August Ends with a Chill and A New Record

My leg injury kept me off for a couple extra days this week, ran 6 miles on the Reagan trails Monday night with Jeannine, Charles and Marsha. Tuesday was my first night of bowling so no running and I went to see Doc Joe about the leg issue right after work. He said it would be ok to run on so Thursday I ran the Reagan trails again with Chris and Dan, hit 11 with the last 2 starting to hurt just a little. I took Friday off because of the high mileage planned for the weekend. We started the weekend by going to Kyles First Cross Country meet of the season in Wadsworth, where he did great!!! 21:59. Later that day Marsha and I ran our annual anniversary run at the Valley City Street fair. It was in the mid to high 70's, much cooler than the last 3 years but still pretty hot & humid, I ran a 20:32 coming in 8th overall of nearly 100 runners and Marsha ran 24:17 with both of us winning first in our age groups. Sunday morning we had a long run scheduled to start at 6 am at McDonalds on Rt. 3. It was 52 degrees at starting time and I had a long sleeve shirt on and my running gloves, peeled the long sleeve and dropped it just over one mile into the run but didn't drop the gloves til around mile 12 as we passed the house again. It was a great run with unusually cool temps for August, now if we can just get that lucky one month from now for the Akron Marathon. Our group of 8 was Ladd, Marsha, Dan, Frank, Charles, Jeannine, Janet and Debbie. Jeaninne started at 5:30 and got 19 in, Marsha, Charles and Janet had 18 and Dan, Debbie and I hit 20 just before we arrived back at McDonalds. I finished strong but the leg was hurting worse than before so I will take the next 3 days off and am going back to see Joe on Tuesday again and hoping this thing can get healed and gone soon as we have the Blue Line training run next weekend with 11 more after, that will be our longest run ever and a training run 50K.

The record was set by me with a total of 209 miles for the month.

Heart and Sole Half Marathon 8/22/2009

A quick review of last week : Wednesday night I was doing speedwork with Marsha, Jeannine, Charles, Janet and Dan D. late. I was trying to push Jeannine a little on her last 800 when I turned around and ran backwards, big mistake I guess as after that I had a weird feeling in my lower left leg. Thursday I went to see doc. Joe and he did his thing and said I could run on it so Dan D. and I ran 9 miles of trails in Reagan that night, again it hurt at the end mostly when we hit the pavement. I took Friday off with Saturday being the Heart and Sole 1/2. A big group of us went down together and I decided I was not going to push the pace, Rachel was also there and was going for a 1:45 half marathon so I ran up behind her and we ended up running ALMOST the the entire race together. We caught up with Dan Horvath and the 3 of us were together for quite some time. If you want to run a 1:45 half marathon you run an 8 minute pace so in miles 2, 3, 4 and 5 Rachel tells me we are going a little fast and we were just under a 8 minute pace through those miles then things changed, all of a sudden we start going faster and faster and passing lots of people. I think Rachel must have slipped a few energy gels in when I wasn't watching. At mile 10 I remember Rachel saying if we can run a 30 minute 5k we'd be at her time (yeah right) the last few miles were down hill and we were running near my 5k pace it seemed, around mile 11 we pass a girl I've seen at a lot of races and she looks up and sees Rachel and about lets out a gasp. This girl attempts to keep up for a brief second but soon realizes we were going to fast for her. Nearing mile 12 I tell Rachel to keep it up and I fall back, she tried to coax me to keep up but I was starting to feel the leg and had a small side stitch. I relied on Rachels watch most of the day and was now thinking I would really like to break 1:40 but wasn't sure where I was coming into the finish line, as I get close enough to see the clock I was a little surpised to see my time at 1:35 and change and Rachel finished almost a minute before me with a great new pr of 1:34. Her 1:45 half had disappeared in the second half of the race. I was 2 minutes from my pr and we ran easy the 1st half but it sure was nice to feel so strong in the last half and do so well. After I was done I drank a water and ate a bagel then went out to run Marsha and Charles in but the short break made my leg hurt even more and I was pretty much done for the day. The rest of the Medina group was going out for 8 more miles but I decided to stay at the truck and rest while they ran. A good decision but I should have gone because they lost Roseanne, Charles finally found her and we were on our way home. One more funny moment was the girl we passed late in the race came up to Rachel afterwards and says "where did you come from" , it was funny because she was so shocked when we passed her.

