Pacing

I left a voicemail on Mother Nature's answering machine today and told her unless it warms up that we weren't friends anymore. She called back and left a message that said, "bite me!"
I really can't complain much because I'm not having the extreme cold like you peeps in the North. It's really starting to suck and sadly we won't see warm weather until March at the earliest. Spring where are you??
I know that everyone has a different philosophy on running and training. I loosely use Mcmillan's running paces to calculate my paces for the day. Along with a mixture of various plans that I have read. The most important aspect that I "try" to do is listen to my body. Easier said than done! I have a hard time doing that due to my competetiveness and my "hard-headed no pain-no gain." My thinking stems from playing football and basketball in high school and college. There was days that I didn't want to do anything, but when practise time came you just had to "suck it up." Hard to lose that mentality. For example: Long run days. They are designed to be slow and steady while working on form and keeping a lower HR. Most of us screw those up! I refuse to run 12 min miles - don't care what plan I'm following. (stubborn aren't I?) Here's my plan that I try to follow from week to week.
The pace ranges are calculated from my recent 5K, 5 mile, and 10 mile races.
Estimated VO2 max: 32 {my VO2 max at age 19: 69!}
Easy Run: 11:15 - 11:45 pace Ain't gonna do it!
Long Run: 11:15 - 12:15 pace [>8 miles] Upset if over 11min pace
Tempo : 9:48 - 10:15 pace Okay with that...
Speed(800m): 4:15 - 4:26 pace Okay with that..
Goal: 1 easy, 1 long>8 miles, 1 speed or tempo,1 medium length of 5-8 miles per week. Anything more than that is an easy run.
I 'm already slow as a snail, so anytime I see >11 min pace I hate it!
I found a neat little website for running paces. It's called runningforfitness and it has various running calculators. There is a calc where you can input your weight and recent race time and it will estimate a pace that you can run if you lose lbs. cool huh? Nice for people trying to lose weight. I figure if I cut off both arms, both legs, and chop off my head that I'll surely be able to run a 3 min/ mile.

Weigh-in is tomorrow. I hate scales! Fingers crossed..

Happy Thanksgiving and Turkey Trot Report

I hope that everyone had a great Thanksgiving, I know that I did!
This year has been one of the most difficult years of my life and I can sit here and lament on the rough year I have had, but I won't. I am alive, am healthy, have a home, have a good job, have good friends, have a wonderful family, and a good future ahead. So many people don't. I am thankful for all of these things and more. That's what Thanksgiving means to me.
On to running:
Still a little sore form my 10 mile race on Saturday. I've had mixed feelings about running the 8K Turkey Trot Race I signed up for 2 weeks ago. Just didn't want to run 2 races in less than 6 days. After debating last night, I decide to run it and run it as an easy pace. I figured I needed to simply because I was going to pig-out on some good food later in the day.
About 500 people showed up to a sunny 30 degree morning. I started at the back of the pack to keep it slow and steady. After the gun went off, it took about 15 seconds to get to the starter mat and another 45 seconds to open up a stride. I passed the 1 mile mark @ 10:41-what?, then the 2 mile mark @ 20:40. Yes, slow and steady and feeling good. Then I realized how good I felt and decided to run this as a race from here on out. mile 3 - 29:57, mile 4 - 39: 17, Finish 5miles in 47:45. This was so much fun! Even though I have run faster 5 miler's than this during basic runs, chasing and passing people for the remaining 3 miles was a blast!! mile 1-10:41, mile 2-9:59, mile 3-9:38, mile 4-8:59, mile 5-8:28.

Didn't you just wear that in last week's race?

Suck it in Dave, your on camera

The race was a good start to my day,then I went over to my brothers house and celebrated Turkey Day with all of my family. I gobbled up great food and desserts, then went outside afterwards and played tackle football with the guys. A great ending to a great day!

Good luck to you Black Friday people, you'll need it! haha

10 mile race report

But Dave, I thought you were running a 15K race(9.3 miles)? Yes so did I - sneaky shitz...10 miles?
I arrived on scene about an hour early to get a good parking space and to survey the route. When I walked down to the race site, the directors were packing up the race gear. Oh great!, I'm thinking they cancelled the race due to the cold. Come to find out that a water line busted and they are moving 3/4 mile up the road. The site was on a hill and the water ran down and iced the starting point and everything else for a 1/4 of a mile. That's what 18 degrees will do for you. It was miserably cold!! Heres a pic of a cool statue at the original starting point. Anyone recognize who he is?

I wore underarmour as a base layer and 2 coolmax shirts over the top, basic running pants, hats, gloves, and earmuffs. I froze my a** off! I had a very loose plan of keeping my 5k splits @ 32 ish. I set my watch with parameters to alarm if I ran too fast or too slow. Race started, and my damn watch wouldn't stop chirping for the first mile -too fast. I eventually slowed down to shut my watch up and managed to run the first 5K in 32:30. By this time, I was sweating and had to yank of my hat and ear muffs. Only I can sweat in 18 degree weather...
The course was beautiful, it was run on the greenways through Knoxville, TN. There is some 40 miles of greenways, who knew? My watch started beeping(too slow) quite often through the 2nd -5K portion. It was the hillier portion around the University of Tennessee campus and I just couldn't keep pace. I clocked 1:06 @ the 10K(33:30). Blah!! The positive was that noone passed me after the 4.5 mile mark -  meaning that the faster runners had blasted through.
My 10K time really dissapointed me. I picked up my pace and set my eyes on people that I was going to pass. I passed 36 people(yes I was counting!) after the 10K mark until the finish line. I clocked 1:35:30 at the 15K mark(29:30 15 k split!) Backing up - The 8 mile mark was gut check time. I was tired! I was nauseous! My body said slow down!!!!! So my last 15K split was 4 minutes faster than the previous!
After I passed the 9.3 mile mark(15K) and knowing how badly I knew I was going to vomit, I couldn't help but to be quietly cussing the race people for pushing the start line back another half mile! I managed to pass 2 people in the final 30 feet and jump into the chute before them, we were all sprinting. I kind of felt bad for getting by them because they didn't know I was that close. Ok not really- ahahaha!!!
Final time -  1:39:21   -   9.83 miles     -   (10:09 pace)  NEW PR!  (this era...)
Cold and windburn face after the race.

Sadly I have no more pics than this due to no one wanting to get out in the bitter cold and snap photos.

I'm glad that I was able to run this race and I hadn't planned on running a long race until next year, the race "popped up" at the last moment. Minus the 10K split, I ran according to my plan. Not too bad for not knowing the course. Heck if I ran my 10K split faster, I may not have had the ability to "kick" at the end. Races are fun and exciting and I'm a sucker for a free tshirt, but the cold and nausea can stay away! And yes I would do it all over again...

Peace.