Setting a new goal after putting one on the shelf for now

So, I've been thinking about why I abandoned writing for so long.

I think the biggest reason was it took me a long time to figure out what I wanted to focus on next.

Last year, post marathon, I felt that I had to try going back to my speed goals.  It became increasingly more frustrating not being able to reach the goal of a sub 2 hour half.  I set out on some 13.1 mile long runs on paths familiar to me, without big crowds, timing myself and trying to beat it.  I got as close as a 2:04 doing this (although I did stop my watch once on that run).  I kept trying it again and again but just couldn't do it.  

My last attempt before I put the goal "on the shelf" as I say (because I'm not giving up yet, just postponing my timeline) was at the Emerald City Half Marathon in August.  This ended up being about the perfect weather for August.  Cool in the morning which is unexpected in summer.  Relatively flat course.  If I couldn't do it here, this was my sign.  I came in over 2 hours, and realized it was going to continue to frustrate me to do this to myself.  I wasn't enjoying running as much as I used to enjoy it.  And that is something I can't allow myself to experience. 

Now, I did have some other fun moments during the summer.  I did a trail race at a local metropark with running friends.  It was a 10k (actually a little short of 10k) but it let me see that I missed running on trails/in natural settings. I checked out a few new metroparks, actually.  Some of them were more technical and rugged terrain.  I enjoyed this more than I thought.  As a result, I've decided to expand my territory in 2018 to include places I've never run before and are more scenic/difficult technically.   I ran on vacation, in Tampa and Orlando Florida.  Around the Universal Studios area and in 80 degrees at 5am with high humidity. I love running on vacation.  It's always an adventure.

There also was a low point this summer where a man had been harassing and threatening some of us on a nearby trail.  They finally did find him, but as usual, things move slowly in proving anything and often the path is difficult for justice.  But I started carrying pepper spray, being more aware, and having help on my phone speed dial. It just sucks that people like this exist when you're trying to enjoy a run.

So with all of this in mind, what did I want for myself? This was a tough question to answer.  My long run mileage had climbed after the Emerald City Half and I was getting 16, 17 miles on my long runs. I thought I might as well sign up for a 20 miler at the end of September.  I went ahead and did that.  What I ended up doing though, was running 10 prior to the planned race, and switching to the 10 mile distance at the race.  I didn't want to do this, but the day ended up being 85-90 degrees and it made sense to do it this way.  I still got my 20 mile run in.  A few of my friends agreed to meet at 6am, get 10 miles, then loop back to race start, run the 10 mile race.  I also started a new plan in terms of pacing.

I had been following a trail running group who told me about running 6:2 intervals.  That is 6 minutes of running, 2 minutes of walking.  They explained that they did this for longer distances, and it really saved their legs and actually made them get a faster time.  Could I try this?  Hmm, maybe this was worth trying.  Last year at the marathon, I felt bad about walking.  But maybe walking could help me?  I researched a little into the Jeff Galloway strategy, and decided to try it out.  I found I could do a run here almost the same speed as if I just ran it at a straight 10:30/11 mm pace.  This would be a good speed if I ran a marathon.  If I ran a second marathon... If I chose to run another marathon... this was the question.  I had been contemplating this both in my head and out loud to a few friends over the past few months.  I had signed up for the Nationwide Children's Marathon again, but had signed up for the half this time.  But maybe I could just go ahead and upgrade to the full.  What would that be like?  Was this a good plan...

The only downside is I hadn't really been following a marathon training plan.  It was more of an "advanced half marathon" plan.  My mileage had been higher for long runs.  I had made it all the way to 15, 17 and I was planning on running 20 anyway for the race at the end of September.  Why not go ahead and just do 26.2 again?  My fear was less this time.  I had done it before.  I knew what the course was like.  I knew all the places I struggled last year.  And I could do something differently.  I could run the back half of the course 2 weeks ahead and the places I struggled might not be that bad. So I decided to take the leap.  I was far less nervous about it.  My only fear was that my training was a little subpar.  My midweek runs had not reached the mileage they probably needed to.  Maximum distance of runs during the week were only 4-5 miles.  My long runs had reached 20 but I had not had very long midweek runs.  Ok, well let's just see how this goes.  

