WalkBlogRun - 60 miles in 4 weeks

Avoid the Chicago Turkey Trot

Fri, 24 Nov 2006 09:28:00 -0500

Melissa and I ran the 29th Annual Turkey Trot sponsored by Momentum yesterday. Parking was great although we really should have walked down since it was so close. The parking was the only positive thing we experienced after that regarding race logistics. We arrived almost an hour before the start so we wandered around the few sponsor tents before going for a walk to keep warm. The temperature started at around 40 degrees but was climbing every hour. Of course there were the usual annoyances of racing with people bumping into you and standing far too close to allow you to start running at the line so that couldn't be helped. The course was well thought out but the 4447 runners allowed to race meant that the whole race was one long traffic jam. The course would have better suited a field of runners half the size. The result of all this meant people getting off the running path to overtake with a few people twisting ankles as we went by. The worst part of the race were the aid stations, placed at points where the path was too narrow or one 10 yards after a large pothole. The runners typically ran 6 or 8 people wide so as we approached the pothole everyone dived out of the way at the last minute and then 10 yards later were expected to condense to 3 abreast to pass the aid stations on both side. If the two people on each side each stopped that left a channel for a stream of single runners to get through if they didn't want water. After the run we were corralled through a gate wide enough for just two people into the post-race food area which soon became so crowded people could barely cross the finish line before stopping in the line for bananas, bagels and gatorade. The race shirts we received were a plus from the perspective that it was a technical t-shirt but the crazy purple and yellow color makes it a closet stuffer. We ran the race together and Melissa beat her 8k PR set last year at the better organized PAWS 8k with a time of of 47:35, knocking just over 4 minutes off her time! I came in 239th in my division of 372, Melissa 233rd of 630. We both agreed that we wouldn't run this race again unless there are considerable changes to the race format.

Late night, early run

Wed, 15 Nov 2006 07:30:00 -0500

I was half asleep for my 4.2 mile run this morning after a late night working on some goals for the WalkJogRun website. It occurred to me that the website is less like a conversation and more like a series of soundbites. I will be working on the site over the coming weeks to make it clearer what the plan is at each step of the way. This morning I saw it was 44 degrees outside and misty but thought it looked colder so I was overdressed. I could have really got away with a long sleeved t-shirt and shorts but it wasn't unbearable. I ran the 4.2 miles in 34:54 for an average of 8:18 per mile..

Steady Sunday Long Run

Sun, 12 Nov 2006 16:29:00 -0500

After a late night last night it was time to do my long run. I started just before noon on a slightly different course than usual, heading north from Addison up to Foster, along the lake front all the way to Belmont harbor then back around to Addison again for a 10k. All the way from Foster to Belmont harbor I was faced with some seriously cold and strong wind and at 43 degrees I was glad I had wrapped up. Needless to say the wind pulled my time down from an initial 5:00 per kilometer to 5:20 so I finished in 52:45 or an average of 8:21 per mile. I think I'll have to work out which way the wind is blowing next time and if it's the same, run the opposite way to take full advantage when running the lake front. The turnaround advantage isn't there on this route since as soon as you get away from the water there are trees to break down the wind so I never got that push.

Here comes the snow

Fri, 10 Nov 2006 12:29:00 -0500

Apparently we have snow coming to town this evening so it was good to get my third run of the week out of the way with my wife Melissa who is now a licensed attorney in Illinois! I'm not sure how many more weekday morning runs we'll get in together after today due to the combination of the cold weather and her starting her first job as an attorney on Monday. I hope we can still run together because as I've mentioned before it's a great way to connect with each other at the start of the day rather than grumbling over breakfast. My right ankle has started to ache a little after the fast run yesterday so I hope I've not done something stupid...

Fastest 5 mile / 8k run!

