as I could on the workout. We were running a circuit with 1 shorter steeper hill and one longer more gradual hill. I really like this workout and it is fairly easy to push it hard each time since the hills are short enough that they don't totally destroy you. The workout for the Boston marathoners was 25 minutes continuous. I had a really good workout and was cranking it out on the hills and felt really strong. I didn't wear my hamstring wrap and it felt ok despite doing a hard workout.

3/15/10 - 6.5 miles

6.5 miles @ 7:40 pace at the park. Legs were pretty tired after 24 miles on Saturday. Not planning to get up early on Monday. Need some rest to recover.

3/14/10 - 24.1 miles

This was a tough run but it went fairly well. I had to stop at a gas station on the way to use the restroom on the way up so the group was just about ready to take off when I got there. I wanted to make sure I got enough vaseline on and finish my PowerBar for breakfast so they took off and I left a couple minutes behind them. I caught up to the front pack after about 5 miles. I wasn't really that interested in do the entire run by myself so I ran with the group for most of the workout. There were 7 of us - Guy, Monte, Kylie, Jeff, Richard, Gary and myself. I know at least one of them was shooting to hit 3 hrs at Boston and the rest I think were going for the 3:10 - 3:20 range. It was nice having people to run with and talk to because I get really bored running the long runs by myself. I averaged 7:30 pace for the first 17 miles. I probably could have easily averaged 7:00 - 7:10, but I was glad to be out there just getting the miles in and being on my legs for almost 3 hrs. We started picking up the pace some when we were around 15 miles and dropped down to about 7:00 pace at that point. When I got to mile 18 I told the group I was going to pick up the pace and try to get down to around sub 6:30 pace. Unfortunately about that point my Garmin memory was full and it wasn't automatically deleting the old laps off so I only got on split for my last 7 miles instead of individual miles. I averaged 6:30 pace for my last 6 miles and finished the 24.1 miles in 2:55. It was tough, but I got the time in and had a good run and my hamstring seemed to hold up ok. Near the end of my run, I took off my compression sleeve for about 2.75 miles and I could definitely feel the hamstring a little more without it. I think I will definitely need to wear it when I run the marathon. My training is going much better leading up to Boston than leading up to Houston.

3/12 - 8 miles

Today I ran 8 miles in 57 minutes. I was running 7:00 pace for the first half, but I backed off a little because I wanted to be fairly fresh for the 24 miler up in Conroe on Saturday.

3/11 - 7 miles - 45 minutes

I had another busy day, but found time to go out for a quick run at lunch. I ran with one of my coworkers and we ran a 7 mile loop in 45 minutes. I was feeling fresh after having 2 days off and didn't have any trouble knocking out 6:30 miles.

3/9, 3/10 - no runs

Between a crazy work schedule and not real good planning I didn't get runs in on Tuesday and Wednesday.

3/8/10 - Kenyan Way Hills

Today was one of the best hill workouts that I had in a long time. I ran a 2.5 mile warmup and got there right as the workout was about to start. We were running relays for 25 minutes where somebody would run up the hill and when they got to the cone at the top the next person would start at the bottom. Since most of the people had already paired up and started, Sean said I could just do repeats by myself or run with on a 3 person team with another guy who was out there who was pretty quick, but I hadn't seen him around before. I decided to run with the 3 person team so the two of us would start and run together. The first few laps the guy I was running with wanted to have the lead. If he would slow down and I would catch up or start to pass him, he'd pick up the pace. I don't know if he didn't think I was fast or just wanted to be out in front, but I could tell midway through the workout he was struggling a little and having trouble staying out in front. With about 4 or 5 hills to go, I started dropping him on most of the hills and I finished the workout really strong. The hills we were running were taking me about 50 seconds at the beginning and I was down to 45 second repeats at the end of the workout. I ran about a 2.75 mile cooldown back to the house afterwards.

Sunday 3/7/10 - 8 miles

Sunday evening about 5:30 I headed out to the park to do 8 miles. It was tough to force myself to do the entire 8 miles, but I got it done. I had all sorts of excuses in my head to cut it short - I was going to get up early and run hills in less than 12 hrs, after a long run 6 miles would have been enough for the day, but I knew that I needed to stay mentally tough so I knocked out the full 8 miles in 59 minutes. My legs are doing alright and my training is going a lot better than it was leading up to the Houston marathon.

3/6/10 - 16 miles

I didn't get a total time for my run. I managed to stop my Garmin a couple of times and at the end of the 16 mile route it only showed 10.5 miles. I know the route was 16 miles and I think I averaged 6:50 - 7:00 pace for most of the run. I was really tired and a little late getting out the door and missed the start which was probably just as well. Sam was out there and he was cranking pretty fast and I'm not sure that I needed to hammer 16 miles with him which I probably would have done. I caught up with a guy named Gary who is also running Boston and ran with him out to the turnaround point. A 1/4 mile before I got to the turn around I saw Sam and Andrew heading back in. I chatted with Sean for a minute while I got some water and then headed back. After a couple miles on the way back Andrew was stretching on the side of the road and waiting for me. He said this was his longest run back after recovering from a stress fracture in his foot and he hammered it as long as he had wanted. I hadn't seen him since sometime in October or November so it was good to catch up with him.

