Last Tuesday I posted about my frustration with pace on recent tempo runs. Well, today everything finally felt right. I would always prefer my tempo runs to be around goal marathon pace (7:26), and today I completed 12.25 miles with an overall average pace of….7:26….and it felt smooth and under control the whole time. This average included two slower miles at the start as I was still warming up (8:51, 8:10). After mile 4, every mile was well under goal pace, with 2 miles under 7:00.

When I finished I easily felt like I could have gone further and faster. This is the best I have felt on a run in quite a while, and it is a HUGE confidence boost heading into NOLA. It didn’t hurt that the temps were in the low 60s, but I’ll take it!

Beast Mode….ON!

January Recap

Even though I had a bad cold that has now turned into a sinus infection (yuck), and have struggled with Small Fiber Sensory Neuropathy symptoms for the past couple of weeks, I only missed two scheduled training runs and finished January with my most mileage ever for a single month – 210. I did have a bit of a lull in the middle of the month where runs were more of a struggle, but over the past week or so things have really been coming together.

February will hold a few more challenges in NOLA training. I have a 22-miler scheduled for Saturday, followed by a tune-up half marathon the following weekend. Two weekends out from NOLA, I hope to complete my final long run of 24-miles before beginning my taper.

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Runner’s love a challenge. Their sport requires an internal drive foreign to most ‘normal’ people. They not only push through pain, but welcome it. They live to test their limits, and if a gauntlet is thrown down, they embrace the chance to test their mettle.

Beast Mode “ON”

Think this needs to be my running mantra for 2012!

Found this graphic on the “Running the Edge” Facebook page. Their comment – “Turn on your ‘beast mode’ today and go hard! Nothing feels better than pushing yourself a little harder; a little further. Calm the beast for the rest of the day by letting it out on your run!”

Today was another great marathon workout put together by the illustrious Dan Ashmead. These bi-weekly workouts have become a staple of our group, and have really kicked my training up a few notches over the past 2+ years. We switch between interval marathon workouts and long easy runs on alternating weekends.

Today’s workout was in Percy Warner Park, and featured plenty of hills. As with my workouts earlier this year, I tried to push them much faster than goal marathon pace (7:26) in my never-ending quest to increase overall speed. The workout contained approximately 8-miles of marathon pace (or sub) intervals with hill repeats directly in the middle. The hill repeats are designed to rapidly tire out your legs, simulating the feeling at the end of a marathon for the remainder of the workout. The following is what we did today along with my splits:

• 15-minute warmup
• 2-miles at goal marathon pace (13:57)
• 1-mile under goal marathon pace (6:38)
• 1-mile under goal marathon pace (6:41)
• 4 x 30 sec hill repeats
• 2-miles at goal marathon pace (13:59)
• 1.9-miles at goal marathon pace (13:15 – 6:58 pace)
• 1.75-mile cooldown

Earlier this week I posted about my frustration with recent tempo runs not exactly being up to pace. Well today everything felt like it came together. All of my intervals were completed at sub 7:00 min pace, and I was able to maintain my consistency through to the end. All morning I felt like I had an extra gear that had been missing the last couple of weeks.

This morning also featured a humorous barrage of “constructive” criticism thrown my direction. During our second interval (1-mile), I heard the following within a few seconds of each other:

• Dan Ashmead – “Tim, you’re starting this one off too fast.”
• Marc Dedman – “Tim, you need to work harder on running the tangents.”
• Paul Scalisi – “Tim, you need to get up on your toes more.”

Feeling like this clearly wasn’t enough, I asked John Thorpe if he had anything else to offer. He smiled and responded with “You look really silly in those clothes.”

We all had a good laugh about this later in the run. I really love our group!

Even though I’m still in the midst of my worst Small Fiber Sensory Neuropathy flare-up in several years, and in spite of a heavy downpour, tonight’s track workout was fantastic. The neuropathy causes some strange and uncomfortable sensations in my legs and feet, but overall I felt very strong tonight. 

I don’t remember ever doing a workout exactly like this before, but I really enjoyed it, and was able run hard and consistent throughout. Here are the details.

