I have to have a blog title?

Easy recovery with 5 x 100 m accels at end.

My wife, Cherie, and I ran the Newport, OR marathon Saturday. It was sort of local (a 6 hour drive), inexpensive, and had a great reputation - plus it was at the beach!

This is the first marathon I've run (of 7) that I didn't follow any training plan for, didn't have a time goal for, and didn't stress about. I've been pretty much doing base building this year, have averaged ~50 mpw this year, and have been doing lots of mountain/trail runs to try to prepare for my first ultra next month. I decided to run this race solely by HR - 5 bpm less than my marathon PR HR from last December - and hoped to have the will power to stick to that plan. I don't want to lose too much training time to recovery and hoped that running at marathon HR - 5 would be the ticket.

After literally months of rain and 40* weather for my training runs, race day arrived with a starting temperature in the upper 50*s and bright sun. By the finish the temperature was well in to the 60*s. This was the hottest temperature I've run any marathon so far (and I know it's not that hot!).

Anyway I was able to stick to my HR plan for the most part. After 18 miles and in the direct sun my HR did begin to creep a bit - and my pace creeped the opposite direction. I'd hoped running slower than marathon HR would make this easier than it felt the last few miles. I did finish strong and felt great afterward (and today) with only a little soreness. The best part is my time was only 2.5 minutes off my PR from December. I'm a little surprised that running 'easier' than max effort (lower HR) on no training plan, no tempo runs, no marathon pace runs (except for a half marathon 4 weeks ago), and no sustained weekly 'high' mileage led to this result. I'd have to say the strength I must have gained from the difficult trail running has been the difference I guess.

My worst injury today seems to be my inverse-singlet sunburn, which is quite impressive. After I finished I went back up the course and cheered the other runners on for 1.5 hours with no sunscreen. Stupid is as stupid does as they say.

Results:
Avg. HR: 171
Gun time: 3:01:05
Watch time: 3:01:01

First 13.1 ~1:29:30

16th OA
5th AG (the #2, 3, and 4 runners were 47 years old and ran 2:45, 2:46, and 2:47 respectively)


Cherie's results:

I can't get her to write a RR. Briefly this was her second marathon. She had some injury issues in the buildup, but did average more miles than for her first marathon. I set the 'virtual partner' on her Garmin to 9:00 mpm pace for her, but she ran the first 8 or 9 miles at nearly her 10k pace. She gutted it out though and set a 17+ minute PR finishing in 4:06:28. I'm very proud of her but did tell her she deserved a spanking for not paying attention to her watch and going out so fast.

4 easy  miles on the beach in the wind and rain was just what my legs needed!

This was another easy recovery run in my new X-Talon shoes. I need to get miles on them to see if they'll work out for my upcoming 50k.

Today was another very easy recovery run. My legs actually felt more tired today than yesterday. Maybe I'll take tomorrow off :)

The Fall City Days 10k is coming up in a couple weeks!

If it's Wednesday it must be Cedar Butte day! Today I did an easy 3.3 up to the trail then one half hour for the up and down CB, then picked it up a bit for the 3.3 back home. It was raining hard, and the CB trail is really turning in to a car wash, but it is still my favorite run!

I'm extremely impressed with the Inov-8 shoes. The traction is amazing. I'll have  a shoe report on them after I get a few more miles in.

Another easy recovery pace run in the rain is in the book! My legs are still feeling a bit dead, and I may take another short easy run tomorrow - it will depend on how I feel. Otherwise I'll do another Cedar Butte run.

I headed out for my morning run not knowing what I was going to do, but I decided to make it a short, easy run so I could do a longish trail run on Sunday with more quality.

Tomorrow I hope to be able to get up early enough to meet my MSRC peeps for another easy run. However tonight  my youngest graduates from HS, and I have lots of cleaning and prep for a huge grad party we're having tomorrow. I'll be glad when grad season is over!

Easy recovery run with Jeff and Dan at MSRC.

