February 25, 2013

Andrea is in Brazil, here's a quick update...

Last year around this time Andrea's job sent her to Brazil for a couple weeks. She did a 6 part recap of that trip, captured here: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6

She's back down there right now, and will have some more to share when she returns to the USA, but I thought I'd post a couple of the shots she sent me from this past weekend...





February 24, 2013

Treadmill run?

This past Saturday I was planning to run the SLC Winter Series 15K as my last quality session before the upcoming marathon (Phoenix, March 2nd). Last year at this race I ran 48:04 (2012 Race Recap), breaking the course record on windy day. This year my objective was to just get in some marathon-paced miles and a decent workout. But the weather was abysmal to the point where the 10K from two weeks ago seemed tropical.

Realizing about a minute into our warmup that a quality workout wasn't happening while the snow and wind were blasting, my friend Rob and I pulled the plug on the race and decided to go to the gym for a treadmill workout. This is significant for me, as it was the first time I had run on a treadmill since approximately 2005. Its been so long that I can't even remember specifically. I ended up getting in a pretty good workout on the treadmill, and it was probably good heat acclimatization training, as the weather in Phoenix will be considerably warmer than what I've gotten used to this winter.

It's a shame that I had to bail on the race, and I feel bad for the SLC Track Club - all three of their winter series races were in rough weather this year. Still, they do an amazing job and I really like their races... I'll keep coming back (hoping for better weather in 2014!).

Training has gone better in the past couple weeks. When I was warming up for my workout last Saturday (2/16) I really felt that my body was hanging on by a thread, and was probably 50/50 on whether I was even going to run this upcoming marathon. But I managed to bang out a decent set of mile repeats that morning, then came back and did a 20 miler with 10 miles @ marathon pace the next day. Those runs seemed to help me turn the corner. A couple more good sessions in the past week have left me feeling a lot more confident than I was a few weeks ago. I've been sticking w/ the PT routine Andrea designed for me... and while in some ways I'm still only hanging on by a thread, at least its a stronger thread at this point.

And now its taper week! I'll just do one more light workout to keep my legs from going stale, and then see where the cards fall next weekend...

February 11, 2013

SLC Winter Series 10K

Final stretch of the SLC Winter Series 10K. Yes, it was cold!
I've had a less-than-ideal three weeks since running pretty well at the PF Chang's Half Marathon. After that race, I took a bunch of low intensity days and then was ready to jump back into a 5 week marathon-specific cycle. I went to San Diego the weekend after the AZ race, and unfortunately developed a mild quad strain during a 10 mile marathon paced run. The quad strain was probably due to compensating for a tight achilles tendon (something that I deal with intermittently, and the discomfort got a little more intense around the time of that half marathon). 

So, I had to scrap a couple planned workouts and long runs - instead I did a week of very light jogging and got in the pool every night. By last Saturday I tested my recovery with an 8 mile tempo, then came back a few days later with a 26.2K "simulator" tempo (a little slower than MP due to also being sick during this whole timeframe). I was happy to get in a couple decent workouts.

Over this past weekend I ran a local 10K - not an all-out effort (32:26 for 2nd place: Race Recap), not fast by my standards at all, but another solid workout in the bank. My quad seems to be healed, my achilles is getting better, and my illness is slowly going away. I only feel like I firing at 80-85% right now, but I'm optimistic I am get that number back up in the 90s before the marathon on March 2nd.

Andrea is helping me rehab and get my body back in fighting form - I'd be struggling without her help right now. She also ran in the 10K over the weekend (just as an easy training run)... but the good news is that she cracked the 40 mile week mark for the first time in about 6 months. Progress!

Start of the 10K. I'm hiding on the left.
Our Vizipro uniforms are BRIGHT!
Post race w/ the guys
Top 3 guys - Riley, Me, Matt. Riley and Matt are both running awesome right now.