• ~3-Mile Warmup (including 6 x 100m strides)
• 4 x 250m (150m) – Continuous [400m recovery]
• 800m (400m recovery)
• 4 x 200m (100m) – Continuous [400m recovery]
• 800m (400m recovery)
• 4 x 200m (50m) – Continuous [~1 mile cool down)

Total was 8.2-miles

After my mediocre tempo runs the past couple of weeks, it is reassuring to get in a good track workout tonight. Little confidence boost towards NOLA training.

The battles that count aren’t the ones for gold medals. The struggles within yourself – the invisible, inevitable battles inside all of us – that’s where it’s at.

The Ostrich Work Pillow

This is wrong on so many levels.

Description from the designer: OSTRICH offers a micro environment in which to take a warm and comfortable power nap at ease. It is neither a pillow nor a cushion, nor a bed, nor a garment, but a bit of each at the same time. Its soothing cave-like interior shelters and isolates our head and hands (mind, senses and body) for a few minutes, without needing to leave our desk.

Would anyone ever actually use this?

What’s your weekly mileage like? I went through something similar during RCM training. My easy pace alone dropped over a minute per mile. I was clearly getting stronger, but it took my body a few weeks to catch back up. Good luck with NOLA training!

Thanks so much! I’m hitting between 50 and 55 miles per week, and I’m sure you’re right. Also getting a cold last week did not help, which I was not thinking about when I made the post. We have another marathon workout this weekend, so I should get a good sense of where I stand.

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Medals for 2012 Rock N’ Roll New Orleans Marathon, Half Marathon, & Relay

Pretty sweet…Glad they stuck with the beads. Hope to have the marathon medal around my neck come March 4th! I know there are LOTS of Tumblr’s running NOLA. What do you think?

Tuesdays are my normal tempo run days during the week, and my schedule usually calls for adding one mile to these runs each week leading up to the marathon taper. For pace, I try to shoot for something in the vicinity of marathon pace (7:26 for my 3:15 goal).

However, for the last two Tuesday mornings my tempo runs have not had nearly the “Tempo” I would like. Just running below 8:00 minute pace feels very hard. It is interesting because two Saturday’s ago, I ran for approximately an hour just under 7:00 minute pace and felt fairly comfortable. What happened between that Saturday and the following Tuesday? Am I training too hard? Am I not training hard enough?

Anyway, I guess this is all part of the learning process. I have to keep reminding myself that even though I’ve done 10 marathons, it has only been 3 years. I’ve obviously still got a LOT to learn.

Saucony Kinvara 3 Sneak Peek

RunningWarehouse.com has posted a fairly detailed preview of the upcoming Saucony Kinvara 3 on their running blog. I expected more details to finally start coming out after the bi-annual Outdoor Retailer show last weekend.

As I’ve said before, I have been concerned about the changes since the Kinvara 2 is pretty close to perfect shoe for me. However, after reading this and other reviews, my concern is slowly turning into excitement. I also LOVE the colors that are going to be available in this revision. Quite outside the box for Saucony. What do you think?

Saucony Kinvara TR

I finally found a picture of the upcoming Saucony Kinvara TR (Trail), which had its coming out party at last weekend’s bi-annual Outdoor Retailer show and is supposed to drop in the middle of the year. I have been using the Saucony Peregrine as my trail shoe since last spring, but am excited about the possibility of an even lighter-weight trail shoe made on the same Kinvara last. According to a blog post from someone at the event, the Kinvara TR weights 8.5 oz, which is almost 1.5 oz less than the Peregrine. (also…the same blog post has additional details on the upcoming Kinvara 3)

Update Was forwarded some additional information from a fellow runner in Nashville. A friend of his at the Outdoor Retail show was able to try on a pair of the Kinvara TR. His exact quote was… “Just tried on a pair….if you like the Kinvara….sweeeeeeet!” 

As the battery life on my Garmin 405 continues to dwindle, I had pretty much decided on the touchscreen 610 as a replacement. However after reading about the new 901XT (pictured), I’m starting to think that this might be the GPS watch for me. No Touch-Bezel, No Touch-Screen, just good old-fashioned buttons. That combined with a 20-hour battery life and barometric altimeter make this new model extremely compelling. What do you think?

