Thor's Running Journal

When I am old and not able to run, I have a feeling I'll be able to look back on the past month as a moment in my life where I learned about endurance, look at it fondly, and tell the young whippersnapper runners who are complaining about how hard life is running outside "...well I remember the February of 2025 when I was training for the Glass City Marathon...."  I had a delicious 6 easy effort miles this morning to close closed out a month that ended with some pretty radical numbers 205.9 Miles 51.5 Weekly Ave. 28 hours 27 mins 11 seconds 1 hr 58 sec. daily average.  As I reflect I feel pretty proud of those numbers not just because of the scale, but because of how I needed to fight to get them.  The ridiculous snowy long runs Adjusting the schedule to complete marathon pace practice Running on vacation My endurance tank is filled to the brim. I am sure I can endure more, but this certainly pushed the limits.  Yes indeed "February is a short month" Looking for...

 I'm always a little bit nervous about getting hit by a deer during my morning runs. As ridiculous as it might sound they are moving fast and I'm moving fast and it only would take one hove to knock me over. This morning there was a deer at the end of my neighborhood and I stared at it and it stared at me a deer in the head lamp. I made sure to make enough noise to scare it off in the opposite direction that I was running in.  There was a bit of light rain today which was a little bothersome but I dealt with it. I could still maintain my pacing and I'll take rain over snow any day of the week. My footing was sure which is something that could not have been said for most of the last 2 months. Once again I was able to get out with shorts on and long sleeve shirt. A good combination for a day like today. Another few degrees more and it would have been perfect. I did about 2 miles with earbuds in but they were fiddly and as hard as I tried to adjust them i just couldnt get them...

 Shorts are the big news of the day. I WORE SHOTS TODAY.  It wasn't even "maybe shorts today?" It was SHORTS! After months of dressing up in all the accoutrements of winter it felt wonderful to have bare legs. I am sure I blinded some oncoming traffic with my reflective legs, but I don't even care.  AND to make matters better it was speed day so I could wear shorts AND run fast.  (well, sorta fast, I felt pretty wiped out... still solid though all considered) I liked the running part of running again and not just the satisfaction-of-doing-something-hard part of running. During my cool down I didn't exactly want it to stop. I knew I needed to go back to bed, but I thought about doing one more turn about the neighborhood. I wanted to stay outside forever.  Inevitably, we'll get another cold snap some where in the next month or so, but watching the snow melt today and felt amazingly hopeful.

At about mile 9 the over whelming sound of crows seeped through my earbuds and above the sound of my audiobook. Sure enough as I pulled up to the corner of an intersection, hundreds of crows could be seen high above the tops of a grove of neighborhood tree. Some flying about. Other sitting in the branches. All of them caw caw cawing in a terrible racket. I stopped to witness the sight. I've seen them about town before, but this is the first time during a run I experienced the sound in its full magnitude. It felt marvelous to see these birds congregating. I am confident the neighbors may have thought otherwise.  Today's long run called (or cawed) for 15 miles. I started well rested which goes toward making the run more bearable both physically and mentally. Getting out of bed a bit later also meant that by mile 10 or 11 the sun began to come up to illuminate some beautiful cloud cover. Getting to witness the dawn, no matter the number of powerlines, houses, or streetlamps in the...

My legs hurt today. The marathon practice yesterday pushed me more than usual. It felt good at the time, but trying to get miles on today felt like trying to put on a sweater on a squirming newborn. Possible but not simple. "They" say keep the easy days easy and I took them up in it. Thursday is always slow and I am at complete peace with just moving steady. Tempted as I was to turn in early at mile 5 I talked myself out of it and finished the prescribed 7 miles. I mean what's the point of skipping out on the last two miles? If I were going to pack it in I would have done it much earlier In my mind there are increasing levels of committing to a run. Level 1: Get out of bed. Level 2: Get dressed Level 3: Get on all the winter gear and lights Level 4: Open the garage and take a few steps down the driveway Level 5: Finish the first block Level 6: Finish the first mile. After level 6 it is pretty tough to bail. Maybe slow down or have a pause. But momentum is a powerful t...

