Monday, December 17, 2012

Getting ready for Track

Getting ready for the first BU mini meet of the year, gonna keep the milage around 45-50 for the next few weeks and focus on speed and track work for the rest of the month. See if I can run a decent mile and 3k before Abbey and I go to Hawaii in January.

Monday 12/10- Easy 5 miles. felt good.

Tuesday - track work. 2x800 4x400 half rest. This was my first time doing work at 3k-mile pace in a while so I decided to keep the work load pretty low today. 2:26 2:30 70 71 71 68. The fast work certainly felt like a shock to the system, but I was pretty happy with how the work out went. My guess is the next one should feel a bit better.
2 miles warm up 2 mile cool down. 7 mile total.

Wednesday-easy 7 with Tucker. Feels so good to have hunting season be over. I always try to wear bright colors and put as much orange on tuck as I can, but it sure feels nice to be out there and not have to think about hunters at all.

Thursday-easy 7 with Abbey. funspot loop, felt really sluggish today.

Friday- easy 4 miles while my I was getting my winter tires put on the Yaris.

Saturday- BU mini meet 9:18 3k and 4:45 mile

Felt great in the 3k, I got out nice and easy and just tucked in on the inside rail and told myself to stay there and run 37's. There were a few guys in my heat trying to do the same thing, so we packed up and I just tried to stay comfortable. Everything felt great til 10 laps in and then it started getting a bit harder. I held it together slowing down to 38's for a couple laps and then kicked a 33 to finish out the race. Thanks to Greg Hammett for the splits.

The mile, was a bit tougher. I felt pretty comfortable the first 800 in 2:20, but I was hoping to be closer to 2:18, I hoped to be able to close, but just wasnt able to change gears as I got further into the race. Had a weak last lap or two, and was kicking myself afterwards for not bearing down and giving a good last lap.

Overall this was a pretty good day though, Very encouraged by the 3k, because I felt super in control the whole race, even when it started getting harder toward the end. Looking forward to being a bit more aggressive next week and trying to take off some more time. Got in about 10 miles total with WU/CD

Sunday- easy 4 miles. Abbey's calves and mine were killing us after racing in spikes on the track, so we just ran an easy half hour. Felt good after my calves loosened up, but we decided to just keep it short.

Week Total: 44 This has been about my average week since the marathon, and i've been racing well off that. I know I need to start bumping it up again though before I get too used to running 40's every week. Hopefully around 60 next week.

Monday, December 10, 2012

Back to the Blog

Hey guys I know it's been a while. I've had a handful of races since the wedding including a failed marathon attempt. I'll try to go through em pretty succinctly just to bring you all up to date. I guess it doesn't really matter, there isn't too much interesting about any of it but here we go.

Let's see the week after the wedding we went down and ran a race hosted by the Merrimack XC and Track teams. Abbey and I got our first win as "Newlywoods". We got that one from my 6 year old neice. I ran a solo 16:51 and felt pretty good about my fitness for the marathon.

We rested up until the marathon and I felt pretty confident. The morning of the race came and it was windy, but not too cold. I felt pretty comfortable getting in a nice pack of guys looking to go around 2:50. Felt great through 10, in 65:40 and through half in 1:25:20 and then not long after that I started slowing down like crazy by mile 15 I was running 8:30's. I gave it a mile or two more to see if I could recover and get going again, I scarfed down a GU and hoped I'd get going, but no. I just struggled and by about 17 I'd given up and started walking. I walked until I could catch a ride with Abbey's dad around mile 19. I felt pretty horrible dropping out, but I knew I was saving myself recovery time so it wasn't too tough a decision. Abbey ended up running a great race for the amount of training she'd done and finished up in 3rd for the second year in 3:07.

The week after the Marathon Abbey and I decided to go run a little road race in Franklin. I had a nice race with Scott Clark right up to the line. Another Double win for the Woods.

Wanted to run Club NE's for cross, wound up running pretty shitty, 29:10 or something. I got out a little too fast probably and struggled, I also had to stop to tie my shoe which didn't help at all either.

Thanksgiving I had a good 5k. We have been going down to the Portsmouth Turkey Trot for the past couple years and really enjoy it. It's got a great course, with some ok hills in the first half but you are rewarded with a mostly downhill second half which makes for a pretty good time if you race hard. I wound up running a 16:41 which was a seasonal PR, so I was pretty happy.

I ran Mill Cities Relay with GCS on the Co-Ed team which was a lot of fun. Got to catch up with a bunch of friends, and meet some new people. Unfortunately I wasn't very happy with how I ran. I was the first leg and I think I was about 14th or so, and I went through 5 miles around 29:04. I probably could have run faster, but I had no idea how competitive the Co-Ed division was gonna be and thought I'd be able to coast it. By the time I realized how competitive it was gonna be It was too late for me to get the juices flowing I guess.

This past Saturday I got back at it and ran a 16:27 for my first time cracking 16:30 since 2009. I was pretty happy with this and felt like it was a corner for me fitness wise. The course had no splits so I have no idea how it broke down, and I guess that's just as well. I know I got out pretty hard, and then got caught by Connor Jennings at around the mile. I tried to hang with him, and was able to keep him with in 10 meters until about a mile to go when I started falling off. I was able to convince myself that I had a good time going and to keep pushing for the finish. Despite almost being hit by a car with 400 to go, I was able to finish up strong for 2nd place 12 seconds behind Jennings.
I love this course and haven't gotten a chance to race it since 7th grade, but they had some serious traffic problems. they had a crossing guard at the intersection that actually had stop signs, but just beyond that there is an intersection with two lanes of traffic and no stop signals at all, that runners were forced to navigate with no one stopping traffic, I had to take the gamble that this car would see me and sprint out in front of him with my arm out. As I got into downtown, the traffic was backed up and I again had to work my way through that traffic to get to the finish.
Everything else about the race was great, and I had a lot of fun, but I'm hoping they can find a way to close downtown for the race next year.

Looking forward I'm just gonna run some of the BU mini meets for the next few weeks and then run some miles through January while Abbey and I take our honeymoon to Hawaii.

Friday, October 19, 2012

Wedding Week! 10/7/2012

Monday- Hilly 11 miles 65 minutes. I didn't feel like this run was too hard, but my legs started getting sore that night after the run.

Tuesday- Woke up this morning and could hardly get down the stairs. I just had those super sore, can't walk quads. All day at work I kept having my quad lock up on me and I'd start to fall backwards and have to catch myself. Ridiculous. I did manage to get in an easy 5 miles that day still which felt better than walking actually.

Wednesday- Legs were still completely beat, I began to worry about them not recovering by the wedding. I kept  Imagining walking out and doing one of those drop steps when my leg locks up on me. The 5 miles the day before weren't easy so I decided to do laps of the main loop at Ahern Park with Tucker. It's about a 1.5 mile loop and I took it a lap at a time, and before I knew it I was at 9.5 miles.

Thursday- Abbey and I did an easy 8 miles. Legs still felt like trash, I was still worried, wondering if the 9.5 yesterday was a bad idea.

Friday- Finally the legs are better! I can walk again! In celebration I spent the whole day cleaning for all the company we were having over the weekend. 0 miles.

Saturday- easy 8 miles with Goupil and Najem. Ran out in Sanbornton near the reception site.

Sunday- Super hectic morning, but I still managed to squeeze in 9.5 with Goup and Pete before the wedding.

Week Total- 50 miles. Pretty happy with that for my wedding week.

Sunday, September 30, 2012

Running Week Ending 9/30

Monday- 0. I should have run this day, but I was really busy.

Tuesday- 10 miles. I ran 7 with Abbey and Tucker out on the Lib Hill trails. We were thinking about going up Mt. Whiteface, but I spaced it and ran right past the trail. It was a good thing we missed it though, because it was pitch black as we were coming out of the woods. Another half hour out in the woods, would have kinda sucked. When we got home I decided to go out for another few miles. I felt great today though, I noticed going up the hills on the trails that I was snappy, and driving and feeling strong. When I got home I decided to go out for a few more miles, and wound up with another 3 at about MP.

Wednesday-10.5 miles. Made it up Mt. Whiteface this time, and came back down the way I came, instead of finishing out the loop. Felt good.

Thursday- 3 miles am, 9 miles pm. 2 mile warm up and then ran 3x2 miles on the roads. 11:32 11:43 11:24. Ran this on the 10k course I ran this weekend, which has marked miles. Just jogged off 4 minutes between sets. That second set had a pretty good hill.

Friday-0 Have I mentioned that I'm getting married in a week?! I spent the day getting a bunch of projects done around the house before we have company arrive this week.

Saturday- Easy 5 with Abbey and Tucker on some nice trails out in Center Harbor. Good run.

Sunday- Tanger Outlet 5k- 1st 18:00. Easy win today, still wanted to run a bit faster, but I was taking it easy, and the second mile was all up hill. 2 mile warm up, mile cool down. 6 mi total.

Week Total: 43.5- Ugh! I really wanted to get more miles in this week but I have plenty of time to run miles and only one more week now til the wedding so we'll just see how this next week goes.

Saturday, September 22, 2012

Week Ending 9/24 and The Take Opeechee 10k

Monday- Easy 10 miles down in Durham. Ran the Sweet trail out to Long Marsh. I felt good.

Tuesday- Easy 8 miles with Abbey. It was warm with a light rain, we started out fairly easy and were moving pretty well by the end of the run.

Wednesday- Hilly 11 miles.  Went up Whiteface for the first time in a while, I'd forgotten how nice it was up there.

Thursday- 5x1600 with 400 rest. 5:40, 5:43, 5:36, 5:30, 5:18
This work out went well, I got a good warm up in, took my time doing some stretching and drills, then striders before getting started. I felt pretty relaxed through most of the work out, and focused on keeping a good stride rate and moving fast with out pushing too hard. I got a little carried away on that last repeat, but I felt good so I decided to just keep pushing. When you work out by yourself it's rare to feel good, so ya gotta capitalize when you can. 10 miles total with warm up and cool down.

Friday- Easy 4 miles with Tucker up at the Prescott Farm fields.

