200 Days to ING Marathon- Will Joe be ready?

Truth be told, I missed a turn and got lost. But it feels better, of course, to have everyone at the cottage admire me for my iron resolve.

Day 188. On a family gathering --- my sister's godson's confirmation --- my aunt from Barcelona informs me that her son, my cousin, has run the Barcelona Marathon in 4:38. He's half as old as I am and very fit. But he crashed and burned during the first half and had to walk most of the second. Suddenly I have a very challenging, yet (barely) realistic time to beat for the family record. On the bright side, I'm about 12 lb lighter than I was this time of the year in 2010, when I ran 40 minutes slower than he did. This is going to be interesting.

Right now I'm in Germany, vacationing at my parents' house. My mother's German Shepherd is extremely happy to jog with me, so that's a lot of good training.

Thomas:

4:38.... I think that's doable, plus now you're 'sperienced.

So glad that you got the NYRR to come to their senses and recognize your entry. My heart would have been in my throat.

188- Going to see if I can get a short run in tonight before packing for a flight to North Carolina to attend my sister's retirement party. (She's the smart one of the family.)

I figured out the other day that if I work really hard and save as much as I can I will be able to retire just about 12 years after I am dead.

Joe(Maybe as soon as ten, who know?)Nation

Six months 'xactly from today.
I'm trotting but not running yet.....yet all feels well.
Yet, it feels, as I told someone on Sunday, as if I'm learning everything over again:
"Run on your feet, not your heels."
"Hold your hands up, yeah, hold your hands up"
(there is some song that has that in it, right?)
"You should always be cold at the start of a long run."

~Too many layers on Sunday. I had to stop and take off a shirt, that's when I remembered learning that lesson long ago. During one race, I was complimenting myself on how fast I had learned to take off a shirt during a race, when another voice, probably Coach, spoke up and said:
"How much faster will you have to do it before it doesn't take any time?"

I've started cold ever since, watching as many other runners have to stop to remove windbreakers, sweatshirts and the occasional raincoat.

I did the first 4.5 miles around Inwood Park in about an hour. My watch said that I did the last mile and a half at an 8:55 pace.

I'm sending my watch in for repairs.

Joe(even downhill, I'm not doing 8:55)Nation

My watch is back from Garmin.
New watch.... I like Garmin.
hmmm
Since the last post I've run three races, 2 10Ks, the second one 2:02 seconds faster than the first one and a four miler that I trotted along taking pictures of the mile post because I forgot my timing strip.
The NYRR gave me credit for the race anyway because I am an honorable person and they figured no one would run that slowly and still want to take credit unless they were desperate.
Humphh.
I like NYRR.

Where's the LIKE button on this site?

My honey is coming down to the city this weekend and we will go running somewhere.

I still am running as if I am pulling something.
Joe(I just might be)Nation

101
So,
One hundred and one days to go.
~~Things are going well, not as good as they should, but better than it might have been. The running has been kind of hit and miss, but all of the runs and races have been easy and without incident.

I'm going to try and post here every day so that I can completely bore the A2k Community with details of how many gels I expect to use on this Saturday's Long Training Run.

.. three.....18 miles or better.

My...erm.... friend, jjeffries, shoots a picture of everyday's sunrise. I'll include some of them if he lets me.

Okay, running home tonight from work, a nice trot around the park and I hope it isn't raining too hard.

Joe(where does the time go?)Nation

Excellent.

Not boring!

Tuned in here. Running with you, mentally!

100 Days



Random thoughts
~ while circling (or semi-circling as it turned out) Central Park last night:

Why does 100 days sound significantly more important than 101 days or 99 days? If humans had a total of nine digits on their hands, one thumb on the right or left and four fingers on each hand, would the number 99 be the more important one?

You know you are in trouble with the weather if the rain clouds out to the West looked bruised.

Evolution of running:
1979: baseball cap, shorts, socks, Nikes, tee-shirt.

2012: Wicking runner's cap, lightweight, absorbent headband
------New Balance running shorts, special extra comfort inner brief
------New Balance 996s, with orthopedic padding, custom cut.
------GPS watch and heart monitor/ shows speed/average speed/distance and time/heartrate/heartrate average and if you want ~the time of day.
------iPhone podcast music at 155 beats per minute from Podrunner.com
------ Earphones with volume control to hear the above.
------ Running shirt, wickable fabric- no known natural anything involved
-------Sunscreen 50
-------(Thinking about adding) water bottle with glove.

I think I still look like I'm running in a tee-shirt and shorts.

~~So, just before the rain came in, I ran up the East Side, down the road by the pool and up Great Hill, following, passing and getting passed by this couple. He was older than her, both of them looked very fit, and I finally guessed that they were doing some kind of interval training where they would walk a ways and then gun it hell bent for leather for a ways., passing me in the process, then I would trot by them.
I decided to run as fast as I could to keep them from catching up to me. I took off (heh...that means about 10 minute mile pace), I got down the other side of Great Hill and steamed up the next long grade heading South on the West Side. I was planning on going all the way to 59th and I was going to really go for it all the way!! (animal)
There's a little downhill before the next rise of the road.
That's where they caught me.
That's when I figured it out.
I was their goal line.

"We'll walk a bit and then we'll run hard until we pass that pudgy guy in the orange shirt."

I started to gear up to catch them again as they started walking, but I saw the lightning flash. Way off in the distance, but that's my rule.
~No running in thunderstorm~ It's a good rule.
Ran about five miles, including the trot from work to the subway.
No run today.
18 - 20 mile training run on Saturday

Joe(and no lightning)Nation

Your questions and comments, needless to say, are welcome.

