re: Official Running Log/Marathon Training Thread

That kinda reminds me of the craziest half marathon I ran...

Story time:

Rewind about 10 years ago when me and my current wife were just dating. This was during my peak running "career" and this was a half marathon that I had been training hard to get sub 1:30. It was a flat course and I was in great shape.

I somehow talked my wife, my sister, and my mom into running the 10k, which would be the first race of any kind for all of them. This was a big deal for them. They had really trained hard for this.

The next weekend was my best friend bachelors party in Houston. I was the best man and was in charge of all the plans.

Well...as life happens, weather caused for the race to get pushed to the same weekend as the bachelor party. So I had decision to make. I didn't want to miss the race that I talked the 3 most important women in my life to do. They were doing this for me. And I knew I couldn't miss my buddy's bachelor party. The race was Saturday morning and the bachelor party was Friday night with us all going on a chartered fishing trip on Saturday.

I decided to do both, but skip the fishing trip.

I drove 6 hours to Houston Friday evening. Went to dinner, bars, poker, etc for the bachelor party all Friday night. I stopped drinking around 11ish. Around 3am, I crushed a few energy drinks and left Houston.

I barely escaped being mugged/robbed in Jasper, TX. 2 guys chased me to my truck as I was exiting the convenience store when I stopped to get gas/potty break. I sped off as they banged on the side of my truck.

I had to take the ditch when some guy came into my lane and almost hit me head on.

But I arrived at the race at 7:30 am with zero sleep.

Needless to say, I didn't run sub 1:30 that day but I do think it was worth seeing all my girls finish their race. Plus the fishing trip turned out to be a disaster.

quote:

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ran in Wal Mart Avias

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South African Conrad Stoltz was a 3x ITU world champ in cross tri and 4x Xterra World champ and ran in Avias.

Probably not the ones found in wal-mart though.

Single digit wind chills here so ran on indoor track...whole bunch of laps

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I barely escaped being mugged/robbed in Jasper, TX

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Jasper Texas and another town named Marlin are the most backwoods towns in Texas. There’s a reason Jasper is only known for the racist incident in the 90s.


My plight seems like compared to that story obviously. Based on that and 30 mph wind, I’m not expecting any magic this weekend. Just going for a fun ride at this point.

My mom called today and said she wanted to make me pasta before my run Friday night since we’re staying with them. Then she said it was chicken spaghetti. Ma... that will kill me.

quote:

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South African Conrad Stoltz was a 3x ITU world champ in cross tri and 4x Xterra World champ and ran in Avias.

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The Caveman is also one of the baddest mf'ers to ever walk the face of the earth.

Not sure you need 4% for a 5K, but especially on grass lol

The other day the tendon between my calf and ankle tweaked and has been sore. I can limp through the miles. While walking during the day it is constantly sore, maybe 2/10, but occasionally get a shooting pain, maybe 5/10.

My shoes need to be replaced for sure.

Is this type of "injury" something that should be cured by action (stretching, continue running at slow pace, etc) or cured by rest?

I was planning on a race in 4 weeks and would hate to bail on it, but don't want to turn a 3 week pain into a 6 month injury.

At the same time, my inexperienced gut tells me to tough it out.

What do the pros say?

Marathon training questions:

Marathon is Nov 3. Planning to do Hal Higdon Novice 2 plan starting in June. Prior to that I am using the time between now and June to to the Novice 1 plan to see how I do on a 20+ mile run (never gone above 15). I did the 15 mile last week and planning to do the 16 this week.

I noticed that the midweek runs in Novice 2 are shorter. Would it be detrimental to shorten the Novice 1 midweek runs? I typically don't have enough time in the am to do a 8-10 mile run.

I've run 4 HM's and running a 5th in a couple weeks. Best time is 1:49. I'm aiming for under 4:30 marathon, but would love to be closer to 4:00. What should I be focused on during midweek runs to improve on that overall pace? I feel I can maintain a 10 min pace to get under 4:30 but am not sure how hard to push myself seeing as it is my first marathon. I'll also be traveling for it and spending some time walking/etc the days leading up to it.

Pretty sure Hal emphasizes the weekend runs as being the ones not to mess with. I’ve used his intermediate plans my last two marathons. He will get you across the finish line.

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Some concepts are foreign to me like speed work, tempo runs, and timed runs. It is exciting and I'll do my best to beat 2:11:59.

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The speed work is what I feel helped me the most in my Half Marathon training. First Half, I just did long slow runs with pacing runs during the week. Finished in a little over 2:10. Next race put in some real speed work during the weeks and got me down to 2:00. More training led me to 1:51, followed by a 1:49.