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.
Monday, February 27, 2012
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Running Week Ending 2-26
Mon- 8 miles easy. 59 minutes.
Ran easy on the "Sweet Trail" down in Durham today and it was very sweet, a nice relaxing run. Pushed a little too hard in some spots, but some places were too icy to go fast, so I got in some recovery.
Tues- 0
Long day and I forgot my lunch at home, so I was just way too hungry to put off dinner by the time I got home this day.
Wed- 4
Headed out on the sweet trail and began having some very painful shin pain, I'm pretty sure it was just muscle cause it radiated up and down my shin, but it didn't feel good to run on so I turned around and headed back.
Thurs-8 mile tempo 48 minutes w/ 5x3min pickups 2 min rest
Ran this 8 mile loop I figured out down in Durham off Bay rd. I start out on the sweet trail, take that to Dame rd. and run back to Bay rd to the sweet trail parking lot. Not quite sure it's 8 miles, but last time it was about 57 minutes and this time I ran it in 48 minutes trying to tempo so I'm pretty sure it's just about right on. The goal of this run was to go comfortably fast the whole time, and then uncomfortably fast on the pick ups. Lengthening the intervals made this a little harder than a good old KSC 30,60,90 but everything else about it was the same. Good run.
Friday- 7 easy.
Ran a nice easy 7 miles in the snow. Felt good, found a trail that came back and popped out about a quarter of a mile from the house. I Had no idea I could get into the trail so close to home, we'd been running about a mile and a half down the road to get into these trails. Good night.
Saturday-4 easy.
Just a nice run with Abbey and Tucker out in the new snow that fell. We have been exploring these trails near the house, and we are just finding more and more stuff out there. Today we took another trail that brought us out to a huge field looking out over lake Winnipesaukee. I was wishing I'd had more time and no 10 miler tomorrow so that we could have kept exploring today. It was beautiful blue skies out there today, but with a nice fresh layer of snow, gorgeous!
Sunday-11 hard. DH Jones 10 miler 59:42
Ok race, I'm gonna work on a race report in a bit. Tough course!
Week Total: 41 miles, bit of a low week, decent race. I need to bump up the milage.
Ran easy on the "Sweet Trail" down in Durham today and it was very sweet, a nice relaxing run. Pushed a little too hard in some spots, but some places were too icy to go fast, so I got in some recovery.
Tues- 0
Long day and I forgot my lunch at home, so I was just way too hungry to put off dinner by the time I got home this day.
Wed- 4
Headed out on the sweet trail and began having some very painful shin pain, I'm pretty sure it was just muscle cause it radiated up and down my shin, but it didn't feel good to run on so I turned around and headed back.
Thurs-8 mile tempo 48 minutes w/ 5x3min pickups 2 min rest
Ran this 8 mile loop I figured out down in Durham off Bay rd. I start out on the sweet trail, take that to Dame rd. and run back to Bay rd to the sweet trail parking lot. Not quite sure it's 8 miles, but last time it was about 57 minutes and this time I ran it in 48 minutes trying to tempo so I'm pretty sure it's just about right on. The goal of this run was to go comfortably fast the whole time, and then uncomfortably fast on the pick ups. Lengthening the intervals made this a little harder than a good old KSC 30,60,90 but everything else about it was the same. Good run.
Friday- 7 easy.
Ran a nice easy 7 miles in the snow. Felt good, found a trail that came back and popped out about a quarter of a mile from the house. I Had no idea I could get into the trail so close to home, we'd been running about a mile and a half down the road to get into these trails. Good night.
Saturday-4 easy.
Just a nice run with Abbey and Tucker out in the new snow that fell. We have been exploring these trails near the house, and we are just finding more and more stuff out there. Today we took another trail that brought us out to a huge field looking out over lake Winnipesaukee. I was wishing I'd had more time and no 10 miler tomorrow so that we could have kept exploring today. It was beautiful blue skies out there today, but with a nice fresh layer of snow, gorgeous!
Sunday-11 hard. DH Jones 10 miler 59:42
Ok race, I'm gonna work on a race report in a bit. Tough course!