98 days
So, yesterday was the First Long Training Run by the NYRoadRunners. I always have greater hopes for the training runs than I ever get. Here is what is supposed to happen.
All the runners gather themselves into Pace Groups by how fast an average pace they want to run. (Did I mention that it's a multi-loop course around Central Park using the 6 mile, 5 mile and 4 mile so that people can run just six or go for the whole megillah 20 miles.
I choose the 10:30. Which for me, I admit it, is juuuuust a hair too fast for an average if I was going to fun 15, which was the plan.
Okay:

Nice bunch of people. Met some of them, some were training for a marathon and had never run one, some were grizzled veterans (at age 32) and were getting ready to do their second or third or tenth.
Each group gets a bunch of rabbits; I really respect the rabbits, they are volunteers who run the miles at the pace because they can do it so much faster if they wanted to. We had nice rabbits, but just like in years past, the rabbits, godlovethem, cannot run as slow as 10:30.
We covered the first six at about a 10:20 which doesn't sound like a lot of difference until you start thinking that you have another eleven miles to go.
Here's the eleven minute group, I think.

It's that bunch in red....almost as many rabbits as racers.

Well, I hung in. I ran most of the five mile loop on my own, catching up and then falling back a couple of times. When I got to the ten mile mark I said "One more, and that will be enough for today."


And so it was.
I drank plenty on the run, had three big cups of gatorade and water at the end, drank from a water fountain on the way out of the park and was still four and half pounds lighter than when I started....


I have a lot of work to do....

Joe( off I go)Nation Oh, I did eleven and a quarter miles average 11:20 per mile.

07

You forgot to mention that the run started at seven in the morning, and that you got up at 5:30 or so just to get there in time. That alone is a heroic accomplishment that some lesser athletes, very much including myself, fail to achieve. I registered, but didn't have the heart to get out of bed. (For me, it would have been 4:45 because I'm in New Jersey.)

More later

Joe(slow run tonight)Nation

I didn't mind the early time, it's when I get up anyway. What I did mind was my own lack of wisdom to know what my limits are at present. I'm usually pretty good about that. Looking over the coming weeks, I see several 40 milers (total) and right now that seems, if not impossible, at least daunting.

This week, I'm going to try and do some two-a-days, a five or six in the morning before work and a three or four miler after work. (There is such freedom in not having to be anywhere after work.) We'll see how that goes.

On Saturday afternoon, during a late nap, I got cramps in my calves for the first time in five years.....not enough bananas (potassium) is my guess. It was just one tongue biting YEEEEOuch moment and then, it was if nothing had happened.

I did the stairs up to Ft. Washington on Sunday to see how they were doing, the calves, not the stairs. Both were fine, the calves and the stairs.

How are you, Thomas? We missed breakfast a week ago Saturday because I was having too good a time bopping through the woods of Inwood; where are you at in your pursuit of marathon readiness??

I'd have to say, I know I could have done another four or five last Saturday but I'd still be recovering today. (Another part of me says "Yeah, you did eleven, so if you did an additional eleven that same day, you would still have FOUR more to go to finish the Marathon." um. yeah....I say to myself:

Joe(that's why I'm training)Nation

42.

Sorry, wrong number, I mean 5h 35m.

Let me explain: I measure my marathon readiness by rhetorically asking myself the question: "If I were to run a Marathon next Sunday, what would my time be?" Then I apply two independent methods to answer it.

Method #1 is to run for one hour at a pulse of 145. (As you know, I use a heart rate monitor religiously.) Then I see how far that gets me, and that is my marathon pace.

Method #2 is to run a long-distance race of any length, plug it into Runners' World's race time predictor, and let it predict the marathon time. The formula they use at Runner's World is:

t2 = t1 * (d2/d1) ^ 1.06,

where t2 is the time to predict for distance d2 and t1 is the time already run over distance d1.

Method #1 predicted 5:27: 30 for the marathon this morning, while method #2 predicted 5:44:50 in my last race two weeks ago. I attribute most of the difference to real improvement, because both methods' marathon predictions were within two minutes of each other two weeks ago.

Now I have 92 days to improve by another 60 minutes and beat my cousin's time. It's still tough, but also still doable.

PS: I just cyber-stalked you a bit on NYRR's website. Based on your last race, your own number as of June 24th would be 5h 10m. Does that sound about right to you?

Yes. My goal is to do 4:44:44 and then get a tee-shirt with that on the back
with the words : Go Fourth.

I'm going to have to go look up that calculator to see how much work I have to do.


Joe(a lot)Nation

The survey says! 11.26 miles 2:08:05 shows 5:15:17....... Like I said : a lot.

So, (I only begin sentences this way to irritate certain people ) I wrote out the training plan last night. Fourteen weeks to go and this week looks like this:
Sun Mon Tues Wed Thurs Fri Sat
-3---off----4-----4------3---off--13
Next week
-3--off----5----4----5----off---13
Then we start to climb with several 20 milers in there and one 18.
~~
I think I can do more this week than is planned without screwing up the plan.


Joe(just a skoshie more)Nation 96 days and three hours.

Today, I ran three hours on the treadmill at my marathon heart rate of 145. I ended up covering 14 miles. Extrapolating this pace over the full marathon distance, I find that I could run a Marathon in 5:36 next Sunday, with thirteen Sundays to go. Better yet, it's a conservative estimate. (Remember, my standard estimate is the distance covered at the same heart rate in a 1-hour run.) It seems I'm on the right track.