White Mountain 1/2 Marathon

Today was the White Mountain 1/2 Marathon and my goal race for this fall. My plan before the race was to try and run 6:10 pace or better all the way. As the race went out (slowly) I took an early lead and paced the group through a 6:11 first mile. The course turned left onto West Side Drive where the majority of the miles were run. The first 1/2 has a gradual uphill grade to it and when I was driving the course before the run I was excited that the second half would be downhill enough to help maintain a steady rhythm. Anyway, after mile #1 I had one guy pull up behind my right shoulder and go with me for another 3/4 of a mile. We hit the first climb of the race and I put on a move; he didn't go. I ran the rest of the race by myself. Shortly after 8 miles the race comes back onto West Side Drive and runs in the opposite direction. I noticed at that point that there was a major headwind and I was on my own trying to cut through it. My effort went through the roof and my pace slowed. I ended up losing a lot of time because of it, but I was able to hang on for the lead and got my first official race win ever. It represented a PR by almost 4:00, and I think without the wind it would have been about 1:00 faster. Anyway, I am pleased. Here's the splits:

Mile 1- 6:11
Mile 2- 6:04
Mile 3- 6:02
Mile 4- 5:59
Mile 5- 6:11
Mile 6- 5:59
Mile 7- 6:10
Mile 8- 6:06
Mile 9- 6:24
Mile 10- 6:32
Mile 11- 6:26
Mile 12- 6:19
Mile 13- 6:11
Last 0.1- 0:40

Job well done to Rusty, Joel and Mark who all ran well. I think there was a pretty universal sense of displeasure with the wind, but overall a bunch of hard fought races for the whole crew.

Sharpening Workout

This was the last one before the White Mountain Half. I was pleased with how it worked out. Overall, the effort felt pretty easy. My legs were a tad heavy, but they felt great the following day. The plan was 4x1200m @ Tempo Pace but I couldn't run that slow. I ended up doing the 1200's at 10k pace. I feel ready. A couple more easy runs now. Here's the splis:

4:24, 4:23, 4:21, 4:22

Week of 10/25 - 10/31 (Race Week)

25- 6.65 (47:30)
26- 7.7 (55:20)
27- 8.5 w/track workout
28- 6.65 (47:30)
29- 5.1 w/Montgomery (36:40)
30- 4.65 (36:30)
31- 15 w/ White Mtn. 1/2 Marathon

Total- 54.25 miles

Final Tempo Run

This morning I did my last real hard workout before next weekend's goal race. I did an 11.5 mile run with the middle 6 miles at tempo pace. Needless to say, the run went very well as I averaged about 6:05 pace for the majority of the run. There were a couple miles where my pace varied by a few seconds; the third mile was a 6:08 split but that was the hilly mile, and the 5th mile was a 6:10 split but that whole mile was pretty much run through very loose sand and gravel and it was hard to bite in. Otherwise my splits were all 6:04 or better. It was a very encouraging workout and I feel like I am ready to fly next weekend.

Wednesday Workout

Today I went down to Keene again and did a workout with the guys down there. I had been thinking about doing 5 x 1 mile, but I ran out of daylight and time and I didn't want to miss the cool-down with everyone. I ended up doing 4 x mile which was good enough considering that I am only 10 days until my race. Anyway, my goal pace for the quality stuff today was 5:40. I had committed myself to doing at least 3 miles at that pace, then if I felt horrible I would switch to tempo pace for the last one or two. Clint did the first 2 1/2 miles with me, then he did the last lap of that third repeat. It was real nice having someone else with me to grind out those laps. The final rep I was all alone. Here's how the splits worked out:

5:33, 5:35, 5:31, 5:37

Kinda disappointed about the 4th rep. I think I lost my focus on the third lap which caused the whole thing to end up being a tad slower than the rest of them. It was hard to recover all that time on the fourth lap. Overall, I felt pretty comfortable. I really do enjoy mile repeats. I am pumped with this workout, and I definitely think that 80 minutes is doable at WMM. One more real good quality session on Friday, then a sharpening workout next week. Almost there.

Week of 10/18 - 10/24

18- 8.3 (60:00)
19- 10.4 (72:30)
20- 10 w/track workout
21- 8 (60:15)
22- 10.4 (78:20)
23- 11.5 w/6 @ Tempo Pace (79:20 total)
24- 12.2 (88:20)