Week Total: 41 miles, bit of a low week, decent race. I need to bump up the milage.
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Running Week Ending 2/19
Monday-4 miles
I meant to get a good work out on the UNH track this day, I was planning for 5x800 with 90 seconds rest and a long cool down, but wound up doing something to my calf and barely being able to walk the cool down. I started off the work out well, running 2:29 2:27 and then on the third one I fell asleep for a couple laps, then tried to kick the last one and I think somewhere in that lap I pulled something in my calf, I finished up in 2:33 and then my whole calf tightened up to the point I could hardly walk with out pain, and one spot in my outer gastroc had a painful burning sensation. Obviously I gave up on the work out and went ahead and put on my trainers and tried to see if I could do a cool down. I couldn't run so I just walked the lap and went down and got changed. The calf was really painful for the next half hour or so, but I had a bunch of things to do on the campus, so with all that walking it loosened up after a while, and didn't really bother me anymore, except that spot that had been burning, was sore to the touch later that night.
Tues- 0
My calf was still tight and I was apprehensive to run on it, because I've never had anything like that happen before.
Wed- 14
Turns out the calf is just fine, as I didn't have any problems at all on this long easy run with Abbey last night. We went out on what would have been an 11 mile run, which is what we wanted. but while we were out there I was adding up the distance of this 7 mile loop, and how far out we ran out to get to the loop, and forgot to add going back from the loop. So I convince myself it's only 9 and that we need to add on more to make it 11 or 12, So we do this extra loop, and then we get back to the highschool and realize that we've already run about 10 miles and still have 4 to get home. I suppose there's nothing wrong with tricking yourself into an extra three miles after a day off though right?
Thurs- 10 miles. Workout-3x2mi at tempo pace. 11:35, 11:38, 11:31 800 rest.
Tough work out. This was my first time ever doing longer repeats like this. After getting out of class it was so warm down in Durham last night, and the track was clear so I decided to go ahead and get a work out in while I could. The first one was pretty difficult, I felt like I was working really hard the entire time, the next one felt good for the first half and then got harder, I was going to do some 200 strides after the second repeat, but as I finished up the 800 rest I decided I'd be better off doing one more 2 mile repeat. This one felt really good, I was clipping off the laps, and felt pretty good until about 2000 meters, when I had to start working to stay on pace. This was a good work out, and encouraging for the 10 miler in a couple weeks.
Fri-6 easy
Ran easy with Abbey resting up a bit for this weekend.
Sat-0
Meant to get in a shake out run today but I wound up getting a lot of other stuff done instead.
Sun-11 and two races. 4:40 mile (5 second seasonal PR) and a shitty 3k that I don't really wanna talk about.
I went down to the USATFNE track champs. I got down in time to watch heat 2 of the mens 5k and watch my CMS buddies getting after it. After they finished Abbey and I went for a nice run down on the river for a warm up before I raced the mile. The race went ok, I got out a little fast, about 68 through 400. I tried to stay relaxed through the first 800 and then started getting a little more aggressive. I kept trying to get around this one guy from GBTC on the straights but he would hold me off, and I was getting pissed at wasting all this energy trying to go around him time and time again. finally with 400 to go I went by on the inside and sorta bumped him outta my way right before the corner. Once he was outta my way i was able to pick off a couple more guys over those two laps, and finished with a 4:40. That's 5 seconds better than where I was a couple months ago for the mile, so I was ok with it. After crossing the line I was a bit bummed because I think I could have kicked a little harder that last 200 and maybe have gotten under 4:40, but I didn't. The 4:40 wasn't bad though, I might try and get in a 1500 this outdoor season to see if I can bring that down a little more.
After the mile I got in a nice cool down with Dave Dunham, as he warmed up for the masters 800. I had the 3k next which I was kicking myself for signing up for, I should have known I wouldn't wanna race that after the mile, but I did it anyway. It sucked I ran 10:02 in no man's land feeling bad for myself the whole way, and racing like a wuss. It was still a good work out, and I'm glad I got it in just for
that.
