Taking it nice and easy

0, 10mi

Start time: 12/16/06, 8:00am
Location: W&OD Trail
Distance: 10 miles
Run:Walk ratio: 4:1
Average pace: 10:50min/mile

This Saturday I ran with some of my old running group from 2005: Ali, Chanty, and Randy. They were planning on running a 10-miler at their 11min/mile pace, and with coming off of a cold this sounded perfect to me; get the distance in but also not kill myself by jumping right back to my old speed like I did on Tuesday. It worked like a charm; it was super-comfortable to run at the reduced pace with them, and at the end I felt like I was getting back into the swing of things. We’ll see how Tuesday’s run in Clarendon pans out, mind you.

(Craig was knocking out a long run before the Disney Marathon at a 9:30 pace and it was awfully tempting to try and run part of it with him, but I knew better. Maybe next week when he’s got a shorter distance and I’m back up to speed, though.)

“Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.”

0, 03mi

Start time: 12/11/06, 2:00pm
Location: North Arlington (Clarendon, Courthouse, Rosslyn)
Distance: 3.4 miles
Average pace: 8:47min/mile

Today’s run is best defined by absence rather than presence. Sans GPS, sans iPod/headphones, sans knee strap, sans knee pain, sans endurance.

The plan (since I had taken a day off, and the weather was so nice) was to just head on out and run and not worry about speed. I also figured I would give running without the knee strap for the first time in years a whirl; it’s been long enough since the mortifying dancing injury that it should be fine. The good news is that the knee did feel fine, which is a relief. On the other hand, I was certainly huffing and puffing by the time I was done. I ended up calling it “good enough” by the time I hit Courthouse Road; it was just about half an hour and that’s what I was looking for more than distance anyway. (I’d mapped out a 4-mile route in case all went well.) Taking a week off after a bad cold stinks, and trying to run after the cold is finally gone stinks too, but it was good to get out there… even if afterwise I actually ended up sitting down on a hillside and caught my breath when I was done. Lung capacity, why hast thou forsaken me?

http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=582640

(Subject line courtesy… oh, look it up yourself. But this final line to a very famous speech was running through my head as I hoofed it up and down the streets of Arlington.)

Back in the saddle

0, 08mi, aidsmarathon

Start time: 12/03/06, 8:00am
Location: Downtown Washington DC
Distance: 8 miles
Run:Walk ratio: 6:1
Average pace: 9:38min/mile

This was the last 8-miler for the Honolulu Marathon participants, so I went by the run site and hoofed it out and back with Katie. (Stephanie was supposed to be there as well but ended up unable to make it down from an engagement in Gettysburg.) It was nice to get out there and just hit the pavement with Katie, chatting about this and that. After the crappy second half of the Firenze Marathon, this felt great.

A week later…

0, 26mi, aidsmarathon, marathon, pr, race

Start time: 11/26/05, 9:00am
Location: Firenze Marathon
Distance: 26.2 miles
Finishing time: 4:46:48
Run:Walk ratio: 6:1 through mile 20, then… not so much
Average pace: 10:57min/mile

I unfortunately don’t have lots of mile splits like last year, thanks to the GPS having a minor fit somewhere along the way (apparently I ran a 25.5 mile marathon), which probably was in no small part thanks to narrow windy alleys and streets winding through parts of Florence. I do, however, have some splits available.

Distance Segment Time Segment Pace Overall Time Overall Pace
5K 30:39 9:53 30:39 9:53
10K 30:27 9:49 1:01:06 9:51
15K 30:57 9:59 1:32:03 9:53
13.1mi 37:28 9:52 2:09:31 9:53
25K 25:40 10:42 2:35:11 10:00
30K 35:22 11:25 3:10:33 10:13
35K 39:25 12:43 3:49:58 10:35
40K 39:38 12:47 4:29:36 10:51
26.2mi 17:12 12:44 4:46:48 10:57

Notes:
Between 15K and 13.1mi is a 3.8 mile segment.
Between 13.1mi and 25K is a 2.4 mile segment
Between 40K and 26.2mi is a 1.35 mile segment

It should be a surprise to no one at all that it was around the 25K mark that Susan and I fell behind Tod and Dana. It is always interesting to see where some places where I felt I was still decreasing in speed was in fact consistent) if slow, essentially everything past the 30K mark (or 18.64 miles). Ah well, it’s always good to know where everything went wrong, as well as where one was pretty darn on the ball. There’s a lot I need to work on for next year. But hey, still a PR. So that’s definitely something. But it is frustrating to look at, say, my 20-miler from earlier this year and know that I did the entire thing at a solid 10min/mile pace that I could’ve done even faster towards the end of if necessary!

