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Showing posts from September, 2008

City Running Tours Review... And Then Some...

The miles fly by. Work flies by. And when it all does, this blog just sits here. Anyway, in no particular order: 1) Office Olympics today - or at least the 1600 meter run - which is the only event (I'd argue) not 100% based on luck. Anywho, last year I won it in 5:52. This year, my goal time was 5:30. So, I had my Garmin on lap pace and chased it around the track @ 5:27-5:28. Except --- it was off by .06 miles, which meant I actually finished in 5:44. 8 seconds faster than last year. 1st place (though my buddy Dave was definitely holding back) again. Most important? VDOT says this equals a 3:08 marathon. 2) Speaking of marathon, the training's going well. Later this week is the 4th of 5 twenty milers. Last weekend was 15 @ 7:48 pace. Things seem to be spinning toward a 3:10ish. 3) Blood sugars have been behaving real well. I keep the pump on a low basal for the long runs, sip Gatorade G2, and take a gel every 5 miles. So far, so good. 4) Last week at a big tradeshow, our compan

Screw You, Sports Illustrated. Runner's World Has It's Own Curse...

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A few weeks after appearing in Runner's World , people are calling for NFL referee Ed Hochuli's head . Maybe that's what happened to Ryan Hill in the Olympics.

Harrisburg Half Marathon Race Report

So yesterday was the Harrisburg Half Marathon - basically a mini-version of my key race, the November Harrisburg Marathon. It starts in the same place and goes the same directions, just not as far. So it serves as a nice dress rehearsal. Last year, I ran this one in 1:40 flat as a marathon pace run and promptly freaked out since it didn't feel "easy" to me. So three week's later I ran a different half marathon pretty close to all out in 1:34:32, which fixed my head in time for the marathon. This year, the plan was to have a nice PR here -- in the 1:31-1:32 range -- so that my head was in good shape heading into the final weeks of marathon training. And then, during last week's speed workout I hurt my shin, pretty much in the same place where I always hurt it. I went into holycrapIneedtofixthisormyseasonsgoingtohell mode, spending the entire week icing it, wrapping it and putting smelly creams on it. And mostly, I trained through it, though last week was a schedule

August in the Rearview...

This past Saturday was my second of five 20 milers in the marathon plan (out of 5) and also marked the last day of August. Random thoughts and observations: 1) August finished with just under 183 miles - my highest count ever - a full 8% more miles than July, my previous high. 2) However, August was also a month w/ 5 weekends and if you're doing a long run on the weekend, that helps. I actually missed four workouts during August: 2 due to UK travels and 2 due to small injuries I wanted to heal. Which they did. 3) However, none of the 4 missed workouts were KEY workouts - they were all recovery runs. 4) August of 2007 - on the FIRST plan - I ran just over 130 miles, so this year I ran nearly 40% more miles. 5) More importantly, my key workouts are better than I did last year. My tempo runs and 1 interval workout were better than my FIRST results in 07 and while my long run paces are slower than last year, they're only a tiny bit slower. 6) Still finding the right magic dose of i