Total- 45 miles. Not quite as much as I wanted, but I had a couple days off in there, and a couple good work outs so nothing to complain about.
I meant to get a good work out on the UNH track this day, I was planning for 5x800 with 90 seconds rest and a long cool down, but wound up doing something to my calf and barely being able to walk the cool down. I started off the work out well, running 2:29 2:27 and then on the third one I fell asleep for a couple laps, then tried to kick the last one and I think somewhere in that lap I pulled something in my calf, I finished up in 2:33 and then my whole calf tightened up to the point I could hardly walk with out pain, and one spot in my outer gastroc had a painful burning sensation. Obviously I gave up on the work out and went ahead and put on my trainers and tried to see if I could do a cool down. I couldn't run so I just walked the lap and went down and got changed. The calf was really painful for the next half hour or so, but I had a bunch of things to do on the campus, so with all that walking it loosened up after a while, and didn't really bother me anymore, except that spot that had been burning, was sore to the touch later that night.
Tues- 0
My calf was still tight and I was apprehensive to run on it, because I've never had anything like that happen before.
Wed- 14
Turns out the calf is just fine, as I didn't have any problems at all on this long easy run with Abbey last night. We went out on what would have been an 11 mile run, which is what we wanted. but while we were out there I was adding up the distance of this 7 mile loop, and how far out we ran out to get to the loop, and forgot to add going back from the loop. So I convince myself it's only 9 and that we need to add on more to make it 11 or 12, So we do this extra loop, and then we get back to the highschool and realize that we've already run about 10 miles and still have 4 to get home. I suppose there's nothing wrong with tricking yourself into an extra three miles after a day off though right?
Thurs- 10 miles. Workout-3x2mi at tempo pace. 11:35, 11:38, 11:31 800 rest.
Tough work out. This was my first time ever doing longer repeats like this. After getting out of class it was so warm down in Durham last night, and the track was clear so I decided to go ahead and get a work out in while I could. The first one was pretty difficult, I felt like I was working really hard the entire time, the next one felt good for the first half and then got harder, I was going to do some 200 strides after the second repeat, but as I finished up the 800 rest I decided I'd be better off doing one more 2 mile repeat. This one felt really good, I was clipping off the laps, and felt pretty good until about 2000 meters, when I had to start working to stay on pace. This was a good work out, and encouraging for the 10 miler in a couple weeks.
Fri-6 easy
Ran easy with Abbey resting up a bit for this weekend.
Sat-0
Meant to get in a shake out run today but I wound up getting a lot of other stuff done instead.
Sun-11 and two races. 4:40 mile (5 second seasonal PR) and a shitty 3k that I don't really wanna talk about.
I went down to the USATFNE track champs. I got down in time to watch heat 2 of the mens 5k and watch my CMS buddies getting after it. After they finished Abbey and I went for a nice run down on the river for a warm up before I raced the mile. The race went ok, I got out a little fast, about 68 through 400. I tried to stay relaxed through the first 800 and then started getting a little more aggressive. I kept trying to get around this one guy from GBTC on the straights but he would hold me off, and I was getting pissed at wasting all this energy trying to go around him time and time again. finally with 400 to go I went by on the inside and sorta bumped him outta my way right before the corner. Once he was outta my way i was able to pick off a couple more guys over those two laps, and finished with a 4:40. That's 5 seconds better than where I was a couple months ago for the mile, so I was ok with it. After crossing the line I was a bit bummed because I think I could have kicked a little harder that last 200 and maybe have gotten under 4:40, but I didn't. The 4:40 wasn't bad though, I might try and get in a 1500 this outdoor season to see if I can bring that down a little more.
After the mile I got in a nice cool down with Dave Dunham, as he warmed up for the masters 800. I had the 3k next which I was kicking myself for signing up for, I should have known I wouldn't wanna race that after the mile, but I did it anyway. It sucked I ran 10:02 in no man's land feeling bad for myself the whole way, and racing like a wuss. It was still a good work out, and I'm glad I got it in just for
that.
