great job...a pr and bq are always welcome...congrats and enjoy!
marathon pr - 3:16
Wow! What a fabulous race! Congrats on your PR and your BQ - you worked hard for them! Thanks for sharing your report with us, Bruce!
But The Smile That I Sent Out Returned With You.
Healed Hammy
Nice race Bruce, well done. Looking at your splits you seem to be on track thru mile 15 and then a slight fade. That probably indicates some endurance deficit at the prescribed pace, and I noted that mile 26 was your slowest. Clearly you were out of energy and did a damn fine job to hold it together and not let the calf and quad issues give you an excuse to walk or bag it. So bravo on the mental execution. I am not sure if running with a pace group would be of that much assistance to you at this level, you seem pretty dialed into your effort and abilities.
One thought going forward. Pfitz is a great base building program, and you have successfully strung together several cycles that have really produced. Fun run your next race, perhaps a 3:30 pace and enjoy, plus you will get some benefit from the sustained effort. For your 2014 races, have you considered a Hanson type plan that relies a bit more on speed and MP runs rather than the base of Pfitz. Perhaps a change in plan will give you a new training stimulus that can get you to a 3:15?
BTW, I completely missed TaperBruce this time around!
SheCan
WTG Bruce! That's really fantastic. Congratulations for the PR and for BQing AGAIN! That's pretty amazing. Great job!
Cherie
"We do not become the people who this world needs simply by turning our backs on anyone we don’t like, trust, or deem healthy enough to be in our presence. " ---- Shasta Nelson
Oski- Thanks and the beard will be back for winter training season...gotta keep folks off-guard.
Docket_Rocket, StepbyStep-SH, PADRunner, & workinprogress11- Thanks for taking the time to read through the RR & comment as well.
redrum- Yep, like Oski said ... this year just running a BQ time wasn't good enough because of the high demand.
meaghansketch- Thanks and I really like that quote. That really pretty much sums up my race experiences. I alternate between trying out a lofty goal (and falling short) with hitting that same goal in the following race ... so thus far I'm right at 50%.
Jay716- Thanks for the kind words and I do like to think that I try to race smart ... at least in making adjustments on the fly. I just wish I had more confidence in sometimes running on the razor's edge of falling apart - but that's something that will come with more racing experience.
hog4life, Bin Running, Baboon, Fuzzy, Taperrrr, Ric-G & Pinktastic- Thank you all for the kind words and support. I'm always glad to share my RR because it helps me keep things in focus for future goals and hopefully it'll assist in some small way with someone else's training/racing.
fourouta5- Thanks and I completely agree with your comments. I knew at the starting line that this race was going to hurt at the end because my honest assessment of my fitness put me running at a 3:18. However, I just had to give it a try because of what meaghansketch pointed out about goals. I'm still really young in my running career (I only started running last March) and though I'm 46 years old I still think I have quite a bit more to gain before I have to hang up my shoes. I'm actually planning on going with a coach next year to mix things up and work more on LT and speed, but thus far my three Pfitz cycles have been a great experience. Sorry you missed TaperBruce, though I must admit that I've mellowed just a bit during taper.
MTA:
She Can- Sorry I missed you the first time but you snuck in while I was composing. Thanks for reading the RR and for your kinds words.
Train smart ... race smarter.
Congrats on the PR. I was out cheering around mile 10 and then 18 so I probably saw you there but didn't know it. I hope to run this one some day myself.
Outstanding race, Bruce! Thanks for sharing the RR. Congrats on the PR & BQ, it has been great to see your progress throughout the year.
Go Illini!
Dave
Impressive race. You went for it, but still had the ability to back off a little at the end when you needed to. Congrats on the PR and BQ!
Life is good.
Congrats on the PR and a great race! Now that 3:18 and the 3:15 are going to be that much more fun when you get there!
Also, as a Collective Soles member, nice job on those 90+ weeks!
Another vote for running your next one as a fun run. There is a reason why world class athletes only race a couple of marathons a year - and they recover far, far better and faster than the rest of us mortals.
It's interesting to see the mental approach to this race. I'm reminded of when I ran my Boston qualifier. My goal was to go BQ-20 so I could register on the first day. That meant 3:10 or better. I was hoping to go sub 3:05. However, on race morning, it was 61 degrees with 100% humidity. Awful. I knew before the gun fired that 3:04:59 was out and just focused on getting the sub 3:10. Made it at 3:08:31. I have another marathon scheduled for November 10 and my goal in that one is 2:59:59. However, I honestly don't care if I blow up. If I'm forced to walk at Mile 22, so be it. I'm not planning on running Boston or any other marathon next year so I'm just going to throw caution to the wind and see what happens.
I think you ran a damn smart race BTW. You gave yourself a chance but you didn't push so hard that you were one of the walkers. I've seen a bunch of those and it ain't pretty.
Short term goal: 17:59 5K
Mid term goal: 2:54:59 marathon
Long term goal: To say I've been a runner half my life. (I started running at age 45).
Congrats on a well executed race.