Listening to the Wizard of Oz this morning it struck me how much I would have rather been running on a Yellow Brick Road rather than through the cold streets of Saginaw. The story provided a wonderful distraction today as I clocked 8 miles of marathon pace practice. Just because I knew the way the story went didn't mean I couldn't enjoy the journey.  I ran in the same two square loops this morning as I did during my 10 mile long run earlier this week. This time around the wind and blowing snow did not disrupt my flow. In fact, even though I picked up the pace for this work out, it felt easier because I didn't need to battle the elements. By the time I got to mile 8 I felt I worked, but had the sense I could have gone further if I needed to. A small win, but a much needed one right here in the middle of the training. Half way there. 

My daughter, age 13 came home from school with the news she got a call back for the school play after auditioning for the part of Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz. In one swooping emotion she expressed the highest level of excitement followed by a dip into the reality that getting the part would mean a whole lot of work. "I feel you," I told her, "I'm doing the same thing over here." I am throwing all my effort behind training for a marathon ... so I can... run another marathon? (my big goal is running the Chicago and Boston Marathons) Let's face it. When put that way it does sound somewhat peculiar. What kind of optical illusion am I creating for myself? One way or another, the cycle of work and recovery is a maddening. I get to the point where I'm not sure I can possibly manage to do this any more and then Wednesday comes along, my rest day, and I get enough of a break that I feel tricked into starting again on Thursday with some more miles and the whole de...

 There are miles and miles of roadways within striking distance of my front door. Side streets galore. But lately I've been sticking to the main roads because they are predictably dry or at least slightly less textured. I'm also adjusting my usual "one big loop" approach so I end passing my house (or at least my street) more once or more than once on a run. I've  started to do this on purpose now because of the mental toughness it is building. It's tempting to bail when my house is right there, but I've got to fight a little bit with that mental status. During the Detroit Marathon and the Bay Shore Marathon, the toughest part felt like the stretches where I could see people on the other side of the street that were miles ahead of me.  Today this played out over the course of a 2mi warm up, 5x(1km @5k-10pace, 400m recovery). The warm up and first interval were part of a loop, but after that I just ran up and down my block over and over again until the cool ...

I came across a freshly road killed rabbit today on my run at about mile 2.5. To be close to death like this felt peculiar. With the entrails still moist, it couldn't have happened too long ago. Not even frozen yet and with today's weather, I can't imagine it would take long to freeze.  I picked it up with my mitten covered hands thinking of how its coat kept it warm. A tuft of fur shed onto the snow as I took it out of the middle of the road and placed it under a near by tree. Its such a common creature, but beautiful.  In the spring and summer I see tons of rabbits just scuttling about through yards. This time of year they are a little more rare.  I said a prayer to St. Francis and went on my way.   

When it is snowing or raining hard I take my glasses off. This might sound reckless or scary, but the water droplets pool up on the lenses and leave me lacking visibility anyway. I find taking them off is more comfortable than the perpetual effort to wipe them down for clearance. And how far in front of my face do I really need to see when I'm running in the wee hours of the morning? I can see the light of an on coming car if I need to. Of course I want to make sure I don't die hitting a pot hole, but I think I can actually see better without my glasses in this scenario.  The road's white line is there for a reason. I stick to it. Still keeping my head up.  Sometimes I'll turn my headlamp up an extra click to add a little light to the road ahead, but other times, there is enough light from the street lamps or snow reflections or moon I don't need to. It sounds crazy, but ditching my glasses creates a peculiar sensory freedom. I don't know that I'd leave my h...

  This week’s marathon training came with two lessons. Make the best of whatever the situation I find myself in and adjust the plan when the moment calls for change. These are tricky lessons to learn when I get hyper focused on training by the book. It's easier to just do whatever the plan says than to improvise based on the real conditions. But these are healthy lessons especially given the nature of the marathon itself where things most likely will not go precisely to plan. Here is a montage of what brought these lessons about:  SUNDAY started early with a 14 mile long run through some treacherous snow covered streets followed by a weekend trip across the state where I learned to luge.  A fun adventure, but it added another 37 flights of stairs to the day.  The following day, MONDAY, I needed to satisfy an easy effort pace run. I thought I’d use the treadmill at the hotel, but couldn’t figure it out. (It turns out running is easy, figuring out a treadmill is compl...

