What distance will you run?
Total Voters: 9
Loading ...My Half-Marathon PR is 1:51:12 (Omaha 2008 – I felt like I could have had an even better time with better pacing).
My Hospital Hill times have been:
1:56:32 (2007)
1:54:57 (2008)
Also… in the 2008 one I really slacked on the training terribly bad.
Straight from the Hospital Hill website — the advanced training schedule. It begins Monday March 2, 2009. That’s more than a month away! So what am I doing training already? Well I guess I’m not really training so much as “getting back in shape” – Winter is always terrible for running. There’s Christmas, snow, cold, New Years, cold, snow, really cold, and wind chill. I don’t mind at all running when its about 20 or better, but any colder than that and it becomes a little annoying. Throw in a wind chill or snow on the ground and I really won’t want to go.
Plus… the last two years the Winter is basically coming off of the Kansas City Marathon which is the culmination of an entire year’s worth of training… so it always seems like I’m in need of a much deserved break. I always wonder if I’ve taken too long off and will have to “start over” – so far I haven’t reached that threshold. Seems like I read somewhere it was 3-4 months for a big degradation. Hard to believe though on Oct 18 I ran 26.2 in under 4 hours… pretty sure I couldn’t run over 13 right now if I had to. Since Oct 18th I’ve run exactly: 7 times… I think…
So I’m looking at it this way… I have until March 2 to be in shape. Hah! Easy… cause even then the advanced training schedule – I have to say – looks refreshingly easy compared to last year’s marathon training that I was doing. The long runs are 8-13 miles!! Instead of an endless array of 12, 15, 16, 18, 20, 20, 19, 22 milers. Not that I did those mind you… but they were written down on the training schedule taunting me.
THIS time I should be able to stick with it ok. Let’s see what we have here:
Adv HH Traing Pt. I
I should be able to tackle this no problem. I even have quite a few hills on my regular route to run up and down and up and down. Dare I say I am looking forward to those days? They hurt so good.
The only thing I’m NOT looking forward to is cross-training. I suck at it. There is really nothing I want to do besides running. Maybe I can do some Yoga on the WiiFit or something…
Well let’s get back to some of the purpose of the blog then.
For now, my goal is going to be running Hospital Hill in 1:45. My half-marathon PR is 1:51:12 and Hospital Hill is a TOUGH course… so… we’ll see how attainable that goal looks as the race approaches.
For now I suppose I’ll start a training log:
Jan 26 – XX Miles on treadmill, nice run. (treadmill speeds 5.6 then 6.4) (41:00)
Jan 24 – XX Miles on treadmill, quite a quickly paced run (treadmill speeds: 5.2 then 6.4 then 7.2/7.4) (51:15)
Jan 17 – 3.4 Miles outside, decent steady run (30 minutes)
Ok on second thought, I just added a page for it. That should make it a little neater. I have a lot more updates planned… just very little time. For one thing I can’t stand the grey anymore, so expect a return to black text on white soon… zzzzzz……
*Update: If you couldn’t tell… update is in place!
I have to apologize for yesterday’s post… what a clusterf#$k!!! I guess that’s what I get for writing the post over a period of about 4 hours.
After all I can’t really brag about the QUANTITY of posts here so what else is there? Hmm…. 
Sorry the blog sucks lately, but well… Winter sucks for running. Sure there’s ways around it… there’s some enjoyment in the brisk cold runs… but for the most part it just sucks. And it’s not even really the temperature so much as the short days. I remember getting back from summer runs at 9pm sometimes and there’s still daylight left to burn. Not so now as its getting dark about 5:30ish.
But … things are looking up. Despite snowing the other day and continually frigid temperatures … its going to be 65 today! Even if just for a day I’ll take it. And now, a month after the Solstice – days are getting longer finally. I suppose at the 39th latitude I can’t complain too much anyway – could be worse!
Ok… well enough about the weather. Good news: injury free, been running.
I went out the other day when it was high 30s… actually felt fine for running.
My beloved Garmin 405 had actually completely discharged, and as a result now showed the wrong time. Not important really other than the only way to get the time right is to have it talk to a satellite – easy right? Well I headed out on a short, easy, normal route (3.5 miles) – and completed it pretty easily! I would have liked to go further (I was just getting warmed up – literally) but I was pressed for time.
Oh well.
I was surprised to see however nearing the end of my run that it wasn’t at 3.5 miles because I was used to that route being almost exactly 3.5 miles… which made it nice for comparing runs quite easily.
The difference may have been partly attributed to a firmware upgrade that the Forerunner 405 has had since my last runs from 2.1 to 2.3. Not sure on the exact dates, but my last run (and looks to be all runs actually) prior to Jan 17th was on October 28th. During that run I had firmware 2.1, and this – the most recent run firmware 2.3… ok still with me?
Here’s some changes from 2.1-2.3 that could affect mileage:
There were a few more, but those look like the relative changes for this concern. Here’s an animated image I made superimposing 4 runs that are the same route. You’ll see they are very similar… with the 3 2.1 firmware runs all 3.5 and the 1 2.3 run 3.4. It will take more runs to get a better feel for it – but I only welcome product updates to increase accuracy!
3.5 Mile Route.
The beginning/end does change a little… but I usually just try to run a little longer or shorter and stop right on 3.5 to account for tiny discrepancies during the run such as dodging traffic or wildlife.
Well this post has rambled long enough. I’ve hit the streets, I’ve hit the treadmill and once again I feel good. I was thinking for a goal… hmmm maybe I can run Hospital Hill in under 1:45? I’ve just made friends with Hospital Hill on facebook too – looks like its going to be a good year for running… I can feel it!
I confess… I haven’t run at all since I last posted. Not once.
While I did have Christmas, New Years, and everything in-between to contend with…
I’ve simply been unable to remain injury free. Today I feel pretty good though, better instead of worse – so I think that means I’m on the road to recovery. I hope so. The weather has been letting up a little and every time I see someone out running I feel a pang of jealousy.
I remember running in the summer heat and the feeling of just being in a total rhythm – like the climax reprise chorus of a rock anthem. That day is coming!
108 days until Oklahoma City. Only 80 until Olathe… perhaps I can do the 1/2 marathon in Olathe as a warmup for Oklahoma City. I was hoping to complete the “Kansas City Triple Crown” this year – which is running the Olathe Marathon in March, the KC Marathon in October, and the Gobbler Grind (Overland Park) Marathon in November.
Oh well… I only have the rest of my life — I’m sure one of these years it will work out for the Triple Crown. Not much information I can find out about it anyway… and it wasn’t held in 2008 apparently. Here’s a little info on it:
http://www.gobblergrindmarathon.com/Triple_Crown.html
Maybe MaraRunning will put up something soon… they did post the 2009 schedule so that’s always fun to look through!
