^^ 

Had a good 8x400 workout on Sunday, averaging under 81 seconds with 2:40 rest and less than 2 seconds between fastest and slowest.  Also finished March as my third straight month with a new mileage high.  Unfortunately, on Thursday my right upper hamstring, which kept me on the shelf for three months in 2018, started hurting when I was doing strides before a planned short tempo.  I jogged a few more miles instead, as it seemed ok at an easy pace, but I stopped when I felt the hamstring again. On Friday’s easy run, the leg felt odd for the first mile - discomfort seemed to be moving around from the hamstring to the quad to the hip, and it felt almost like a bone movement issue rather than a muscle/tendon one.  Felt ok for the next several miles, but when I was less than a mile from my planned finish, the hamstring started feeling sore again, so I stopped. Hope resting today will help; if not, I’ll stick to easy running for a day or two.

In covid news, the governor issued a stay in place order for the state, but it wasn’t much more restrictive than what our mayor had already imposed for the city, so running is still ok.  Tomorrow I’m going to try running wearing a thin neckwarmer over my face as a sort-of-mask. Our city/county of 200,000 has been lucky so far - only 33 cases, per capita less than a third of the state average.  I hope that’s not just because of a lack of testing.  The city 80 miles away where I ran my half PR last year has been hit really hard - 600+ cases in a county of 90,000, and a higher death rate per capita than NYC.  Our son was bummed that the rest of his school year will be online, but he realizes that his friends who are seniors have it worse, as they'll miss out on their graduation and other ceremonies.

Sun - 6.5 miles including 8x400 @ 80.7 w/2:43 rest

Mon - 7.3 miles easy @ 8:46

Tues - 10.4 easy to moderate @ 8:23

Weds - off

Thurs - 6.7 including strides; had planned short tempo, but R upper hamstring hurt

Fri - 6.5 easy @ 8:14; stopped early when R upper hamstring started hurting

Total - 37.4 miles

12/26/52-week averages - 43/36/35 mpw

Flavio, Me being Catholic and all, been saying lots of prayers for you all over there.  I get a fair amount of things in my news feed like the town that had 6 priests die.  Don't know how religious anyone here is, but sending good intents that everyone stays healthy (COVID and Shopping cart wise).

Take care of the leg, James.  I did 10x400 with 400 jog this week too.  You were a bit quicker than me on the laps, but I too was feeling them the next day.

Piwi- Nice week.  I think the 5k and 10k eventually update on the last day of the month to your fastest time right?  I thought they did.

Way to work back into it Mark.  Our city just announced it will not be turning on water fountains all summer. So our 2 months of 85+ heat should be fun.  

 

 

Brew ah the non running leg injury. I injured the top of my foot putting my socks on last year 

 

To add insult to injury I've RE-injured it doing automotive work with all this free time I have. Next I'll probably injure it doing home repairs. Which means my 50 mile run will be on and I'll have to drop out before I even start because I never let my tendon heal. I think I reinjured it getting out of my Jeep and had to stretch a little too far down to the ground (it's lifted 4 inches, or approximately 10 cm) and I'm not the tallest at 172 cm. My own damn fault for wanting to occupy my free time staying at home. Yeah I'm one of those "off road/jeep people" who believes I can socially distance from society exploring the outdoors. Much like road runners adventuring into trails.

dwave your comment about "all these over use injuries" coming soon was HILARIOUS. I started thinking about all the treadmill "30 minutes a day" runners going out in their gym shoes doing 30 minutes a day on roads, or longer, because it's nice out and they've always wanted to explore the area. I'm the same person, but on trails.

DPS I bet they did it to discourage groups of larger than 10 gathering in public places. What better way to keep people at home than to eliminate any reason to go outside.

After the knee pain last week, I was legitimately concerned and discouraged. Took it easy last Sunday...and that was wise. Decided to just run easy/comfortable all week with no speedwork.

