Marathon Training

(The following took place between January and early April of 2009)

I initially planned on starting the 2009 season with a half marathon, followed by a full marathon in the fall. I ended up chaning my mind, because a race up in Madison, WI caught my eye and so I reversed the plan. I decided to do a full in the spring and signed up for the Illinois Marathon in Champaign/Urbana.

I had 14 weeks to train, so I was a few weeks short. I had already been training for the half, so i would only be a few miles short on the missed weeks. The plan that I chose was from Runnersworld.com and it had me doing about 25 miles a week. The schedule gave me a few days off during the week, with long runs on Saturday. The weekly miles were pretty easy and didn't suck up much time, but the Sunday long runs were pretty hard. For the majority of my training, I was running in 20-30 degree weather. At times, my water would turn slushy while I was out running and to this day I have a couple frostbite marks on my upper lip. Here I am after a long run. You can see the serious sweat marks on my shirt.

The longest run I ended up doing prior to the race, was 22 miles. Suprisingly the 22 mile run was much easier than my first 16 mile run. I initially missed my long run one Sunday, because I was sick. I was still sick on Monday and finally felt better on Tuesday. I wasn't going to skip my long run, so I ended up doing it on Tuesday night after work. My plan was to run the Monarch Levee in Chesterfield Valley, twice. It is exactly eight miles round trip, flat, and there is a JohnyOnTheSpot in the middle. I got off work, changed at the office, and headed for the levee. The first four miles hurt pretty good and when I got to the car at eight, I was feeling pretty bad. Shannon met up with me at this point and hooked me up with some additional fluids. The sun started setting and I went back out for the next eight. It was pretty slow going and I figured out pretty quickly that I wasn't 100%. I finally got to the 12 mile mark, ate some GU, and drank some water; I was dieing. I figured if nothing else I could walk back, but I had a new problem .... no more water. It was only 72 degrees outside, but I was sick, out of water, and had 4 miles to go. I headed back slowly but surely. With a couple miles to go, I was hurting bad. I needed fluids. When I finally made it to the car, I took down the extra fluids Shannon dropped off for me, but started shivering. The shivering was quickly followed by naseua. I hung out at my car for about 15 minutes and then headed home. I was still shivering and felt like vomiting, but at least I was done running. Here is a pic of what I looked like after the first eight miles.

I took my temp when I got home and my temp was too low. My temp was 96 degrees and I was still shivering. I attempted to eat, but couldn't get anything down. I took a quick shower and went to bed. I didn't feel much better the next day, but learned a few lessons from my endeavor; never run sick and buy a hydration pack.

Despite the one truly bad run, the rest of my training went well and I missed very few miles on my plan. I tapered the week prior to the Marathon as planned and it was a nice break from the heavy miles.

St. Patricks Day Parade Run - 5 Mile

I didn't plan on doing this race, but our friend Melissa was going to do it, so why not. Unfortunately we didn't communicate to well and she ended up paying for non-competitive and I paid for competitive, so we started the race in two completely different groups. Now that I have completed the race, I would have to say that even if your not-competitive and don't care about having your time tracked, pay for the compeitive. There were 1500 or so competitive runners, so we started off pretty quick and there wasn't a lot of walking or traffic dodging. There were about 8000+ people in the non-competitive group, no thanks.

The race was just an out and back, with some gradual hills and a couple turns. I pushed it pretty hard and was at the first mile in under 8 minutes. I think it was about the same for the next mile. In the end I finished the race in 42:03, with a 8:25 pace. My current 5K pace is 8:32, and my current 10K pace is 9:20, so my speed training looks to be helping out.

The race was fun and so was the subsequent parade, but seeing Melissa and meeting her husband Dwayne was the best part of the day.

Time for a Marathon

My initial plans rolling into this year were to do a half marathon in the spring and a full in the fall. Since I really wanted to do the North Face Challenge in October and all the fall marathons are around the same time, I decided to do a full marathon this spring. I really didn't have any interest in doing the GO St. Louis marathon, so after looking around I decided to do the Illinois Marathon, in Champaign/Urbana.

Why not the GO St. Louis? Running in downtown St. Louis sucks! It seems that every race held in downtown is straight down a street and then back. I wanted a race that meandered around a small town and went by houses, instead of empty buildings. I may try it some other time, but not this year.

Why the Illinois Marathon? I lived in Illinois half my life and love the state. I'm a Bulls fan, a Lincoln fan, and an Illinois Higher Education fan. Outside of that I decided on this race because I figured there would be a lot less people there and it is convenient for my dad to come down and join us.