The race turned out to be not ideal weather.  But, it was too late to turn back or drop back to the half so I settled in my plan.  I know the course will be crowded at the beginning, so I'll just determine if it's possible to take any walk breaks.  If it's not, I'll just do them when the course thins out.  It did end up taking a few miles, but I was able to get walk breaks in there.  I had been practicing running intervals for a few weeks and had gotten used to this method.  It seemed to work well for me because I could run a 9:45/10 mm pace for my running portions and then about 15:30 mm for walking.  I made my own "calculator" to see what my average pace would be, and it ended up being faster than last year's pace for the marathon.  

When I say not ideal weather, it was 65-70 degrees when we started and high humidity.  It was actually windy at the start as well, and then the wind gusted to 35 mph by the end of the race.  But, no storms were predicted.  This is what we all feared the most, that there would be thunderstorms.  It was definitely a struggle with the humidity, but it went well for me.  I didn't start to feel concerned until around the race split at 12-13 miles.  Shortly after that (maybe 14 or 15 miles in) I started to feel what was the precursor to a leg cramp.  I walked a little.  I wasn't exactly following my run/walk plan, but I also wanted to finish, so I stopped before the cramp worsened.  I was taking my fluids, gels, and half way ate an energy waffle.  This was best for me as I knew I got very thirsty, dehydrated, and couldn't go on without doing these things.  There were definitely times I didn't want to stop for water.  But I knew with the weather, that I probably should.  I listened to a book on tape, which got me through for a while. Around mile 20, I switched to no headphones.  Decided to just listen to the sounds of the race.

The last 6 miles, I knew I had to just power through.  Walked a little when I needed to, but did my best.  In my head, I wondered if I would beat my time from last year.  I felt like I probably wouldn't.  The wind was making it very hard to follow my strategy.  Surprisingly, when I got around mile 25/26, I looked down at the total time on my watch.  It might be actually possible to PR.   I saw some of my friends cheering near the end, and that helped a lot. I made an effort to run the last mile/mile and a half. I might even come in under 5 hours.  In the end, my official time was a 7-8 minute PR.  I wasn't expecting this as the weather worsened, and knowing I had subpar training. My Garmin thinks I was just barely under 5 hours (literally 4:59:51).  Of course, I ended up running 26.66 as it's impossible to run a perfect marathon distance.  So my recorded time was over 5 hours. I had cut over a few times to get a drink or use the facilities, so I knew it would be a longer distance.  I was pretty pleased with this unexpected outcome.  I might write more about the marathon as I think about it, then again I might not.  I already knew the course, so it didn't have that sense of newness that I usually get from a race.  But I liked that it didn't feel new to me.  I just wanted to give it another shot and feel better at the end.

So, after all of this, I ended up running my second marathon.  I had not expected to run one again for a few years, but everything worked out to allow this to happen.  I'm going to enjoy the rest of the year and think about what I want for myself.  The first thing is enjoying running and being in natural settings. The focus on speed training got in my head and I just wanted to enjoy running again.  I don't like feeling that I'm always short of my goal.  When that happens, I just set a different goal for myself.  And then I can enjoy myself.

Summer weather and adapting my schedule

It's been a few weeks since the weather started to heat up.  It had been ok until this past week with highs in the 90s in Ohio.  This has actually been good timing with the sunrise being at 6am and being able to get done early before work.  The other challenge has been thunderstorms.  Trying to dodge them and sneak a run in there during times when there isn't one on the way . Another downside of hot and humid weather in Ohio is that it tends to create more storms.

Something else I started doing was listening to books online through the Audible app.  I started with My Year of Running Dangerously by Tom Foreman and then when I finished that one began reading Born to Run by Christopher McDougall.  Both had some good ideas and entertainment that I took with me. I'm still working on the latter book and I'm at the point where they are running their race with the Tarahumara people.  I should be near the end I'm thinking...

One interesting theory from the Born to Run book had to do with running barefoot being better for you and more of a natural way of running.  Not sure if I'll be trading my well cushioned shoes in for vibram five fingers, but it was a consideration.  I'd have to reduce the drop on my shoes and gradually become more minimalist.  However, I feel pretty good lately and have running very consistent 20-25 mile weeks since January so I am not sure I need to make that change yet.

