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Saturday I hit the road for the longest run of my marathon training plan (also the longest of my life) - 20 miles. I finished in 3:14:26, a 9:42/mile average pace. (more…)

I’ve been debating for a while whether or not I’d run the 2007 Niagara Falls Marathon. The training I’ve been doing over the last three months has been both physically challenging and time consuming. There have been runs that I struggled through. I would hate to not beat my brother’s 2005 Buffalo Marathon time of 4:09:21. While I felt great at the end of the recent 2007 Rochester Half Marathon, I distinctly remember a time along the canal when I told myself there was no way I’d run a full. I won’t lie - being the only one in our group wearing a half marathon medal after the Rochester marathon made my feat a little less sweet.

But then there were the positives to consider - I shaved nearly seven and a half minutes off my half marathon time of last year. I felt great after the half. There is a full month of training time left. A full month of training time means I have 1/4 of a typical full marathon training schedule left. In less serious thoughts, I have a fair amount of free time to fill until fall archery season starts (October 13th). Oh, and I spent a lot of money on a new pair of shoes.

So I told myself I’d see how the scheduled 18 mile training run went. I’d done an 18 mile run last year, but I stopped half way through to watch some of the Bills game - I don’t even count it. I figured this 18 mile run would give me a good feeling of if I’d survive a full. I have a couple friends running the Niagara Falls half marathon, so I knew I’d at least do that, but based whether I’d run the full on my 18 mile run results.

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I just returned from a quick 5 mile run. I squeezed it in before my soccer game tonight. As I was sitting on the porch stretching, a lady rides up to the house on her bike. She doesn’t look to be of the highest class, but is polite and asks if my landlord is home by her name. I indicate to her that I just got home myself, so I wasn’t sure.

The lady rings the doorbell, but my landlord apparently is not home. Next she proceeds to talk to me. And stutter a little bit, and have the shakes. She asks if I’m a runner. I tell her yes, that I just returned from a run. She says “No, are you a renter?” (or so I think), and so I tell her I live on the third floor - to which she says “No, are you a runner?” I feel as if my first answer should have sufficed, but answer her again - “yes, I just ran a half marathon the weekend before last”. She asks how I did. Feeling pretty proud of it, I tell her twelth place in my age division. She responds by telling me she’s a runner too. She’s got a runner’s build, so I beleive her. But she didn’t stop by just telling me she was a runner, she also tells me “ah, twelth, I finished second in my last race”.

Obviously an inferior runner, I quiet down and let her talk some more. Next she pulls out two 5K medals - one from the Run for Rover and one for the Ronald McDonald House 5K. She also proceeds to pull out a printout for an upcoming 5K, one whose name I cannot remember. And of course she’s looking for sponsors. Having already indicated I was a runner and thinking she knows my landlord, I’m stuck.

Wanting to end dealing with her, I tell her I’ll see what I have upstairs & be right back. I had $10 in my wallet, so I give it to her. She’s already got my first name and the address of the apartment in a little notebook of hers & wants me to fill in my last name & the amount I’m donating. At first I tell her she can just have the money & there’s no need to know who I am, but she insists, so I fill out the info. She thanks me and asks me to tell my landlord she stopped by and that she thought my landlord was such a nice lady when she met her - last week!

I don’t know what’s up with this lady. She could be legit, but she could also be getting high on my $10 right now…

Which brings me to something I’ve been meaning to gripe about for a while - common courtesy from bums when I run. As I run around the city of Buffalo, I see a fair amount of them. I’d like to think that it’s very obvious I’m running at a good clip (and thus won’t stop), am listening to music (and thus can’t hear you), and probably don’t a wallet on me (and thus won’t have money for them, although I often keep a $5 under the sole of one sneaker.) This past Sunday was the second time this summer a bum has tried to ask me for money while I was running. They’re not going to get money from me when I’m not running, I don’t know why they think they’ll be able to stop me during a run and get it then.

