Thor's Running Journal

 Woke up with a bit of a headache somewhere around 1am. I really wanted to sleep in until 6 and then go put on  7 easy Thursday miles because I didn't have to take the kids to school, but it just wasn't in the cards. Made it back to bed for a few hours when I got home. I ran known loops, 4 miles and then 3 miles. That way I could just turn on cruise control and not bother thinking about turns or calculating a route back home.  My body rhythm won't really go into taper mode until Saturday when I normally would be doing a long run paced workout. Then next week will be a bit bonkers with just light duty miles. I can't quite remember what it is like to taper because last training cycle was disturbed. If I trace my memory back to last year I think I felt a little awkward with the abundance of extra energy.  I'm going to keep trying to stay in bed, but I'm not too optimistic that it is going to happen. We'll see.  I keep studing the  map for the race. I'd like...

 I put on my race day shoes this morning for my final marathon paced practice. It is a good thing I did because there was chafing on the back part of my ankle. I faintly remember this sensation from the half-marathon earlier this year, but it slipped my mind. It only happened on my right foot which seems a little unusual, but the body is a strange and wonderful thing full of slight asymmetries. I'll put a bandaid on it and be fine. At least that's what I'm telling myself because the rest of the run felt fantatic.  A fast run, but on par with the previous two weeks of marathon practice. Not straining and ending with the sensation I could certainly go further. Over all paced at 7:09/mile which seems pretty amazing. 1 7:12 2 7:13 3 7:06 4 7:06 5 7:06 6 7:08 7 7:02 8 7:01 9 7:08 10   7:18 Average heart rate 165 I am really hoping there is a pacer to keep me honest because based on the past 3 weeks, it's not outside the realm of possibly to take a shot at 3:10 (i.e 7:14/m...

 It might be Tuesday and be a designated rest day, but it's tough to tell my body that. I woke up at about 12:30am, but didn't fight it. I went and at a bowl of corn flakes, then went back and laid in bed with white noise that took me off to sleep. I woke from an unrememberable dream before the kids awoke.  5 full consecutive hours of deep sleep gave my body what it needed to mentally and physically recover. It also reminded me how weird it is to live in a different time zone of sorts for the past 4 months. I have the sense it will take some readjustment once the marathon is over. Really, I've been going pretty hard since way back around Christmas last year, 11 months ago. A full training cycle between then and April (with the fiasco incident). Then a shortish break in May and June before getting back into the slog mid-July. With the marathon so close, it's tempting to think about what next scenarios even before I've taken my pace on the starting line. Train for a f...

 easy effort 8 miles today.  It got cold. Even with gloves my fingers felt a bit frosty. It is wild how the extream temparatures associated with an 18 week training cycle. From the blistering heat of the summer months to this. My preferance is this chill, but it is a bit of an adjustment.  Two weeks to go. TWO WEEKS. The end is clearly in sight now. Two more tough workouts. Tomorrow 6x1mi/400m recovery and Wednesday the last marathon pace practice day....10 miles @MP.  It is also the point where I get really nervous about having something go wrong. There are still plenty of things that could take the past 4 months sideways. A miss step and twisted ankle or a illness would be pretty sad. There could be lightning on the day causing organizers to pull the plug.  Let's all hope none of these things happen.  I want to get past the starting line and finish this thing. 

I went on this crazy run yesterday for my marathon practice work out. Just a bunch of loops around my neighborhood. Normally on a longer run like this one I'd choose a route that takes me across town and back, but I felt like mixing it up. There is a lot of boredom by this point in the training cycle and you know it by how excited I am by running in circles.  And it felt good. I felt steady, strong and in control. Perhaps one of the best workouts I've had all training cycle and it gave me a big confidence boost about how my performance will be in a few very short weeks. I'm still on the fence about aiming for a 3:10 or going with the "safer" plan of hitting 3:15, but based on this week's 10 mile mp I am thinking I might go full send and get after that 3:10 number.  With a 60 mile week last week I executed yesterday's run at 7:10/mile over the 10 miles and didn't feel the need to exaggerate my effort. I know (and have experienced) that anything can happ...

