Racing Season is Here and Boston Update

Racing Season

The weather is starting to warm up and the first 5K of the spring has already come and gone. Looking at the TriStateRacer.com Calendar, we have at least one race, sometimes more, from now until the WV 5K Championship on June 25, 2011, where the calendar shows a 1 week break before the full month of July.

I am sure that someone will take the July 2nd date which will ensure that we have a race every weekend in the Huntington area throughout the summer!

The first race of the season was held in Coal Grove on Saturday. I was pleased to take the victory (17:28) on the men’s side and 16-year old Sydney Pettit claimed the overall women’s title (23:24).

There were over 200 finishers in the first race, which tells me a lot of people were ready to get out and jump in a 5K!

Check out the racing calendar for a complete listing of races in our area!

Boston Update

We have only 5 weeks till Boston and today the bib numbers were announced. I will proudly be wearing Bib No. 2986 on April 18th!

Last week was supposed to be a light week. I had hit 73 miles the week before and wanted to only go 60 but ended up going 67 miles. I think that the 6 miles less that I ran from the week before did my body good. It doesn’t seem like much but it does help the body and mind to know that you are cutting back a bit.

This week, I am back at it with two quality runs planned and hopefully will be in the 73-75 mile range for this week.

My goal is still to break 3 hours, which is 6:52/mile. I plan on taking out in 6:45 pace to give me a little wiggle room in the newton hills section (Miles 18-22 on the Boston Course- this also contains heartbreak hill).

I am feeling pretty confident as I ran a 1:27:30 13.1 mile run last week. I just wanted to get out and go marathon pace but ended up going just a tad quicker. I averaged 6:40 pace for the run. That workout was a good test to see where I was.

I only have 3 more weeks (2 after this week) of hard training and then a 2 week taper until race day.

Boston Training

I just wanted to give an update to my training for the Boston Marathon on April 18, 2011. My goal time is to break 3 hours. I read somewhere that only 1% of all people who attempt a marathon have broken the 3 hour barrier. Something about being in that 1% sounds appealing!

 

I started this marathon build on Christmas day. That gave me 17 weeks to build up for this marathon.

Here is a summary of my weekly mileage buildup:

Week 1 – 27 Miles
Week 2 – 31 Miles
Week 3 – 50 Miles
Week 4 – 56 Miles
Week 5 – 53 Miles (Rest Week)
Week 6 – 63 Miles
Week 7 – 62 Miles (Got in a bad pair of shoes and struggled)
Week 8 – 61 Miles (Rest Week)
Week 9 – 68 Miles
Week 10 – 72.6 Miles (2nd Biggest Week Ever)
Week 11 – 71 Miles (Would have been 73 but the cold weather got to my head yesterday and I cut my LR from 20 to 18 Miles)

I am super happy with my buildup so far. Everything has been pretty smooth over the past 11 weeks. I have two small mishaps to report.

1.) The shoes, completely my fault. I got in to a stability shoe when I have been in a neutral shoe for years. The stability shoe was the wrong shoe for me and destroyed my legs. It was tough to get through that week, but once I was back in neutral shoes, my legs felt great.

2.) Last week, I pumped my calf on the back of a desk, not a big deal at the time and I went 13.5 miles less than 30 minutes after I did it but it locked up my calf. Luckily, I was able to get a planned rest day the following day and my leg was ready to go by the time it was time to run again.

I have been concentrating on the longer tempo runs. I am doing 8-10 miles at least 15-20 seconds under my goal marathon pace. I have not done any speed work yet (Mile or 800 repeats).

The Future:

6 Weeks till race day.

6 Weeks out – Rest Week – 60-65 Miles
5 Weeks out – Big Week – 70-75 Miles with 21-22 Mile LR
4 Weeks Out – Big Week – 75 Miles with Fast Finish LR
3 Weeks Out – Big Week – 75 Miles

HARD WORK IS DONE

2 Weeks Out – Taper Time!! – 55-60 Miles
1 Week Out – Nice and easy – 4-6 Miles/day

Recap of the Barboursville Winter Series

The 2nd Annual Barboursville Winter Series concluded on Sunday with the 5 Miler at the Barboursville Park. We were very lucky to have great weather for the majority of the series and we had a great turnout as well.

Our goal with the series was to encourage people to push their limits and move from the 3 Mile or 5K distance to a 5 Miler. We did this with three races that gradually increased in distance by one mile per month. We believe that this was a good thing and everyone had a good time.

The overall winner of the series was Jacob Burcham, who is the youngest high school All-American Cross Country runner for 2010. For the woman, Diane Riley, XC and Track Coach at Cabell Midland High School, took the crown.

We would like to thank the Village of Barboursville for all their help with the series. Our first race had a lot of snow and they were able to clear the parking lot and a path for the runners. I believe we raced on some of the only cleared roads in the tri-state that day and we are very grateful for the city workers in Barboursville and all that they do.

We would also like to thank everyone who came out for the races. Without the avid runners and fitness fanatics in the area, we would not be able to put on these races.

We now shift gears and start preparing for the WV 5K Championship that will be held on June 25, 2011 in Huntington, WV. This will be the 3rd year for the event and we are very pleased to announce that the Herald-Dispatch has signed on as title sponsor again this year!

Stay tuned as we will make more announcements about some awesome changes to the WV 5K this year!