I made this decision eight weeks ago and have three weeks of training left. The training was pretty good up until my first 16 miler. More on that later.

Castlewood Cup 10Mile

Wow, it's been a while since I have put anything up here. I'm just going to throw some quick entries up and get this blog up to date.

The Castlewood Cup was a 10 mile, trail race, held on February 28th. It was about 28 degrees outside, but with the windchill it was closer to 10. Don't be too surprised, my family stayed home. The race started with a cross country style start and a loop through a big open field. Once through the field it was straight uphill on a wide trail that slowly tapered down to a single track. The single track locked you into your place for a while, as it was pretty hard to pass. We worked our way down some switchbacks and proceeded through some flats and then back onto a different trail in the park. The trails weren't too extreme, but the hills were steep enough to cause many of us to walk. At times you were stuck walking even if you wanted to run, less you felt like trailblazing around twenty people in front of you. I was in no rush!

About half way through the trail they had a perfectly placed water/Gatorade stop. I grabbed some Gatorade, since I was carrying my own water (10 miles is too far for me to go without water). The second part of the trail winded its way through the woods and was probably the best portion of the trail. The trail just meandered through the woods, with rarely a major hill, yet still enough elevation change to make things interesting. We worked are way through this second trail and finished up the race on the flats. The most notable portion of the last 1.5 or so miles on the flats was right at the last mile marker. I had read that the race included a water crossing and never gave it a second thought. I figured there would be some rocks, or a tree, or a bridge, or someone to carry me. I was very wrong. The crossing was about 10 feet across and six inches or more deep. I trudged on through and found the cold water to be very comforting initially, but running the last mile with cold, wet feet wore out its welcome.

I finished the race in 1:41:33, with an 11:02 pace. My results are based on a 9.2 mile distance. The 10.1 mile race had some course changes, so they determined that the distance was a bit short in the end. I was pretty happy with the results and look forward to doing it again next year. Big River Running Company did a good job putting things together and the people in attendance were a lot of fun.

My first Indoor Triathlon Sprint

I did my first Indoor Triathlon Sprint yesterday, Febuary 7, 2008 and had a great time. The Tri was held at my gym, the JCC or J as we all call it. They had a long Tri and a Sprint, with people competing both Saturday and Sunday. The sprint involved a 400 yard swim (16 lengths of a 50 yard pool), an 8 mile bike ride on spin bikes, and a 2.5 mile run on the treadmill. The long was 750 Swim, 18 Mile Bike, and a 5 mile run.

The swimming portion of the Tri was really my only concern, no worries on the running or the bike. I decided prior to signing up, I would see if I could even swim 400 yards. I was on a swim team as a pre-teen and I tried out for water polo in high school (they require good grades though), so I have some background in swimming, but it's been forever. I started out by swimming laps at lunch about three weeks prior to the race. My first 400 yard time came in at 14 minutes. My stroke was way off, I couldn't catch my breath at the end of the pool, it was very disappointing. Fortunately my second practice session was a little easier and I got it down to about 12 minutes. Another week of training and I was down to 10 minutes; it was time to sign up for the Tri.

In addition to practicing for the swimming, I thought it would be a good idea to throw down 8 miles a few times on a stationary bike. I like riding real bikes on the road, but a stationary bike is about 10 times worse than a treadmill. Anyhow, I soon realized that the swimming wasn't that big a deal, the bike killed me. I figured 8 miles on a bike was a walk in the park, but I was wrong. I did the bike twice and I think my times were well over 20 minutes. I came to realize that if my overall time sucked, it was going to be due to the bike.

Race day came pretty fast. I didn't know what to expect, but the whole deal was very organized. They wrote my number on my arm and leg and checked me in. I proceeded to the bleachers above the pool and watched a couple heats race. As with all my running events, the field included people of different shapes and sizes, a broad age range, and both male and female. Some of the heavier people were faster than you would expect and some of the older people were faster than expected. It just shows that you can't judge a book by the cover, especially when the cover goes flying by your slow ass in the pool or on the road. There is nothing more humbling than getting beat by an 83 year old woman and an 8 year old boy when running a 5k :).