I do have to commend one bum though. He was in his wheel chair outside of Niagara Square juggling golf balls very high in the air. Right as I ran behind him, he tossed one high and between me and his wheelchair. It surprised me a little, bounced close to me, and came right back to him. He smiled at me as came around his side, showing me he knew exactly what he was doing when he tossed the ball. I smiled back - that there was one crack addict I would have happily given a couple bucks to if I’d had some one me.

I’m proud to say I completed the Rochester Half Marathon this past Sunday, with a personal best time of 1:45:06.

From left to right: Greg, David, Matt, John, Myself

Overall, I averaged a 7:58 mile pace, with splits of the following:

• 7:43
• 7:47
• 7:42
• 8:09
• 7:59
• 7:51
• 7:50
• 8:09
• 8:15
• 7:47
• 8:20
• 8:02
• 8:21
• 5:51 (.14 miles)

This time bested my time from last year of 1:52:40 by 7:34! I was just running this race as a regular long Sunday training run for the full Niagara Falls Marathon, but still hoped to do better than 1:50:00 - I’m very happy with this time. (more…)

Yesterday I awoke at 6:30 AM, expecting to get in a 16 mile run, but was greeted by pouring rain instead. I decided I’d head back to sleep, with the hopes that it might let up or stop later in the day. Come the Bills/Denver game at 1, it was still raining, so I waited a little longer. At half time, the rain in the city of Buffalo had stopped, but I realized that I would have needed to switch the side of the street my truck was on in the middle of the run, so I planned on beginning after the Bills game ended. After a heartbreaking last second Bill’s loss, I headed outside to my porch to stretch, but it was pouring harder than at any time previous during the day.

I was discouraged about getting soaked but more concerned about ruining my brand new iPod Nano. I called my friend Greg (a fellow runner) for some encouragement. Since he was driving, I talked to his wife for a while. A short talk with her and she straightened me out enough to start, but after turning on my Forerunner 201 watch, discovered there was less than an hour’s worth of battery left on it. I headed back upstairs, plugged it in for a quick charge, and did an extended set of stretches until there was enough battery left to cover the whole run.

Half an hour later, the rain had let up a little and I was finally on the road. This was the first run for my new Amphipod RunLite Hydration Belt. Not sure of what to expect, I filled all four bottles on it (2 with Gatorade, 2 with water), but only put two on the belt itself. I planned to replace the first two about half way through by looping back past the house. I placed my cell phone and some Clif Shot Bloks in the front pouch and my apartment keys in the belt pocket. It didn’t take very long to get used to and only required some small shuffling around my hips to keep from bouncing. Aside from catching myself pushing out my stomach to prevent bouncing, the only issue I ran into was not realizing I had to close the tops of the bottles more than I did. I ended up spraying myself with both water and Gatorade for a while after the first use of both bottles, but it was so wet out I didn’t even realize or care. I tried to consume more liquid than I normally would & went through all four bottles before the day was over. It was really nice to have the Shot Bloks on me, but at one point I forgot they were there when I should have been taking them. I’ll definitely use it again and will try all four bottles at once.

Overall, I ran a minute or so under 2:30:00, putting me at a 9:14/minute average pace. When I looked at the splits, I was surprised that most of them were slower than normal, and a tad bit discouraged - a 9:15/minute average pace equates to a 4:02:00 marathon finishing time. I’m undecided if the weather hurt because it was so rainy or helped because it was cool outside. I’m undecided on the benefits of the fuel belt as well - it was nice to have so much liquid, but drinking that much liquid required me to slow down to consume it (I’d hoped to be able to squirt it into my mouth while at full speed, but that didn’t work well). Last night I could tell I’d been out running, but I feel pretty good today - another difference from last year, when I would have been in a lot of pain.

While my ultimate goal would be to crack 4:00:00, my real goal is to beat my brother’s marathon time of 4:08:xx. I’m starting to realize that this is quite a feat though and that merely finishing will be a feat in itself. Then again, I also think about having one month of training time left, essentially 1/4 of a marathon training plan. The mental struggle will be just as difficult as the physical one from here on out.

