4:44 pace for 26.2 miles

swiped from this thread on the Striders board, thanks Trent:)

New world record for the marathon. Holy crap. Started calc'ing that pace for 200 meters while I was doing my speed workout this morning. 71 seconds per 400 meters or 35.5 for 200 meters. I was able to run 1, 35 second 200 meters. The last one, almost completely all out. "The bending over I'm going to barf, all out effort". Freakin' amazing someone can keep that going for a marathon. No one even runs that kind of pace for a 5k around here, or even a mile.

Geb pulled out of the Olympic marathon because of concerns about the pollution in Beijing. He won the gold medal for the 10,000 meters. Actually, sixth. The winning time for the Olympic marathon of 2:06 with temperatures in the 80's equates to a 2:01:36 at temperatures below 60 degrees. Damn.

Pretty tired this morning. Didn't get in bed until 11:30. 3:30 am came to quick. Didn't seem to sleep very well last night. Probably because Monday was a off day and the 2 extra cups of coffee at work didn't help any. Really tempted to skip the speed workout this morning. Went ahead and knocked out the 12 x 200 meters. 8 miles of total running. Need to get all of my workouts in this week because, I may not be able to get them done on the ship while we're on vacation. One week break from running isn't going to set me back to far. Just makes that 20 miler I need to do on the 12th tougher.

20 miler number 3

20 miler number 3 is in the books. The Monkey is 8 weeks from tomorrow. This run was about a 9. Planned on a early start of around 5:30 am, but poked around and didn't get started until 6 am. Worked out well. Needed 2 miles before the 18 mile St. John's loop. Gave me time to clean the pipes and allow the sun to rise. Sun was never a factor until around mile 10. From that point home it still wasn't to warm, the sun was on my bare back, and a slight breeze. Temperature was around 61 to start and about 70ish when I finished after 2:49 total running. Lots of small climbs and felt really good all the way through 15 miles. One last stop, but it was alittle to long. Slogged up Spain hill and even slogged down the other side. Thought to myself that it was going to be a slog on home for the final 3 miles, but the caffeine in my powergel finally kicked in and I was able to cruise home comfortably at "monkey marathon pace" average. (8:00 minute miles) Splits for the final 3 miles were 8:16, 7:52 and 7:43. Good to have some gas in the tank for the way home. Trimmed 7 minutes off the time from 4 weeks ago and felt good. Little stiff and tired between miles 15 and 17, shouldn't have stopped for so long. 61 miles for the week.

Paula and Dylan are headed up to the farm for the day and I'm headed into work.

tempo

Some times the stuff on the Strider board just doesn't make sense. Talk the other day lead to a suggestion for a tempo run at marathon pace. Huh? According to Jack, these are two vary different paces. One poster said anything quicker than easy is tempo. That's pretty vague. For me marathon pace would be 7:20-7:30. Tempo pace right now is 6:45-7:00. I've heard it described as comfortably hard pace. Not 5k or 10k pace, but around half marathon pace or slower. Found a cool calculator for pace, base on Daniels tables when I googled, Jack Daniels Running Formula.

Wednesday was a recovery day, 5 easy miles. Last night EB and I did a tempo run of 6 miles. Really more of a progression run. Started at the high end of the tempo range and picked it up each mile, finishing the last mile really strong. Actually closer to 10k pace for the final mile. Cooler temps were a tremendous help. But the shorter days, and the target race being two weeks out will be the end of these tempo runs. Back to the morning tempos, hopefully Speedy or FM2 can pull me through.



Cruise is approaching fast. We'll be gone the week of Oct 6-11. That's why I'll be missing the Murfreesboro Half this year. Great race last year for the inaugural, except for the heat. They've reversed the course this year and doubled the entrants to 2,000, but I don't think its sold out yet. Next race for me will be the Monkey Marathon, then either the Bolt, maybe Rocket City?

Only downside to taking a vacation is the pile of work when you return. Also, this year the pre-work before we leave to town is all coming due at the same time. End of the month, so accelerated close, payroll, and firt pass of the 2009 budgets. Busy, busy, busy right up until we leave.

