Did the Fremont 5K yesterday and I ended with some mixed feelings on it. At the start of the year, I was thinking that this race could be the first realistic shot at being under 20 minutes.

This race is also a bigger Pacific Northwest racing stop (I've never been entirely clear on this. Is it sort of like the championship? Part of Triple-Crown type racing series? I need answers on this.), so you can count on a fast start since most of the top area runners are in this. I was planning on starting out at a 6:30 pace and seeing how that felt. With the surge of runners, I got out a little faster than I expected at 6:20 and hit the 2 mile mark at 12:57. At that point it was still close to 20 minutes, but I was starting to fade back toward a tempo pace and the finish was uphill. The last mile was close to a 7 minute mile and the clock was 20:40 when I crossed.

It continues the slow improvement over the year, but it was a bit disappointing in that I was close to the pace at the 2 mile mark. My endurance has improved to the point where I can feel the pace/effort that's needed, but I'm just not quite there yet. The bigger question is whether my calf can continue to hang in there. It's mostly a dull ache most days, and really feels like a tendonitis which gets better during the first mile and feels terrible 2-3 hours after I run (How much Advil a day is too much? OK, actually I know the answer to that question. I'm getting close....).

In three weeks there is a half marathon that I'll jump into for a long run and a 5K near July 4th. Probably I won't have a great shot at getting into the 19s there since it has a couple of long upslopes, but if I can beat this time at that race, I'd be happy.

Huh, one out of three?

Beat the Bridge 8K
Time 34:35 (6:58 pace)

Age Group: 31st/287
Male: 194th/1970
Overall: 227th/4011

As an aside, a co-worker talked me into doing the Portland Marathon with him later this year. Need to get those long runs up a bit. Just the several hour runs can be a bit of a drag.....especially if I'm doing them in the morning before going into work. It's always a bad sign to start work still trying to rehydrate. My excuse always is that I'm still recovering from the night before.

Hey, finally a nice day in Seattle! We've broken out of the 6 months of rain and 40 degree weather. I'll miss the days of running under cloudy skies, the threat of showers in the air and seagulls floating overhead. A drop of something wet hits your shoulder and there's just a moments pause ("that had better be rain") before you look over. I'll see you in October rainy-sky Seattle.

Anyways, did a longer run today of 10.8 miles. My legs felt dead about two miles in, which I considered a bad sign. The route that I chose had a lot of lights in the second half, and it felt like I was stopping and starting a lot (mostly along Stone Way). The last few miles were at a more glacial pace. Power walkers were blowing past me. Babies pushing their own strollers were gaining on me. Paraplegics were crawling past......well, you get the idea. These sort of days are more about perseverance that's helpful later on. Plus tomorrow is a lifting day (upper body only), so I'll be resting my legs.

The only downside: I'm horribly sunburnt. After this winter, I really don't care (but I may have a different opinion tomorrow).

I put some entries onto the internet initially for a couple of reasons. No, not to impress the worldwide community with my somnolent prose, but at least one of the reasons was to put some form to my goals. Again, not that I expect hordes of people to read this or for local newspapers to have vast coverage on the 361st place runner in a local race. Yet, putting a goal to some sort of permanent state, be it a blog, messages to a friend, or even paper seems to have some extra metaphysical substance.

I think announcing a goal is a bit like crossing a psychological Rubicon and commits you to its' cause. Connery, of course, invokes Cortez and uses his innate gravitas to explain this much better:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgvgQGEaEI8

In this spirit, my next race will be the Beat the Bridge 8K. My goal is to be sub 35 minutes. Now, I've run this race in the past and finished around the 39 minute mark. The course has some mild hills and I remember dying on this course the last time. Most recently, the Boardwalk 5K runs through a similar area and I did that at a 7:10 clip. Lengthened out to an 8K, this would project me somewhere around 36 minutes and change.