One thing I'm proud of for this year is my consistency.  For the first 5 months so far (and into the 6th month now) I've averaged 90-100 miles each month.  Last year I wasn't consistent per se.  The big goal was training for the marathon and so I had a few months over 100 miles.  One was 144 miles (August 2016).  Of course that will happen during marathon training so its to be expected that mileage will be high.  This year I really hadn't gone beyond a half marathon so it's been easier to be consistent.  I'm considering doing a 20 mile race in September because I didn't want to train for a marathon again but figured 20 miles would be doable.  I remember last year feeling at my best around 18-20 miles and beyond that was somehow really hard.  Maybe my point of "hitting the wall" is around 20...  still trying to figure out if I did this what kind of training plan and taper would be reasonable.

My speed training has been a lot harder in the warm weather.  I haven't gotten below a 9:00 pace in a few weeks.  I was reading a story about how it's harder to run in the heat so maybe I need to cut myself some slack.  I hope that if it cools down, I'll get to try some speedy miles sometime this summer.  There's not much on the horizon for the next few weeks.  I am going to do a trail 10k in July but I hear it is not really that "traily" and more like a metropark (just a more difficult metropark).  Of course will do a review later.  The last trail run I did was a half marathon and it was just so rooty and rough that I swore off of trails for a little while.  With recent development of the hammertoe I've actually been avoiding trail running.  Seems that changes in terrain will aggravate it more but regular road racing doesn't do much.

Another thing I've been trying to do is run fast half marathons on the trails (not a race setting) to get closer to 2 hours.  I had a 2:04 and a 2:09 recently.  You wouldn't think cutting off 15-30 seconds a mile would be so tough but somehow it is.  The 2:09 day was really hot and humid, so I'm going to blame it on that.

The week of perpetual rain and storms

My second half marathon of April came and went.  This is what the day ended up looking like:

Yes, it was a pretty serious thunderstorm.  There was rain in the forecast (downpours, actually) starting on packet pickup day (Thursday and running through the next Saturday - 10 days of strong rain).  I wondered on packet pickup day if maybe it was a good sign it was raining then, because it certainly couldn't still be this bad by Saturday, right?  Wrong.

I set out to run this race because a few friends were coming up and thought it would be fun to meet up with them (it was, despite everything else).  I hadn't done this one before.  Mostly because it seems like a ton of people and I tend to shy away from that when I can.  The two biggest races I've run are these two (Capital City Half Marathon and the Columbus Marathon).  This one had 14,500 entries according to the race director.  I think Columbus Marathon has a similarly large number.

As expected, there are corrals.  I had originally had this sub 2 hour plan in my head but decided to forego that because it was just not my time.  I had corral C but settled back into E to run with my friend who had put a more realistic finishing time as his goal.  After waiting for all the faster corrals to go, it was finally our turn.  We were about 18 minutes behind the clock.  Things went well for a while.  I was feeling good, pace was speeding up and I was cautious to not go below 9:20.  The air became more humid and by mile 3 a steady rain started to come down.  I could tolerate it for a while.  I told my friend if it became a full on downpour, I would probably duck into an overhang and wait a few minutes to see if it passed. I didn't do that at this point as it wasn't bad enough to warrant that.  The first rainy portion ended up stopping after a mile or two maybe.  At that point I was soaked but shoes were remaining relatively dry, as I was able to duct tape them thanks to a friend having some duct tape I could use.

After a while, I could feel my sinuses getting clogged up again and that familiar not being able to breathe well due to humidity.  Unlike other runners who seem to love running in rain, I just get more congested and have to take a million slow down/blow my nose breaks.  I started to need water, but luckily there were plenty of stations.  Pace started to slow down.  I told my friend to go ahead after mile 8 ish.  I didn't want to continue to hold him back.  Seemed like he was getting a second wind when I was starting to struggle.  It was ok.  I knew I would finish, just not with my best time.  I think when you have a few races you struggle with, it helps you understand that there is no predicting these things.  You just show up, give it an effort and however it turns out.  I was on the struggle bus for a few miles, and then started to feel better.  Sinuses started to clear some and I felt maybe I could manage until the end.

As soon as that thought crossed my mind I saw a flash of lightning.  No, we're not going to finish this.  I had mixed feelings.  Somewhat glad, due to the struggles I had earlier.  Really did want to complete what I set out to do, in another way.  But I wasn't sure what it meant that there was lightning.  Probably not good things to come ahead.  I saw a police officer and asked "are we going to finish?"  He said, "course is being diverted" and gave me the next direction/turn.  So we cut off about 9 miles in.  Turned up the final street and I finished at 9.34 miles, almost a 15k.