Saturday- Take Opeechee 10k. Easy win in 35:58. I don't remember my splits exactly, but i went through 2 miles around 11:40, 3 miles in 17:30, 4 miles in 23 something. 5 miles in 29:10 and 6 miles at 34:50, with a 68 for the last .2. Felt pretty good, just trying to run a respectable time, which turned out to be a bit harder than I expected. 9 miles total.

Sunday- Easy 17 miles. Ran 10 by myself and another 7 with Abbey. Felt ok, some spots really good and some not so great.

Week Total: 69 miles. This is my highest week in almost 4 years. Feelin pretty good.

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Week Ending 9/16

Monday- After Sunday's calf troubles I decided to take Monday off and just got in a lot of walking. My Achilles was snapping loudly every step I took all day though, and my calf was really tight. I did a little massage later in the evening to loosen it up.

Tuesday- 7 miles easy. I was a little nervous about how far I wanted to go today, but decided to do the funspot 7 miler which has a couple bail options.

Wednesday- 10x400 meters half rest. I did a 2.5 mile warm up and got into the work out. I was trying to run 75-70 depending on how I was feeling. I started out at 75 73 74 75 74 75 74 73 73 69 I was getting worried when I started slowing down by the 4th repeat. I tried to relax and remind myself that if I can cruise 75's comfortably then that's perfect. Being able to hammer 70's doesn't really do much for me when i won't be running anywhere near that pace until indoor season anyway. Once I relaxed about it the work out felt pretty good. After cool down I had about 8 miles.

Thursday- Just an easy couple miles with my little sister today. Trying to take it easy before RTB this weekend.

Friday- Didn't run until around 7 pm. Leg 9. 6:10's for 6.5 miles.

Saturday- 8.5 miles at 4 AM around 7:00 pace. Next Leg was around 1pm. 4.1 miles at 6:00 pace.

Sunday- Hiked Belknap and Piper with Abbey in the afternoon. Nice day.

Week Total- 36 miles this week. Wanted to take it easy after the calf scare last weekend. Things seem to be good though, so it's back to the milage this week.

Saturday, September 8, 2012

Week Ending 9/9

Monday- Great 14.5 miles with Scott McGrath. Pretty fast first 10 miles about 65 minutes and then after a water break we meant to run another 35 but I was dying so we cut it back a few minutes earlier for 1:37 total. Good day.

Tuesday- Easy 6 miles with Abbey and the Olafsens out on the Liberty Hill trails. A little weird doing a Tuesday run with out the T-man there. He'll be back in action soon though.

Wednesday- easy 7 before work

Thursday- Work out 5x1 mile at half marathon pace w/400 rest. after a 2 mile warm up It took me a lap or two to warm up and get going in this work out so my first mile was a little slow. but overall the whole thing went ok.

1-5:53
2-5:47
3-5:43
4-5:39
5-5:36
I had kinda wanted to keep these closer to 5:40 pace through out, but I felt stronger the further into the work out I got. I probably should have done one more to cancel out that 5:53, but oh well. I'm not really sure what I'm at for half pace right now, but this workout felt pretty good and is reinforced by my 1:13 half, where I had pretty similar splits for the first first five miles. I did about a mile and a half cool down and headed home.

Friday- easy 5 miles pre race.

Saturday- Jail Break 5k in Laconia-1st 17:21

A nice easy win for a $200 pay day this weekend. Awesome! I was so pumped. I was by myself from the start and was able to just cruise along comfortably for the whole race. Felt great. I was also happy with the race because back in April I had race my ass off to run a 17:20, and today it felt really easy. Abbey also won her race comfortably and so it was a great day!

Sunday- 17 mile long run was planned, I mapped out a great hilly loop, that went out to Ellacoya State Park and then climbed up Cumberland rd through the acres and back to Laconia on Cherry Valley road. I managed most of the loop. Around 6 or 7 miles I started to feel some real tightness in my calf. I kept running on it through mile 8 and it still wasn't feeling good. I thought about turning back here and avoiding the hills, but after stopping for some water at Ellacoya I decided to finish the loop I'd set out to do. The 9th mile climbs up through the acres and by the time I got up to the top of the hill at mile 10 my calf was really feeling shitty. I just took it easy, but the downhills to get back down to Cherry Valley weren't helping either. By the time I got to mile 12 whatever was going on with my calf was breaking my stride and I wound up walking the last half mile to Patrick's Pub where I'd stashed a water bottle. I got some water and started running but it wasn't happening. I walked over to a marina down the road and gave a call to my little sister who came and gave me a ride home. It would have been a long walk home if she wasn't around. Abbey was out with her mom for the day so I would have been on my own. I'm not really sure what happened on this run, it feels like a strain sort of, it's not the whole calf that hurts, but just one muscle that's been killing me. It feels a bit better today (tuesday) but yesterday it hurt just walking all day long. We'll just see what's happening.

Week Total: Besides the failed long run on sunday this was a good week. I would have had 65 if I'd finished up, but instead I got 61.

Monday, September 3, 2012

Week Ending 9/2

Monday- Easy 10 by myself.

Tuesday- Easy 8 with Abbey, The Olafsen's and the Goslings in Meredith. Tucker was exploring a culvert pipe and wound up catching his butt on a sharp spot and giving himself a two inch gash. We were halfway through the run so we had to finish up with it wide open. didn't bleed too too much, but we had to get him stitched up the next morning.

Wednesday- 6 mile easy in the AM with Abbey. I meant to get another 6 in before work, but I was caught up with Tucker and his stitches and couldn't get it in.

Thursday- Work out- 2mile(800 rest) 2x800 (400rest) 4x400 (200 rest) 11:16, 2:38, 2:38, 74, 74, 74, 74 9 miles total.

Friday- easy 5 miles.

Saturday- 3 mile warm up then Keene Alumni 5k 18:44, mile cool down. I'm not sure what to take from this work out I guess I just gave up after going out too fast. It was a bit embarassing but oh well we'll see how the next one goes.

Sunday- 10 miles easy.

week total: 55 miles. I was supposed to run about 10 more miles this week, screwed up by wussing out on my cool down and not getting in my second run wednesday.

Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Training Week Ending 8/26

Monday- 7 miles easy on sweet trail.

Tuesday- 5 miles at 4:00 pm + 7 miles at 6:00 pm. I know it's not much space between runs, I was just trying to squeeze in some miles after work before we headed out to meet some friends for the second run.

Wednesday- hard 9 miles 56:09. I did 6 sets of 3 minutes hard 2 minutes off and 6 sets of one minute on and one minute off. Really tough run, the 3 minute blocks were too long to focus through and really get a good effort in for the whole time. It went ok though.

Thursday- 11 miles on the Liberty Hill trails. Really hot today. I wore a shirt to hold off the bugs, but they just focused on the back of my neck instead of my back! I guess that's what mullets are for.

Friday- 6 miles easy running around the weirs loop with Abbey. Felt good.

Saturday- Gilford Old Home Day 5k- 1st 17:15 8 miles total

This race is in the town over for me and it's taken me 10 years and 6 tries at it to finally get the win. in 2002 I was 3rd in 17:46. In 2003 I ran 17:35 for 4th. 2004 I was 16:50 for 2nd. 2006 I was 17:35 for 7th. 2009 I was 16:26 for 2nd and this year finally I was 17:15 for the win.

I had been feeling crappy all week and was just kinda hoping I'd be able to run a decent race. I got warmed up and felt a little sluggish but figured I'd be alright anyway.  I got out and felt out the pace for about 400 meters before I started getting going. I tried to take it as comfortable as possible but I had Ryan Lafrance on my tail through the first mile. The second mile I just tried to maintain my pace and pull away from Ryan. I built up a comfortable gap and then just put it into cruise control. I was able to do this through the last half mile when I tried to tell myself to focus on the time a bit. I'm glad I did because the second place guy apparently was coming on strong and ended up finishing just 7 seconds back.

Sunday- 6 miles easy doing the weirs loop. Felt pretty crappy. Jumped in the lake halfway through.

Week Total: 59 miles. This was week 1 of a 10 week build up towards a possible Cape Cod marathon. We will see how the next 4 or 5 weeks go and I'll make a call on it. We'll see how it goes, I felt good getting an easy win in even after my poor work out on Wednesday.




Sunday, August 12, 2012

Gettin back at it

Monday- 5 easy some- some strides.

Tuesday- 4 miles easy, tried exploring a new trail that ended up ending. I bushwacked through to the audubon trails  and took those back to my road and home. took about an hour with the bushwack, which was making us late for getting out to run with our tuesday run group at 6 which was meeting in Bristol. We made it there right at 6pm and were good to go for another 7.5 miles on trails and dirt road. Nice run.

Wednesday- easy 5 miles going around the lake from Irwins while I got my inspection.

Thursday- Cigna 5k- 16:53 who cares what place. 9 mi total

I was excited for this race, I ran well here last year and thought it was worth another shot. After getting my bib, and going to the bathroom I went out for a warm up with Neal Graves and Scott and Colby Clark. Felt good. Went and got my flats, and got over to the line, only got one stride in beIfore they made us line up. I got out fine, a little over my head, and told myself to roll with it. went through the mile around 5:12 or so and tried to focus on keeping the gas on through the second mile. I started feeling the pace around a mile and half and then made it through 2 miles around 10:33 I thought I started having a tough time right after that. I felt myself falling off, I worked my way up to try and stick behind George Adams until I felt him starting to fall back too, I tried to go around him and keep pushing but wasn't getting very far. I held it together until the hill at the finish, but just ran like shit in those last 250 meters. A little pissed off about the bad race, but It was my second fastest 5k of the year, and I've run worse on easier courses, so the hell with it not bad. Ran the course again for a cool down and then grabbed a pizza before heading home. In the bar they made us watch Pre-Season patriots instead of Rudisha's world record race.

Friday- 0

Saturday- 15 with Scott Clark in Gilmanton. Good run, easy first half lots of climbing in the second half of the run. My legs have been killing me ever since i got home.

Sunday- Easy 9 with Abbey out in Sanbornton. Hot and humid, but a good run. Lots of stopping for cars with Tucker.

Week Total: 54 miles. This was a better week, I'm gonna keep building from here.

Sunday, July 22, 2012

Bill Luti 5 miler

Abbey and I went down to the Bill Luti 5 miler yesterday, feeling a little nervous as we've had a pretty lazy July. I tried to convince myself that I was still plenty fit, just well rested, and I think I pretty much got it right as this wound up being my best Bill Luti ever. I made the top 10 for the first time, and got myself a 7 second course PR with a 27:34. Here's the run down.