Running through the snow trying to hit marathon pace just did not work yesterday. I tried. Overnight between Wednesday and Thursday, three-four inches of snow fell and the plows didn't touch the roads before my 2am run knowing the storm wouldn't finish for another few hours. During the mile warm up I thought maybe I could get my legs going on the slick streams of snow, but I ended up pulling the plug at mile four and headed for home feeling deflated, but knowing I found my limit. It didn't make sense to keep going with these conditions at this effort. I'd be needlessly wearing my body out.  Later in the evening, the roads were clear, but I wasn't about to run down the street with as much traffic. (sidewalks still spotty). The university path is generally well maintained so I thought I'd give things another go, but it became apparent in a quarter mile the drifts would make it impossible to hit my goals. Anyway, after a long day/evening at work, I felt out of gas....

 Rest day is amazing.  It is as though I can feel my body reconnecting the fibers that have been strained and twisted and pulled from the previous week of running. Its as though they are restored and the memories of just how challenging things felt at the end of yesterday's speed workout fade into "oh it wasn't that bad was it?"  Make no mistake, I'm still feeling some soreness, but the reprieve is extraordinary. We're experiencing yet another snow storm right now so who knows what kind of miles I'll have tomorrow. It's suppose to be 1mi wu, x7@MP 1mi cd, but I suspect I'll have challenge getting up to speed just because of the road conditions. I'll plan another boring route and hope for the best. Boring is better than a treadmill.   

 2mi wu, 4x(1200m@5k-10k pace,) cool down  I felt out of juice from the start but my mantra this whole cycle is "something is better than nothing" and I wasn't about to just roll over and cry uncle. I mean 4x1200+400 is less than 4 miles. "It will be over before you know it I told myself" as if it were a tooth extraction. What does it prove to only do the easy things? I am training for something hard doesn't make sense to practice doing a hard thing? Of course it does.  I was closer to the 10k pace than the 5k pace. My recovery trot felt very slow...because it was (for me). I cut my cool down short by about .5 a mile when I ended up back at my driveway a touch early. Still within acceptable parameters as far as I'm concerned. And knowing tomorrow is a rest day provided enough motivation to finish the job.  "Something is better than nothing"   Going into the workout today I knew this one would feel tough after the long run earlier in the week co...

I thought I packed all my needed running items for a weekend away, but forgot the critical running jacket and the belt. I woke up at a little before 4am in the hotel room and realized I was missing these items. Thankfully I packed shorts and a t-shirt just in case I need to run on a treadmill to get my miles in for one reason or another. Missing the belt wasn't a big deal, but the missing jacket gave me pause. I went to the fitness room to find the treadmill where I was greeted by florescent lights too glaring for so early in the morning. I've never run on a treadmill. I figured it would be pretty straight forward. Set some buttons and go. I mashed the touch screen trying to convert my anticipated pace into miles per hour. The machine started with a whir sound. I stepped on and started to run. It felt awful. Im not sure if I was going too fast or the machine went too slow, but one way or another I felt very out of control and I did not like that one bit. I couldn't get int...

 The best part about doing a hard thing is adds a benchmark to refer to when the next hard thing comes along. The logic goes, "If I can do X hard thing, I can do Y hard thing" It doesnt make the next hard step easy, but it puts it within reach of whats possible.  I honestly didnt know how this morning would go. I'd been looking forward to a 14 mile long run all week. By looking forward I don't mean I wanted to do it, just that it was coming in the training plan. Its not that I dreaded the run itself, but with one eye on the weather I knew it would be a cold mess and I needed to adjust my expectations if conditions called for it.  By the time I got out of work late last night, the fluffy flakes fell in snow globe style. Beautiful but treacherous. I closed the garage door at home with two tire tracks through the thick snow in my driveway and went inside to bed, still not fully committed to the run.  On top of it all i knew about a tight deadline to get out the door bec...