Perfect 10 Miler 8/16/09

The Perfect 10 Miler was this morning at 7:30 am with the temps over 70 at 6 am but it was still a very good race me, the heat never helps but never seems to cause me much of a problem so far. There were 1o people from the Medina area with most being MCRR members and over half of us placing in our age groups. I ran the first mile with Debbie then took the next 2 miles trying to catch up with Dan H., Dan was running a really good pace so we ran together for at least 6 or more miles, around mile 6 we made the turn around and Dan says "this is where the race begins" and we take off. We both ran a negative split, I was 36 seconds faster in the second 5 miles and Dan was 8 seconds faster. A new distance race and a new pr of 1:08:12 which may stand for some time. I came in 52 nd overall of 458 runners and 3rd in my age group which got me a nice new hot chocolate mug. After our race ended Dan and I went out and found Marsha and ran her in and she finished strong passing a few people in the last 1/4 mile for a 1:24:56 and finished 209 th of 458 coming well in in the top 50% of runners. Then 4-5 of us went out for a cool down run of 2 more miles for a total of about 14 for the day so far and a planned evening run at 6pm of 10 more miles. We'll see how that goes. Thanks for the race strategy Dan.

Longest Traing run ever 08/09/2009

I was on vacation all last week and ran 53 miles while at Carolina Beach but because of the heat and humidity Marsha decided to do our long run back in Cool Medina. We arrived back in Medina Saturday afternoon to a rainy cool 65 degree day but of course Sundays high was calling for hot and humid and high 80's, felt like we had something to do with that (it was hot and humid for us all week in Carolina Beach). Dan Horvath met me in the driveway a little after 6 and we were on our way bye 6:15 to meet Chuck at 6:30 at Root and from there we hit 5 miles by 7am at Panera. We had a nice size group from there for a 16 mile run and we arrived back at Panera about 20 miles into our run. After a short break to wait for everyone else to get there we head out for the final 5 miles home and I was getting a little tired and sore. Chuck and I later argue about who was picking up the pace slightly in that last 5 miles as I say it was him and he says it was me, Dan fell back less than 15 seconds at the very end but he had run 17 miles the day before and been up late for the North Coast 24 training run. Great run Dan. We hit 25 about a 1/4 mile before we got back and got a short cool down walk coming in. 3 hours 48 minutes or so total running time and a 9:08 pace. I spent quite a while after that run walking laps in the pool while trying to clean it at the same time then later went to the fair. It was a good run and we are planning a couple more in the near future.

Carolina Beach August 2009

We arrived here at the beach on August 1, Marsha and I did our long run of the week the next morning. We have been a little spoiled having such a cool summer in Ohio, we took off at 6:30 in the morning and bye the time we had 7 miles in we were soaked to the bone and Marsha was having revisit to the Nashville Marathon. We got our 18 miles in in close to 3 hours, then we arrived back at the beach house and I took off my socks and shoes and ran the next 2 miles on the beach in 14:41, a strong finish and near heat stroke, got a little dizzy in the last 1/2 mile. Monday evening I ran 6 miles on my own and 3 miles away thought I should have a phone or id on me as I was again soaked to the bone and had 3 miles to get home. This morning (Tuesday) Marsha and I got up at 6 and ran 4 miles together at a 9:15 pace before she had to stop as the heat and humidity was bad again, I kept going for 4 more miles around a 3/4 mile track and averaged a 7:30 pace then walked the half mile home because I was out of liquids. Thursday night I hope to join the Wilmington Road Runners for their speedwork and do some 1/2 mile and/or mile repeats with them but I'm pretty sure I won't be able to talk Marsha into going.