Total- 45 miles. Not quite as much as I wanted, but I had a couple days off in there, and a couple good work outs so nothing to complain about.
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Week Ending 2/12
Mon-11 mi. easy 78 minutes. This run was half on trails half on roads. The trails were a little slippery and slow, but on the roads I was fighting to hold myself back. I feel bad taking a day off, but gosh I love that feeling of not being able to slow yourself down the next day.
Tues- 9 mi. work out 5x1 mile, 5:53 5:47 5:41 5:47 5:53 90 seconds rest. I did this back and forth on a rolling 1 mile stretch from the house. The first one I was still a bit tight then I started to loosen up, after the 5:41 I felt like I was pushing too hard, so I tried to make sure I was running good and hard, but tried to hold back a bit more. mile and a half cool down. Good work out, I felt good, even though I really didn't wanna go out and do it after a long day at work.
Wed- 7 mi easy. I ran out on the liberty hill trails, taking it pretty slow with all the ice and poor footing. The first and last mile of my run was pretty much all ice, and a little bit treacherous as it's a good size hill. the rest of the run was pretty much ok for the most part. It was a nice easy day.
Thurs- 4 miles easy. Just a token run squeezed in when I got home from class. Really didn't wanna get out, but 4 miles is certainly better than 0.
In other news my toe is feeling much better, I'm not even feeling it anymore, and the swelling at the base of the toe has gone down considerably.
Fri- 6 am, 4 pm. Just easy running both runs, felt good.
Sat- 10 miles am, I ran nice and easy with my buddy Alex Hilson about 76 minutes.
Sun-0 I meant to run today, but with it being so cold, I decided to put it off and just run 6 after work. Well Abbey's parents invited us over for lobster and steak, and as would be expected that won out over going for a run. not too bad as it's been a good week for me.
Week Total- 51 miles. I got one good work out in trying to dial into that 5:50 pace for Amherst coming up, lots of good milage, legs are feeling good. I'm gonna try and run a couple more weeks right at 50 and then bump it up for again after DH Jones.
Tues- 9 mi. work out 5x1 mile, 5:53 5:47 5:41 5:47 5:53 90 seconds rest. I did this back and forth on a rolling 1 mile stretch from the house. The first one I was still a bit tight then I started to loosen up, after the 5:41 I felt like I was pushing too hard, so I tried to make sure I was running good and hard, but tried to hold back a bit more. mile and a half cool down. Good work out, I felt good, even though I really didn't wanna go out and do it after a long day at work.
Wed- 7 mi easy. I ran out on the liberty hill trails, taking it pretty slow with all the ice and poor footing. The first and last mile of my run was pretty much all ice, and a little bit treacherous as it's a good size hill. the rest of the run was pretty much ok for the most part. It was a nice easy day.
Thurs- 4 miles easy. Just a token run squeezed in when I got home from class. Really didn't wanna get out, but 4 miles is certainly better than 0.
In other news my toe is feeling much better, I'm not even feeling it anymore, and the swelling at the base of the toe has gone down considerably.
Fri- 6 am, 4 pm. Just easy running both runs, felt good.
Sat- 10 miles am, I ran nice and easy with my buddy Alex Hilson about 76 minutes.
Sun-0 I meant to run today, but with it being so cold, I decided to put it off and just run 6 after work. Well Abbey's parents invited us over for lobster and steak, and as would be expected that won out over going for a run. not too bad as it's been a good week for me.
Week Total- 51 miles. I got one good work out in trying to dial into that 5:50 pace for Amherst coming up, lots of good milage, legs are feeling good. I'm gonna try and run a couple more weeks right at 50 and then bump it up for again after DH Jones.
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Running Week Ending 2/5
Mon-9 miles easy with Abbey. Ran out to Governors Island and looped around and back.
Tues- 0 just didn't feel like getting up to run before work.
Wed-5 Ran at the UNH track after class. Warmed up for a bit, then did a mile in 5:19 and 2 800's at 2:38 pace. Short warm up cause I had to rush back to get my car before my permit expired.