Total- 70.8 miles

Race for the Fallen 5k

Today I ran the Race for the Fallen 5k in Manchester to support the Manchester Police Athletic League and those officers who gave the ultimate sacrifice. I had a blast seeing a bunch of cops from all over the state who I haven't seen in a while. I did a warm-up by running the course and noticed that it was very flat, but had a significant headwind on Elm Street which was probably 1.5ish miles of the course. At the start of the race I went out and was pretty quickly in 4th place. I had the lead for a short bit, but gave it up when I looked at my watch to discover I was running close to 5:00 pc. After we made a turn onto Willow Street I made a move on the guy in third and passed him convincingly. I went through the 1 mile mark in 5:26 and the guy in second was coming back to me by then. By the time we made the turn onto Queen City Ave I had passed that guy and stayed in second for the rest of the way. It was neat because although I was in second, I still had my own motorcycle escort. I passed through the two mile mark in 11:02 (5:36 split). By this point I was all alone and the wind was working on me pretty hard. I did what I could to stay in the 5:30 range for the final mile, but I was having a really hard go of it. I went through the 3 mile mark at a split of 5:50ish, then mustered whatever I had left for a finishing kick. My watch had me finishing at 17:36, but the official clock time had me at 17:38. I will split the difference with them and call it 17:37. I was second overall and first in my age division. I am real happy with how this turned out, and it was another huge confidence booster going into my last two hard weeks before White Mountain. A couple hard workouts left, then some rest.

1200m Workout

Today's workout was a little different. It was repeat 1200s, but it had a twist. The first 800m was slightly faster than tempo pace and the last lap of each repeat was done closer to I pace. This was Justin's final workout before his marathon on Sunday so it was really a tempo run+ for him. I ran mine a touch faster than tempo pace, but still got in a good quality workout on VERY little sleep. For the first 800m I was looking to run about 2:58, and the final lap of each rep I was shooting for 83 second laps. Interestingly, I ran 2:55 for the first 800 of each repeat, and I pretty much did 81 or 82 seconds except for the first rep which I did in 76. The goal was 5 repeats in about 4:20 each. After the 1200s were over I ran a hard 400m with Justin. The purpose of this was two-fold. 1) It allowed me to finish the workout on a real fast note, and 2) it gave me 4 miles exactly of quality running. I got in about 10.75 miles for the morning. Here were the splits:

4:11, 4:14, 4:16, 4:17, 4:16, 72

Good luck Justin on your marathon this weekend.

Week of 10/11 - 17

11- 8.05 (59:40)
12- 10.45 (76:20)
13- AM 10.75 w/track workout / PM 5.25 (40:30)
14- AM 8 w/Montgomery (55:25) / PM 6 (43:40)
15- 10.8 w/ Rusty (paced him on tempo run) + 5 hill strides
16- 6 (45:00, racing tomorrow)
17- 9.3 w/5k race (17:36)

Total - 74.6 miles

Interval Workout

I had the best of intentions of hitting the track this morning for some mile, 800 and 400m repeats. When I got up the weather was so terrible that I didn't dare go outside. Driving rain and strong winds kept me in the basement on the Sole F80 belt sander. I was planning on doing a fartlek/tempo workout, but once I got into it I quickly realized that it was a lot harder than I expected. I did a ladder workout with equal time rest to the fast intervals. The hard intervals were done at 5:39 pace, the easy/recovery stuff was done at 7:30 pace. Here is what I ended up with:

2+ mile warm-up

(1:00 hard/1:00 easy) , (2:00 hard/2:00 easy), (3:00 hard/3:00 easy), (4:00 hard/4:00 easy), (4:00 hard/4:00 easy), (3:00 hard/3:00 easy), (2:00 hard/2:00 easy), (1:00 hard/1:00 easy),

1 mile easy + 1 mile at 6:07 pc + 1 mile easy

Total distance on the workout was 11.4 miles. Total distance was about 3.5 miles at 5:39 pace (5K) and 1 mile at half-marathon pace. This was a ball buster on the treadmill, but I am very glad I got it done. Long tempo run in a couple days.

Week of 10/4 - 10/10

4- 8.1 (60:00)
5- AM 10.0 (76:00) / PM 5.25 (39:10)
6- 11.4 w/interval workout (78:00 total)
7- AM 7.05 (52:30) / PM 5.25 (39:50)
8- 11.7 w/Montgomery (79:10)
9- 9.25 (65:30)
10- 18.5 w/Montgomery (2:09:50)

Total - 86.5 miles

Chili Cook-Off 5K

This morning I ran the Chili Cook-Off 5K in Claremont for the first time ever. This race has been around for a while but I have never been available to run it. The goal for today was to run somewhere between 5:40 and 5:45 pc. With Justin not running I thought I may have a chance to win. As the race went out it was pretty quickly me and Neal Graves running for first. We were together for about a mile until he made a move on me. I didn't dare go fearing that I would blow up if I went a whole lot harder. He got about 20 yards on me and stayed there for most of the rest of the race. At two miles I got passed by one other guy who ended up finishing three seconds up on me. I ended up coming through in 17:28 overall which represents a 5:38 pace. I had no GPS and the miles were not marked so that was pretty much all by feel. This was a PR by 30 seconds and I felt like I ran close to my full potential for now. I am extremely pumped about how this went and it was a huge psychological boost coming into this final month before WMM half. Here we go!