Another easy 5 miles this morning as a recovery from last nights tempo workout. Only 12 hours since that run. I can see how doubling would help with the high miles. Really helps to loosen the legs up from a tough workout.

skunked

Well, almost anyway. Closest I've ever been to a skunk. Heading out of the neighborhood this morning, I slowed for a car coming down the road. It's lights spotlighted the skunk that was standing 5 feet from me on the corner. YIKES!

Sunday, I finished watching the Titans game and started to watch the Colts. I only was going to watch to see if they could be beat. Decided I didn't give a rats ass about the Colts and went for a bike ride.(even more over all of the Tennessee fans, who watch the Colts because of Peyton, glad to see TN get clobbered by the Gators) I've been wanting to get in a half way long ride before "back to jack" anyway. Headed out towards Lascassas and did the Lascassas loop, plus alittle of Browns Mill where I took a wrong turn. Got up to 35 mph coming down one hill. That's a blast. Ended up with 32 miles in roughly the same time it'd taken me to run 14 miles that morning. 1:47 on the bike and 1:44 on the run.

Bike took more out of me. Quads were sore coming home and even more so over the next 2 days. They were even sore this morning in my 3 point stance during my warmup this morning. Still sore after I finished my speed workout. I almost didn't run the intervals, but WH had the track open. Jeez, if he can be out there running the stairs after racing on Saturday, I could run a few 200's. I just broke up the 200's into sets of 3, only break was after the first 6, but mentally easier to think of it as 3 intervals. First 2 were off, but nailed the rest. A little more work, maybe because of the sore quad?

Speed Queen has trashed her plantar. It was sore after she did the relay. But, instead of resting it, she did some trails over the weekend and can hardly walk. She goes in to the doctor today. Probably end up with a boot. Hopefully she hasn't screwed it up badly enough to need surgery. I can't say much, I tend to push when I should rest. Also, I messed up the date for "back to Jack". It's the weekend I'll be working on Saturday for an accelerated close, because we head out of town at o'dark thirty for Tampa and our cruise. Budget time as well, so this weekend is toast as well. Sheeeeeeeeeeeit.

hills

Saturday was a pretty quiet day. Timed the Rally for Support 5k at the VA. Rained lightly up until gun time and then stopped. I just ran the course twice to get some miles. Rest of the day was laid back. Listened to 3 quarters of the MTSU game and turned it off. Offense couldn't move the ball.

Speedy and FM2 pulled me through 7 miles of a 14 miler this morning. Nice hilly route. At 7 miles they pushed and I maintained. Still got the workout I wanted, roughly marathon pace effort, 7:20-7:30. Actually went negative on the back 7, chasing them. Had hopes of keeping it at 7:00 coming off the last hill at 9 miles, but splits slowed to 7:23,7:07,7:15,7:21 and 7:02.

guitar!

Chuck Berry, #1 with Johnny B. Good

Talked with VT and RW at work the other day about the Rolling Stones list of the top 100 greatest guitar songs. These guys really know their music.(VT and RW) They've turned me on to a lot of stuff I wouldn't even have known about.(plus Billy and even Speedy, both of those guys play guitar.) This list also has some I've never heard. I took the list and pulled together a play list from my I tunes list. I had about 30-40 of the songs from the list. Added another 20 or so, that didn't make the cut. Read some of the comments on the Rolling Stones article and they mention a few other songs, as did VT and RW. One biggie that everyone agrees that was left off, "Smoke on the water". Another comment was the Beatles didn't belong on the list, they were "easy listening". WTF? Go listen to the White Album. I've still got it loaded in my CD changer in the car. Skip over Paul's songs and listen to the guitar on any of George or John's stuff. Had to put one of my favorite Beatles songs on this play list. "I want you" (She's so heavy).

Tempo workout last night with EB. We did 5.5 miles at tempo pace after a 2 mile warmup. It's getting easier. Great thing about the tempo workouts is seeing the improvement over previous workouts. Wore the heart rate monitor this time. My heart rate was almost 5 beats lower for the entire workout versus 2-3 weeks ago. Progress.

Easy 5 miler on the gravel at the MTSU horse arena and weights this morning.