I've been to this place before. Typically, when I start being more intense about my running (either recovery after injury, long hours at work, or both), I'll improve to this level fairly quickly. In most short (i.e. 5K-10K) races I'll be able to run about a 7 minute mile pace, but plateau around that level. Now, I've been running for years and the answer is easy: more interval training, anaerobic work, etc. Of course, like most trials in life the answers are easy, the implementation harder. Else everyone would reach their goals, right?

So, since I've improved my milage base, I'm a bit more comfortable incorporating these workouts into my routine. We'll see if it makes a difference in two weeks.

In terms of an update, today was an easy 5 miler (I did it as a mini-Fartlek workout) and tomorrow is my long run: I have a 10.8 mile course planned.

To recap:

Race: Beat the Bridge 8K
Goal: 35 minutes

Personally, I give myself one chance in three.

It's been a while since I've kept up with this supposed journal. It's easier to sit and think about putting some words to text than to actually do it. Unlike the proliferative Daddyfesto, who comes up with fresh entries every few days.

First some housekeeping. I did run three races since the last post, quick summaries:

First was a 10K on Mercer Island. It was a hilly course and I was hoping to be in the 45 minute range. It was a bit of a disappointment. I've never been a great pure speed or hill runner (although some would add endurance to this....), I crumbled a bit at the end. I was doing pretty close to what I was aiming for, hitting the 4 mile mark just over 29 minutes. The fifth mile killed me and about a dozen people passed me. Most big hills I can gut through and survive, but the hill on the fifth mile was the worst type for me. It wasn't a big incline, but it was a slow grade for about three-quarters of a mile. Those type of hills tend to grind me down, and this did that day.

Time: 46:50
Place 61st/642

Next was the Henry Weinhard's Dash. Sort of a bigger race in these parts and this was a flatter course. I felt sluggish the whole race and seemed like I was running slower than I was on the 10K. I was aiming for under 24 minutes and was surprised at the finish.

Time: 23:52
Place: 355th/8288

Yesterday I ran in a 5K. Mostly I've been dragging the past few weeks. A combination of a few things, minor nagging injuries, shifting back and forth between nights and evenings this past month all have slowed me down a bit. I thought I'd run it as a glorified tempo run and it also was a hillier course and thought I'd merge the two workouts in a race. Most of the first two miles were upslopes and the last mile was downhill. Not awful for this, but didn't quite hit my goal.

Time: 22:12
Place: 21st/210

It didn't escape my notice that the time in this race was the exact same as my time on the Resolution Run. The goal of getting under 20 minutes again seems to be a bit stalled. (Granted, the New Years Day race was flat and this was hilly, but it's still not exactly inspiring progress.) It speaks to the plateau phenomenon. For the most part, to continuously improve, you need to mix up your workouts and challenge yourself to some degree. That's always been a bit of a problem for me (probably also in my personal life, but that would be a subject for a whole separate blog). I've always been the sort of grinder (ask anyone who played me in tennis) who figured that if I threw myself against the brick wall hard enough and enough times, it would eventually give. I understand the folly of that, but change can be a surprisingly difficult thing. (YES WE CAN) I've mulled on the idea of joining groups around here to help with this, but with my schedule, this is a difficult task. Something to ponder. In the meantime, I'm off to throw myself at the brick wall again.

After a few non-running posts to the supposed running blog, here's an update. Mostly I've been building my mileage base and so far have held up pretty well. I'm just now getting to the point where I'm starting to mix in some speed work consistently. Today was a track workout, 6 half-miles with a mile warm up and a mile warm down. I was aiming for 3:10 splits and pretty much did it.

Splits:

3:11, 3:06, 3:05, 3:05, 3:07, 3:06

The first one was a bit of an anomaly. I'd started out way too fast and was trying to get a feel for the pace. The other five were all pretty consistent and I was a little surprised at how easy it was. Don't get me wrong, I was working hard and the last 3 were tough, but going in I thought I might fall short on the last few.

Anyways, this weekend is a 10K race and I'm not quite sure what what a realistic goal is. The course is mildly to moderately hilly, but I think under 46 minutes is doable.