M - 9 miles

Tu - 11.25 miles...ended up comfortably pushing the whole way, pain free (7:42 pace)

W - 10.5 miles - same as Tuesday

Th - 6.5 miles recovery

F - 8.25 miles w/ 10x100m strides

Sa - 17 miles, fasted run, kept it easy and weighed in. Maintained over the last month of craziness, so I'm happy

Su - 5 miles recovery

Total 67.5 miles

Have eaten like trash all weekend, so ready to reset on Monday and hopefully feel some normalcy in at least one part of my life this week.

All sports channels which still exist are showing nothing but flashbacks at the moment and given our lack of racing I've decided to get into the same spirit and post flashbacks to some of our races from years past...interesting to read actually, knowing how subsequent years have gone...

First up, Corey at the Kiawah Island Marathon on December 8, 2018 with a great performance...

MY RACE REPORT

First I want to start by saying this was my second marathon my first one was back in 2011. As a Preface to that early in January of 2010, I rolled off the couch and decided to run a 5k which I "trained" for and ran in March that same year finished in 28xx. As soon as I ran that 5k race I decided I wanted to run a Marathon, so I picked a local one in February of 2011 and signed up for it, then I got back on the couch and waited until September 2010 to start "training" again.  I look back at the "training" I did for that marathon and I am surprised that I was even able to complete it,but I did in 4:25:21 my goal for that race was to finish in 4:25:00 which I did not do.  I came up 21 seconds short and crossed the finish line behind a 70+ yo guy wearing a cowboy hat and I swear he was wearing cowboy boots too....

I always knew I would run another one because I was not happy that I missed my goal by 21 seconds.

Fast forward

2015 when I started to get the running bug again I ran about 450 miles that year

2016 I increased my dedication and logged right at 1000

2017 I had a slight setback due to illness and non running related injury and managed right at 700 most of that started in August.

In 2018 YTD I have logged 2009.3 miles and renewed my dedication 1983.1 miles were in preparation for this race.

I initially set my goal for this race at sub 3:30:00 which I thought was possible based on a HM time earlier in the year and thought this would also give me a BQ time for 2020. Well we all know that target moved by 5 minutes later in the year and I was forced to reevaluate what my target would be.

At the end of the day I figured I might as well go for the BQ so my target was set at sub 3:25:00 and I pushed harder in my training.

About 6 weeks ago I was chatting with a guy on Strava we had both just completed a HM and commented that it was in prep for a Marathon after some discussion we realized we were both training for the same Race and we were both targeting 3:25 to qualify for Boston and decided we would meet up and try and run together.

race week

I had taken Vacation day from work on Friday in order to make the 4 hour drive to the Island without arriving too late at night. I got down there and got my packet picked up parked my car at our Villa. (I stayed on the island this year, from experience of year past, staying off the island is a logistics nightmare having to park miles away and catch one of the shuttle busses to the start line so you either get up at 3am and make the 45 min drive to the island and arrive way to early or risk missing the start of the race.)

I arrived about 2pm picked up my bib then I got dressed and went on a short 3 mile run to loosen up after the drive down. I finished up and went to meet Larry after he picked up his packet, we compared our race plans and decided we would at least line up and start the race together near the 3:25 pacer and see where it went from there. My wife arrived later that evening (she had to work Friday) and we went out for a quick dinner and back to the Villa to rest up, I was in bed by 9pm.

Race morning I was up and able to wake up go through my normal routine only being a half a mile from the starting line, I was not rushed and had no stress of getting up too early rushing around etc.

I had been monitoring the weather leading up to the race almost obsessively checking it multiple times daily to see what it was doing as initially there was a storm moving in and it was supposed to start heavy rain at 8am and continue on through the race. Fortunatley we only got a few sprikles prior to the start but the major rain held off until the race was ove so other than some cloudcover the weather was great

I got a text from Larry saying he had arrived so I finished up and headed on over to meet up with him. I asked my wife to meet us over at the starting line so I could give her my jacket since I wanted to keep it on while we were waiting and ran a short warm up. We got back to the starting line and she was no where in sight I looked for her in the crowd but was getting close to the start and had to make my way to the 3:25 pace group. National anthem finished up still no sign of her so I decided I needed to drop the jacket and hid it behind a palm tree and got back over near my pacer.

