Bloomsday 2011

I have to share.   I haven't felt this great after a run in quite some time.   My last race was a 10k qualifier in March to get the yellow bib at Bloomsday, and it wrecked me.   I had been running off and on throughout January and February while I refereed basketball and had barely been back on my three day a week running habit for three weeks when I tackled the St. Patrick's Day Foot Race, my first attempt at the 10k distance (the great thing about being a first year runner, every race is a PR!).  But I ran myself flat in that race, I was exhausted afterwards.   But I hit my qualifying time for getting a yellow bib for Bloomsday (1:12 finish time).

My build up last week was great!   I have been running a hill down the street from my house in preparation for Doomsday Hill.   I crushed the hill in my short 4 mile tempo run last week, knocking out the run at an 8:20/mile pace, about 10 seconds faster than my normal tempo runs.   Normally I run speed workouts Tuesday (replaced with the tempo run on the hill) and then the tempo runs on Thursdays  I decided that the speed wasn't as important as the hill, so Thursday became a run how you want day.   So I set out with the goal of getting in 4.5 miles in to close out April at 50 miles total, but once I stopped, I realized I had miss calculated my last loop and finished with a 4.2 mile run.   No biggie, as I ran at a 7:58/mile pace.   I considered myself officially ready for the big run.  

Friday was a day off for me, woohoo every other Friday off, so we headed up to Spokane early for some fine dining (Italian Friday and Five Guys Saturday), some shopping. A mini-vacation if you will.   But, as has been the case on my recent trips to Spokane, the weather was not cooperating.   All week I had watched the weather with a forecast of Sunny and about 50F for race time.  So rain on Friday and Saturday was a bit disheartening, especially since I brought only light weight running gear.  Saturday night, I got ready for the run, attached my timing chip to my shoe, bib to my shirt, and just said, "I hope the weather guy is right" .". 

I was up at six Sunday morning to get ready for the race, went down to the hotel lobby for breakfast and saw fog.  Great, fog, maybe this will burn off before we get started this morning.  And thankfully, by the time we got to the mall to catch the shuttle, the sun had broken free and the haze was burning off to reveal an absolutely gorgeous day.  A short ride later I was at the Yellow starting gate ready to run with several thousand other people. 

Bloomsday Start

I have never started a race with this many people, really have never been in a race that involved as many people as were in the yellow starting group.  Needless to say, it took almost two miles for me to fall into a comfortable pace.  My split at mile 1 was 9:45, way slower than I was hoping to get started at.  Next time I checked my pace around mile 4 I was all the way down to an 8:24 pace.  There we go, pretty much right where I wanted to be. 

Doomsday hill is located between miles 4-5 of this race.  And I have to say, my first though upon seeing the hill was that it was terrifying.  I say this because as you run down the hill, you can look up and see the throng of people climbing the hill, which is probably what is so intimidating.  The climb up the hill isn't so bad, though I really had to push myself to keep up the running, and not let myself walk, the hardest part of the race for me.

 

Me on Doomsday Hill

After the hill I felt like I was home free.  And really I was, the finish of this race rolls through some of the local neighborhoods in downtown Spokane, and all the people are out cheering on the runners, playing music, cooking, it was really a great atmosphere and a great place to have a race.  The race finishes on the Monroe St. Bridge overlooking Spokane Falls.  It is quite remarkable to look out over the Spokane River after you cross the finish line and walk to get your finisher shirt.

The Finish Line

As I have said the whole event is quite remarkable, from the trees (see below), to the course, to the hill, to the finishers shirts.  The whole city gets behind this event.

 The T-Shirt Lines

When we got off the bus back at the mall the hostess at one of the restaurants asked where my shirt was, which I proudly stated my wife was holding on to for me.  (I have pictures of me with my shirt but I need to shrink the photos to fit, they will be up in a couple of days).