After that things changed quickly.  I was able to get my medal and some food (yogurt, snack bar, water) but turned out that since a lightning storm and torrential rains were on the way we couldn't get our gear checked bags which were in the tents with metal poles and the finishers party (free pizza, beer, sparkling wine, margarita) was also cancelled.  A lot of disappointment about that, but what can you do...

I did eventually get my gear checked bag once the storm had settled down.  The main priority was getting everyone to a safe area while the storm passed.  Ended up getting some food/drink with my friends later at their hotel, and laughing (kind of) about the experience.

The next day I decided to go back out there and complete the last miles I missed.  I ended up running a total of 14.22 miles because I had to park somewhere kind of weird to complete the rest of the course.  But the day after was sunny and warm (although of course it ended up raining later that day).

So, all's well that ends well, right?

Might do this one again.  I feel like I should give it another shot.  Might do the 5k next year though because I just want to run something shorter as I have a spring marathon planned in 2018.

After that, it just continued raining through the following Saturday.  Got in some various paced runs (one was a heart rate zone 2 attempt, one faster, one average pace).  Keeping my heart rate in zone 2 seemed to be occurring at a faster pace, which shows some improvement.  11:05-11:10 for zone 2 opposed to what it was a few months ago (had to run about a 12:00 pace for that hr zone).  Maybe something's happening there.

Don't really know anymore what my goals are.   Thinking I'll still work on improving speed and if something comes along where I have a chance to improve my half time, possibly I'll go for it.  I've considered just doing it on my own and not at an actual race to relieve anxiety. I do need to stop putting so much pressure on myself so this has been a good few weeks/month to relax and let things turn out as they do.

So much better when it's just running for how you feel

The last week or two I've kind of lost caring about keeping things a certain pace.  Ok, I take that back, I have incorporated 1 speedwork day a week where I try to keep below a 9 minute pace for at least 2 miles.  Other than that, the last few weeks I've been winging it to some extent.

A few days ago I didn't look at my watch, just ran by how I felt.  I felt like going a little faster that day, but was surprised when I looked at the pace and saw that my first mile was 9:49 followed by 9:06 and 9:03.  I would have guessed the whole thing was closer to 9:30-9:45 the whole time.  It was one of those effortless runs where I just let it go and didn't really care too much.  If only I could have that kind of attitude when it "matters".

Then again today was having some watch and pacing issues. Was planning on starting at 10:00 and then getting gradually faster.  It didn't really work out that way.  The day ended up a little bit warmer and it was the first day I wore a tank top and shorts (and needed sunscreen). Started out faster than planned.  Watch stopped twice on my run... the first iteration was just over a half mile, followed by 2 (watch restarted) runs that were around 5.5 miles each.  I ended up with 11.67 miles when I added up all three of these segments.  Looking back at my pace, I can see the slowing down reflected in the paces toward the middle miles.  I did speed up at the end with my final mile being 9:36 so in some ways I achieved my goal.  But actually the best part was that I really didn't care.

This was my final really "long" run before a half marathon that at this point I don't actually care about having a goal for completion time.  It needs to be a fun run because that's actually what I need at this time.  The fun part about today was it was a group run for my running group and there weren't many of us there but I ran into a lot of MIT people (Marathoner in Training) and was encouraged by that.  Also a friend of mine who pushed her two children in a stroller while managing a pace far faster than I could ever do.  She really amazes me.

During the middle of the run, there was a lake that I've always just run by but never around.  i looked at the marker which said it was 1.2 miles around.  I decided to go ahead and do it and worked it into my overall mileage.  Ended up really enjoying it and now I won't just skip by the lake the next time, I might do that again.

Still working on my goal... but maybe time to focus on different things

Ran a half marathon Saturday that I was hoping would be "the one" where I got the desired pace for an overall below 2 hour time.  I started out faster than I thought.  I should have taken that as a hint to slow down, but I didn't.  When I look at my Garmin tracking, the first three miles I average 8:57 but the first mile was 8:42.  This was not what I should have done at all.  In fact, it was the opposite.  But I couldn't stop myself.  Still trying to figure out why.

