first Marathon baby step

Twenty-nine weeks to go until Fargo. My first goal is to work up to 35-39 miles per week by the end of November. I'll end up with 24 miles this week and plan for 26 next week. So far so good. But yesterday it was 34 degrees for my 6am run. And this is Minnesota so there is a lot of colder weather ahead for me.

Basic plan of increasing mileage using the '10% rule':

Week starting	mileage
21-Oct	24
28-Oct	26
4-Nov	29
11-Nov	32
18-Nov	35
25-Nov	39

Fargo Marathon in 2008

It will be my first marathon! Training starts in a just a few months! Thinking about running my first marathon is exciting and scary at the same time.

--Mark

Back again (pun intended)

I hurt my back last Friday and the pain was gone for my race on Sunday. In kickboxing class Wednesday the pain came back. I left the class immediately and just walked for awhile. I suppose it will be a few weeks or so before I'm back to kickboxing. Running must not bother those particular back muscles because it was not an issue in the race and my back was fine afterwards too.

I have some exercises to do for my back and I'll be kicking again soon enough.

--Mark

Twin Cities 10-mile

TC-10

Humid and pretty hot today. Much hotter than the 10 mile trail race I ran 3 weeks ago. I learned what happens when you start out too fast.... You end too slow. :-(

The first 5 miles I averaged a 7:17 pace. I would be happy with that any day. The last 5 miles my average was 8:14. I think another primary factor in my slowdown was dehydration caused by the heat/humidity as well as my running hard. Dehydration increases heart rate and if I was trying to keep heart rate constant, the slowdown would be a natural side effect.

Almost a 1-1/2 years ago I had my anaerobic threshold tested at 160. I know it's higher than that now. I've been thinking that it's about 165. Then why in the world did I maintain the averages I did? The first 2 miles averaged 159 but you see my max in that segment was 170. It was already too late and there was not much chance of running at a lower rate now. I tried to keep my HR at 172/173 and held on for the ride. Unfortunately, the ride shifted into low gear at the half-way point. My form was good, I felt good, but I knew if I ran any faster my HR would shoot through the roof. Like it wasn't already.

Lap Ttl-Time Lap Time_ Max Avg Min Dst min/mile
1. 0:14:00.0 0:14:00.0 170 159 111 2.0 7:00
2. 0:21:15.6 0:07:15.6 175 171 167 1.0 7:15
3. 0:28:35.4 0:07:19.8 174 171 165 1.0 7:19
4. 0:36:23.3 0:07:47.9 175 172 169 1.0 7:48
5. 0:44:42.9 0:08:19.6 174 172 168 1.0 8:19
6. 0:53:14.1 0:08:31.2 176 173 168 1.0 8:31
7. 1:09:36.9 0:16:22.8 178 173 168 2.0 8:11
8. 1:17:33.1 0:07:56.2 180 175 173 1.0 7:56

I ended up finishing 374th out of 5080 which puts me in the top 8%. I can't complain about that.

TC Marathon

After my race I showered at the club and went back to watch the marathon runners. I parked and walked about 2 miles to my friends house. I figured the walking would be good for me. I think it was. I watched the marathon for about 45 minutes. At this point I'm seeing the 4+ hour runners at around the 24 mile mark. Many were doing well. Many more were not. As I was walking back to my car, a runner came off the road, sat down, and fell over. Three other runners and myself came to his aid, as well as several nearby volunteers. I'm glad the guy lived because I thought he was going to die right there. He was non-responsive to verbal questions and he could barely see. He started to come around with some water, sports drink, GU, and salt. One of the runners who stopped was a nursing student. The positive was that three runners stopped to help. The negative was that the volunteers didn't have the proper phone number list immediately available. The ambulance came and provided additional assistance. He was talking and thanked us all for helping. I wasn't able to help much but at least I knew to check the back of the guy's number tag for emergency contact and medical info.

--Mark

Pain in the back

I'm running the Twin Cities 10 mile race tomorrow. Doesn't it figure that yesterday afternoon I had a shooting pain appear in my lower back? It's not gone yet. :-( It won't be gone tomorrow. I've had a lower back spasm happen a few years ago. That time it took about 3 weeks to get better. What I have now is nowhere near that bad. I'll be able to run tomorrow but with the relatively high humidity and temperatures in the forecast, along with my new back pain, I won't be making my stretch-goal of running 7:10s.

--Mark

W.H.O.Rs in the night...

The middle of the night is when we passed the Women High on Running (W.H.O.Rs) in the 208.2 mile Great River Relay race held in August. The Great River Relay is from La Crosse, WI, up the east side of the Mississippi/St. Croix rivers to Stillwater, MN, and then to Minneapolis. The W.H.O.Rs have a great video of their race experience. I hope to meet Jen next year. I chased her up a HUGE hill in the middle of the night and couldn't catch her. Maybe next year I can.

--Mark