Bloomsday Trees

The results:  I rocked this run! Running it in 1:03:48, of course being the first time is a PR  Now I have a goal, to get under an hour.  I felt great all week, so I knew I was going to have a great day.  So now on to my next goal, which is completing the Half-marathon in Vancouver, WA next month.  Hoping I can do that one in under 2 hours.  Looking forward to running Bloomsday again next year!

Training

My friend and I are a mere 7 weeks away from our goal of running a half-marathon.  We are running the Vancouver USA Half-Marathon in Vancouver, WA on June 19th.  We have been training since the beginning of the year, officially on a training program since mid-February.  So a handful of wonderful, and/or surprising things have happened during this time.  So I will just rumble on by them as I write this (note I tend to ramble when I write).

The training plan is a based on the FIRST Half Marathon training plan, available here on runnersworld.com.  This plan was appealing to both of us for a variety of reasons, starting with the low mileage, and the three days a week running.  The plan is also only a 10 week plan, though I expanded this plan to fill up just about all of the time we had available until the Half in June.  The first week of the official training was to be the first week of April, giving us exactly 11 weeks to make our way to the goal of running 13.1 miles.  But I didn't want to start this training plan having only run over 6 miles once (My first 10k was the St. Patrick's Day Foot Race back in March).  So I expanded the training plan to build up our long runs gradually from February on.  So this was really more like a 16 week training plan that incorporated speed work, as neither of us had done interval work before, as well as the climb in long runs.

Now, some strange things have happened to both of us throughout this spring of training.  Starting in Mid-March, both us were beset with injuries.  Mine, an ankle sprain, self-inflicted while working on the house, and his an apparent running injury to the right knee.  With my injury I managed to miss only one run, and got back out and worked through some slight pain to stay on target with my training plan.  My friend missed most of a week, before deciding to see a doctor, who prescribed Physical Therapy and an MRI (which he didn't get).  Both of us are back on track, though I have had an interesting month.

The first week of April I came down with a cold, one my son had, and seemed to magnify in length once I got it.  So I managed only a whopping 3.3 miles the whole week, after having completed my best week ever at 15.5 the week before.  Disappointment, as I was getting better and stronger, the missed essentially a whole week.  So I decided I could make up for it the following week, and did I ever, I got out and ran my intervals Monday morning, a day typically reserved as an off day, then was talked into a 5k fun run Tuesday night.  I rocked that 5k, bringing it in an unofficially 24:10, which is almost 4 minutes faster than my PR.  Friday, I added the hill by my house to the run, about a 200 ft climb over .75 miles, almost equivalent to the hill we will be running at Bloomsday in a week.  Then my friend and I rounded out the week with an 8 mile long run, and a total weekly mileage at 17.8.  I felt great, after another strong week.

Then this last week happened.  I missed my speed workout Tuesday, and then again on Wednesday, and said, well I will just get back on track Thursday.  That didn't happen either, though I did some cross-training in on the stationary bike.  I did finally run Friday, the schedule called for a 5 mile Tempo run, I substituted the hill, and got 5.7 in and felt pretty good about that.  Was prepared to go out for 10 yesterday, then was out much too late Saturday night.  Missed the long run with my friend and had to venture out on my own, where I managed a paltry (as compared to his 10.3) 6.6 miles as I decided not to push cramping, tired muscles.  This was so not the week I was looking for as I head into Bloomsday in Spokane this weekend.

Lessons learned last week. 1) Sleep more.  I did not have much good rest last week, and was asleep by 9:30 last night, a good way to start this week.  2) Before long runs, drink more water.  Hydration was clearly a problem Friday and Sunday, as I had cramping issues both days, worse on Sunday.  And 3) Remember, this is fun, don't stress about missed runs and lost mileage.  This is so hard for me, perhaps all of us sometimes, the mileage is gone, focus on what is on this week's schedule and work to that, the body will be well trained even missing a handful of runs.

St. Patrick's Day

It has been a couple of weeks since I managed to get on here and get my thoughts and happennings into writing.  This has happened for a couple of reasons: 1) I was in glorious Butte, MT for work the week of the 7th, 2) I have been working on baseball umpiring rules and tests, 3) I have a bunch of spring type activities to do around the house, and 4) I ran the first of the three races on my schedule this spring. 