Thurs- 15 with Scotty McGrath. felt good, ran about 1:42 so it was a pretty good effort. We did this run a few weeks ago and I fell apart at about 11 or 12 making the last 3 or 4 pretty tough. This week everything felt great, and I was able to run strong to the end.
Fri- 7.5 easy with Abbey. Explored some snowmobile trails near the house. Fun run, nice and easy.
Sat- 4 miles. I went to the winter wild uphill race at Ragged Mountain today. Boy was it tough. The first mile was straight up the mountain, I ran for the first 400 meters and found myself in second place with a decent gap on everyone else. When I hit the first steep section I was walking, and it was hard to get going again. Pretty much the whole way up it was run when i could but a lot of hiking up the tough spots. Finally I crested the top of the mountain and turned to go down, and that was a lot of fun, the steep spots you just had to free wheel and hope not to fall. About half way down I got past by Brian Lavoie on nordic skis who's name I recognize from some races, I guess he has been winning most of these races though. I was pretty jealous to see him zoom by me without working on those skis, but as steep as it was I would have been shitting my pants trying to go that fast on nordic skis anyway. I maintained third place to the finish. It was a really fun race, and I felt really fit. It feels like even with a couple down weeks I'm starting to build some pretty good fitness which is encouraging.
On another note, does anyone have any experience with capsulitis of the second toe? It seems that this is what i have going on with my toe right now, I guess the tendons in the knuckle of the toe become inflamed and cause pressure on the joint capsule between your phalanges and metatarsals. Anyway it's not super painful, but it does get pretty sore. It hasn't been interfering with my running, but it's getting to the point where I'm wondering if I'm doing harm to it by continuing to train.
Sun- 0 went riding at Attitash all day. I am good and sore from it though, so it couldn't have been too much of a loss.
Total- 40 miles. Not a horrible week I should have run more, but it's better than 25.
Tues- 0 just didn't feel like getting up to run before work.
Wed-5 Ran at the UNH track after class. Warmed up for a bit, then did a mile in 5:19 and 2 800's at 2:38 pace. Short warm up cause I had to rush back to get my car before my permit expired.
Thurs- 15 with Scotty McGrath. felt good, ran about 1:42 so it was a pretty good effort. We did this run a few weeks ago and I fell apart at about 11 or 12 making the last 3 or 4 pretty tough. This week everything felt great, and I was able to run strong to the end.
Fri- 7.5 easy with Abbey. Explored some snowmobile trails near the house. Fun run, nice and easy.
Sat- 4 miles. I went to the winter wild uphill race at Ragged Mountain today. Boy was it tough. The first mile was straight up the mountain, I ran for the first 400 meters and found myself in second place with a decent gap on everyone else. When I hit the first steep section I was walking, and it was hard to get going again. Pretty much the whole way up it was run when i could but a lot of hiking up the tough spots. Finally I crested the top of the mountain and turned to go down, and that was a lot of fun, the steep spots you just had to free wheel and hope not to fall. About half way down I got past by Brian Lavoie on nordic skis who's name I recognize from some races, I guess he has been winning most of these races though. I was pretty jealous to see him zoom by me without working on those skis, but as steep as it was I would have been shitting my pants trying to go that fast on nordic skis anyway. I maintained third place to the finish. It was a really fun race, and I felt really fit. It feels like even with a couple down weeks I'm starting to build some pretty good fitness which is encouraging.
On another note, does anyone have any experience with capsulitis of the second toe? It seems that this is what i have going on with my toe right now, I guess the tendons in the knuckle of the toe become inflamed and cause pressure on the joint capsule between your phalanges and metatarsals. Anyway it's not super painful, but it does get pretty sore. It hasn't been interfering with my running, but it's getting to the point where I'm wondering if I'm doing harm to it by continuing to train.
Sun- 0 went riding at Attitash all day. I am good and sore from it though, so it couldn't have been too much of a loss.
Total- 40 miles. Not a horrible week I should have run more, but it's better than 25.
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