1st mile- 5:10  I got out trying to stay relaxed, but all the guys I wanted to run with were flying, and I didn't wanna risk letting them get away too early so it wound up being faster than I wanted to get out.

2nd mile-5:46 I panicked a little when I saw the 5:45 but I reminded myself of the hill we'd just gone up and just tried to stay focused.

3rd mile- 5:21 The race is always tough in this section down to St. Pauls, usually I find myself falling back here, even though it's a pretty easy mile. This year I was able to make myself focus and stay in the race. There was a decision to make, about wether I was gonna start racing the couple guys in front or if I was gonna just try and finish the race respectably. I wound up deciding to race, and managed to relax and work my way up to the guys in front of me, Neal Graves and Mucopa from Concord. I tried to focus on my breathing and found myself feeling very light on a long relaxed exhale. I caught mucopa and was battling him through out most of the race as we tried to reel in Neal.

4th mile- 5:38 Our whole pack started to slow down on the 4th mile and Neal Graves who's in the CARS series was coming back to me. Mucopa and I caught Neal around there and he just latched on we were all hurting, and it would have been much slower if it'd been strung out.

5th mile- 5:29 I hit four miles in 22:05 and knew I was on track for a Luti PR if i kept on track and did my best to stay focused on that. We all continued to battle over that last mile but probably the last 600-800 I let those two get away. I was hurting, but I think I got a little complacent knowing I was on pace for a good time (for me anyways). I was really happy with the race though, right up to the last 600 I raced really hard and was rewarded with a good time.

Went for a nice cool down with Neal after the race. We were both pretty pumped with our races, and had a fun time chatting it up. Abbey and I got our two Maragaritas gift certs for top 10 finishes! Abbey was second though, and won a little money too. After the race we went and checked out the Market Day Festival in Downtown Concord. Pretty fun time, but I was hoping to find this woman who had a bunch of great Jams the last time I was there, and I couldn't find her. Later on we went to The Dark Knight Rises and it was awesome. Great day!

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Loon Mt. Race


This race went ok, but I don't feel like it was my best effort of the year. I wound up 25th overall in 51:09, getting beat by a handful of elite women. Early in the season I was really looking forward to this race, but by the time this week rolled around I was having trouble getting into the mind set for it. Not really sure what it was, I think I've just hit the doldrums of the summer season, as my mind set/motivation for running in general has been a little off the past week or two.

Despite not feeling very excited about the race all week, by the time I hit the line I felt ready to go and the legs felt nice and snappy. I was feeling optimistic and got lured out way too fast by that easy opening mile. I put myself right behind Kevin Tilton and Ross Krauss and began to envision myself hanging with them and being able to help my team win the title. I was able to hang with them for the first mile and then slipped back pretty significantly over the next mile. I let a stream of runners pass me until I had Chris Ritchie from the seacoast area catch up to me. There's nothing against him, I just remember battling him at the Children's Museum 5k earlier this year, and was set against losing to him again.

Seeing Chris got me racing again and I got back into it. I began to tell myself I wasn't the only idiot to go out too fast, and started scanning the trail ahead for runners coming back to me. I still didn't turn the race around though, as I was quick to walk on the steeps, but I tried to tough it out. Around 3 miles I caught up to my old team mate Craig McMahon's little brother, and chatted with him a bit as we made our way up the access road. We ran together for a little bit and then I decided I'd better try to put some distance on him because he's a college guy and a McMahon and probably quite a bit faster than me on a normal course right now. I just kept on chugging, and tried to run fast on the flat and downhill parts just because it felt good to actually be moving for a bit!

When I turned the corner and faced the BOSS for the first time it was the most crushing thing! I just couldn't believe how long and steep it was. I had envisioned something that steep, but maybe half or quarter of the length. I tried to run as long as I could and then settled into a walk for most of it. I turned around and walked backwards for a bit, and took in the view. I walked most of the climb, but every now and then I'd try to put in about 10 or 15 seconds of running to make sure I didn't get caught while climbing. Almost at the top I just started throwing up. (what else is new?) I got passed by Craig's brother and another guy at this point, and didn't think I'd catch them again, but the last 20 or 30 meters I was able to put in a strong run to over take them just before the line.

Abbey and I didn't have a whole lot of time to hang out, because Abbey had to work in the afternoon. We took a ride down on the gondola and then we got out of there. Abbey actually wound up not having to go in though, which was awesome. We went and took a jump at Indian's Leap (showing up some punks in front of their girlfriends) and then headed home for a nice afternoon on Lake Winnipesaukee with Abbey's parents.

All in all it was a great day and a really fun race. Not running quite as well as I wanted keeps me hungry for next years race. During the climb up the boss, I was telling myself  "never again" but it didn't take long before I started thinking about the places I could have run faster, and looking forward to taking another crack at this beast of a course.

Monday, July 2, 2012

Week Ending 7/1

Monday- Easy 10 on the roads. Ran funspot 7 loop, and decided to explore this hill that went into a gated residential community that goes off the loop. Looks great for "Drummer" work outs. Not quite the same profile, the grade is more consistent the whole way, but a good mile long paved hill 2.5 miles from home cannot be ignored. Nice run.

Tuesday- Easy 8 miles, ran up mt. piper and down to south piper, and then over to white face and back out belknap mt. road to my car. nice run, slow lots of stopping and looking for cairns to follow the south piper trail. Tight calves.

Wednesday- harder 10 miles up whiteface and over to Durrell mt. Road and back up liberty hill to the car. Felt shitty.

Thursday- unplanned day off. Waited for Abbey to come home, and then we just whimped out and decided to skip it.

Friday- 2 times up and down gunstock, 8 miles total. Tried to run hard but felt like shit, a lot more walking than I wanted, but it went ok.

Saturday- Another goose egg. Meant to run in the afternoon, but I wound up windsurfing with my brother all afternoon, right up until dinner.

Sunday- Another goose egg, went to the beach for the day.

Week Total: 36. Should have run more this week, but I was due for an easy week after 3 weeks of building. easier week than I meant for, but I felt great in tonight's work out (monday) 5x600 averaging 1:48.

Saturday, June 23, 2012

Running Week Ending 6/24

Monday- Easy 10 miles with Goupil on the Sweet trail off Bay Rd. Nice to get in a run with someone other than Tucker or Abbey. Felt like we picked it up the last few miles on the road, could have just been the effort was harder going up the hills on Bay Rd.

Tuesday- Easy 11 miles on the roads with Goupil in Durham. Ran the Wednesday Hill loop, which I've been told is 10.4 but it felt closer to 11 as we finished up in 75 and were pretty sure we were going sub 7's for most of it.

Wednesday- Easy 9 with Goupil in Barrington. Took it easy in the heat, and took a swim break halfway through the run. Not as bad as I thought it would be, a bit of wind for most of the run, was ok the only time I was really feeling the heat was coming back on rt. 125 towards Goup's house.

Thursday- I meant to run, but wound up going out cliff jumping with my brother and sister all day instead. Lots of great jumping at Indian's Leap in Lincoln, then we went up to Upper Falls up by the Cog. Probably could have squeezed in a run after I got back, oh well.

Friday- AM-7 PM-4 Went up to the Lincoln Woods trail with Tucker. We ran out to Franconia Falls and went swimming for a while then ran back and I went and took a couple jumps at Indian's Leap before heading back home. After Abbey got out of work we went another 4 to shake out before Saturday's race.

Saturday- Aurlow Stanley Memorial 5k 2nd place 17:17 8 miles total.
Pretty good run today. I was hoping to run a little faster, but the course isn't that easy, with some pretty tough hills. I've run 16:38 here before though, and was kinda hoping I'd be able to break 17 today. I got out off the line a bit fast and decided to just try and key off Justin Freeman who I figured would be winning. I focused on staying near him through the first mile and then gradually slipped back. at about a mile and a half you take a good corner and I looked back and saw Scott Clark just a bit behind me and started trying to work up the hill to make sure he didn't close the gap. At two miles I was hurting, but was pretty sure I had more in the tank if need be, I tried to keep the pace steady, because I knew Scott wouldn't be slowing down. I kept it together for most of the last mile, but was really hurtin going up the last hill. I tried to really work it and start moving on the down side of the hill, but I was not feeling good and was thinking I might do a good old Sam Wood boot. I just tried to keep a steady kick going as we finished the last 400 of the race and keep myself from puking, because I knew Scott would catch me before I got my legs back under me if I did throw up. I made it to the line and through the chute with out puking and was pretty happy. I didn't feel great out there today, and the legs never felt like they had much pop but I managed to hold on to second and the 60 bucks I knew was waiting for me.

Had a nice cool down with Scott, Justin, Abbey and Ryan LaFrance a youngster from Gilford that will likely be beating me in a few years. Fun day.

Sunday- Long run 20 miles total, about 3 to 4 miles of hiking. Abbey, Tucker and I went out and did the Wilderness loop plus Bondcliff and the Franconia Falls trail. Not sure how we decided to do Bondcliff, we were going up planning on just doing the wilderness loop, and then Cannon just looked so nice as we were heading up the highway I guess that we decided we should run up Bondcliff too. Felt great on the way out and over the river crossing, but we ran out of water on the way up Bond, and were both hurting once we got up there. We ran most of the first 2.5 up bond, and then had to hike most of the last mile and a half.  We hung out and enjoyed the view and the wind for a bit but then we decided we'd better get down and back for some water. We were both really hurting though and wound up having to risk giardia and drink from some river crossings. I know it's not smart, but we were both really getting dehydrated and decided it was worth the risk with about 7 miles of running left before we'd get to fresh water. We wound up just filling our bottles and hoping for the best, and so far I feel fine. Not sure how long it takes for giardia to set in though. The tough footing on bondcliff was no problem on the way up but on the way down it was really giving me a hard time. Once we got back down to the wilderness trail it was a quick run to Franconia Falls where we took a very refreshing dip. The last 3 miles I was still really tired and hurting, but it went by quick enough. That bridge over the Pemi was a very welcome sight though. Beautiful day, I just wish we'd brought more water and more fuel. All we brought was granola bars I happened to have in the car, and I was really wishing I had some shot bloks or a gu or something for most of the second half of the run. Finished up with a soak in the river and some Subway before going home, I was still too beat to eat my sub though. Tough day, but overall it was fun, and the views were really great up top.