I ran the Rattlesnake Ridge trail with Brendan today. Brendan set a pretty fast pace from the lake up to East Peak, but he doesn't like downhills so from there it was much slower than I like. I'm definitely not fully recovered from last week's marathon though!

This was a steady easy pace run by HR. I felt pretty good and hope to get a nice week in this week. I'll 'train through' Saturday's Fall City Days 10k and follow up on Sunday with a long run on trails - that's the plan!

Today was 8 GA (general aerobic) miles with 8 x 100m accels. I'm debating how much time to give the out-of-school kid before enforcing a wake up time and a summer goals list.

It's Wednesday, so I must have done Cedar Butte! Today I did 3 repeats of the Cedar Butte trail. It gains about 800' over 1.3 miles. I averaged about 18:30 minutes up and 12 minutes down each time and didn't fall once!

Supposed to be easy recovery. L soleus/achilles bothered me a bit, so I stretched it at halfway point. Then a guy came running by, so I joined him until he split off - so a stupid mile at 6:45 pace in the middle of my recovery run!

I cut this run short to be able to hopefully put a little more effort in to tomorrow's speed work (in the form of a 10k). My knees are hurting quite a bit with PFS, and I may try eliminating the Inov-8 shoes from my rotation for a week or so and see if that helps.

My annual trek to Fall City for the Fall City Days 10k began last night with 5 beers and a pepperoni and sausage pizza. This inauspicious beginning  kept me in the sanican for quite some time race morning.

I  had no real goal for this race other than as a training stimulus. I figured I was in mid to low 38 minute shape though. I tried to maintain a steady pace and fight the mid-race slowdown, but I was running pretty much alone for 2/3 of the race which makes it difficult to push as hard as I could with someone just in front of me. My middle two miles were a little slow, but I was able to pick it up for the last two miles. There was no visible finish line clock, but I'd started my watch at the start banner matt and clicked it off at the finish. I didn't look at if for a couple seconds, and when I did it said 36:58. I didn't register that and figured my eyes were blurry and it was really 38:something. This would be almost a full minute PR from last fall with no 10k training in between. I still don't believe it and am wondering of the course was short or something!

I did a ~ 4 mile warm up run with a few accels at the end and another 1.5 or so cooldown miles afterward. I don't think this software allows multiple runs in a day though. My knees felt ok during the race, but again started aching pretty badly afterwards.

Long easy run today in the rain on the East Lake Samm trail. My knee PFS is pretty bad. I  may have to take some time off, but we'll see.

I'm going to try a cycle of Vitamin I along with reduced training to try and knock this patellofemoral syndrome down. I'm hoping to keep up enough quality to stay sharp while reducing junk mile day mileage.

GA run with 5 x 200m hill accels. Knees still bad even with IB, but it takes a while to build up in the system, and I only started yesterday afternoon. Finally we had a 'hot' (for us!) day to run in. It was 70* with 70% humidity. I need more of these to build up some heat acclimation before my July 10th race.

Another easy recovery pace run in the sun!

I didn't have a plan for today's run, but after I got going I felt I should try and get a little quality in. After 2 miles of slow (8:45) warm up I ran 3 miles hard up the Iron Horse trail (~3% grade), then after I turned around I took 5 minutes of running recovery then ran the last 5 miles at GA+ pace (now down the ~3% grade) of around 7:00 mpm. My knees still don't bother me during runs on the semi-flat terrain thankfully (just afterwards).

I took yesterday off in deference to  my aching knee, but I don't think it helped any (maybe because I went dirt bike riding instead :) ). Today I waited until noon to go for my run in hopes of getting more heat acclimation out of it. I really felt beat the last couple miles, and since it was a GA run it better have been the temperature that made me feel that whupped after a day off!

Ran around the Echo Ridge MTB trails. Lots of ups and downs.

Just a short easy run in Chelan. R knee and R medial tib (appears to be soft tissue at least) still trouble.