Spirit of the Marathon - Training

As I said, I went to see Spirit of the Marathon. The story of six runners, two elites, two novices, one trying for Boston, and one senior. The movie is inspiring, but I would say this is mainly a runner movie. Unless someone has some connection to running, this would probably be a boring movie.
I've been continuing my training for the marathon. Friday, I ran 10 miles at marathon pace (8:30) on the N. River trails. I struggled a little at the beginning, but after about 3 miles it wasn't a problem. Today, I had plans on doing 20 miles, but only did 17. I have been having a problem with my shoes bumping my right ankle bone. I spoke to a doctor that runs with us about it, and at first he thought I might have ankle problems, but then just agreed with me that it's my shoes. I'm going to have to solve this problem if I expect to run long.

Trails and Intervals

Yesterday I decided to do an easy trail run. I belong to the Oklahoma City Trail Runners and they ran these trails this weekend. I had other commitments, so I didn't run with them. I ran the green trail at lake Draper. It's around 6 miles, but they've changed the course after all the damage done by our Dec. ice storm. Anyway, I finally figured how to finish and get out. I ran for just over an hour at a moderate pace.
Today I had 10 400m x 1:35 (6:20/mile pace) with a 2 minute rest. I had no trouble running these, and ran the last 400 at a 6 minute mile pace just to see if I could. Everything else seems to be going well.
Tomorrow I'll be going to see "The Spirit of the Marathon." I'll give my opinion in the next couple of days.

More on Training

Saturday I ran 8 miles with the running club. I ran it at about an 8:50 pace. Yesterday I ran 14 miles with a group going to Austin. Like I said before, their marathon is the same weekend as mine. We ran a new route for me, a trail that runs between the two major lakes here. It's a nice little run, and when it gets warmer, I'll probably spend more time getting long distances there. I ran the 14 at around a 9:30 pace. This morning I decided to do a tempo run called for by my Furman program. I did 10 miles at marathon pace, 8:30, on the S. river trails. Things seem to be going well, especially since it's been pretty cold here lately, below freezing for all the runs.

This Week in Training

As I said, I'm more or less following the Furman marathon program. I have modified it because I am training for both a marathon and an ultra marathon. Tuesday, I ran 3 x 1 mile intervals at a 7:00 pace. Wednesday, I ran 5 miles easy as a recovery run. At the time we were transitioning from unusually mild weather to a cold rainy/sleet/snowy spell. The precipitation didn't last long, but the cold is here to stay for a while. Today, I will probably do a tempo run of 10 miles at 8:30 pace. I'm going to find out how I do on a long run in this kind of weather this weekend. The low for both Saturday and Sunday is going to be in the low teens, and I will be running a plus 20 miler on Sunday. At least I will start out to run more than 20.

Training & Schedule

I am currently training for the Lost Dutchman Marathon.
Yesterday (Sunday Jan 13th) I ran 14 miles on the S. River trail with another group from the running club. They are training for the Austin Marathon which is the same weekend. We ran around a 9:00 pace. Saturday I ran 6 miles with the Oklahoma City Marathon training group. That was their first training run, so I used it for a tempo run. I am following the Furman first to finish program and it called for me to do a 6 mile run at a 7:50 pace. I felt good after both runs. So good that it makes me wonder am I peaking right now. But I hope it's just me getting into shape.
After the marathon I'm going to run my first 50 miler.