Week Total: 69 in 6 days. No workout, one decent race, and one really long run. Good week of training. Probably gonna get in some workouts at Gunstock next week to try and prepare for Loon. Gunstock's final climb to the summit area must be pretty close to the grade of walking boss at Loon. Not positive but it's pretty damn steep anyway.

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

I ran into some coyotes this week

Monday- 9 miles 63 minutes.
Ran with Abbey for her hard run. The plan was to start out easy the first couple miles then drop it down to Abbey's Marathon Pace for the rest of the run. Went well, ran 63 minutes with an 8 minute first mile. Abbey said it was kinda tough, but I felt great!

Tuesday-Easy 7 miles on the Liberty Hill trails with Tucker.
I really didn't wanna get out there for this run, I started out and realized I'd forgotten my watch in the car, luckily I was only a minute or two into the run, so I went back and grabbed it, and it was so hard to get started again. I managed to make myself do it by telling myself I could just do 7 and didn't have to do the 9 I was planning. I was secretly hoping I'd start feeling better and do the 9, but I wound up running right by the turn to add on when it was time and just finished up my 7 miles nice and easy. I'm just glad I got some in.

Wednesday- Interesting run today, I headed out from the Liberty Hill parking area, and out to Whiteface, took a trail down the backside of whiteface, and into this valley between Whiteface and Piper. As soon as I hit the valley bottom, I hear this coyote start howling, I'm not so concerned at first, I call Tucker to me, and then I hear another start in, and another. I did a couple shouts and clapped my hands, and then there's just like four or five coyotes howling. I grabbed the biggest stick I could find and took off back up the trail sprinting, with Tucker leading the way! I didn't drop my stick until I couldn't hear em anymore. When I hit the top of whiteface I stopped to take a breather fairly confident they weren't chasing us. Kinda scary though! I don't know if they were like howling to check me out, or to clear out, but either way I didn't wanna stick around to find out. After that I was kinda bummed because I had some exploring to do out that way. Once I got to the Whiteface trail again I had a decision to make about how I wanted to finish the run, I had a couple ways to go that would add on about 2 to 3 miles or I could just get back down to the normal Liberty Hill trails and just get the hell outta there. I wound up deciding to do that, and just finished up the second half of the lib hill 7 once I got back down to it. I added on about 2.5 miles with my climb up and down whiteface to make it a good 9.5 mile day.

Thursday- Long day today, I wound up running 17 miles but in 3 runs broken up by about a half hour or so for each. I started out planning on doing a 9 mile tempo on the roads. It was way too busy out with Bike Week though so I decided to bag it after 2.5 and go to the trails with Tucker. There's 5. I did 6 out on the Lib Hill trails with tuck, and after I finished up there I gave Abbey a call to see where she was at, and she wound up talking me into running with her, so I met her over at Ahern State Park for another 6 miles. Felt pretty good most of the time, a bit tired over at Ahern. I took a dip in the lake after we finished and then headed home to get ready to go into The Weirs and enjoy some Laconia Bike Week action.

Friday- 4 easy am, 4 easy pm Ran with Abbey in the morning on the roads, and ran in the afternoon with Tucker on the Audubon fields. Nice easy day.

Saturday- Hiked up Mt. Washington to watch Abbey and everyone else I know run. Beautiful day. I went up Lions Head to the Alpine Gardens and then upto about the 6.5 mile mark. Had an awesome time watching everyone come up the mountain. After most everyone went by I went up and caught up with everyone, and then went up and had myself a meal on top of the mountain. That's my favorite thing about Washington, I love going in and having a cup of coffee and pizza afer hiking all morning. I know a lot of people don't like having the observatory and all those people, but I can deal with it for hot food on top of the mountain. Once everyone started going down the mountain, I hiked back down Tuckerman's Ravine to the bottom. Great hike. I give myself about 4 miles of running for the day.

Huge Congratulations to Abbey on her 12th place finish, and 2 minute + pr. Abbey also managed 10th USATF athlete, to grab the last medal. So proud of my Fiance! Also congrats to the Masters team on their gold medal, and to the Open team for their silver.

Sunday- 9 miles, just ran a nice easy 9 miles with Tucker, I entertained Ideas of doing 18 instead of 9 but was feeling tired so I decided to just quit and be happy with the run I had done.

Week Total- 61 miles. Nice week of easy running. I know I should have gotten in a work out I just never really felt like it. Good week though.

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Newton 10k

                                                                    Tough Race!


I came into this race with pretty high hopes, I'd run well the week before and felt really fit doing it so maybe I built up my expectations a little too high. I thought I'd be able to break 34:00 a week after getting a season's best of 16:48 in a 5k last week. I was convinced that if I got out near 17:05 for 5k that I'd be able to squeak under with the downhill last 5k. It didn't go that way, this was a bad race. My first bad race since Gilmanton back in March. My watch broke so I wasn't able to get splits for this race, I got some splits from guys near me at splits.
I went 5:30, 5:45, 17:20 23:something 29:01 and then finished up with a 36:07 I don't remember much of who was with me where or anything like that, I just remember running with Brett Ely for most of the first half, and chasing the second place woman through most of the second half. The last mile or two, I had a great guy from Whirlaway who kept pushing me to stay with him over those last miles and he was a great help as I was ready to pack it in.
No one really ran fast this race, and I was closer to my team mates time wise than I was at the bedford 12k so I'm not worried about the time. I know I'm pretty fit, it was just a tough day out there. I'm just gonna keep the miles up and keep rolling.

Friday, June 8, 2012

Training Week Ending 6/10

Monday- Mountain work out at Gunstock. Hard mile or so up the road to tower on Mt. Rowe 11:00. Easy over the ridge to Flintlock trail, then hard to the summit of Gunstock. Easy back down to parking lot and over to the base of the tower access road, and then hard up to the tower again 9:40 this time. easy again over to gunstock and back down to the car. Abbey and I did a lap around the parking lot to finish off 8 miles for the day.

Tuesday- 81 minutes exploring trails around Whiteface. 11 miles.
I took a trail from the gilford side of whiteface that skirts around the backside, and eventually connects to the logging road that I use to access whiteface from Durrell Mt. Road. I didn't go up cause I was trying to take it easy, just ran back down to Durrell mt. and after a couple more miles I just took Belknap Mt. Road back to the car. Nice run, tried to take it easy, but it was quite a bit of climbing.

Wednesday- Workout Mile, 2x800, 4x400 5:21, 2:39, 2:39, 78, 76, 77, 78
Not quite the work out I wanted today. I wish I had waited til Thursday to do this one, I don't think I was quite recovered from Monday's workout, and tuesday's run probably didn't help. Still not a bad work out, it just felt like a grind from step one. 8 miles total.

Thursday- 6 miles sorta easy
Abbey was doing a work out on the Belknap Mt. auto road, I wish I could have done it, but I had done a track work out the day before. I decided to take a trail up the backside of Gunstock, and then come back over to the top of the auto rd. to see how Abbey was doing with her work out. I was able to run most of the first half of the trail up gunstock, but the second half was really steep, and I had to hike most of it. Took it easy back over to Belknap, and managed to catch Abbey just before she headed back down on her second repeat. only about 2.5 to 3 miles so far. Ran easy with Abbey down to the bottom, about 4 or so now. Just ran out to the end of the road and back up easy until I met up with Abbey on her way back down. I did this while she did her last repeat too. I was worried about all the climbing I was getting in, but just decided that I was taking it easy and walking when it got too steep so it couldn't be too too bad. about 6 miles total on the day.

Friday- Easy 7 miles on the liberty hill trails. About 55 minutes.


Saturday- Easy 3 miles, to shake out before the 10k. Meant to run more, but it was a busy day, so I just squeezed it in before dinner.

Sunday- Newton 10k 36:07 70th place. Tough race. Ran another 4 miles later in the afternoon to make it 12 for the day.

Week Total: 55 miles with 2 work outs and a bad race. Ok week milage wise, I just sorta felt tired, and out of pop most of the week.

Saturday, June 2, 2012

Easy Week FTW

Mon- Franconia Ridge loop 9 miles 3h20min. run/hike

Tues- Planned day off. I was feeling pretty beat up. I had a sore achilles, and a sore shin and figured a day off might just be what I needed. It was tough to do, I had tuesday off and all I wanted to do all day was go run, but after three days of mountain runs, I figured I could get more out of the day off.

Wed- 7 mile tempo on the Liberty Hill trails. 43:18. This is a PR for this loop, but also the first time I've committed to a tempo, and not just a fartlek. I did well, I got started a little fast and put the crap in my legs pretty early, but only had to back off a bit to recover. I hit 3 miles a little under 18 and 5 miles around 29-30 minutes.I made the first mile of the climb back up Liberty Hill in 6:20 and then got a fly caught in my throat that triggered the ol' gag reflex. I was around 8:00 for the last mile after coughing/puking up that fly and taking about 2 minutes easy before I was able to remind myself what I was doing and get rolling again. Very happy with this effort. I would have been closer 42:30 with out that stupid bug.

Thursday- 5x400, 5x200: 75, 75, 75, 74, 75, 37, 37, 35, 37, 37
Wanted to get a little bit of speed in this week with a 5k coming up on Saturday. I was a little worried about trying to squeeze in back to back work outs but figured something light wouldn't hurt. Pete used to have us do back to back work out days from time to time. I always felt like I responded well to it, but this was more about time.

Friday- easy 4 miles shake out. I've been trying to lengthen my shake out, I always say I'm gonna do 6 this week, but then I get home from work and I'm just like meh, 4 will do.

Saturday- Over the River and Through the Woods 5k, 1st 16:48.
This was the 5th race of the CARS series, and with a 10 am start it was great to sleep in til 7:30 this morning. I saw it was raining getting up and was ok with it. I love racing in the rain, I just don't like standing around in it. I got a bit of cereal in, drank some juice, and a very small cup of coffee before leaving the house. I'm trying to limit my coffee before races, because I've been throwing up so often during my races. Today it seemed to work as I made it through the race without  puking.

