Run-run I'm afraid (2023 running thread)

[metsmarathon]

for all you runners, and any lasagna-loving cats seeking safety from any mountain lions rumored to be in the area, it's the 2023 running thread!

knocking on wood, i appear to be back in action. i'm sitting at 118 miles for the month of january - my most in fact since november 2020 when i logged 124 miles!

i've been able to run fairly well, tacking on the mileage and building up my base so that i can make a good show of it for the singer island half marathon in april. i bonked hard in this race last year, so i'm back for vengeance this year. as always, i'm hoping to keep the injury bug at bay, and am making a concerted effort to stretch after my long runs. i'm holding off on pushing hard with speed work, focusing instead on running distance and pushing the pace in those runs, at least for now.

in other running news, i've managed to successfully convince minimm into giving track and field a try. he wants to do well in cross country next year, and also wants to post a big improvement in the spring lake five mile run this year, and, well, running track oughtta help him with that! in fact, he'll be running for the middle school team, as well as the town rec program that's just starting up. ummL and ummR are also going to be joining in on the track fun. their travel baseball team folded, and unfortunately it folded too late in the year to get them on another program, but that freed up their sundays, so yay! they'll still be doing little league, but are newly able to run track. so it's pretty exciting time to be running in the marathon household. we'll see how everybody does!

how is the rest of the cranepool running community doing to start this year?

[Fman99]

Typical month for me, 107.4 miles run. Spent a long weekend in Florida and got out there for a few runs in shorts and short sleeves which was great - including two runs along the Melbourne beach on very densely packed sand as the sun rose. Feeling OK - still dealing with some respiratory challenges and lower back pain, which have robbed me of any semblance of speed I once had. I am just out there for the fitness.

Next race is the annual Shamrock Run four miler, the first weekend of March in Syracuse's Tipperary Hill neighborhood. There is a half marathon in February that I've done each year since its 2012 inception, as the director is a buddy of mine, but I'll be missing it to visit my brother and his family in Virginia that weekend. I'm off that whole week so I'll be doing a "virtual" 13.1 instead.

[metsmarathon]

75 and humid is really quite terribly half marathon weather. Especially if you’re from the north. And while we had a fairly mild winter, the 30-degree jump on the thermometer probably wasn’t the best thing.

Taking those three months off in the summer too.

Still, all in all, I had a decent race. Started out reasonably well but struggled to keep my mile-pace under 9:00. Got my butt handed to me by the one bridge over the intercoastal waterway. But was still hanging onto a 2-hour time.

Then, mile twelve came for me. My focus was waning. There was a low hot sun. And the 2-hour pace leader had just recently passed me, but encouragingly so as he claimed to be running fast. Shortly after passing the 11th mile marker, there it was. Waiting for me. The Is Coast Guard Lake Worth Inlet Station. More specifically it was the fence surrounding the damned place. Five hundred feet of thin iron bars evenly spaced with the same thinness of air-gap between each bar. Really I nice proper looking fence. But with the low rising sun beaming through it created quite the rapid pattern of alternating light and dark. Like having a strobe light blasting in your face.

Now, a strobe light may be awesome and cool when you’re hopped up on Red Bull and ecstasy, bopping along to some killer electronica, but for me, when you’re mind and body are both doing their best to convince each other to just… just stop… well, that strobe light is like the straw that broke the camel’s back. So I walked. Just to get past the rest of the fence and regroup. Maybe convince my mind to convince my legs to get running again.

Altogether mile 12 was a 10:58. I walked for a full minute. I probably needed it but at the same time, it was close enough to the end of the race that I should have been otherwise able to hold it together.

The next mile held the return trip over the bridge over the intercoastal. And the finish. As the last turn or two approaches, I feel one dude starting to think about catching me. I’ll have none of that. I was able to pull myself back together and was actually feeling pretty good. I gradually accelerate to let him know he won’t be catching me today. Final turn and there’s a person to catch ahead of me. I go for it. But also look at the clock. Fuck. It was so close but so far. Already past the two hour mark but I’ll be damned if it goes a minute past. I easily blow past the next guy and finish with a 2:00:47. The last mile was a 9:08. Garmin says I finished with a 7:01 pace for the kick. I had way too much left in the tank.

Stupid coast guard fence.

But, I think I survived. Without doing further damage to my knee. Well, I think that’s the case at least.

I do need to get back to running fast though, as sub-9 is really bad for my form, and bad form is bad for my feet and knees.

I ran yesterday with minimm, just for a mile. Took half of it to feel like I could take a step, but finished the last half mile moving at 7:45 easily enough. I’m exhausted but not sore.

Good enough I suppose.

Here’s hoping I can keep on running and keep the looming threat of injury fully at bay.

[Fman99]

Nice recap! I have my first half marathon of 2023 this coming Sunday and they are calling for unseasonably warm temperatures for April in Syracuse. I ran this same course in 1:52 last year and hope to be around the same this year. An 8:35 or so per mile pace is about where I am at for a race pace at this distance nowadays, a far cry from my 1:39/7:35 per mile PR heyday of 2017 or so.

But that's OK. My lower back is balkier now and my respiration is nowhere near where it was a few years ago. But I'm still at it because it keeps me thin and I feel good at the end of every run. Tally for March was 90.1 miles.

[Fman99]

Banged out my 63rd half marathon in 1:50:49, on an unseasonably warm April morning. Happy to have shaved 90 seconds off my 2022 time despite tougher conditions. Paced myself correctly and finished strong (a 7:47 mile 13).