Finishing up the beginnings

Picking up on the rest of my marathons and ultras, my next marathon after Tulsa, was the Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon. By now I thought I was beginning to get the hang of this long distance running thing. I trained for OKC, and on race day I thought I had a chance to beat 4:00. I started with the 3:50 pace group and did well until mile 17. It was hot that day, and I hit the wall early. It was my worse finish to date. 4:22. After that, I did the Marathon to Marathon in Iowa June '07 (4:18), the New Mexico Marathon in Albuquerque Sept '07 (4:14) and finally back to Tulsa in Nov. '07 and I broke 4 hours (3:59), and for the first time didn't hit the wall.
I decided to do my first Ultra in Oct' 07. I ran the Palo Duro 50k in Palo Duro Canyon outside of Amarillo TX. I won't go into the details, but I finished in 6:20 and enjoyed the race. I did my second 50k at Sunmart in Huntsville state park, about 60 miles north of Houston. I did better, pushed harder and enjoyed it again, finishing in 6:08. That more or less brings you up to date. I've done many shorter races, but if you want to read about them, read back at my myspace blog. Next entry, I will let you know about my training, and what races I have scheduled for this year.

Continuing to catch up

First I realize that most of you reading this are following a myspace link. But if there are any here that have found me through other methods, should you care to read my old blogs, feel free to go to my myspace profile and look to the upper right for blog links.

Picking back up from my first year of racing, I started racing 5 and 10k's on a regular basis. I would occasionally finish top 3 in my age group, but not often. Then I started thinking about doing a marathon. I decided to make the '06 Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon my first one. I started training with the OKC running club. Things were going pretty well until I decided to run 10 miles around Lake Hefner as fast as I could. About one mile from the finish, my right knee felt like it was on fire. I thought it was a cramp, and would go away in a day or two. No such luck. This is when I learned what ITB Syndrome was. After reading up on it, I decided to make sure I was over it, so I didn't run for a month. But I kept my fitness up by using an elliptical. I couldn't run the marathon, but I then decided to make the '06 Tulsa Route 66 Marathon my first one. My training went well, and I ran it in Nov. of '06. I was shooting for 4 hours and doing well until mile 21. I hit the wall and had to walk run from there. I finished around 4:14 chip, and wasn't too disappointed. In the next one or two posts, I'll finish with how I got to 5 marathons and 2 ultras. And what I'm training for now.

Catching up a bit - My first year of running

I said at the beginning of this blog that I would let you know bit by bit where I am and how I got here. At the start of '08 I had completed 5 marathons and 2 ultramarathons, both 50k's. I ran my very first race in May of '05. I was 52 years old, and had done most of my training on a treadmill. I started running because I knew I needed to do something to be more active. My first race was called the Kolache 5k. It was not a well organized race, but I ran it because I knew there wouldn't be many people there, and probably almost no one would know me. I also thought that because it was small, I would have a chance to get an award. We started and I was running too fast. I had to stop and walk for a short bit, but as soon as I saw someone coming up behind me, I started running again. I finished, and they told me my time was 18: something. I still have the newspaper article to prove it. And at the time I didn't know any better. But I did know that the winners were talking about the course being short. I now know that it was very short, because the first certified 5k I ran my time was closer to 24 minutes. But I did medal at this little race, and thankful that it encouraged me to continue running. After that, I ran a few more obscure races, usually top 3 in my age group. Then I ran a big race in Midwest City OK, and ran into a friend that I didn't know runs. He encouraged me to join the Oklahoma City running club and I did. That introduced me to training with others and outdoors. I will end for now, and bring you up to date in future blogs. Thanks for taking the time to stop by.

First Race of the year

Today I ran the Resolution Run 5k. It was cold and windy. Colder than I thought it would be and I underdressed a bit. The race started and I was running close to a 4:15/k pace. I hit the halfway turn around and was then running into the wind. I started fading fast and realized that I had gone out way too fast. My pace slowed down to around 5/k and I was doing all I could to not stop and walk. But I guess everyone was about the same because no one was passing me. I finished in 22:44 and was dissapointed by the time, but it's the first race of the year.

A New Year, A New Blog

I've decided to start a blog here on blogger. I've been blogging on myspace, but may drop that one because of all the crap that goes on there. I will really be starting this as if I've just started running. But I've been running for about two years. Last year I did achieve more than the year before, but I will cover that in other posts. For now; Hello and Happy New Year.