Abbey and I got there around 9:15 in pouring rain. We grabbed our numbers and nice long sleeve shirts, said hi to some friends and got out for our warm up. We ran into Ernie Brake and Scott Clark and his son Colby and finished warming up with them. Kinda just sat huddled in the car after putting on our singlet and flats then hopped out and pulled off our pants 5 minutes before the start and jogged over. I did some strides and hopped around trying to stay warm. The gun went off and there was a mass of highschoolers that surged to the front of the race, I just hung back and relaxed and just planned on trying to be around them by the time we hit the bridge over the river, because the walkway we run on is so narrow I thought I'd get stuck behind em. I managed to get by all but one of em, this young runner from Gilford Middle School a town over from me, who's going to be a very good runner I think, he was 18:18 today.  I was still in 4th at this point but I just relaxed and waited til we got off the bridge and then moved to catch back up to Sam Evans Brown who was leading the race. I was feeling good and just decided to keep the move going and wound up taking the lead and trying to build a gap. I went through the mile in 5:25 just before we turn into the woods for about a mile of constant turning, through puddles and mud. It was great! I just kept the gas on through the corners and tried to get away from whoever it was I heard not far behind me. I made it through the trails with out getting caught, and then hit the road again, with just over a mile to go. I knew I had gotten a pretty good gap going, but just kept trying to roll. I felt really good all the way into the finish and had a pretty strong kick when Tom Walton who'd been leading me on the bike pulled off to tell me I was 16: and change just before I hit the "Root Canal". It felt great to get the win, and it was neat watching Colby and Scott come in one after the other for 2nd and 3rd. Abbey and I went for our cool down together and then froze our butts off during the awards. After almost 9 years of going to races together this was actually the first race that Abbey and I have ever won together.  Of course since Abbey is always winning, you can guess who's to blame for the dry spell. Great day though, I felt strong the whole race, and enjoyed another CARS series race with a bunch of friends.

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

New PR for Franconia Ridge Loop

Monday- Run/Hike Franconia Ridge Loop. New PR-3 hours 20 min for loop.

Went up Falling waters over Franconia Ridge Down Old Bridle Path. I say PR for the loop, but I've never tried to run the loop before. My old fastest time for hiking this was just over 4 hours and actually during the winter, which I think is the fastest time of year for hiking this loop. With Crampons on the way up and a smooth trail you can run/slide down on the way down you can really move on this loop during winter.

Abbey and I got up early for this, because I had to be into work in Durham by 3pm. Got up there at around 8:15 and spent sometime trying to decide whether we wanted to carry water and food. I wanted to leave everything and just get some water at the hut on the way down. Abbey was the smart one and talked me into taking our camelbaks.

We got on the trail at 8:30 and were able to run for most of the first mile and a half, and kept a good pace on the steeps where we were hiking. I had really hoped to be able to just hike the steeps, and be able to run most of the switchbacks, but I found myself having to hike a lot more than I expected. We made it up Little Haystack in about an hour and 20 and we were both crawling the last quarter mile to the top. Took about 5 minutes or so up top to eat some clif bloks and drink some water. Really buggy! We got moving again and made it over to Lafayette in another half an hour, we ran about 2/3rds of the way over there, but I still found myself unable to run on terrain I really expected to be able to run on! 25 minutes for this section. 20 minutes down a very technical 1.1 from the summit of Lafayette to the Greenleaf Hut. We stopped here and chatted with some other hikers, went to the bathroom and filled my waterbottle. Made it down the last 2.8 miles in 50 minutes, running as much as possible, just going very very slowly in the sketchy spots.

I really expected to run a lot more of this, and so it's a little slower than I would have wanted, I'm not sure how Tilton and Nephew could ever run 6 something for the whole Pemi Loop, I took half their time for a quarter of the distance! It was a really nice run, and a gorgeous morning to be up there. I wish I could have gotten some pics. Not sure if I should count all those miles, but I was working hard the whole time so I'm gonna say yes.

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Wachusett Mt. Race

Early Start to the day, up at 5:30 hoping to be out the door, at 6 am for what I was told by Goupil was a 9 am start. Wound up getting out the door around 6:20 and then plugged in the GPS and it said the trip would be 2.5 hours! I had planned on 2. I hit the road and drove as quickly as I could keeping in mind that it's Memorial Day weekend, and the cops would be out in force.
I wound up getting there at like 8:20, about 30 minutes ahead of the estimated arrival time, I ran over and got my number, and started looking for Chirp and Eric to go warm up. They end up pulling in next to me about 5 minutes later, and telling me to chill out it starts at 9:30. They told me 9 so I'd be there in time to warm up!

So we got in a nice 3 mile warm up, heading out with the contingent of mostly CMS guys. Fun chatting it up with everyone. Changed into flats and went down to wait for the start. I was pretty nervous down there, and really just wanted the race to get started, but it was taking forever.

Finally they line us up and then the gun goes off with in seconds. I had planned on trying to be pretty aggressive today, and wanted to go for it. I got out pretty well on that first mile, in about 4th or 5th place until Tivo and Callahan came up on me, I tried to go with them when they went by, but was also trying to be somewhat careful about not blowing my race out on the hill. So they ended up running away on that climb and I just focused on trying to get up. When we turned onto the single track, I wanted to try and close some ground on the guy that was in front of me. I didn't recognize him, and as I kept trying to close the gap I was wondering "who is this guy?" I never caught him, and then when we hit Balance Rock Rd, he just continued to pull away from me. Dunham passed me as soon as we got off the single track too, I focused on trying to relax and just run with Dave. When we hit the single track again my legs were burning, but Dave looked like he was slowing so I went by him. Turns out he was being smart, as soon as the trail leveled out a bit he went by me again, and I just tried to stay close.

When we came out off the single track, it really took me a minute to get rolling again, and I must have slowed down way too much, because by the time I got around the corner Dave was way ahead of me.  I spent the rest of the hill trying to close on Dave, and I was able to make up a bit more room, but not enough to make any difference. Downhill's aren't really my strong suit, but I was pretty happy that I didn't get passed on the downhill like I have the past two years.
As soon as I hit the single track I slowed down quite a bit just cause the rocks were wet, and that trail is ridiculous. It didn't take long for Brian Ruhm who was behind me to catch up but, that was enough to get me to throw caution to the wind and start racing that trail, rather than trying to survive it. I started leaping boulders and throwing myself down that trail, anything but be passed! It was a lot of fun, I love that section, and it's way more fun when you've got someone pushing you on it. Not many races where you get that rush of knowing that you'll be hurt if you mess up at all. I held off Brian but I really had to work to do it, and I came through the line sprinting, with him 5-10 yards behind maybe.

It felt great, a really solid effort, I finished 9th in 32:01. about 2 minutes faster than last year and about 12 spots higher for my finish. Felt like I raced really hard, and had a quality result.

Finished up and had a nice cool down with Eric and Chirp, recounting our races, and catching up. At the awards I got a neat shoulder bag, made from recycled plastic bottles and loaded up on free Polar soda. That Cape Cod Cranberry flavor is delicious!

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Running with Wooden Legs

I've had a good little streak of running going since the weekend, and over the weekend and into monday I had run 38 mile in 3 days, which is a lot of running for me. On tuesday I went out for another 10 miles in the Belknaps and my legs felt like crap the whole time. Nothing wrong with that, though. I've got a few days til Wachussett and I'm just gonna run easy the rest of the week. Here's the numbers so far.

Monday-12 miles on Sweet trail and surrounding roads.

Tuesday-10 miles in the Belknaps with Abbey and Tucker.
Out Gunstock CC ski trails, to Round Pond trail. From Round Pond, we took the Round Pond and Piper Link trails over to the saddle between Belknap and Mt. Piper, then we just took the carriage road, to the Blue trail skipping the summit of Belknap and bringing us over toward Gunstock. We took the Brook trail to the Gunstock summit, and then back down the access road to the parking lot. About another mile back to car at CC ski area. As mentioned above, legs were very tired. On the way back to Gunstock we took the same trail we took on sunday, and spots I ran up with little trouble had me walking today.
What a gorgeous day out there though. It was wet, with a light rain falling most of the run and all of the fresh spring green was just bursting with color. Way out on Piper Link trail it is very remote, and we were on the side of this little gulf, with the clouds socked in above us, and it really felt like we were someplace else. Abbey kept saying how she felt like we were in the jungle. Just gorgeous, as crappy as my legs were feeling, the scenery and isolation were well worth the run.

Wednesday-easy 7 on Liberty Hill trails with tucker.

Thursday- easy 5 with Abbey. I meant to run a little longer today, but we were running by my parents house and decided to stop in and say hi, and after helping myself to some left over steak, some string cheese and a big cup of juice I decided I didn't feel like running home, and made my sister drive us back. Probably should have finished up the run, but oh well. It's just some extra rest for Wachussett this weekend.

Friday- easy 4, just shaking it out before Wachussett. Meant to run for 45 but was feeling lazy and just cut it at half an hour.

Saturday- Wachussett Mt. Race. 32:01 9th place. Race report to follow. 3 m warm up 4 m cool down, made for a good 12 mile day.

Sunday- 16 miles with Scott Clark and Abbey. Ran from Gilmanton out snowmobile trails over to Durrell Mt. Road and up to the summit of Mt. Whiteface. Back down the other side to Belknap Mt. Road, back to Durrell Mt Road and then back the way we came to Scott's house. Good run, tough climb up Whiteface. Really bonked on the way back at about mile 14 or so, was really hurting but managed to make it back ok.

Total: 66 miles.
No work outs, lots of hills and one good race. It's been three weeks over 60 now, and I'm feeling pretty beat up. Good stuff. I'm gonna take a down week and then see if I can get a few more weeks in around 65.

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Running Week Ending 5/20 + Bedford 12k

Monday- Easy 7 miles.
I just ran laps around the grass trails at wagon wheel farm down in Durham today. Such a nice run, a little muddy, and spitting a bit of rain, but warm and green and very pretty.

Tuesday- easy 3 miles am, 9.5 easy pm
Good running today. Just easy and feeling good. Got to run with Abbey in the evening, which has seemed like a rarity the past couple weeks. Ran laps around a nice grass 1k loop up the road from the house with tucker in the morning. Abbey and I ran around Governor's Island in the evening.

