Hay is in the barn and all that..........

Less than 72 hours until the marathon, the Cincinnati Flying Pig. They've been sending a daily email for the last 2 weeks. Weather continues to change daily. But, at least it's still cool as compared with the weather in Nashville for the Country Music Marathon last weekend.

My running streak is still intact at this point. Plan on running the next 2 days as well, so it won't be stopping before the race. As of today its at 73 days.

We'll be leaving for Cincinnati before the sun comes up on Saturday. The fast guys want to check out the course. I've never been a fan of course previews, but what the heck, I've never been to Cincinnati either.

Goal pace is still 3:05, that's a touch over 7:03 minutes per mile. Plan is to run that pace until mile 8 and then let the downhills come in a little quicker. Ideally this should result in a negative split. I've never been able to pull that off in a marathon, yet. But, then again, I've never run this kind of training or mileage in preparation for a marathon. I've averaged probably 72 miles per week. Need to go back and see for sure. Most in the past was about 55 miles, with a high week of about 60 miles. Only 1 week below 60 miles in this training cycle, that's this weeks taper week.

Spring marathons

The Boston marathon has come and gone. Next up is the Country Music Marathon here in Nashville, on Saturday. One of the tough things about a spring marathon is the uncertainty with the weather. Tomorrow's forecast is not very runner friendly. 63 degrees at 7 am, gun time and 79 degrees by 11 am. The half marathoners should be ok, but anyone running over 3:30 for the marathon is going to have some serious heat. Looks to be the second warmest or maybe the warmest CMM to date. Sure glad I'm not running it.

I prefer to train for the fall marathons. Downside for them is having to train in the heat, but most times you get the benefit of a cool/cold day on the day of the race. Most training runs for the spring marathons are run in cooler/cold weather. Lots' of rain this cycle, but little or no heat. I've been watching the 10 day forecasts for Cincinnati. Looks like our weather will be decent, low of 56 degrees and a high of 73 degrees. Little warmer than I'd prefer, but not a sauna bath like it will be in Nashville.

Good luck to everyone running the Country Music Marathon or half marathon. Hope they've fixed the traffic jam at the stadium. I'll be sleeping in on Saturday. Plan on running a easy 8 miles on the greenway once the sun comes up.

My goal race, the Flying Pig is one week, one day and one hour away. This cycle has been the most intense training ever for a marathon. More long runs. More speed training. More miles. But, here it is one week of taper down and a touch over a week to go and the pre-race jitters aren't as bad. My resting heart rate has dropped another couple beats. Seems I'm calmer? Doesn't mean I'm not going through everything about the race in my mind.

I'll toe the line at the pig, at the lowest weight since high school. Not that I've ever really gotten fat or overweight. The most I've ever weighed is 172 and now I'm down to 152. Most of my marathons I only get down to around 160 pounds. It wasn't until I started increasing my mileage that I dropped below 160. When I eliminated all off days in my running, I actually gained a couple of pounds for about a month.

Boston Bad AZZ

Brian Sell, the other American.
Post Boston interview, 2:16 is not acceptable.

Doc ran a 2:49:26, fastest Middle TN runner and J. ran a 3:18.

Taper time

Only 2 weeks from today, until the Flying Pig Marathon. Training has gone very well this cycle. Speedy and FM waited for me this morning at the Lascassas Baptist Church. We were supposed to start at 5:30 am, but I was about 10 minutes late. I couldn't find my Race Ready Long Distance shorts. So, I ended up carrying my powergels. Those guys had just as much energy as me, I had to let them go after a few miles. Didn't want to start out to quickly, plus hate slowing them down. We hit Spain hill at 3 miles and then on to the hills on St. John's. Rolling hills the entire way. Steepest point was about a half mile into the first marathon pace mile around 10.5 miles into the route. From that point it's a rolling downhill. With just enough uphills to make you work for all of the downhills. This route is 18 miles, the first 10 miles were planned to be around a 150 bpm for the heart rate. Then the final 8 miles at marathon pace and heart rate around 160 bpm.

Only negative of this workout was the downhills kept me from really locking into marathon pace. Much different from the workout on Wednesday, where marathon pace was pretty consistent. But the splits were in my favor.
7:03,6:50,6:49,6:57,6:57,6:49,6:58,6:48
Plus the heart rate never really got over 160, except for the uphills. Powergel at 8 miles and then a caffeinated GU at 13.5. Scheduled for 14 miles but the last hill took a little bit out of me. Finished feeling strong. FM said he was going to go soak in a ice bath. I went home and did the same. Legs felt good afterwards. Wore my Zensa calf sleeves home and then again after the ice bath.

3 weeks till the pig

Today was the last 20 miler, did 22 miles at a 7:50 average pace. This run was much easier than the last 21 miler. Lot's of energy left at the end of the run. BQ1 was on hand for the second loop to help pull me through the last 11 miles. He's running the Country Music half marathon next week and looked strong chugging up the hills ahead of me. On Wednesday we did a 6 mile tempo workout that was very encouraging. We averaged 6:34 pace even with the hills and the wind. One more week of 100% mileage and then taper for 2 weeks.

Streak is still alive. Its at 55 days. I'll probably let it go in the last couple of days before the marathon. 4 miles is the number I've determined for runnng miles to keep the streak going. I usually only do 2 miles the day before the race.

