Rhett

I broke out the new shoes tonight for my tempo run. I did 1 mile warm up at 8:00 then 9 miles at 6:40 on a treadmill at 1% incline. Around mile 5 my mind told me that I was done. It took me about a mile to convince myself that I was actually running at a comfortable pace that I could maintain for a long time. By mile 6 I had convinced myself and the rest was fairly easy. The new shoes were comfy!

Tomorrow I have to head to Palm Springs for CE. I have to be there for my first class at 8am so I have to leave here about 4:30. I haven't missed a day (Sundays not included) running since Painter's so I may get up early and get in a couple miles to wake myself up. I won't get home till about 10 tomorrow night. It'll be a long day.

2 easy miles at 3:30 am before heading out to Palm Springs for CE. It was a good way to wake up the body.

AP 7:55

I felt terrible this morning. I woke up with a cold with congestion, sore throat, etc. I'm just glad it is still 2 1/2 weeks till Boston. Ran 6 easy miles in some crazy wind.

AP 8:00 exactly, not even trying to hit 8.

Today was the Havasu Half. Burt from this blog who lives near Phoenix came and stayed at my home last night. It was nice to meet him in person. He is a very nice guy and was a great house guest. My wife ran her first half and my son ran the 5K. Doone (my wife) did great finishing in 2:03:25. I'd say that is pretty good for her first ever half and Chase ran a 26 min 5K and I think placed in his AG... not sure yet.

I was trying to use this a my final good training run for Boston, so I did no tapering or carb loading or anything. I went in shooting for marathon pace and was pretty disciplined for about the first 8 miles, but then the competitive juices started to flow and I went too fast. I hope I don't pay for that at Boston. Here are my splits.

1-6:24 too fast, but the first mile always feels slow

2-6:45 settling into a good pace

3-6:40

4- 6:43

5- 6:41

6-6:50 running into a strong head wind for the next 2 miles

7- 6:45

8- 6:52

9- 6:40 this was the turn around spot and I was in 6th place

10-6:21 feeling real good

11-6:19 passed the guy in 5th, next guy a good 1/4 mile ahead

12-6:14 closed the gap a bit, he was only about 150 yards ahead

13-5:54 passed the guy to more into 4th

.1-5:04 pace sprinted home feeling good

Total time 1:25:41 AP 6:32

It was a fun race and I felt like I had a lot left. I hope I didn't push to hard with Boston so close.

I wanted to get in a little speed work and a little hills work, so I broke out the old 2 1/2 min repeat workout on rolling hills. After a 5 min warmup I ran fast for 2 1/2 min. then jogged for 2 1/2 min. and I repeated it 11 times for a total run of 8 miles in 1 hour. I averaged about 6:20 pace on the fast part and 9:00 pace on the jog part. It was a nice easy way to get in some speed work and hills.

Four very easy miles I'll call a recovery run.

AP 8:26

I almost feel guilty only running 4 miles, but I'm tapering.

Treadmill 1% incline

1 mile warm up 8:00 This mile was the toughest mile of the whole run

6 miles at marathon pace 6:48 All 6 felt pretty easy

1 mile cool down 8:00

Over the last couple months I've been doing most my shorter tempo run on the treadmill and longer tempo runs outside. I've decided that it is takes a lot more effort to run on the TM at 1% incline than it is to run outside on fairly flat ground. Maybe it is that it is usually about 20 degrees warmer inside. I don't know, but all my longer tempo runs outside have felt way easier than my inside TM efforts. Good thing the marathon is outside.

4 very slow recovery miles.  AP 8:46

My legs felt terrible today.

I had 6 easy miles scheduled for today, but since I felt so tired all day yesterday I decided to take my first non-Sunday rest day since Painters today. I decided I would take today off when I kept falling asleep in a Welfare Training Mtg. last night. I'm thinking about cutting my scheduled 13 miler tomorrow back to 6 miles as well.

I decided to run 10 miles this afternoon. I ran the first 7 easy averaging around 7:50 then ran the last 3 at marathon pace averaging right around 6:50. My legs definitely still don't feel quite right. Good thing we still have 9 more days. I think I'll be ready by then. I've decided to keep next week really easy and will probably just run Mon, Wed and Fri. and nothing too hard. I'll probably do easy runs with some marathon pace strides mixed in.

The last few runs last work were not fun. They seemed hurt and felt like doing chores. This morning I finally started to get that happy, "I love running" feeling that I usually get when I run. It was a beautiful morning, 60 degrees, no wind and I was up early enough to see the sun rise up over the mountains and onto the lake. I think that helped. My legs felt a lot better today also.

Anyways I did an easy run with the first .2 to .25 miles of each mile after the first between 1/2 MP and MP. Rest day again tomorrow and the Wed I think I'll do the same run I did today except just 6 miles.

REST, AHHHHHH!