Wednesday- 12 miles sorta fartlek
Ran the first 4.5 miles, running fast when I felt like it and working the hills whether I felt like it or not. This got me up to the top of whiteface. From there I was exploring as I came down the backside, and ran a lot slower finding my way down. About halfway down to Durrell Mt Road the four wheeler trail I was following turned into a very steep, but smooth and graded road. I was coming down thinking it would be a bear of a climb to have to go up it, so once I got down to the bottom I turned around and climbed back up to see just how bad it would be. I went pretty hard, and it was a good tough climb, about 3:00 minutes up, and then back down easy. I got back down to Durrell Mt. Road and had about 5 minutes of uncertainty as I was kinda just hoping it was the right road, and that I went the right way, but it was and I came out where I wanted to. I took a left off Durrell mt. road and got in another mile or so on another class 6 road before heading down towards the finish of the run. I didn't work the whole climb up the last 2 miles, but didn't go easy. It was a good run. About 90 minutes total with some stops for views and trail finding counted in the total.

Thursday-0. Planned on going home in the evening and getting a run in after working 10-6, I got asked to cover the overnight, and I agreed to it before remembering I wouldn't be able to get my run in. I was worried about it for a while, but figured with the race on saturday it might not hurt me too bad.

Friday-easy 5.5 with tucker.

Saturday- Bedford 12k 42:58 57th place. 13 miles total.
I went into this race a little bit nervous, I thought 12k would be a little too long, and it probably was a little bit, but I felt like it went pretty well. It's hard going into a 12k, do you treat it as a 10k and plan on hurting?
Or do you run it more like a long race and try to ease into the racing like you would with a 10 miler? My splits were all over the place yesterday so I don't know what I did, I guess it was more like a 10k though.

Abbey and I got there a little after 8 and I was suprised to manage to catch the CMS guys for the warm up, cause I usually get there too late and miss it. It's always fun catching up with everyone and seeing how the team is doing. Did about 20 minutes and got back with just enough time for a quick run to the bathroom, and to put on my flats, and singlet. I realized I didn't have any pins with about 10 minutes til the gun, Abbey ran in and got some for me while I put on my racers. I put my bib on while running down to the line, and just had time for a strider before trying to tuck myself in a bit behind the line.

I got out fine, and was trying to stay nice and relaxed, which is always tough to do in these races with all the guys there. I missed the split at the mile, and by the time I realized it, my watch said 5:30, so I knew I was a little faster than that, and a bit nervous about it but feeling ok. Scott McGrath caught up to me just after this, and it was nice to chat with him for a few before he started pulling away. I must have gone a bit slower than 5:30 on this one, as I went through 2 miles in 11:01, I had been hoping for 11:10 and I was starting to feel that first mile. I was also thinking that i've been running 5k's mostly this spring and that I wasn't far off my 5k pace. I had been latched onto Dunham and Pawlicki through most of the first 2 miles, after they gapped me at a waterstop, I focused on trying to catch back upto them for the next 2 miles. I missed a mile split again at 3 miles, and really wish I'd seen it as I was falling off the pace hard at that point and maybe seeing my 3rd split would have woken me up earlier. Around 3.5 I saw Scott McGrath walking back towards me and told him to get back in the race and run with me, he didn't seem too excited about it, but he grudgingly got back in and came with me. Once he'd decided to race he said something about all the ground he'd lost and so I decided to start going and trying to see if we could make it up. This was awesome, as it really got me racing again after what had been a slow couple miles, going through 4 in 22:53 and an 11:52 two miles for the 3rd and 4th mile. I had a good next couple miles running with Scott, we were rolling right along and going by guys which always feels good. my 5th mile was 5:40 and my 6th mile was 5:42. The wheels started to fall off not long after 6, but I just tried to tell myself it was only a mile left and that I was running a good race. Despite lots of positive talk that last mile, I only managed a 5:52, I started to make a big move up the final hill and was going to try and catch the Gate City Striders runner, I might have gotten around him before I got to the track, but it didn't matter cause I started booting all over the place, it was pretty bad. Normally I can puke real quick and get back to the race, this was puke, run a couple steps puke, at one point I had to hold onto the fence while I finished up. It took me a second to get going after that, but I did manage to kick to squeeze in under 43:00

Overall I'd say this was a good race, I always wanna run faster, but it was the same pace as my 5 miler at reds a couple weeks ago but 2.5 miles longer. I had some really good miles in there, and was passing people in the last miles.

Sunday- 13 miles in the Belknaps with Fergus Cullen, Scott Clark, Abbey and Tucker, fun run lots of climbing! Ok, we started at the Gilford High School and headed up Belknap Mt. Road, to the carriage road up Belknap. The carriage road is a tough mile, with a long steep quarter mile climb before climbing switchbacks to the top the rest of the way. We continued up the green trail up Belknap, then wound up taking the red trail on accident instead of the blue trail, which brought us back down Belknap to the top of the carriage road. We meant to take the blue trail over to Gunstock, but we were able to get on a trail that brought us back over towards Gunstock. We just got in an extra mile and a little more climbing this way. We got over to Gunstock and took in the view, while we tried to figure out which way we wanted to go back. I knew there was a nice trail that would go back to the bottom of the Carriage Road from Gunstock but we couldn't find the trail, so we just went back the way we came. By the time we got back over to Belknap I think we were all dying for water, and looking forward to get back to the cars. Luckily it was 4 miles of downhill running all the way home. We drank a ton, and then Abbey and I went home and back to bed for an hour or so. Got up and very slowly talked myself into going out to finish mowing the lawn.

Week Total: 63 in 6 days. Best week in ages, and feeling great. I was starting to wake up a lot at night earlier in the week, and was getting worried, cause thats an early over training symptom for me, but after taking Thursday off I slept like a baby the past couple nights. So i'm gonna keep on building for another week or two before I take a down week.

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Getting Serious

Monday- Hilly 10 miles.
Ran nice and easy today, almost 74 minutes, but that doesn't bother me. It always feels good starting the week off with a 10 miler.

Tuesday-9 miles hard 57:34 w/ 4x30,60,90
Good run today, started out nice and easy and after a mile or so I started rolling along. I started my 30,60,90's at 18 minutes and that got me to about 2 miles from home. I was considering doing another set just to make sure I didn't fall asleep over the last 2 miles, but decided that it'd probably be more helpful to try and keep the pace steady with out the watch keeping me in line. It went pretty well, I was able to keep the effort going all the way home.

Wed-11 miles Easy
For some strange reason this was my first run up to the top of Whiteface mountain in Gilford. I say it's strange cause I run by it all the time, it's right off my Liberty Hill 7 miler I do all the time. I'd run half way up before, but turned back because it was getting dark, and since then I haven't gone up. Probably because the climb has some monstrous steeps on it. Great mountain top it flattens out and has a nice view and a nice fire pit. The trail even kept going down the other side and I was tempted to continue exploring, but decided to save it for another day. I put the easy in italics because I tried to take this easy, but there's just nothing easy about mountain running. Good run though, and some good miles. I took it real easy on the way back the rest of the loop, and the first mile of the climb back to the car was a crawl.

Thursday- 7 miles 8x400 half rest 76, 76, 76, 77, 74, 73 74 71
Woke up this morning with my sinuses all stuffed up, felt ok later in the day. By the time Abbey got out of work, I didn't wanna run anymore. I got out though, and got it done. 3 mile warm up with my legs feeling like shit, not sure if I was really tired, or just trying to give myself an excuse to skip the work out, but everything felt horrible on the warm up. I figured I'd give it a go and start a couple and see how it goes. The first 2 were 76's and then I had to stop and take a dump. I got back to it and went 76 77 74 73 74 71 for the last 6. Pretty decent work out, I felt like shit but I got through the workout with decent splits. I only did a mile cool down, just cause I was tired and hungry. 7 miles total for the day.

Friday- easy 4 miles just to shake out before racing tomorrow.

Saturday-  9 miles Canterbury Cross Country Challenge- 3rd place 18:32

What a tough course this is! Up and down, tons of turns, and good stretch of single track. Fun race though on a beautiful day. We got there pretty early and went out ran the course to warm up, they had switched the course this year and ran it in reverse, which I think made it a little bit tougher. This is the 4th race in the CARS series so i knew I'd have some friends to race with.

I got a bit of a crappy start off the line, and after having to put in a little surge to get up to the front of the race I just really got rolling, so I took the lead for most of the first mile, which felt really good, but I was running over that red line a little too early I think, so then by about halfway through the second mile I was fighting to maintain my lead on Scott Clark. I tried my best to really work it through the single track, because a lot of times you can make up ground on "old guys" like him going through there. Of course I just ran trails with scott a few weeks ago, and he hasn't lost his footing yet. He was right there after we got out, and he ended up catching me going around this little island that they have you run around. This was the part of the race I was really dissapointed about, I just let him run away, and that's what I need to work on, I can run in front of someone, but I just didn't have the guts to RACE. I crawled up the next hill, and just decided to try and make sure Neal Graves, who was right behind, didn't pass me because I knew I'd be watching him run away too if I let him catch me. I was able to hold him off and finished up the race in 3rd which I was ok with, but I'm still pissed at myself now for not gritting my teeth and racing Scott. I might not have beat him, he's a tough runner, but I'd be a lot happier with myself if I'd just tried to stick with him a little longer. Oh well, it's a long summer, and I have a lot more races to keep trying to get it right.

Sunday- 11 easy.
Abbey, Tucker and I went out for an out and back on the Guinea Pond trail. This trail turns into Flat Mt. Pond trail after about 4 miles, so I got to retrace about a mile of what I did last week with Jim and Kevin. There was a lot more water out there this week, and we were getting soaked just running on the trail during the Flat mt. stretch. We went out to the Bennett st. trail junction and turned around to come back. The nice part about doing it this way is it's a nice downhill grade on the way back and the second half flew by. It was a nice run, took it real easy and got some good recovery in.

Week Total-61 miles. Good week of running, I got a lot of really quality runs in early in the week, and probably will try to set up this next week about the same way. Next week I'll be able to get in a few more miles too with the 12k on saturday.

Sunday, May 6, 2012

Monday- hard 7 with tucker up on Liberty Hill trails.