This coming Sunday I run the Rochester Half Marathon. I’m hoping to take it relatively easy and still be able to run a 1:50:00. Tonight I may kick the soccer ball around casually in the park and tomorrow I have an indoor soccer game as well, but other than that, I only have a couple short runs before the race Sunday.

Have no worries, the Mizunos aren’t a family I hate or anything to that effect - they’re just the brand of my last pair of running shoes. I’ve known for a while that my old pair of Mizuno Wave Inspire 2s were long due for replacement, but I’ve never been good at forcing myself to get to stores for anything. After reading my friend Greg’s blog entry about his new pair of shoes, I decided to head over to the Buffalo Fleet Feet and finally get a new pair.

Before I headed over, I dug out the receipt for my last pair and saw that I’d purchased them at the end of last July, just over a year and a month ago. I pulled out my Garmin Forerunner 201, reviewed the runs stored in it, did some quick math and realized I’d put nearly 475 miles on the previous pair! Sites recommend replacing running shoes between 400-500 miles, so the mileage just confirmed what I already knew - I needed a new pair. (more…)

This weekend the schedule called for a 15 mile run, the longest of the year so far. It didn’t go so well to say the least, so I’ll get the numbers of out the way up front - 2:34:41, a 10:19/mile pace - ie.”not good”. (more…)

While I haven’t posted about a run in a while, I’ve still continued on the Hal Higdon Marathon Training Guide Novice program for the last couple weeks. Earlier this summer, I made a decision not to play outdoor fall soccer (partially to allow more time for running) & one of my indoor teams has been on break for the last two weeks, so that’s helped me quite a bit in in the last couple weeks to make sure I get my runs in. (I haven’t been able to squeeze any raquetball in though.) This coming week both my indoor soccer teams will have a game each a week, but my weekends are set aside for nothing but scouting for deer, fly fishing for steelhead & my long runs right up through just after the start of archery season for deer.
My last three long runs were for the following distances, times & average paces:

• 8/11: 13.1 miles 1:53:03 - 8:38/mile
• 8/17: 13.1 miles 1:51:05 - 8:29/mile
• 8/27: 10 miles 1:23:51 - 8:23/mile (more…)
  

The training schedule today called for a 7 mile run. I was looking forward to it since the temperature had finally dropped to the 70s during the evening for the first time in over a week. After dinner, I planned to do a couple laps around Delaware Park, but upon arriving, discovered I’d forgotten my socks and had to drive back home.

Instead of returning to the park, I ran to it, over to Hertle Ave, back through the park and then most of the way home. On the way there, I saw a co-worker and her son checking out the Buffalo Jugglers in front of the Rose Garden. Around two thirds of the way through (at Amherst & Parker), I saw yet another first while out running - there were a couple guys who had large City of Buffalo garbage cans in the sidewalk - we’re talking the type you put three bodies into, not just one. The guys had them separatd apart about twenty feet and were hurdling them (not bull-frogging them). I thought about giving it a shot, but after ~5 miles of running, I probably would have just plowed through it and looked like a fool. The rest of the run back was pretty uneventful, until I ran behind the Hoyt Lake Casino. Here I saw a lady with a large sized dog enter a johnny-on-the-spot. She didn’t bring the dog inside, but instead let him sit outside while she held his leash from inside. As I walked past, the dog sadly looked at me the whole time. I could have riled him up and caused him to chase me, but that’s just not my style…

As for the actual running, I conscientiously tried to take it a little slower than I have been. I ended up with an overall average of 8:13/mile, with none of the individual laps far off from that. (I’ve been running under 8 minute averages and my first mile is typicaly 15-30 seconds faster than the rest.) I didn’t feel tired at all toward the end of the run and hope slowing up on longer runs will have the same effect for those last couple miles. The 7 miles left me about a half a mile from home, so I walked the rest of the way down the middle of Lincoln Parkway and enjoyed the night - I came home both invigorated and relaxed.