 One year ago today I ran the Detroit Free Press Marathon in 3:21:33 An amazing 33 minutes faster than 2023. It felt great...Until mile 20 when I started to get a little confused mentally and the last 6.2 I struggled But that is part of what makes the experience so special.....Struggling and overcoming.  If everything were easy the story would be boring. Who wants to read a story where everything goes right? just 5 months earlier at the Bayshore Marathon ...I burned out around mile 18 (as in side of the road I don't know if I need to call medical help kind of burned out). I finished, but not happily. This year's Detroit Free Press marathon sold out before I could sign up. I delayed because I wanted to run the Glass City Marathon and by the time I did that all the spots were filled. This year's marathon sounded like a slug fest by everyone's account...high winds and torrential rainfall.  But my guess is every single one of those people who finished this year's race i...

 Well, my Saucony Triumph 20 (sunrise) shoes hit 500 miles. Yes, I keep track of the miles on my shoes. Strava makes it easy, so don't think the tracking is taking up too much space in my brain.  Shoe companies recommend 300–500 miles on a pair of shoes. Although some may think this is a marketing gimmick, I am sure they are sincere about this recommendation. If they did start making shoes that lasted forever, I think I'd still be hankering for a change of pace (dad joke!) anyway.  When I started running back in December 2022 part of the reason I kept going was because I had a dedicated pair of shoes that I just paid for, and I wanted to get the most out of them. I didn't know what I was doing back then, and just found a cheap pair of shoes (at least relative to other pairs). At $60 they still felt like a fortune. If you can believe it, I am fairly fugal. Now more than 5000 miles into my running adventures I'm a bit more willing to spend more, but still look for a good ...

 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...

I wish it were warmer out at 3 in the morning.  I went for a bikeride this morning. Not because I like being on the bike, but because is awake and my routine is still precious. The other nice thing is that there is hardly any traffic at that hour. I have my blinky lights on and just ride out into the country.  I'll do it again tomorrow if I wake up early.  I think my leg is feeling better, but I'm not going to pay attention to trying to run for a few more days. I could walk on it pretty comfortably. But there's still time and I am going to wait. 

 It rained pretty much all night. Tuesdays are rest days anyway so there's nothing lost by not getting out and running this morning. At least I'm able to walk a little bit better today than I could yesterday. Still enough discomfort to be mindful. But a little bit of a rosier Outlook then I had when things went down on Sunday afternoon. I'll still be taking it one day at a time. Bike tomorrow. 

 Going up and down stairs and walking came with a good deal of discomfort today, which made sitting at a desk working on a computer a pretty ideal job. I did have some cool visitors at work today, but a tour through the museum by its very nature is slow.  I'm in better spirits today than yesterday, but incredibly restless. I woke at 4 am, but not enough to do anything about it. I waited until the early evening for a bike ride, which is my least favorite time of day because there is so much traffic. The corn through the country roads is drying out and a bit of breeze made it crinkle.  By the end of the day I felt less awkward when walking and the mental tricks started. I know I need to stave off getting going too quickly. I don't think I practiced patience enough the last time around. Feel better and then wait is an easy strategy to say out loud, but much more difficult to do. Based on notes from last time I had this happen I pushed  harder than I should have and it w...

 strained my calf playing tennis in crocs with the kids.  ugh.  This happened at the same time with 5 weeks left in the last training cycle.  stupid.  I should have just let the kids play tennis while i read my book  but no.  I knew it right away.  oof Still 5 weeks to recover, but that's too much time to maintain fitness even with the rock sold consistency of the past 13 weeks.  Just when things were looking up.  so frustrating.  makes me feel mad.  I'm not so naive as to think it is an "only a few days" kind of thing.  i guess we'll wait and see what happens.  day at a time.   

 I put a bit of almond butter on a bagel and toped it with a banana this morning around 4:30am in preparation for my long run. I'm only 5 weeks out from marathon day, and I am working on trying to get my gut trained for the race. I brought along my Hammer Gel flask and a few electrolyte tablets to help with off setting the sweat loss.  I wasn't in a hurry to get out the door, but I know the more I lollygag around the hard it is to get started. I needed to find that balance between preparation the bit of food and starting. I ended up out the door 30 minutes later which is acceptable.  I've been splitting my marathon practice runs and long runs into chunks. That means this morning I broke the 16 miles into 4 segments of 4. Each segment pace is the same, but for some reason I feel as though I do less micro correction with my pacing if I think about the longer distances rather than mile to mile. Running for a longer segment I tend to settle in better. The 4 miles segments als...