Tuesday-0

Wednesday- 3

Thursday-14
Ran from the Kanc, Sawyer River trail, to Sawyer Pond trail back out to the Kancamangus. I got turned around a bit near the end of sawyer river road, and wound up running an extra 2 or 3 miles, so by the time I got out to the road again I'd already done 12 miles or so. I knew I had 5 miles and about 500 ft of climbing back up the Kanc to get to my car so I decided to thumb when I saw cars coming. I didn't want 17 mi on the day with a race in a couple days. I wound up running another 2 miles before I got picked up. The guy that picked me up had a very "green" smelling car, but he was a really nice guy. What a great day, but man the trail was pretty destroyed in some areas after hurricane Irene.

Friday- easy 4 just shaking it out before saturday's race.

Saturday- 8 w/race 17:06
Went down to the Children's Museum 5k in Dover. I was pretty nervous for this one, cause I really wanted to win some lobsters. I've gotten lucky here a couple times and brough home the 10 lobsters. I felt like I was starting to get fit enough to give it another shot, but then I ran into Jim Johnson on my warm up, and once I got to the line Brandon Newbould was there too, so I knew I might not be going for the win, but I wanted to get out with them and see if I can get a big enough gap on the chase pack to not have to worry about them. Didn't happen. I went through the mile in 5:25 a way off the leaders, and just tried to focus on Jim who was letting the top 2 get away too. I was able to keep the gap steady on Jim through 2 miles in 10:55 and then Jim really dropped the hammer, while I started to fall off pretty hard. I had a tough last mile and got caught by a couple guys just before we got back into town. I look back on it now, and wish I'd gutsed it out and held those two guys off, but I kinda whimped out. It was still a pretty decent race, two more seconds off my seasonal best on a much tougher course than NHTI, so I was happy enough with it. I feel like i'm getting there, but I was a little dissapointed in this race, I thought i was ready to run a little tougher, and for god sakes break 17 minutes, but I didn't do it. I don't know when I'll be racing my next road 5k, but it'll be atleast til the end of May so hopefully by then I'll be able to drop a fast time.

Sunday- 12.5 with Kevin Tilton and Jim Johnson
Nice run we went out and did the Flat mt. Pond loop up in the Sandwich Wilderness Area. Great run, not too tough, and not too much climbing just a nice fun run. Brought Tucker along and he had a blast, he played fetch with jim in the pond and had some fun swimming. Hopefully he wasn't too much of a pain on the single track.

Week Total: 48.5 Bit of a low week, but that was after 4 weeks of building and a couple weeks with out a day off. Still felt like I got in a good week, with a couple really solid runs.

Sunday, April 29, 2012

Running Week Ending 4/29

Monday- 8 miles easy.
Very nice easy run this afternoon.

Tuesday-8.5 4xmile cut downs.
Work out today, I wanted to get some strength in so I decide to go with mile repeats. Here's my splits 5:43 5:36 5:28 5:16. I probably should have done a 5th to make up for that first one. It just took me a while to warm up and get going, so that first one was pretty slow. After that, I thought it'd be a pretty long work out, but I started feeling better by the second one.

Wednesday- 4am/6.5 pm
Nice easy 4 with Abbey in the morning, then a nice 6.5 with Tucker on the Liberty Hill trails. Made sure to take it easy on both runs.

Thursday- Hard 6 miles.
I should have done some warm up before starting this hard run, or taken the first mile easier, anyway I think I started out too fast. My legs were just killing me from the start, and I think it was mostly cause they weren't warmed up. I just kept trying to go hard, but around 4.5 miles I realized I was only going like 6:20-6:30 pace. I shut it down until a mile from the hosue, and then I ran that last mile in 5:35. Decent run.

Friday- easy 4.
Abbey and i both wanted to run a little more, but we were trying to make it to the movies for 7:00 and just decided to try and squeeze in a quick 4.

Saturday- 8 miles
Ran up and down gunstock twice. on the way down the second time, we went out over Alpine Ridge and down an old abandoned ski trail to the bottom of the ski mountain. Really good work out going up and down gunstock, it gets very steep the last quarter mile. It was a nice confidence booster for some mt. races this spring.

Sunday- 13 miles
Ran with Scott Clark and Abbey out in Gilmanton. Scott brought us out onto some great trails that wound around all over the place. I think we were moving at the end of the run, cause we finished up in 1:26.

Total: 58 miles. Good week, and starting to feel pretty fit. Next week I'm looking to just keeping the progress going forward.

Monday, April 16, 2012

Running Week Ending 4/22

Monday- Steady 8 miles 54:50
Ran the Sweet trail, Dame Rd. Loop out by the bay, felt great. Had a lot of fun on the trails, I was trying to focus on my foot work and getting through the spots with tough footing by planning out my steps and taking longer steps for the nice big stepping rocks. I was sorta trying to go over the technical stuff, rather than slowing down to go through it. Good run, felt great, but really hot after i finished, took about 10 minutes to stop sweating.

Tuesday-Track workout 7.5 miles 4 sets of 400, 200, 200.
We've got a nice thing going lately with my buddy Alex Hilson, we've been meeting on tuesday nights for track work outs and it's been great to keep us honest. I had the day off today, but after doing yard work in the sun all day I was still wiped by the time I got to the track, and would have probably just gone easy if we didn't have Alex planning to meet us.
I had planned on doing something heavier tonight, but had planned a nice light work out for Abbey who ran long two days in a row, by the time we got to the track I decided to do that with her instead. The work out went great though, it was right in Alex's wheel house and it was awesome to see the former 400 runner ripping some 200's. For myself it went well, but some of the faster ones really felt like a grind, not so much light and snappy. Here's the splits. 66, 35, 32, 74, 37, 34, 70, 33, 34, 72, 33, 32. Splits were a little up and down, it took me a couple tries to get into the rythym of the work out.

Wednesday-5 easy
Just an easy 5 today, still really sore from the work out yesterday.

Thursday- 6 miles easy.
Still tight from tuesday night, I'm thinking i might have run those repeats harder than I needed to. I tried to take it easy, but despite being sore I feel well rested after yesterday and was having trouble holding back.

Friday- 8 miles w/5k race.
Ran the Delta Dental/NHTI 5k tonight. It was kinda hectic trying to get out of work on time to get there, but I wound up getting there with plenty of time to spare. I grabbed mine and Abbey's package and then once she got there, we headed out for a warm up. I wasn't feeling great, and my calf was still feeling really tight.
Saw the CMS contingent on the line, in Scott Clark, Mike Q and Dave Dunham and did some striders.
The race got out kinda slow, and we were bunched up for the first half mile, before we hit the trail section of the course things started to string out, but I just focused on trying to run with Mike. I got through the mile in 5:18, although the kid reading out the times said it was 4:10. I threw my hands up to celebrate my new mile PR. Next mile I was just focusing on Mike, but he was putting more and more space on me. I hit the 2 mile in 10:55 and was still feeling pretty good. I knew Dave and Scott would be coming if I let myself fall asleep, so I just focused on pushing the pace and not letting them catch me. Around one of the last corners I was able to catch a glance back and saw someone pretty close behind me. That got the wheels going and I pushed it in pretty hard the last quarter mile into the finish. I Wound up with a 17:07 for 5th overall, in my best race of the season so far.

Saturday- easy 5 miles on some beautiful trails at Wagon Wheel Farm down in Durham. There's not a lot there, but was able to loop around some gorgeous grass loops cut around the fields for 37 minutes with out getting bored.

Sunday- 9.5 with a win at Red's Shoe Barn 5 Miler in 28:46
I've wanted to run this race since highschool, but had never gotten down to it before. Last year I realized that Community Partners the organization I work for is very involved in the race, and gives and recieves a lot of support from this race. Last year I couldn't make it cause I was working, but this year I had the day off and was really excited to wear my green Community Partners shirt to race. Community Partners is a great organization and they do an unbelievable amount of good for the Seacoast Community, in the way of supports and services to individuals with developmental, and mental health needs. So today to race for them, and be able to get the win was a real honor, but honestly I just got lucky.

Lining up I didn't recognize anyone on the line, and figured that had to be a good sign but ya never know in the seacoast there's so many guys out there. Getting out in the first mile I was trying to set a good pace but stay relaxed, I got out in 5:32 and felt surprisingly good for the pace, the next mile is rolling and with a pretty big lead already I slowed down a bit to 5:55 for mile 2. I didn't mean to let off the gas quite that much and I let some of my competitors start to close the gap over that mile. At one point a spectator said I only had about 20 yards, so I focused on pulling away over that mile, and wasn't making much ground as I ran a 5:59 for the 3rd mile which is mostly uphill. On the 4th mile I started to feel a bit better, and was able to pull far enough away to not have to worry about the guy behind me. But I only managed to push a 5:53 on the mostly flat mile. The last mile is all downhill and I tried to use it and managed a 5:26, to finish up in 28:46. Not too bad, It was a great to get a win, and I was glad I didn't have to push too hard in the race, after running a hard 5k on friday night. Felt strong and I won 75 dollars to Red's to get a pair of shoes with. Good timing too because Abbey needs to get a new pair soon.

Week Total:50 miles with two decent races. I'm feeling pretty good.

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Running week ending April 15th

Monday- 5 miles kinda hard. 33 minutes. Just tried to keep the effort up on this run. Tried to push the pace with out working too hard.

Tuesday- Workout, 800, 400 alternating on half rest-4 sets.
This was a good old Keene State work out. I remember this being one of the toughest work outs of the season although I think we were dong 6 sets back then, and you had to be going low 2:20's and low 70's if not under to stay with the pack. Today I didn't (and couldn't if I wanted to) hit these that hard. I went 2:38, 76, 2:41, 79, 2:42, 80, 2:44, 73. I was having a hard time holding to my 5:20 goal pace for this, but the work out went pretty well.  8 miles total.

Wednesday- 9 miles easy. Felt good tried to just relax on my run and enjoy being out there. Got excited a few times and had to remind myself to ease off and recover from yesterday's work out.

Thursday-Steady 10 miles with Scott McGrath.
My first run at Maudslay Park. Felt great, gorgeous trails, nice run.

Friday- 4 easy am, 4.5 pm
Just easy runs. I'm happy I squeezed in the second run.