Midway through the race I was not able to continue that pace (big shocker).  I slowed down to a 9:20 for a good portion.  If I had been able to bounce back to 9:10 I could have had it.  But there were a number of factors that intervened around mile 6-7.  The first was my stomach started to feel weird and that persisted for a bit longer that I would have liked, causing me to panic a little and head down the path of negative thinking (which I'm sure didn't improve things).  The other was I still was struggling with breathing due to having a head cold from March 25th (noticed it during the 6 mile taper run) and really that whole week leading up to the race.  So I probably wasn't drinking enough water and taking mucinex and sudafed doesn't really help your body hydrate.  I kept seeing others go past me who I was comfortably in front of for the first 6 miles.  That's when you know it's just not going to happen. 

I guess this just wasn't my day.  I did somehow PR by 50 seconds when I compare my Pittsburgh time (which was close to 2:07 and this run which was a 2:06ish).  So even though I finished feeling let down, I had a minor PR of sorts.  Then we get into Garmin PR vs course PR.  Garmin PR of course looks at the actual point where you hit 13.1, even if you crossed the "official" finish line after that point.  Oddly, my best Garmin half was my first half back in 2015.  I had somehow evenly paced myself the entire race because I had no goal except finishing.  Interesting point there... When I have no goal and just run, somehow I do better.  I need to take this logic with me to my next half.  Maybe I can just get better on my own, by gradually running more halfs at a more consistent (but faster) pace.

I keep thinking back to the 15k a few weeks ago.  I keep thinking I should have just run another 4 miles that day, and maybe would have had the desired half time, even though it wasn't a "real"course half.  Because a 9:08 pace is pretty awesome and I kept that for 9.5 miles.  But just not when it counted as a real half.  Just a Garmin half.  But that's better than nothing, right... IDK

I keep thinking of that Tom Petty song with the lyrics "Some days are diamonds... some days are rocks... some doors are open... some roads are blocked"... The road was blocked for my goal on that particular day.  But maybe not on another day, if all conditions are right.  All conditions need to be right to get a diamond, correct?  Or maybe I'm just overthinking things (imagine that).

I had a wonderful moment during my half on Saturday.  One of my dear running friends told me she was going to meet me at mile 8 because it was an open running trail (no rules about not entering the course) and take me to the finish.  At first I protested because I don't want to be the center of attention or anyone make a special effort for me. She said she didn't care if I was quiet, she just wanted to be there for me.  I'm one of those who feels guilty if I'm not talking to my running buddy.  But she's pretty awesome and doesn't care about that.  She has the same goal as I do, and I feel she will achieve it because she's been working so hard.  That certainly made the race more bearable at the end and I'll never forget her caring enough to show up for me.  I think when you train for a marathon/half marathon with someone, that sticks with you.  I'll always have a special place in my heart for my training buddies. There are not many people that will show up at 6 am on a cold day to run 15-20 miles!

There are so many of us with this goal of a sub 2 half.  After this attempt, I'm making my next half not about a goal.  I think it's just too hard to have this always in the back of my mind.  At some points when I'm running that fast, I think "why"? But that doesn't mean I still don't want it (because I do). I'm still going to keep trying achieve this goal (hopefully before I turn 40 in just over 2 years).  I keep remembering "Nevertheless, she persisted."  But, in the meantime, I need to get back to the joy and camaraderie of running.  That's the whole reason I enjoy running in the first place.

End of February/March training continues...

Continued with my training this month and just finished a 15k that was a loop course (3 times around a 5k course).  I've done this race 3 times and the race course has always been a bit longer than 15k.  The first time I ran it, it was 9.72 miles, second time 9.92 miles and then this time was much closer at 9.52 miles.  They modified the course this year and it made a big difference.  I saw a time improvement of over 6 minutes this time.  Overall pace was about 15 seconds per mile faster.  My garmin states my pace was 9:08 average.  Which is a good sign that my speed training is working.  The previous year (which I thought was super fast) I ran a 9:23 average pace.  This takes in account the additional distance too.

My plan was to follow the 9:00 pacer but what happened was he was running a lot faster than 9:00 at the beginning which I think threw me off.  My first three miles were all under 9 and then the other 6 miles were above 9.  My worst mile was 9:25 and the others all between 9:14-9:18.  That wasn't exactly what I wanted to do.  I had hoped to stay around 9:00 the entire time.    This is a learning experience.