The only downside so far is that my bad calf has been sore the past few days. Not too bad, but I can feel it pulling a bit. I think it's mostly some scar tissue and/or tendonitis, but that's really the only thing holding me back so far. Tomorrow is an off (lifting) day, so I've got a break built-in.

Year stats so far:

Mileage: 232.6 miles
Long run: 8.5 miles

One of the more rare forms of medical study:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/health/2004261357_malaria05m.html

Which begs the question, with millions of people contracting malaria each year, aren't there enough live subjects? I know not in Seattle, but couldn't there be a lab in, say, Cameroon or Central America which could do this part of the research?

Not a running link, but a little diversion. I love it when devoted (psychotic?) and frustrated sports fans go so far as to create websites about an issue with their team. Remember the legendary FireRonZook.com? Here's one for the Cleveland fans:

http://heylarryhughespleasestoptakingsomanybadshots.com/

Too bad it has to end now with the trade.....

Well, since I brought up Disney, here's a non-running interlude. I just watched the Godfather for the first time tonight. Now I'd seen bits and pieces of it before, but just saw it for the first time all the way through. Yup, it's a good movie and I need to find more ways to bring "Leave the gun. Take the cannoli." into everyday conversations. But besides that, the big thing that I was thinking was WHAT HAPPENED TO AL PACINO? His performance was subtle, nuanced...marvellous all-around. When did he start to go off the rails? You know what I'm talking about: in all his roles now he over-acts with the "Al Pacino" raised voice (see Scent of a Woman, Heat, The Devil's Advocate). I think now he believes that that substitutes for acting......no, that it is acting. Just like Phil Collins, he was good once.

Anyways, back to running. Did my 10K hill loop today, tempo run tomorrow.

There are many variations on that quote, but where I heard this one from was the great Bob Huggins.

This past weekend was the Love em or leave em 5K. If you haven't been to Seattle, in the north part of the city they have a park with an asphalt trail that runs along a lake (Greenlake Park). It's a fairly nice place to run a few simple loops with the caveat that many days it can be packed with walkers, strollers, rollerbladers, dogs, etc. This can occasionally make it a tougher run dodging around people if you're on the inner loop. Otherwise, it has good footing, is well lit, shady and is flat. Anyways, that's where this race was run.

Leading up to the race I was aiming for a 21:30 and figured that I could do it given the flat course and that I'd started some speedwork two weeks before. The weather wasn't bad, mid-40s and no rain, with a little wind. Things seemed to be set up for me to beat this time.

At the start I had to jockey a little bit in the large crowd and hit the mile mark at 6:54. With the flat course, I kept a fairly even pace, but really didn't pick it up across the next two miles. I hit splits of 6:54, 13:56, 21:02 and finished at 21:40. I was a bit disappointed that I didn't hit the target, but I was a bit encouraged that my pace was fairly even (for the math challenged: 6:54/7:02/7:06). And that it was 32 seconds faster than the last 5K.

The raw data:
Time: 21:40
Place: 78th (out of 1153)
Sex Place: 64th (out of 343)
Age Place: 18th (out of 108)

Coming up, I'm planning on running a 10K in early March and the Henry Weinhard's 3.5 mile Dash. This leads me back to my opening quote. After any race, there's often a bit of a letdown afterwards. It's easy to ease up and take a few days (weeks?) where you fall out of a training rhythm. That's where it takes a little extra dedication and the inspiration that only Bob Huggins can bring to keep you going. The next couple of weeks may be doubly hard with my work schedule.

When this sort of letdown happens, usually I make bargains with myself or set up treats to entice myself. To get myself in the gym yesterday (I'd scheduled a lifting day after the race to give my legs a break), I made the deal with myself that I'd get to pick a iTunes song to download. So I downloaded "In the Air Tonight." For those who only know Phil Collins after his death-spiral into Adult Contemporary hell, in the early years he was actually a real artist. The drums on this single were the hallmark sound and still hold up:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gated_reverb

Phil Collins. Well, there you go.