A few moments later and the gun goes off and we are on the way.

Miles 1 2 and 3 rolled off fairly quickly. (7:59,7:45, 7:48)

Not that there are a large number of participants but we get off to a very slow start

weaving in an out of people the first quarter mile. Somewhere around the half mile mark we lost the pacer he had dropped slightly back maybe 50 meters.  We decided just to hold our own pace and just pushed forward at a steady pace

Miles 4 and 5 were pretty “fast” at (7:39, 7:38.)

Just after mile 3 the pacer flew past us he must have been moving at a 6:40 pace and was quickly 60 -70 meters I don’t know if that pushed us a bit but these two miles were pretty fast.

Miles 6 - 9 (7:40,7:43,7:48, 7:47)

We turned into a slight head wind at mile 6 but nothing that impacted our effort or pace. We also got to see the lead runner just before mile 7 as there was turn around at about 8.5 he was moving pretty fast finishing in 2:24x I was still comfortable with no issues at this point.

Miles 10 -12 (7:41,7:45,7:51)

Mile 10 came and went but I got my first taste of “pain” in mile 11. I often have issue with the joints in my two big toes and felt the first sign of “pain” somewhere in mile 11. feels like pins and needles being stuck in my joints  this usually limits my ability to push off.

Mile 13 -15 (8:00,7:40,7:50)

Mile 13 was one of the slowest as I stopped at the aid station to get a good drink of water take a pain pill to try and help with my toes (this helped some be was a struggle the rest of the race) got back on pace miles 14 and 15.

Miles 16-20 (7:49,7:46,7:40,7:47,7:47) these miles for the most part just clicked off I was trying to stay focused on Larry who was moving slightly ahead 10 to 15 meters but I kept reeling him back in to 2-3 meters. Somewhere around mile 17 I almost had a major mishap. most of the race was run on the streets but a large portion was on paved pathways that range from 4-7 ft wide and were fairly cury and uneven in some cases. Anyway in my attempt to cut the corner and remain as straight as I could, I got my left foot slightly off the path and rolled my ankle a bit.  I let out a very loud *&$&*! but fortunately I was able to get my right foot on the ground quickly to support my body weight and survired with little impact to the race but a very sore ankle Saturday night and Sunday after the adrenaline wore off.

As I cross mile 20 I had a check here Target was 2:36:44 I came across about 1 minute ahead so I knew I did not have much time to play with I could not fade and had to maintain my pace.

Mile 21-25 (7:39,7:43,7:47,7:44,7:59)

I was still battling the pain in my toes but I kept my eyes focused on the pacer and Larry who was still slightly ahead of me. and kept pushing. Mile 22 I got to see my wife as I ran down the path in front of the Hotel on the beach and this gave me a good boost to be able to see her.

Mile 26-26.2 (7:29,6:33) I knew at this point that I was not going to hit any walls there would be no fade in my pace and I was going to hit my target. I just wanted to have a strong finish and kept pushing the pace though mile 26 which ended up being my fastest mile after I hit the 26 mile mark I know there are only 2 turns and then the finish line and start to make my final push to the finish. I make the final turn and see the finish I see the clock 3:22x I see Larry who had pulled a few seconds ahead cross the line 3:22:56 and then hear my wife yelling for me I know I am going to reach my goal and push harder to get to the line.. I raise my hands and cross the line in 3:23:07 Larry is waiting for me and we exchange some high fives knowing we meet the BQ standard.

I am extremly happy there was no “wall” no muscle fatigue, I did not fade and I was able to maintain a consistent pace through the entire race.

could not be happier!