I'm trying to get a little extra sleep at night and boy does it feel good.

AND THERE WAS JOY IN RUNNINGVILLE!!!!

I loved my run this morning. I just wanted to keep running. It all felt good!!! I did 6 easy miles. After the 1st mile I did the first quarter of each mile at 1/2MP. I meant to do it at MP and I kept slowing myself down, but I just felt great today!!!

6 Miles AP 7:29

My legs are ready. Now if we can get the weather to cooperate, it will just depend on how mentally tough I am on race day.

I decided to take another rest day in hopes not to agrivate my PF. My foot finally feels good again today. Thank goodness, cause I couldn't even walk earlier in the week. I feel like I want to get out and run, but I keep reminding myself that it won't make any difference at this point and it could hurt my foot.

My race report starts with the Wednesday before Boston. I ran that morning and felt great, but later that day was really hampered some severe pain that I think was plantar faciaitis. I've dealt with PF before and decided I would just not run anymore till Sat in Boston. I stuck with that and thought it was getting better until I tried to run Sat. afternoon. I did a nice easy run along the river and pulled up a little short of 5 miles do to some intense pain. I hobbled back to the hotel and never thought I was going to get there. That night I went to the Sox game with Smooth and Mr. Smooth, Canyon, MarcE and TomSlick. We had a blast, but with each step I wanted to stop. I tried not to let it affect me, but it did. Sunday I thought it felt a tiny bit better, but maybe that was wishfull thinking. I almost skipped the pre-race dinner because I couldn't stand the thought of walking over to it. I'm glad I went with the gang though. We had a lot of fun. I spent Sunday night laying in bed, not being able to sleep, and praying a lot. I thought Monday morning it felt better, but by the time we walked to the busses it was hurting again. I took all the pain pills I thought was safe, hung out with the gang at the village, and then went a met up with MattK. We headed over to the corrall together. It was way cool being so close to the start. We crossed the starting line within 20 secs of the start and were off and running without doing the whole jogging/walking thing I've done in the past from a few corrals farther back. MattK and I ran the first half together and we were right on pace where we wanted to be. I tried not to think about my foot, but with each step there was sharp pain. At mile 2 we passed a lady holding a sign that said, "With God, anything is possible." Each time I wanted to quit due to pain, I used that as my montra. At the half way mark I realized that I had not been pushing off with my right foot so my left calf was doing all the work. I told Matt to go on ahead and get his Sub 3. (And he did! You'll have to read his report.) I backed off the pace, knowing that if I didn't I may not finish. It took me a few miles to mentally accept the fact that I wasn't going to get my goal, but that I should be super stoked that God allowed me to have the stregth to endure and hopefully finish the race and if I even finished I should be super happy. I kept repeating my montra from above. After coming to grips with not going sub 3 I started having a blast out there. I noticed things I had never seen before. I enjoyed running the Newton Hills. I high five many children and and fun with the crowd. At one point around mile 25 the foot pain hit an all time high and I thought I may be walking in, but it went back to where it had been. I did the airplane running down Boylston a few times and raised my arms in victory as I finished, slower than I would have liked, but still with a new Boston PR. My foot is close to a 10 on the pain scale, but the good news is since I didn't go all out on the second half the only muscle discomfort I have is my left calf which had to do twice the work. I'm going to the doctor tomorrow to figure out exactly what happened and what I need to do to get it better. Looks like I'll be rehabbing for a while. I had a blast at Boston this year! I am more than happy with my finishing time of 3:08:40 considering the circumstances. I think it is a small miracle that I was even able to run 26.2 miles.

I started my rehab training this morning.  I put on my shorty wet suite, found a rope (thanks Paul for the article which talked about tethering up for deep water running.  it really made it better.),put on my aqua jog belt, tied my rope on and then to the ladder, and jumped in the pool.  I warm up ran for 5 mins. then alternated 2 mins hard with 2 mins easy for 22 mins and then cooled down for 3 mins. 

Total run 30 mins, no clue how far, no milage on the shoes!  I think I will be able to do this.  It really felt a lot like running just without the pounding.  I even got into the mental zone of running a few times.  Hopefully I can keep up it for a month or how ever long this foot takes to get better.  I need to get back to my core training as well.

1 hour deep water running with a pretty consistent effort. I'll call it a long slow run.

Core Work

Water Running

5 min warm up

20 min hard

5 min cool down

I'll call it a tempo run.

Core work this morning

30 mins easy water running this evening. The kids were stoked since they got to go swimming. With the solar cover on for the past week the water was up to 88 degrees tonight, so I didn't have to wear my wet suite. It was very pleasant.

34 minutes water running

I tried to simulate a speed workout.  I ran 4 mins hard followed by 2 mins easy.  I did 6 sets.  I caught myself day dreaming about running for real on a track.  It is definitely harder to maintain a hard pace in the pool.  I have to keep reminding myself to push hard.