Training Log Archive: RLShadow

Late-morning dog walk with Cheryl, Homer, and the dog across the street that we're dog-sitting for. We went to Abraham Lincoln Park, starting at the abandoned brown house on Empire Blvd. We headed generally to the south from there, going through places I hadn't been to in a long time.

We were definitely outside of the park boundary as shown on the O map of the park, but there were absolutely no indications of it being private property (no "No Trespassing" signs, no signs of any type of development, not even any trash dumps except for on very small area close to a house that we came near). It might be worth looking into what the ownership situation is with some of that land; it would certainly open up some more orienteering terrain, and in a park as small as this one is, a moderate amount more would be very helpful.

It definitely needs to be mapped better, if we are somehow able to legally use it for orienteering.

Recovery run (recovering from the race yesterday, and the dinner yesterday). I didn't feel terrible, although my R hamstring was a bit sore. I just didn't have a whole lot of pep, which isn't all that surprising.

Mostly on the Hojack Trail. From Klem Rd to Vosburg, the Vosburg to Drumm to the Hojack again. Hojack to Van Alstyne, Van Alstyne to Klem, and Klem back to the car, walking that last couple of tenths of a mile.

Warmup for Webster race. (Slow run from our base at Woodhull and Stockbridge, to the race.)

Webster Thanksgiving Day race, put on by Fleet Feet.

Official time was 33:07; I took 21 seconds to get to the starting line, so I subtracted that out.

Cheryl, Anne, and I drove to our son Greg's fiance's parents' house, at the corner of Woodhull and Stockbridge. Given that this race has gotten totally out of control in terms of numbers (2700 starters this year, between the two distances, 2.5 miles and "4.4" miles; which is 700 more than last year), parking is a total zoo, so we decided to avoid it by using Greg's future in-law's house as our base. Cheryl, Anne, and I drove to the "base camp", got situated, relaxed inside with everyone for a while, then did a slow run of around 0.6 miles to where we picked up our timing chips. Greg ran the 2.5 mile race with his 10-month old son Freddie in a baby jogger. They both did fine; Greg hasn't been running a whole lot so he wasn't competitive, but he had a good time, and Freddie was either very mellow or else enjoying the race, because Greg said he didn't fuss at all, the whole time.

I thought I lined up pretty close to the starting line, but it still took 19 seconds, as mentioned above, even to get to the starting line. Then the next minute or so was essentially a walking pace, before any running was possible. The combination of a huge number of runners, a narrow 2-lane road, and many people who were totally ignorant of racing etiquette (like walkers starting at the starting line, and many 12-minute/mile people starting in front of where I was lined up) made for a pretty unpleasant first half mile or so.

I didn't see the first mile marker so I don't know my mile split, but I think I was averaging around 8:35/mile for the first mile, not counting the 18 seconds to get to the start line. And that's not a bad pace, considering that a quarter mile into the race, I was averaging about 12 min/mile due to the congestion. At the 2-mile mark, my average pace for the first 2 miles was 8:07/mile. My 3rd mile was in 7:41, and my average pace for the last 1.17 miles was 7:31/mile.

I haven't seen any results yet, so it will be interesting to see how I did in my age group, although I certainly don't have any lofty expectations.

Edit: Results now available. I was 397th out of 1424 total finishers, which is around the 28th percentile. In my class, I was 4th out of 19, which I'm reasonably satisfied with, except that the #3 guy in my age group beat me by only 2 seconds! Normally I keep an eye on who is around me, and if I see another old guy who could be in my age group, that motivates me to push a little harder (which I'm sure I could have done in this case). However, in this huge race, there were so many people finishing at the same time (probably about 4-5 per second, considering that the 2.5 milers were finishing as well as the "4.4" milers), that it was tough to focus on the specific competition.

C • 4.4 miles 2

Short, easy run in preparation for the Webster Thanksgiving day race (called 4.4 miles for some reason, when it is actually no longer than 4.25 miles).

I usually view 10 miles as the requirement for calling a run "long", so this one didn't qualify, but it's the longest I've done in quite a while, so by the standards of my current level of fitness, I'm calling it long. It sure FELT long.

Ran from the 1-room school building at Creek and Plank. Took Creek to Embury, to 5ML, to Atlantic, to Jackson Ext., to Jackson, to Plank, and back to the car. Nice day; a bit cool to start with, but sunny, and when I had the east wind at my back in the home stretch along Plank, I was downright warm.

In spite of the nice weather, I didn't feel particularly energetic. I sure have a long ways to go in training to be able to run a respectable marathon time in the spring, that's for sure.