Visit to Saucony Headquarters

Saucony booth at the Boston expo

This post is about a month overdue, but better late than never, right?! The day after the Boston Marathon Andrea and I went out to Saucony's headquarters in Lexington, MA. We toured their facilities (including their new biomechanics laboratory), checked out some of the new shoes and clothing that will be hitting stores in the next year, and had a fun time chatting with several of their designers. It was essentially a running dork's dream morning! :-)

Needless to say, Saucony has a lot of awesome stuff in the pipeline. A highlight for us was checking out the new footwear models for events like the shotput, javelin, and sprints. I got to try on a pair of throwing shoes that were designed for Adam Nelson... I could spin around like a top in those things (and nearly fell over!).

Here's a few photos from our tour...

Shoes everywhere - and a runway down the middle of the offices!

Saucony athletes like Wallace Spearmon and Molly Huddle decorate the walls

The biomechanics laboratory

Andrea left w/ some not-yet-released Fastwitch 6s

Then they took us out to lunch, and diet dew was necessary to continue to
post-race re-hydration process! :-)

Andrea's Training Phase - Half Marathon Specific

This year, I have split my training up into 4-week cycles. The first 4-weeks (Mid-March to Mid-April) were focused on incorporating workouts back into training after a long stretch of easy miles (and a  foot injury caused by calf tightness). The second 4-week cycle was all about "hardening to racing" - getting all the nerves out from not racing for a while and remembering how to race. I raced 4 weeks in a row - two 5Ks and two half-marathons.

This third cycle is focusing on half marathon-specific training. The weekly plan is -

-Long run 15-18 miles
-Medium-long run 10-12 miles
-One tempo workout/long repeats at 10K-to-marathon pace (5-8 miles MP tempo, 2x3 HMP tempo, 6xmile 10K-HMP, etc.)
-One track workout at 5K pace (5x1000m, 12x400m, ladder such as 16-12-8-4, etc.)
-Drills and core exercises twice a week

All other runs are easy recovery runs with a few doubles to hit 70-75 weekly miles total.

That leaves two weeks to taper, run a 5K the week before in Portland (to make half marathon pace seem easier), and then be ready to roll for the USA Half Marathon Championships in Duluth!

Oh, and this is probably what I will look like by the end of this training cycle -

Some race pics from the last 2 weekends

Andrea wrote a post a few weeks ago showing some of our new gear, but since we've actually been racing in the same races, we haven't had any photos to add to our race reports. I grabbed a few photos from the last two weekend's races. Our new singlets for this season are pretty sweet. These first couple photos are from the Provo City 5K...

And some from the Thanksgiving Point Half Marathon...

Our favorite time of the year at Alta

Devil's Castle, Sugarloaf Peak, and Mt Baldy (L to R)

The last 3 weekends have followed the same formula - race on Saturday, easy run on Sunday morning, then up to the mountains for some spring skiing the rest of the day on Sunday. Luckily the weather has cooperated very nicely with our plans! Nothing but blue skies and sunshine.

This is our favorite time of the year at Alta - the lifts are closed for the season but there is still plenty of snow. Alta has some awesome terrain, so its fun to do some "in-bounds touring" and get after the goods.

The snow is melting fast, but we'll probably be able to squeeze out a few more weekends of skiing.

Here's some photos from today's adventure...

Andrea skinning up an empty Alta ski area

Main Chute still looking pretty good

Enjoying another beautiful afternoon up in the alpine

Timp

The south side of LCC is melted out

Andrea skiing down

Yep I wear capri-pant style tights this time of year

Andrea spraying some spring slush

Superior looking thin! Definitely isn't being skied top to bottom anymore

Provo City 5K Race Reports

Yesterday, Jake and I headed down to Provo to run the Provo City "Chase the Mayor" 5K. We had great experiences at the Provo City Half Marathon last year, so we decided to run the 5K this year. Plus, we wanted to cheer on a bunch of our friends that were racing.

The 5K is a great course. It is a mostly downhill course, with one hill in the first mile. At about 4600ft, the course is probably a few seconds slower than a flat sea level course.

We both took first place - I ran 17:07 and Jake ran 15:01!

We especially got a kick out of the slogan for the race "Thou Shalt Run" - only in Utah County! :)

Andrea's Race Report -

I warmed up 2.5 miles and then ran 5-6 strides. I didn't feel great during the warm-up, but that doesn't usually mean anything in terms of how I will race.


The race started with about 15 kids that took off with Jake. That threw my pace off at first but I settled down quickly. The first mile had a hill, and I hit the mile split at 5:32. Nice gradual downhill for the rest of the race. I maintained a solid pace through mile 2 in 5:25. Mile 3 of a 5K is always hard, so I was just trying to hang in there and focus on turnover. Mile 3 was 5:30 and 0:41 for the last 0.1. Final total time of 17:07. I feel really good about this time. I'm on the right track for that sub-17!

Jake's Race Report -

Off the start a bunch of kids sprinted out FAST! One of them, who couldn't have been more than 4 feet tall, stayed with me for about 200 yards or so. It was pretty funny, although I kinda felt bad for him because his breathing sounded like his lungs were going to explode. Then I was solo the rest of the way. I came through 2 miles in ~9:38 (I didn't have my watch set to auto-split and there were no markers for the 5K), then the last mile was 4:51 or 4:52. Final time just a tad over 15 minutes. I'm happy with this effort as a step towards my goal to get a lot faster at shorter distance races before I run another marathon.


There are a lot of upsides to marathon training, but the downside is that you get really comfortable just running "comfortably hard" all the time. You don't spend a lot of time on the other side of the red line when you are running lots of miles, long tempos, etc. That was my problem today, I just felt comfortable at 4:50 pace and mentally I didn't want to push it any harder. The workouts I have planned for the next month are going to be geared towards "re-learning" how to make it hurt. Lots of work in the Mile to 5K race pace range.

The after race festivities were fun with lots of activity. Everyone was trading race stories and having a good time!

Only positive things to say about this race, except that there were no mile markers for the 5K. I heard from others that ran the half and full marathons that the mile markers were way off for those races. The overall distances were right on the mark, though. Other than that, it was very well-organized and a great event!

Happy Birthday Jake!

TODAY IS JAKE'S 28th BIRTHDAY!

I compiled a slideshow that highlights Jake and his adventures of the past year.



Here are a few of my favorites :)

California, Here I come!

While Andrea heads back home to Tennessee for a wedding in early June, I'm flying the opposite way - out to Southern California ("technically" home, since I was born there) for a pair of races and some time lounging at the beach!

On Saturday June 2nd I'm running the Fontana Days 5K, a super-fast course east of Los Angeles. Then I'll head out along the coast to Santa Barbara, where I'll be racing the State Street Mile on June 3rd.

I have family in SoCal, so I'll get to run some fast, competitive races and hang out with my relatives for a weekend. A win-win situation!

I cannot tell you how excited I am to run a one-mile  road race. I'm really committed to working on my speed this spring/summer, and this will be a good chance to test my progress.

This pair of races will be a great tune-up for our biggest races of the summer - the Portland Track Festival and USA Half-Marathon Championships (which are the following two weekends). And yep - Andrea and I are both going to be traveling 3 weeks in a row (actually 4 for Andrea)... I think its time that we finally buy tablet computers!

We are running a 5K in Provo this upcoming weekend, then the focus will shift to training, training, and more training during the rest of May.

A couple days here will be good for the soul :-)