Where to start in the catching up. The race was definitely the highlight of the week, so let's kick it off there. I was up in plenty of time, had a small breakfast and then started getting dressed. At which point, Mr. T was raring to go. He wanted a race number too, and as you can see in the picture, he got one. Mom made him one and we taped it to his "Daddy's Little Helper" shirt and off we went to the race.

It was possibly the nicest morning for a run so far this early spring. The weather was sunny and in the low 50s when I got going. The course started off going downhill away from Kimo's and into Columbia Park, where it followed the foot path for a little over 3 miles and came back. There was a water station near the 2 mile mark (also the 4 mile mark coming back) where I managed to grab a cup of water both times. The second time I stopped long enough to drink the water, walk for a few seconds and then get going again. There were two great things that happened as I finished the race. first, Lindsey and Tyler were sitting about a tenth of a mile from the end and as I am huffing my was towards the finish line I hear, "Yeah, Daddy!" Which was absolutely amazing for me. Second, as I got close enough to see the clock at the finish line I saw that only 54 minutes had elapsed, so I kicked it up a notch an finished my first 10k race at 55:30 seconds according to the clock. My official time was 55:17.5. Wow, I managed to do this under an hour, and qualified for the yellow bib at Bloomsday in May.

It was a pretty good way to finish off the week. Especially after I got done with my business trip to Butte a day early.  I was in Butte to watch engineering scale demonstrations at MSE where they were scaling up the geopolymer we are testing.  After a bad start to the week, where we didn't have success with the initial formulation.  We ended the week on a positive note.  I also managed to get my baseball umpiring rules test done last week too, and am now ready to get going on that this spring.  It is also time to start working on the yard.  I have seeds to plant, a garage to clean, a wheelbarrow to fix, some dirt to move, and sprinkler valves to prep. 

I will be back in a couple of days with a rant about electronic answering services and to update everyone on this week's running activities.

The Plan

Ever read someone's blog, comic, story what-have-you for a long time, then gone back to the beginning to see what the writing or the person was like 10 years ago, only to find out that they were kind of lame and that the first post was horribly written (and titled the 'First Post').  Well this is my attempt at having a first post, lame or otherwise.  Now you may be thinking that with a title like 'THE PLAN', this post might include ideas for what I plan on talking about in this here blog, hopefully the title of the blog gives you a hint about that.  In this case The Plan refers to running.


So what began as an idea in December (2010), has become a reality.  My friend mentioned that he wanted to run a marathon, only after his friend had run one.  I, being new to the sport, told him that no person should run alone, especially that distance.  After some discussion it was decided that a half-marathon was a more apt goal to attain in the spring.  After the holiday season a race was tentatively decided upon, enter the Sage Rat Run on May 14, 2011.

Turns out this run didn't fit into our schedules, for one, my friend is in class, and, for two, I didn't quite feel I would have my training up to speed in time after completing Basketball Officiating season.  In search of another race we went .  Next we settled upon the Clear Lake Memorial Races, up in White Pass, WA (sorry no link available).  This one, too, had a drawback, in that it has an elevation increase of 1000ft over 4 miles.  Back to square one.

The requirements had been set at this point:
1) The race must be on a Sunday.
2) The race need not unnecessarily climb 1000ft, this is supposed to be fun, not hazardous to our health.
3) It needed to be close so that we could easy get to it Saturday evening.

Another search turned up the Vancouver USA Marathon, which also has a Half-Marathon.  After some discussion it was decided, we will be running the Vancouver USA Half-Marathon on June 19, 2011.

Finally,we will be running a warm-up/introduction to racing the Bloomsday 2011 race in Spokane, WA on May 1st.

Well, there you have it guys, The Plan, which was more to do with my upcoming running schedule than say what this blog will be about.  Look for updates on the actual training plan that we are using to train for this madness.