My heat started at 11:20 and there were five of us. Out of all of us, only one had competed in a Tri before and she was 50 plus years old. As the clock counted down, I put my feet on the wall and reached back with both arms to grab the edge, this boy was going to jump out and get some free distance. The clock hit 11:20 and we were off. I burned rubber on the first lap, which is what I didn’t want to do, but I slowed it down and didn’t have much trouble finishing the 400 yards. Much to my surprise, I was the first one out of the pool. I jumped out and the lap counter said 8:01 was my time, way better than expected. I was hoping for below 10 and the best I did in training was 8:45. I quickly threw on my singlet, socks, and shoes, then ran down a couple halls to the spin bike.

The bike was pretty uneventful, I sat, I spun the pedals round and round. It’s kind of monotonous, but there were a few miles where I just wanted to be done so I gave it hell. The distance was being measured by RPM, so you wanted just enough resistance to keep the thing from bouncing and to keep from getting ahead of yourself pedaling. I was off the bike in 17:38 minutes after doing 8 miles and ran over to the treadmill.

I put the treadmill on 10 minute miles for the first quarter, as I really didn’t want to fall over; the transition from bike to running made my leggs kind of wobbly. Once I got going, I kicked it up to 8 minute miles, figuring I only needed to do it for 2.5 miles, so why not give it hell. I have no problems with dieing, especially while exercising. I was able to hold that till the 2.25 mark and then I pumped that bad boy up to about a 7:30 for the last lap. I wanted to compensate for that first slow lap. I finished the treadmill at 20:18 with an 8:10 pace. I was about to hurl coming off the mill, so I walked a quarter mile to cool down and drank some water, and felt a bit better after that.

Anyhow, that was it. It was very exciting and I am thrilled with my final times. They released the results today and I came in 30th out of 133. There were 10 in my age group and I placed 6th. My overall time was 49:03 minutes.

There are a quite a few other indoor triathlons in town and some real triathlons also. I may try one of the real deals for fun sometime this summer.

Finally broke 100Miles in a month

I finally broke the 100 mile mark for the month. I almost had it in December, but the holidays kept me home bound.


I am in training right now for two different races. On February 7th I have a Triathlon Sprint, 400yd swim/8m bike/2.5m run. I was most worried about the swimming portion, but now I am more worried about the bike. I am coming in at around 9:00 minutes for 400 yards in the pool, which puts me in the middle of the pack compared to their results from last year.

The other race I am training for is the Inaugral Illinois Marathon in Champagne Urbana. It looks like it will be a great race around town and it will end in the UofI stadium. There is a kids fun run also, that Jazzy is going to sign up for. I know I can run 13 miles, but the 26 is kind of daunting. My training has me doing a 16, 18, and a couple 20 mile runs, so those will give me an idea of what I am up against. One of my training runs will be a trail race in Castlewood Park. If your looking for a fun time, this looks to be a great trail race. http://www.bigriverrunning.com/Castlewood%20Cup.htm

New Year Resolutions!

I couldn't come up with anything very challenging this year, as the last two years I did all the hard stuff:

Lose weight: 40lbs (was 50)
Go back to School: Started back Spring 2006, graduate Fall of 2009
Quit Smoking: Jan 1 2008 and I am never going back

Running was never one of my resolutions, nor was exercise, but it was necessary to meet my weight loss goals. I just started with half a lap of walking at the track and half a lap of running. I was able to get up to two miles of consistent running, but couldn't go much further until I quit smoking in January.

On January 1st, 2009, I ran 13.1 miles to celebrate a year without smoking. So in a year I went from 2 miles to 13. In the last 6 months I was able to go from a 9:31 minute mile 5k pace to an 8:32 minute pace. My point here isn't to brag, but to show that even an overweight (6ft tall 260lb), smoking, unhealthy person can become a runner. Running probably isn't for everyone, but there is always hiking, biking, pilates, yoga, etc. Look at it this way, if we all get healthy and eat less, we can use that extra food to make bio-fuel :).

Anyhow, here are this years resolutions:

• Lose 15 Pounds (From 220 to 205)
• -Cut back on Fried Foods (allow once a week)
• -Cut back on Chocolate Deserts (allow once a week)
• -Eat Cleaner (More Fresh food)
• Improve 5K time by 30 Seconds (8:00 Pace)
• Run at least one Half Marathon (Timed Race)
• Run at least one Full Marathon (Timed Race)

I think the hard part will be getting back in the groove of going to bed hungry, counting my calories again, and just watching what I eat. I know how to do it, I have done it before, I can do it again. The running stuff I think I will meet, the 8:00 Pace will be the hardest though.