Today I noticed I was able to sustain a faster pace and still stay in hr zone 2. There are a few things that could have affected this.  One theory is that I am actually training my body to go faster.  It also was really nice weather here today at about 45 degrees which is perfect for a run.  The last few weeks it has been so cold in the mornings (15-20) that I think I've worked harder to sustain an even pace.  But when I researched this, I found a few articles saying that it can affect your performance, but others saying it does...

http://www.runnersworld.com/cold-weather-running/do-cold-temps-slow-you-down

https://runnersconnect.net/running-training-articles/running-in-the-cold/

http://running.competitor.com/2015/01/training/sub-freezing-temperatures-affect-performance_121159

I think for me, it's more about the extra layers of clothes I have to wear which results in not being able to move as quickly.  But then that led me to reading this article which claims that as long as it's above -17 degrees F that you could still run in the cold and be ok (if you wore the right clothing) .

http://running.competitor.com/2014/01/training/how-cold-is-too-cold-to-run_93795

Anyway, for whatever reason I see to be getting a little faster.  I hope that I will be able to continue to increase speed when my next race comes up. I have a taper before my April races and then if I can't achieve my goal in April, will have to attempt to do so in May or later.  I think I'm on track to get there soon. I've been loosely using the Disney Run plans for their half marathons and choosing "time improvement" plan.  Most of these max out at 16-17 miles which is longer than the half marathon distance but is designed to help you build endurance.  There also is speed work in these training plans which is what I have been using. The only thing I need to work on more is hill training.  That's been pretty difficult to get in because I live in a pretty flat area.  There are a few parks that have hills that I've been trying to go to at times.  This has seemed to help a lot.

So many ways to work on speed...

February has been unseasonably warm which is a good thing (I think) at least for running, maybe not for other reasons.

Did a short race this month that finished on the hockey ice (more of a themed race but still fun).  Turns out it was just short of 5k so I'm not sure now about counting it for  PR (which it would have been were it an actual 5k and not 2.88 miles).  Did I mention before this is one of my biggest issues with races (when they fall short)?  I don't mind if they are a little bit long, but falling short is the worst race error in my opinion.  At least give the people the distance they signed up for.

Anyway I did post one of my fastest per mile times (8:43).  I only have one 5k race where I did better with 8:37/mile.  Not sure I'll ever break that one but I can dream. (Not with that attitude anyway, right?)  I keep reminding myself.

The majority of February has been spent doing some variations on methods to improve speed.  The main one has been heart rate training (sticking to the zone 2 I mentioned earlier) but also working on intervals specifically 800s which I have fine tuned to work for me and the watch/course availability I'm using.  I start out with a 0.25 mile warm up and then do 0.5 mile extremely fast (but not so fast I can't hold it for the whole time which is a trick to figure out) and alternate with 0.25 mile resting breaks which are essentially catching my breath and running slowly or walking if I need to.  The goal is that going this fast eventually won't seem so bad and I'll be able to hold faster speeds more easily.  Another type of run is holding a faster pace for longer than that (tempo runs), and yet another is progressive runs/negative splits (finishing my last few miles at a faster pace than what I started at).

This week I felt some success in running my 15 mile run at a progressive pace.  I was able to finish the last 4 miles the fastest pace of the entire run.  That felt pretty good to know I could still save some for the end.  My average pace was 10:27 which is not my goal pace were this a race, but was still a good exercise.

Probably the next major challenge will be holding close to (or maybe at) goal pace for a 15k that is coming up in a few weeks.  I'm going to see how I feel and what the weather is like the day of this run to see if it's reasonable to pace with the 9:00 group.  If I can do this, I'd just need to be able to keep this pace going for an additional 4ish miles and the sub 2 half would look more likely.  If I fail, something else might need to happen to get closer to that pace.  My plan right now is to try to hang with this pace group if it feels reasonable that day.  I'll know if something wrong physically that I can't, but will certainly try.

One thing I remember is that my record 10k was around the 9:00 pace that I'm seeking.  That also was achieved on a 70 degree super humid June morning.  Every time I start to doubt my ability to hold that pace, I try to think back to that 10k.

After this 15k trial, there are 2 half marathons I've signed up for that could potentially be good sub 2 attempts at this time.  The hard thing about late March/early April is that the weather is anyone's guess and ice/snow definitely can put a damper on things.  As well as rain (also not my favorite condition but can be tolerable). The second half is in late April so that might be  more likely if the course did not have a significant hill I have been warned about at the end.  If neither of these pan out, there is still a third option for mid May that I have in the back of my mind.  Once we get too far beyond that it's usually too hot to have a goal of this nature.  I'd have to then likely wait until October to try again.