Last night I was worried about having to run today on the Dreadmill due to overnight storms in the Nashville area. We’ll, regardless of the storms, I just could not get out of bed early this morning to get in my run.

Even though I was bummed about this for most of the day, it ended up working out really well. After the storms passed, it was a really pleasant day with highs near 60. I came home from work a little early to try and sneak in my run, and ended up taking Sara with me in the running stroller. This was the first time I had tried the stroller in quite a while, because Sara used to HATE it. Tonight was a different story. We talked the whole time and had a great time. Awesome 6.5-miler in the books, and I didn’t have to run on the Dreadmill!!

I pride myself in always running outside, no matter the conditions. This comes with one exception however….Lightening.

To that end, it sounds like we’ve got some nasty storms moving into the Nashville area tonight which should still be around tomorrow morning. If that is the case, then my planned 7-miler might end up being on DREADMILL in the morning. Just thinking about running on the Dreadmill makes me a little bit crazy, but I really need to get in the miles, and would rather not wait until tomorrow night.

While training for my 10 marathons over the past 3 years, I have completed a LOT of 20+ mile training runs which incorporated the 16.5-mile loop in Percy and Edwin Warner Parks. This loop makes for a challenging long run because of the 2,300 ft. of elevation gain from start to finish.

This morning, our group was again scheduled to run the 16.5 as part of training for the Rock N’ Roll New Orleans Marathon / Half Marathon. My plan called for 20 today, so John and I decided to start 30 minutes early from our normal post-run breakfast spot, Bread & Company, to add the additional 3.5-miles before and after the group run.

Even though I still feel crummy (can’t seem to shake this cold I came down with on Tuesday), today’s run was the best I’ve ever felt on a 20-miler in the parks. The hills were challenging as always, but my legs felt good all the way to the end, and I felt like I could have easily kept going if needed. Weird thing about how good this run felt is how bad I’ve felt the rest of the day (my cold, not my legs). By far the best I’ve felt all day was during this 20-mile run, which is a weird thing to say.

Anyway, it is good to have this first 20-miler of NOLA training in the books. My schedule calls for two more 20+ runs over the next 4 weeks, and I hope I continue to feel this good during those efforts.

Each race and workout is like a mini battle in a personal war of fitness and self-discovery. Running provides the context we need to look deep inside ourselves and discover personal characteristics only visible when we push our physical limits.

Thursday night is usually one of the highlight’s of my running week since it is when the Jim Spivey Running Club (JSRC) has their weekly track workout. However, I expected tonight’s workout to be extremely difficult for me for two reasons:

1. Since last Friday night I have been dealing with my biggest Small Fiber Sensory Neuropathy flare-up in the past two years. The peak of this was on Monday (I didn’t run at all on Mon), but I’m still dealing with it today. For those of you unfamiliar with this disorder, you can read about it in one of my initial posts on this blog entitled “Why I Run…”
2. On Tuesday I started coming down with a bad cold (possibly the reason for #1 since it is an auto-immune disorder) which has been at its worst today. All day I’ve had muscle aches, chills, and even felt shaky. I was unsure whether or not I was even going to track.

Well, with those things going on I was just hoping to survive tonight and get in the miles. I ran an easy 3-mile warmup, and then we began the workout which was:

• 1000 M (400 recovery)
• 800 M (300 recovery)
• 600 M (300 recovery)
• 400 M (3 min recovery)
• 800 M (300 recovery)
• 1000 M (1.5-mile cool-down)

I ran very conservative, but still did all the intervals at faster than 1/2 marathon pace. What was amazing to me was that once the workout began I suddenly started feeling great. I’ve said for a long time that running is the best drug on earth and tonight it literally felt like a drug. Once I started felling better, there was a great deal of temptation to pick up the pace, but I just tried to stay steady and finish the workout.

When you don’t feel good, it is hard to get in the miles, and even harder to maintain confidence in yourself and your training. Tonight was a good confidence boost towards the New Orleans Marathon in the midst of what was otherwise a crummy week.