Watch out for that… never mind.

0, 05mi, pacers alexandria

Start time: 11/21/06, 7:00pm
Location: Old Town Alexandria
Distance: 5.4 miles
Average pace: 9:29min/mile

This is the second time I’ve run the Pacers Alexandria Tuesday route, and we actually ended up a tiny bit faster (40 seconds), which considering that I’d changed my GPS so that it no longer pauses when I stop moving (as happens when running up and down King Street waiting for cars to go by) is impressive. My last hill work pre-marathon, and it felt effortless. (Really consistant, too.) Amusement for the evening was watching Darryl deliberately leap and roll in a massive pile of leaves along the course… and then later on finding bits of branch trapped in his shoe. Hmmm, wonder how that got in there?

If I’ve got everything else ready I might try and do a slow 3-miler Thursday morning, we’ll see.

http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=510272

And that’s that.

0, 08mi, aidsmarathon

Start time: 11/18/06, 8:00am
Location: Downtown Washington DC
Distance: 8 miles
Run:Walk ratio: 6:1
Average pace: 10:00min/mile

That was it—the final group run before the Florence Marathon in 8 days. There were six of us; four of us (me, Tod, Sarah, Rob) running Florence and the other two (Stephanie, Katie) running Honolulu. Honolulu was scheduled for a 26-miler, but Stephanie and Katie had both decided to just run a 16-miler. Tod, Sarah, and I were running an 8-miler… and Rob decided that even though Florence is now a week away, that he was going to run an 18-miler.

…Well, to each their own, right?

It was a good run, though. I dropped off my car at Fletcher’s Boathouse before coming in, so we got to run all the way out with Stephanie and Katie before they turned around there (instead of just running four miles with them and then waving goodbye). Rob was a little too zippy/speedy, but after we picked up Kendall (whose two fellow runners were not doing so well) we let the two of them start zooming off ahead. Since we’re on taper-mode, I didn’t want to go too fast so this slightly reduced pace was a-ok by me.

The Walk for the Homeless was going on downtown today, so we had some slight detours here and there to avoid the huge masses of people. I did this walk back in 2001 with Julie and Pam and it was a lot of fun, so it was nice to see it still continuing. (It did make driving back to the starting point a little problematic, though. Oops!)

At this point all that’s left is a run with the Pacers folks on Tuesday, maybe a 3-miler on Thursday morning… and then I’m off!

Slow again

0, 04mi, pacers arlington

Start time: 11/14/06, 7:00pm
Location: Clarendon and the Custis Trail
Distance: 4.25 miles
Average pace: 9:48min/mile

Ok, we are in taper mode, and the Custis Trail is amazingly hilly. But still, a little disappointing to look at my finishing time here versus ones earlier in the year. Maybe Chris and I just need Darryl to push us up and down the trail a little faster? Not sure. (My thighs were sore from Sunday so I was a little hesitant on the idea of running, but by the halfway point they felt fine. Perhaps they just needed a good run.)

Taper taper taper

0, 08mi, aidsmarathon

Start time: 11/11/06, 8:00am
Location: Downtown Washington DC
Distance: 8 miles
Run:Walk ratio: 6:1
Average pace: 9:15min/mile

I can tell when it’s almost the end of the season when I forget to record my Saturday runs. Anyway, the second-to-last group run and with gorgeous weather to boot. (I dodged a bullet there, too; my normal running morning is Sunday and on that day, the weather dropped 20 degrees and started raining. Yuck.) Tod and I ran with three of the Saturday runners (Katie, Sarah, and Susan) and as Tod put it best, they sped us up and we slowed them down. A nice happy medium, and a good 8-miler. This upcoming Saturday will be our final group run for us Florence Marathoners (8-miler) while the Honolulu Marathoners have their big 26-miler. Should be a fun time… if a wee bit colder.

Oops!

0, 05mi, pacers alexandria

Start time: 11/09/06, 7:00pm
Location: Old Town Alexandria
Distance: 5.25 miles
Average pace: 9:05min/mile

Oopsie… I forgot to turn on my GPS when I went running with the Pacers group tonight. Fortunately Darryl turned on his stopwatch, though. A good run, all in all.