Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Race preview: Flatlanders 12 Hour Run

WHERE ARE WE GOING?
Fenton, Mo.

WHEN?
Sunday, September 4

WHY?
Flatlanders 12 Hour Run

NO REALLY, WHY?
I took my last swing at qualifying for Boston, I sorta made it, and now I'm on to other things. Some folks I work with -- even fellow runners -- have asked me why I would want to run for 12 hours. That they would ask why is a large part of why.

WHO ELSE IS GOING?
Only about another 40 folks, mostly members of the St. Louis Ultrarunners Group (SLUGs).

WHAT'S THE FORECAST?
Looks like upper 60s at the start warming to upper 80s in the afternoon. Warm, yes, but I've been logging miles at least in the upper 80s for many weeks. If I encounter any trouble, it shouldn't be because of the weather.

HOW DO WE WIN?
I don't have a true upper-limit goal for this event. There are some numbers I have in mind but I need to consider I've never gone past 31 miles so this will be a record by (hopefully) quite a long way. I can say that I'd be very upset if I wasn't safely past 50. I could hit that with barely above a walk, so all I really need to do is drop everything to prevent chafing, and keep moving forward.

Saturday, August 20, 2011

Race review: The Hottest Half

ENOUGH WITH THE SMALL TALK. HOW'D IT GO?
This was my slowest half marathon in 15 attempts. I set a reasonable goal and came up plenty short, easing to a 1:42:08. Yes it was hot, but it was also hot at Too Hot to Handle and I managed to be 3 minutes faster through 15K there. I think I have to blame this on disinterest; I had been looking past this race to my next one for weeks. If this were college football, you could say I was looking ahead to the Texas game and lost to Baylor.

DID YOU WIN?
Not at all, although my placing looked respectable: 75th of 1379 overall, 16th of 138 in my age group.

HOW'D THAT HAPPEN?
I started slow, very slow. A little past half a mile in, we split from the 10K runners and headed over the footbridge along Mockingbird. Nothing will deaden your stride more than trying to bounce along that bridge with several hundred other people at the same time. One step comes up short and feels like you stepped in quicksand. The next step goes long and you try not to fall over.

I found my stride for a little bit after that, but I could tell my pace was getting away from me. I hardly looked at my watch -- maybe this was why -- until mile 11 or so, just to see if I still had a shot at 1:40 (I didn't). There's really not much else to say; I just plain didn't run as fast as I should've been able to.

WHAT ELSE?
In rapid succession between about 6.25 and 7.25 miles, I crossed paths with three dailymile friends and a co-worker. Judging by the trend in my splits, those friendly faces gave me about a 15-second boost, so go make some friends out there!

Aside from my time goal, I wanted to finish first again among the participants in the Four Seasons Challenge. Those results aren't yet posted, so we'll see. I know there was one guy who beat me, but he didn't run the Texas Half so we really shouldn't count him.

SPLITS?
7:28
7:14
7:11
7:29
7:30
7:37
7:25
7:39
7:59
8:12
8:00
8:14
8:24
7:40 pace last .22

OK, WHAT ABOUT THE REAL REASON WE ALL RUN, THE STUFF?
I like the red tech shirt, but as with Too Hot to Handle, if you're using the heat to sell your race, you really ought to go with a tank. It's just more appropriate.

The medal is not bad, though turning this into a bottle opener would've really been going the extra mile:


WHAT'S NEXT?
Flatlanders 12-Hour, Fenton, MO, Sept. 4.

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Schedule changes

There's been more upheaval in my running schedule, the greatest of which has nothing to do with running. A couple months ago, a thunderstorm induced a power outage that zapped my PC and took with it my entire music collection, a bunch of pictures and, most importantly for purposes of this blog, my notes on upcoming races. My whole daily training schedule was wiped out, along with the ideas of what races I'd be running for the rest of this year and next.

There's a chance I might be able to revive the machine long enough to get everything moved to an external hard drive and then be done with it. For now, let's focus on the running.

Among other things in the last couple months since I posted my schedule, my 50-mile debut along the Katy Trail was canceled because of Missouri River flooding, so I replaced it with a similar race in the same part of the world (although I'll somewhat spoil the preview by saying I'll be very disappointed if I only cover 50 miles). The New Year's Double convinced me to dump Bandera from the schedule, which may have been a wise move anyway given my trail experience.

I have one more slot to fill for 2012, and given that I've scratched two ultras from the calendar, you can be sure that last spot will be an ultra. But the schedule as constructed doesn't leave a really good space to put one, so if I were you I'd expect to see a pretty good rearrangement of things in the back half of next year.

*8/14/11 The Hottest Half, Dallas
*9/4/11 Flatlanders 12-Hour, Fenton MO
*9/10/11 Katy Trail 50, Boonville MO
*10/9/11 Tyler Rose Marathon
*10/23/11 13.1 Dallas
*11/13/11 Rock 'n' Roll San Antonio Marathon
12/3/11 Run Like The Wind 24-Hour, Austin TX
12/31/11 New Year's Eve Marathon, Allen TX
1/1/12 New Year's Day Marathon, Allen TX
1/7/12 Bandera 100K
1/29/12 Miracle Match Marathon, Waco TX
2/10/12 Rouge-Orleans (126.2 miles), Baton Rouge to New Orleans
2/25/12 Mount Cheaha 50K, Oxford AL
3/17/12 Dash Down Greenville (5K), Dallas
4/16/12 Boston Marathon (or 4/15/12, Austin 10/20 (10-mile))
5/13/12 North Trail HM, Dallas
6/2/12 Old Dominion 100, Woodstock VA
6/17/12 Dadfest (5K), Dallas
7/4/12 Liberty 10K, The Colony TX
7/15/12 El Scorcho 50K, Fort Worth TX
8/4/12 Headlands Hundred, Sausalito CA
9/3/12 Labor Day 15K, Dallas
9/15/12 Tour des Fleurs 20K, Dallas
9/23/12 Heels & Hills & Him HM, Irving TX
10/6/12 Heartland 100, Cassoday KS
10/21/12 Waterworks 25K, Dallas
11/4/12 DRC Half, Dallas
11/18/12 Big D 30K
12/2/12 Rock 'n' Roll Las Vegas Marathon
12/15/12 Jog'r Egg Nog'r 15K, Dallas

Race preview: The Hottest Half

WHERE ARE WE GOING?
Dallas

WHEN?
Sunday, August 14

WHY?
The Hottest Half

NO REALLY, WHY?
This is the third leg of the Four Seasons Half Marathon Challenge. I beat all the other Challenge entrants at the Texas Half, and all of them who ran the full at Big D. So my sweep is on the line.

WHO ELSE IS GOING?
Mellew says 1600 in the half and 900 in the 10K.

WHAT'S THE FORECAST?
I said Too Hot to Handle would be hotter than Mila Kunis baking a pie in her underwear. This might make that look like Kathy Bates instead. Consider that I keep the thermostat at 78, and it hasn't been 78 since June 30.

HOW DO WE WIN?
I don't expect to come within 10 minutes of a PR; I'm just hoping not to fade too miserably toward the end. Oh, and keeping my Challenge streak going would be good too.