Thu, 09 Nov 2006 09:15:00 -0500

Yesterday I was supposed to run my interval training but I woke up and felt exhausted after an 11 hour work day so I pushed it off to today. I wasn't in the mood to run at all when I woke up today so I was planning to just run 3 or 4 but by the time I got down to the lake front path I decided that if I couldn't do the interval training 5 miles I would at least try to do a hard 5 miles. I finally finished collecting my training log in excel yesterday and created a chart showing my pace over the last 9 months of running with the distance of each run as a separate series. As you can see from my chart despite increasing my mileage for the marathon I've been pretty consistent, hovering around an 8:30 pace for most of my training. With that information I decided to try to push myself to an 8 minute mile pace but wound up running 5 miles in 38:37 or an average of 7:43 per mile! This beats my 39:59 Shamrock Shuffle pace which was my PR for 8k until today.

Long time no blog

Tue, 07 Nov 2006 07:24:00 -0500

Well, I just looked at the entry list and it appears I haven't been back here to blog about my running since October 25th! Where to start? Since then I ran seven times: Sat Oct 28th - 4.28 miles - 40:06 - 9:21 pace Tue Oct 31st - 3.21 miles - 29:43 - 9:14 pace Wed Nov 1st - 5.61 miles - 45:53 - 8:10 pace (intervals) Thu Nov 2nd - 4.16 miles - 35:12 - 8:27 pace Sat Nov 4th - 10k - 50:39 - 8:08 pace That last entry I'm particularly proud of since that marks my personal best for a 10k. My iPod Nano is slightly misleading in that before I calibrated it, the pace and distances reported were faster and longer than I actually ran by about 20 seconds per mile and 200m per mile respectively. Consequently on Saturday when I ran the 50:39 I thought I was shooting for 51:39 anyway so thought I'd smashed it, but when neither Lance Armstrong nor Paula Ratcliffe came on my headphones to congratulate me I was disappointed to discover that my iPod thought my PR was 50:37. Regardless, I'm excited to have a 10k PR of 50:39! Today I ran a 4.1 mile in 31:27 for an 8:23 pace in some crazy fog which is still smothering Chicago. It was 49 degrees so it felt really comfortable in shorts and a t-shirt. The damp close air meant every smell hung in the air so as I ran along I picked up the scent of wet leaves and dogs trotting by with their running owners. I have to say that the Nike Interval Training I mix available on the Apple store has really helped me focus my training and improve my times already even though I've only run it twice so far. I think it helps me learn about my own thresholds hence the 10k performance. Another satisfying result for me over the weekend was that my 10k pushed my mileage past my goal of 55 miles in 4 weeks with 5 days to spare! The Nike+ website gave me a virtual medal which now appears in my records page and so I set my next goal at 60 miles in 4 weeks between Sat 4th November and Fri 2nd December. I figure that increasing my goal by 5 miles over 4 weeks shouldn't kill me but will keep me moving in the right direction. Lastly, I wanted to share some health benefits to the running I have blogged about for the last 6 months. When I started blogging it roughly coincided with a cholesterol test when the Doctor pointed out that my blood pressure was elevated and my bad cholesterol too. My Doctor wanted me to come back in 6 months for a review to see how I was doing. During the 6 months I focussed on my training for the marathon, ate a little better as preparation for my wedding and started taking a multi-vitamin. I still ate pizza once a week at the company meeting and regularaly snack size snickers (guilty pleasure) from the company candy bowls but overall I tried to eat less fat, more whole grain and more vegetables. Yesterday I receieved the good news that my cholesterol was down 15 points and my blood pressure was 118 over 90. The interesting thing about the blood pressure was that when the nurse took it on Friday I misheard her and thought she said 180 over 90 which left me panicking over the weekend. All I could find on the web was that 130+ is considered high so 180 was off the scale! Fortunately when the doctor called with my cholesterol results yesterday she cleared it up for me. I'm trying to cut out the snack size snickers now so that when I go back in May again I hope to see a continued decline in bad cholesterol. I'll try to blog more regularly again from this point forward and keep you updated on my interval training and the 60 miles in 4 weeks goal. If anyone wants to keep up, feel free to add comments with your distances and times!