  ran against the wind on the frozen road like an actor in an old silent film comedy. For every step I seemed to be sliding two back. I looked at the flags on the poles flying sideways and knew when I turned north or east I'd get blown over. As unpleasant as it was, I couldn't help but chuckle at the absurdity of the moment. It felt like trying to solve an impossible puzzle. There's a child like delight and amazement at the wind when it is blowing that hard. Whooooeeeee! My 8 year old self said. My 441/2 yearold self said. Oof. Thankfully just easy effort miles today so I didn't have the layer of trying to hit a certain pace. I could enjoy the experience. The experience. Ah. I guess that is sort of a good expression for what it is like to run with the kind of consistency and dedication (or madness) I am going for right now. The experience of being alone in the world at 1:30am in the morning further off the side of the road and closer to the center line that would ever ...

 At the end of mile 8  on my cool down I crossed Wieneke and there sitting in the middle of the street was a Styrofoam hot dog container. In pristine condition with not so much as a nick or dent it looked as if it were placed there like some wild modern art installation. In my post tempo run delirious state I did not open it to see if it actually contained a hot dog. I regret that now, but my mind set me on getting home and back into bed. Now I'll never know. There are huge wind gusts that I am sure would have blown the container away even if it did contain a hot dog (with or without condiments). It's possible it fell off some lineman's truck after he got called away to fix a downed powerline. A less exciting scenario is that it just blue there after a carnival at the senior home across the street. (This would make sense in the summer, but not so likely in the winter). If you're waiting for the big metaphor or life lesson, here it is: if you don't open the hot dog c...

I still woke up early but managed to convince my body to go back to bed. By the time 6:24am rolled around I woke from some crazy dream about John B. painting a mural at a place I at pasta. Go figure.  Tomorrow is marathon pace work out day. Also a ice storm rolling in (maybe). It's not coming in until later so I'm not that worried.  I am starting to wonder if I will ever know what it feels like to wear shorts again. Or a sweat band. Or run as the light is dawning.  I keep reminding myself that February is a short month as though it is some kind of consolation.  Running helped drive the winter blues away in years past and it seems to be at least mitigating the mental battle against winter pretty well so far. I'm not sure I embrace it like I did in years past, my gusto is more tempered, but it still fell pretty tough getting up everyday like this. I know it's crazy, but it is also a gift get to do it.  81 days until the Marathon. 12 more weeks. Still seems pretty ...

 2mile wu, 3x(1mi @5k-10kpace 6:34) 2mi cd Longer segment speedwork out intervals some how feel more tolerable than the multiple short ones. I also embraced the workout knowing I only needed to do the speed stuff 3 times and not something like 12 times. The road conditions and footing was reasonable. All conditions that I do not take forgranted during this winter cycle.  If you asked me to do another winter marathon cycle I'm pretty sure I'd politely decline. I want to remember that for next year, but then again, next year I might be going after Boston so I'll need to do some kind of training to prepare for that. Who knows though. First things first.  All my splits were within a few seconds of the goal 1. 6:32 2. 6:33 3. 6:33 This equated directly to my 5k at the Gobbler Gallop (20:21 chip time). I feel like only really started to falter the final .5 mile of the final interval, but even then I pushed through.  It felt good to reach the 'top of the ladder' of these s...

 Yesterday I ran 10 iles at 7:57. Too fast.  I paid for it today.  Both yesterday and today were suppose to be easy effort, but clearly I got carried away yesterday so when it came time to hit the pavement today my legs were dead.  Ended up doing 6 miles at 9:16. My watch heart rate monitor said somewhere around 136 for most of the run. Way lower than usual, but I guess in a good way. My lungs and heart weren't the problem. Just my legs. I hope I didn't sabotage my speedwork scheduled for tomorrow. It's hard to say. I've really got to figure out more control for easy pace runs EVEN if feels fine while it's happening. The problem is it doesn't really feel wildly challenging when it's happening, but wait 24 hrs and my legs ask "Didn't you know it was an easy effort day?" aw well. Got to keep moving on.