Saturday-0
Went down to the marathon expo in the morning, and ended up getting back so late that we didn't have time to run.

Sunday-13 miles
Nice long run on the Franklin rail trail with Abbey, Scott Clark, Ernie Brake and a couple of their HS runners. felt great to run with a group. Put in some faster miles on the way back after a pit stop halfway

Week Total-  53.5 felt good this week. looking for a few more miles next week though.

Thursday, April 5, 2012

Running Week Ending 4/7

Monday- easy 6 miles

Tuesday- work out- 1600, 2x800 4x400 half rest
good work out I went 5:28, 2:31, 2:35, 75, 76, 74, 74. I pretty much did what I wanted to here. I felt a bit clunky out there, but the work out went well. Another speed work out later in the week will hopefully work out the kinks. 7.5 total.

Wednesday- easy 6 miles

Thursday- work out- 6x400 200 rest.
Didn't go so great, 75, 78, 76, 75, 80, 78. I meant to do 10 of these, but was feeling like crap, and decided to just call it at 6. I ran a nice 25 minute cooldown, and with a 15 minute warm up, to make it about 7 miles.

Friday-Easy 45 minutes with Abbey and the dog on the Ahern Park trails. 6 miles

Saturday- Race SEA 5k- 17:13 10th place very windy.
This race went much better than last week at Gilmanton, I forgot to start my watch in the beginning, but that was probably just as well, because I think we must have gone out in about 5:10 and I was a ways off the leaders still. I was probably better off not knowing that first split anyway. I got into a nice rythym over the next mile and felt pretty good, just before 2 miles we turned to run back into the wind for the next half mile and at about 2 and a quarter and Ernie Brake and Scott Clark came up on me and I just couldn't respond. I kept it together over the last mile, but I was hurting. It was definitely better than last week. I'm looking forward to my next one. 8 miles total for the day

Sunday- Easy 8.5 miles with Abbey on some new trails we found near the house. We just explored the main trail, but there were about five or six very inviting looking off shoots we'll have to get out and explore soon.


Week Total: 47 miles. Felt great by the end of the week and ready to bump it up this next week.

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

March and The Eastern States 20 miler

Well I had a rough few weeks of training, and was having trouble getting out the door for most of March. I told myself the lay off was so I could enjoy our short winter and get some skiing in, now that we finally had some snow. The truth is it had a lot to do with the DH Jones 10 miler. I ran an ok race, sub 60 for that course isn't too bad, but I thought i'd run faster, I felt like I'd been working hard, and just didn't feel like I was seeing results. I think this dissapointment made it a lot easier to say "awww screw it" when trying to decide to run for most of the month. There were some ski days that I don't regret, but there were lots of missed oppurtunities for running this month.

These training lapses happen to me fairly often and really have been my biggest problem in post collegiate running. Sometimes I just stop caring. For the past couple years I've gotten into decent shape over the summer then just stopped. This is the first year that i've carried my training through the fall and into the winter in a long time. I've been able to keep this lay off to 3 weeks instead of 8 or 9 months, so hopefully I can get back into it before I lose too much. I am frustrated with myself for dropping the ball and that's part of what lead to the horrible decision to run The Eastern States 20 miler.

After the poor month of training I decided to punish myself by jumping into the 20 miler. We were going to go down and cheer on Abbey's mom, but I decided if I was gonna be there I might as well run. I had been getting in about 20-30 a week for most of march, and knew it was probably a bad idea to run, but I wanted to see how it would go. I told Abbey I'd just try to run 7's, that was a lie. I was planning for 6:30's til I blew up. I thought that maybe it would work out and I'd just roll a long for most of the run. turns out I was very wrong, and set myself up for quite the painful run.

I got on the line and said hi to some friends, getting off the line I ran into Fergus Cullen and he was going for about a 2:10, I figured that'd be perfect and planned to go with him. We clicked em off at 6:25-30 for the first 7 miles before i lost Fergus at a water stop. Fergus went on to drop the pace and run 2:04 so I'm glad he dropped me early and didn't focus on 6:30's for me for too long. The race started getting tough around mile 8 I was slowing down a little, and certainly not making any ground on Fergus. I made it through 10 miles at 65:20 and felt ok that I had some time in the bank, but my legs were falling apart quick. I was able to keep it around 7's for the next five miles or so, some over some under. Around mile 15 or 16 Abbey jumped in with me and really kept me going, as I was very close to dropping out at that point. My splits just went to shit here, and I started really dragging. I had to really try to just make it one mile at a time at this point. by the last 2 miles I was barely jogging and almost stopping to walk many times. I think I was running about 9 minute miles by the end of it, but I was able to keep myself jogging and never stopped to walk. I finished the race and that's all there was to it, it was an embarassing last few miles, but hey I did do this for punishment, and I got a whole lot of it.

Thursday, March 1, 2012

Running Week Ending 2/4

Mon- 5 easy 39 minutes
I was very very sore after the hard 10 miler the day before. I pretty much hobbled the whole run.

Tues- 11 easy
Still very sore today! I was able to walk a little more normal through out the day, but my quads were still killing it me. Ran a nice easy 11 with Abbey. Ran into lakeport to go around Lake Opeechee, a run we used to do all the time for an easy 5. It was still a nice easy run only now it's 11. We didn't get out the door until 8:30 or so, and were struck by how weird we felt being out there, going out for 11 miles when the rest of the town was sitting down to watch tv, or relax for the night.

Wed- 7 easy
Still sore! It's actually getting a lot better, but I definitely still feel my legs. I've just been trying to run whatever my legs feel like running this week as far as pace goes, but today I had some stretches where I was moving right along and feeling pretty good. I was thinking maybe I'd do a 30 60 90 at some point this week, but now that we're getting dumped on I'll probably just continue to do easy runs for the rest of the week.

Thurs- 6 easy
Finally the soreness has gone away. Today we had a huge snow storm so I'm happy to have gotten anything in at all. I shoveled twice, went snowboarding for the afternoon and got 6 miles in, I had an active day.

Friday- 6 easy am. Just trying to make sure I got it in. I'm glad I did too, because I got home late from work, and I really don't wanna go now. I was thinking about doubling, but now I'm just glad I got a run in already.

The two snow runs, between last night and this morning, were pretty hard on my hamstrings and glutes, my butt has been killing me all day long. I guess this has just been a sore week.

Sat-0 went snowboarding all day. Meant to get a run in when we got back, but I wound up getting called in to work for the night, so I had to head right down there after dinner.

Sun-0 Working on the house all day.

Total: Well this week turned out a little easier than I wanted, but I think I needed one, I was hurting pretty bad most of the week. Now I'll be ready to get back to work over the next few weeks.

Monday, February 27, 2012

DH Jones 10 miler, Amherst, MA

    This day started off stressfully, I had been asked to do the overnight at work on saturday night, and since they had no one I agreed to work it as long as someone would relieve me at 7 am instead of 8 so I could make it to the race. Of course 7 am rolls around on sunday morning, and no one was there. Apparently my relief had never gotten the e-mail to come in early, and I wound up there til 8. I missed my car pool that I was meeting in Concord, and when I got out I hit the road for Amherst. A whole lot of speeding got me to the race by 10:30. Luckily I was able to have Abbey grab my number and get my stuff ready to go, I quick changed into my running stuff, and was ready to hit the line at 10:40. I wish the race had started then, cause I had a lot of adrenaline pumping. It was tough to try and get the adrenaline under control, and wait that next 20 minutes for the race.
    I started out a few rows back from the start with Scott Clark of the CMS masters team and marvelled at all the top NE talent that had assembled for the first race of the GP series. I tried to stay nice and relaxed and with in myself as the gun went off and we got out. It was pretty crowded that first half mile or so, and I was fighting the urge to try and get on the outside and get around guys. I controlled myself and let the jostling and tight running bring me through that first mile at 5:48 right on pace. The second mile is really fast and I was scared to go too fast, but I saw Dave Dunham hammering down the hill and decided he must know what he was doing and followed him right along. This brought me through mile 2 in 5:17. I was glad for the cushion as I ate it all up on the next two miles on the hills. I thought I was keeping a pretty steady pace on those sections, but I slowed down to 6:18 and 6:23 which was quite a bit slower than I wanted. I tried to stay positive about the tough miles and focused on pushing that 5th mile. I was never able to get rolling the way I'd hoped I would in the second half. I ran 5:57 and 5:55 for miles 5 and 6 which I wasn't so happy with, I'd hoped to drop back down under 5:50 for those miles, but it was just not coming easy. the 7th and 8th miles I forgot to get the split but I was 11:48 for those two miles. I was working hard by this point, and had resorted to trying to run 2 minutes on 1 minute on just to try and break up the effort, and maybe get the miles to pass a little faster. I think this helped as I dropped the pace a couple seconds even though everything was getting pretty difficult. I missed the mile marker for mile 8 and so I'm not sure what my final splits are, but I'm pretty happy with how I raced them. I focused hard on pushing that long flat, before we started climbing in the 8th mile, and once we started I thought I moved well going up that hill. When we turned onto the final hill around mile 9 there was that horrible head wind, it hit me like a brick wall, and I was struggling to keep moving forward. I regretted letting the pack in front of me get away even more then, because I would have liked to have someone to tuck in with. As I topped that last hill I saw the Mahoney's cheering on the runners, I greeted him with a nice display of projectile vomiting. I was surprised at the volume, as I didn't think I'd ingested nearly that much before the race. I got passed by some people including some CMS masters as I recovered from throwing up. I really didn't want to get past in the last mile, and was happy that I was able to drop it down and throw in a good last 400 to get by the guys who'd passed me there. I felt bad for highschool kicking on CMS guys that I know and respect, but I knew that Dan Verrington wouldn't feel bad for holding me off, so I got down to it and kicked for all I was worth going around that parking lot.

All in all, I was pretty happy with the race. I raced the whole thing, and I worked hard. I'm a little bit dissapointed that all I got was a 59:42 for what seemed like a very hard effort, but it's a tough course. After the race one friend had noted that I am "this close" to being back and I think he may have been right. I'm about 2 or 3 minutes slower than what I would like to be once I'm back, but I do think he's right, because once I turn that corner that 2-3 minutes won't be so difficult to get. Congrats to my CMS team mates on our 3rd place finish, you guys are animals.