Anyway, so many ways to work on speed and I've found it fun to try them out.  If I don't get the goal soon I can just keep working on improving overall speed for longer distances.  The 15 mile run this week gave me hope that this might be next... Eventually if something doesn't change I can always just train for another marathon... which I probably will anyway, just not sure how soon I'd be up for doing that again.

Heart rate training, a new way to work on speed?

As I have recently gotten a watch that tracks heart rate, I was interested in finding out what heart rate training could do for me.  I consulted a few friends who had done heart rate training before and was sent a few articles to read.

http://www.runandbecome.com/running-training-advice/the-secrets-of-low-heart-rate-training

http://home.trainingpeaks.com/blog/article/joe-friel-s-quick-guide-to-setting-zones

Both pretty good reads... so basically my goal is to run 1 or 2 runs a week with heart rate zone 2.  Usually this will be my long run unless I have a speed training goal set for my long run.  My first long run that I've done so far I kept hitting zone 3 a lot.  It was really hard to pull the pace slower in order to stay in zone 2.  For me that is about 143 bpm or maybe as low as 133... a small range to try to stay in for many miles.  The other thing I noticed was at the end of the long run, I am more fatigued and keeping in zone 2 becomes harder and harder.

I did notice something that improved though.  My faster runs I seem to be improving cadence and getting a lower average heart rate.  I've been trying this for about 3 weeks now.

So this is a work in progress and I'm hoping to see if there is any real impact over time

As far as training, I do have a half marathon coming up in April and a few smaller races in between then.  I'm taking it as it goes and trying to be reasonable about my expectations.

8 mile race PR this week

Had gone into the 8 mile race unsure of what my goal should be.  Should I take it easy?  Should I try to PR?  Should I just work on running a little bit faster to keep up with goals of speed training?  I wasn't really sure.  I decided as I have lately, that it would be up to how I felt.

That morning I felt ok.  When I got there I decided I'd try to go faster than usual.  Resulted in a good pace for the 8 miles, about 9:37/mile according to official results.  My goal is to run 13.1 eventually in less than 2 hours.  That would mean getting more like a 9:06/mile or better.  This is going to be a challenging bar to set.

I have a few chances to attempt to get this goal this year.  2 times in April and then later in the year in October I hope to do half marathons.  Once in the months of May-September it gets harder to do that due to the temperatures being so much higher and not conducive to fast running.

Next race I'm doing is a 5k in February.  It's going to be an interesting thing to see if the weather cooperates.  I'd like to try to break the 5k time I set over a year ago.  I hope one day to get closer to 25 minutes.  I think that's doable if the conditions are right.

I continue to try averaging about 20 miles a week right now.  I've starting working speed training and 800s in my schedule.  I may need to focus more on tempo runs as well.

2017 and first race of the year

Well I was successful at completing my running streak.  Ran every day from 11/24 (Thanksgiving) until 1/1 (New Year's Day).  I enjoyed it and learned to appreciate a mile for what it was.  Every mile added to my running streak.
On New Years Day I also completed my first race of 2017.  I was hoping to beat my 5k PR but was unable to quite make it.  I did run a little faster than last time, in fact over 2 minutes faster than my time from 2013.  So that's not bad for being 4 years older now.
My next plan is to work on speed and hopefully break my half PR.  I'd love to break 2 hours but not certain if that will happen this year or not.  I'm going to try to head in that directions though.
Right now I'm trying to get at least 20 miles running every week.  If I can do that, I should be near my goal of 1000 miles for 2017 again.  Since 2016 was such a good year for running, I am not sure I'll beat 1092 miles, but just maybe I can get close.
Upcoming race is an 8 mile race next weekend.  Depending on the weather, it could possibly be one to try and test running at a slightly faster pace.
The weather has been kind of unpleasant lately.  Today it was 14 degrees but I managed to still run.  Tomorrow I'm supposed to run some speedwork but I might have to end up doing it on the treadmill because the low is 3 tonight!  I've also been heading over to the indoor track when I need to.  The only semi-unpleasant part is that it gets boring and there are people who don't understand the track rules.  When a lane is marked as a run lane, they are walking 5 across with their friends.  Which is fine if you want to talk, but at least stay in the walk section.  It's not very polite to others.  I think they are new to exercise or new years resolution people.  I'm happy for them for trying to be more fit, but they need to learn the rules!  Ok stepping off my soapbox now...