Thor's Running Journal

 Last 16 mile long run for the training cycle today went well. stayed on pace and felt strong throughout. A little bored around mile 12, but it could have been worse. Really grateful my legs are holding up. Fueling is always a bit tedious. Hard to believe there are only 3 more weeks until race day; that's 4 solid months of training in the bag. A quarter of a year. Race day will be my 101st run during this cycle. Only 4 more "hard" workouts and then a bunch of easy effort miles in between. Here I am starting to sound nostalgic already. It's too early for that. But it's not an unreasonable feeling. When telling my wife about my pending 16 miler yesterday and working backwards to calculate my wakeup time (4:42am) so I could be back to take Elliott. to his soccer game  she said, "you love it". It's not exactly the emotion I would use at this juncture. More like a sense of compulsion to finish the work, knowing I'll love it in the future. Or at the ve...

I had my qualms about participating in a mile race. It's just a mile, but an all out mile, and heaven forbid if I slip and trip and twist something that isn't supposed to be twisted right after I finish mending from a silly injury playing with my kids a few weeks ago. It might be an irrational fear, but with so many hours invested over the past 15 weeks training for the Indy Marathon, it would be a shame to squander it on a 1-mile race.  The Hawk's Fall Classic traditionally consists of an elementary school race and a middle school race. It is a pretty low stakes kind of fun run for the kids to have a race experience. I mentioned to the coach last year while all the parents were milling around that we should have a parent race in between. I ment it, but didn't put an ounce of effort into the idea. Then, low and behold, the race announcement came and there it was in between the middle schooler race and elementary race - a parent race.  So, with my running enthusiasm, how...

  This morning I figured out my hang up with the whole Chicago garuenteed entry time delemia. I want the trophy of being able to say "I qualified for garentied entry into the Chicago Marathon" there are other ways of getting entry - lottery, charity running, but these don't have the same ring...even if the ringing is only in my own mind. Somehow I still would feel like an imposter. As if I didn't hit the bar that would be acceptable.  Of course, some of this is resonance in my head. After all, only about 10% of runners in my age group can run a 3:10:00 marathon (at least according to the public stats of the 2024 Chicago marathon) anything under 3:20 is still pretty speedy especailly for a guy who only started making a go at this 2 years ago.  We'll see  We'll see.  Today went well 8 easy miles. A touch off, but completely tolerable. I suspect there is still some healing, but going to give things a go  

Qualify to have guaranteed entry into the Chicago Marathon Run a marathon in 3 hours 15 minutes In the spring these goals were the same just worded differently. Now, they are different and the semantics matter.  Sometime in July the Chicago Marathon organizers dropped the guaranteed entry time for my age group by 5 full minutes after a drop of 10 minutes the year before and I missed the memo. When I finished my previous marathon in October and even my Half-marathon in the spring earlier this year, it felt like 3hrs and 15mins was very much on the horizon, which in turn would put me into Chicago. But now there is a shifting and unsettling of the goals.  The goal posts moved. Now I need to run a 3:10:00 to reach my Chicago goal. Running 3:15:00 would undoubtedly be an amazing feat, but doesn't advance me to the running experiences I expected. Can I run a 3:10 marathon now? I've been through this argument before as recently as 2 weeks ago .  My training so far says it's pl...

Feeling even better today. Maybe try some light running tomorrow. I know my strategy should be "Feel better and then wait" but biking is such a drag to me compared to running. I'm a lot less worried now than earlier in the week about fitness loss. I mean if I needed to run the marathon next week I likely could pull it together and make it happen. Given that I have 4 weeks to play with Iam even more confident I can at least be competative. I am shying away from a 3:10 attempt, but 3:15 still seems very much with in reach. That would be in line with my big goal. Clearly nothing is garenteed, but if I can get into Chicago, I can use that to make BQ attempt. That was the orginal plan and if the times hadn't changed last year I stood a chance.   ... hot take.  I jsut found out chicago qualifing time for my age group dropped another 5 full minutes. What in the world. When did that happen?! Sheesh. The goal post is moving away faster than i can catch it.  ugh.  Well I ...

I really want to get back to running. Riding in the morning hours may feel more pleasant if it weren't  chilly out, but honestly it is sort of like drinking that pink solution when I was sick as a kid. Necessary and tolerable, but not pleasant. I have to pay attention so much more when ridding even if there are only 3 cars on the road. You never know when a pot hole is going to pop up. Biking in the early morning requires more parts too....blinky light vest, blinky rear lights, headlamp gloves, helmet, the bike. Running seems simpler. Still things, but I'm use to the things.  Anyway the leg feels better, but I can still tell it's off which means at least a few more days. Maybe I'll see where things are at Sunday because I'll be off for the next three days after that for a conference where I'd like to get a few miles in.  I looked back at my fiasco earlier this year and noted that i still ran a 1:33 Half marathon after all the ups and downs of the last 5 weeks o...