On the way back we passed a guy out running a little before one of our water stops and he came up and talked to us when we were getting water. The guy was wearing sweats and brown boot looking leather shoes and it was kind of amusing to see someone running with that outfit. He was asking how to sign up for the Houston Marathon and after a bit we realized he wanted to know how to run in the Olympic trials in 2012 since they are here in Houston. We had a good laugh about it since I don't think he is anywhere close to running sub 3:00, much less 2:19 or whatever the qualifying standard. I had been planning on adding a couple of miles on at the cloverleafs to get up to 18, but I was sore enough that I called it good when I got back to the base at 16 miles.

3/5/10 - 6.5 miles

I ran 6.5 miles Friday evening at 7:15 pace. I had wanted to try to go up to Conroe on Friday afternoon and do a 16 - 18 mile long run but I had too many things to do at work and couldn't leave quite as early as I would have liked. It probably would have been getting close to 4:00 by the time I would be able to start the run and I didn't really like the idea of running as it was getting dark with possible evening rush hour traffic so I did the easy 6.5 and then would just go run the normal Saturday long run with Kenyan Way.

3/4/10 - 5 miles

Didn't have too much time to get a run in, but went out and did an easy 5 at 7:30 pace at lunch. Legs still felt a little tired after the long tempo run, but it felt good to get a nice easy run in.

Wednesday 3/3/10 - 12 miles including 8 mile tempo

This was the best workout that I've had in a long time and I didn't have this strong a workout in the month leading up to the Houston marathon. The weather was great - upper 50's or low 60's and sunny out. I headed out at lunch and did a 2.5 mile warmup in 18 minutes. My goal was to do 8 miles at ~6:00 avg pace, but I would have settled for 8 miles at 6:15 (sub-marathon pace) if my hamstring wasn't feeling good. I felt pretty good starting out and hit the first mile in 6:08. I wasn't pushing it too hard and i planned to start a little slower and try to pick up the pace to average 6:00. I hit the 2nd mile in 6:03 and the 3rd in 6:01. I finally got under 6:00 pace on the 4th mile and hit 5:58. My 5th was 5:56 and my 6th was 5:58. I took a quick 20 second water break right after I finished the 6th mile and then got right back up to speed for the last two miles. My last two splits were 5:54 and 5:50. I felt pretty strong and could have kept going at that pace longer. I could feel my hamstring, but it never really hurt or felt like I needed to stop the run. After the workout I did a 1.5 mile cooldown in about 8:00 minutes for a total of 12 miles in 1:16 and I averaged 5:59 for the 8 miles.

Tomorrow will be an easy day and I'm thinking of doing my long run on Friday afternoon up in Conroe. Since I work in the Woodlands I'm already 2/3 of the way there so I might take a couple hours off on Friday afternoon and go do an easy 18 in Conroe. That will give me another long run in the hills and let me sleep in on Saturday morning.

Tuesday 3/2/10 - Day off

Too long a day at work. Didn't get a chance to run at lunch and when I got home at 8:30 no motivation to head out for a late run.

2/29/10 - 8.25 miles - 60 minutes

I set my alarm to get up early and run hills, but the downpour bailed me out and gave me an extra hour of sleep this morning. My legs were still pretty tired so instead of doing a hard workout, I just ran for an hour and got in 8.25 miles at lunch. I was averaging just under 7:30 pace for the first half of the run and was running pretty easy, but I got kind of bored and picked up the pace and got down to around 6:50 pace by the end of the run. Nothing spectacular, but another run under my belt on the way to hopefully a 70 mile week.

Sunday 2/28/10 - 6.5 miles

This was a painfully slow recovery run. I didn't have any injuries, but my body was still beat from the long run in the hills Saturday. I averaged 8:00 pace for the 6.5 miles and finished in 52 minutes. I hate days like these. I really would liked to have stopped after 3 miles, but I needed the mileage. Sometimes I feel like it is a fine line between pushing myself too hard to where I increase the risk of getting an injury and toughing it out and putting in the miles even when I don't feel like it. I've wimped out on enough runs that I felt like I needed to trudge through it. It wasn't a fun run, but I finished it. I knew I was going slow because I saw a woman I know from work running laps at the park and she was going the opposite direction as me, but I could tell she was going faster than me based on where we would keep passing each other. The good news was my hamstring felt good for the run and my body is seeming to handle the increase in mileage pretty well. I really seemed to hit the wall with a couple of miles to go and I was just starving and felt like I was out of gas, but I rewarded myself with a nice steak dinner when I got home.