Got some Zensah calf compression sleeves on Monday from the Fleet Feet in Murfreesboro. Krista emailed me to let me know they'd arrived at the store. I'd tried on some of the Swiftwick sleeves at the Fleet Feet in Brentwood. They didn't have my size. I've worn them on two runs. First time was for Wednesday's tempo workout when the temps were in the upper 30's. Usually tight weather, but these things worked alot better. Wore them again for this mornings long run. Again the temperature was a little cooler, 39 degrees to start. But, it warmed pretty quickly to low 40's by the time I was done. These things are great. Not as much compression as the old neoprene calf sleeve I use to wear. But, I really only wore one when one calf or shin was sore or tight. I really just bought these for recovery from the long runs. Started looking before the Tom King half marathon. Only negative so far is they make you look like a catholic school kid. I'm ok with that, I never really have given a rats ass what anyone thinks anyway. But, the biggest deal buster is this guys wears them. Oh well, they seem to work, so I'm sticking with them.

Jeff Galloway, ex-Olympian and king of the Gallowalk method to run a mediocre marathon.

It was the big one

House in Indian Creek subdivision.

Amazing the power of a tornado. We rode through some of the hard hit areas yesterday evening and again today. Cleanup is going to take awhile. Paula's parents house is within a 100 yards of the path of the tornado in Blackman (Indinan Creak Subdivsion)Two houses in their subdividision where slammed together, with one ripped completely from the foundation and onto the other house. Across the street a car was picked up and slammed into the side of the house. No one was at home at either of those houses. We talked with one of the occupants and they'd gone to Nashville, but one of the kids had wanted to stay home, but went on in to Nashville instead.

The path of the tornado was straight towards our house, according to the graphic in the Daily News Journal. Looks like it took a little turn to the right before stopping about a mile down the road, at the corner of Penny Lane and Compton Road. We went for a run this morning in that area. That's where FM was on his run yesterday when the tornado hit. He heard the sirens going off at MTSU and got pelted by the hail coming up Compton road. He saw the tornado and a women yelled for him to come in out of the storm. That was one street over from Penny Lane. The DNJ had a story of a runner on the greenway who held on to a tree as the tornado passed overhead.

We lost power for about 28 hours, but no damage. Bill's TN Paradise, with some storm chasing and video of the touchdown.

number 9, number 9, number 9.............

Beatles remastered. cool. plus, Rock Band,Beatles.

link to CNN story

new dog

We've added another dog to the family. He's about 6 weeks old. He looks like a mix of Jack Russell terrier and a beagle. Just hope he doesn't grow any bigger than Lance. He's about half the size of Lance now, but stands his ground against him.

Looks like the crazy weather is about to change. Can't remember it ever snowing in April, freeze and frost, but not a snow. Least that's better than the thunder storms and winds that having been rolling through lately.

Rented a couple $1 movies from the "Red Box". One was some chick flick, Paula watched; the other was "Bedtime Stories" with Adam Sandler. Not a fan of his particularly, most of his stuff is pretty ho hum. This one was from Disney and the special effects are about the only thing worthwhile in the movie. Glad I didn't drop $40 at the theater on it.

Marathon training for this cycle is about to start winding down. Two more weeks at 100% mileage and then two weeks of taper. Everyone headed to Boston is only two weeks out and starting to taper. Same with those doing the Country Music marathon here in Nashville. It's 3 weeks away. This will be the first time in the last 3 years I haven't either done the half or marathon at Country Music.

Attached pictures are from Darrell's birthday party and of the new dog. Paula and the boys brought him out to the See Spot Run 5k at MTSU on Sunday. I was helping to do the finish line results. Lots of dogs and the biggest turnout in the four years this race has been going. Couple of college girls where gooing over Dylan and the new dog. Dylan named him Bob, Paula wanted to name him Harley and Darrell wanted to name him Bruno. The girls convinced Dylan, Bob was the best name.

Anxious, perhaps..........

Heart rate and elevation profile from this mornings speed workout, above. This workout has become easier since we first started. We break it up into the A group with the fast guys and the B group, me and S. Stayed with the A guys for a couple steps this morning until S. told me to slow down. Almost felt to easy, but by the middle of the workout it becomes work. Especially when the wind is so strong running downhill feels like an uphill. On paper this seems like a simple workout, 20 x 1 minute hard with 1 minute recovery. Pace works out to be quicker than 5k pace, but not all out. The tricky part the first couple of times is getting the pace that can be sustained for a minute, 20 times. Great workout.

I would say this has to be the most anxious I've been this far out from the race in any training cycle. Most be the unknown. All of the training has been stepped up a notch, as well as the anticipated finish time. Really felt it the morning of the Yasso 800 workout. The only way I was able to finish the 10 reps at the desired pace was with S. pulling me. The laps where he didn't pull I would relax 3-4 seconds per lap. Same thing on this mornings workout. Sure is a tremendous help to have someone pulling or pushing the pace.

Yasso 800 article in runners world, discussion of this workout, old thread form cool running, thread from 1999.

Bottom line, everyone has to run what works for them. I've decided the Yasso 800's are a great workout once or twice in the latter stages of the training cycle as a indicator of my training to that point. I don't think I'll ever go back to building up to 10 x 800's by increasing a few a week. The other speed stuff we've been doing this cycle has worked better than the 800 meter repeats.