Watt's Running

Over the past few years I have been running with more and more specialized running apparel. This includes polyester tops, and shorts. Well today I pulled on a pair of cotton shorts and a regular cotton T-shirt and ran 3 miles around my neighborhood. Back to the basics.

I picked up my race packet this morning. My number is 1483. One more day. One more day…

The marathon is almost here. I’ve been visualizing the course based upon my turn-by-turn photos. In addition I’ve made a pace band PDF with a variable-pace adjusting for the hills (based upon a pace of 9:44/M with a 4:15 completion). Tonight I’ve got to get to bed early, because I won’t get much sleep tomorrow night.

I drove the 2007 AT&T Austin Marathon course this morning and took pictures at each turn. When I got back I painted in turn-arrows on each one. See the turn by turn slideshow on flickr.com

As one of the new paid services provided by Rogue Training is a bus tour of the AT&T Marathon course. I had originally signed up for a later one, but John told me yesterday during the long run that he needed to switch and that was fine with me. We left at 12 noon and drove the entire course in air conditioned comfort. It was quite sunny and hot out. Steve Sisson, head of Rogue, and John Connelly, the race director, talked us though the entire course. It took two hours to make the tour. I made notes of each major hill and valley. This race will be a challenge.

So here is my analysis for setting my goal for the marathon. Here are a sampling of my past races and other times.

1. Chicago marathon – 4:35.07 (ran with a friend at his slower pace, but was hurt too)
2. IBM 10K – 54:44 – McMillan: 4:16.52 (raced)
3. Motive half marathon – 2:09.41 – McMillan: 4:33:30 (medium speed, didn’t fully race)
4. Decker 20K – 2:17.33 – McMillan: 5:04:55 (ran very slowly with a friend as a long run)
5. ARA 20 Miler – 3:15:10 – McMillan: 4:19:56 (tried for MGP, but got very tight for the last few miles, dehydrated)
6. Track 1000m – 4:43.66 – McMillan 4:30.19 (best of five done this week)

As a result I think I should state my goal as 4:15 with a 9:44/M pace. Naturally my dream would be to break 4 hours, but that’s quite unlikely based upon my past performance shown above, nor is it appropriate to push this hard at the start knowing that this will cause me to crash and burn (bonk) later. In any case this is quite a difference from the 3:45 goal I had last year, but then I’ve not been pushing it as hard this year. However, a 4:15 is a best-can-do goal depending upon conditions that day. OK, there I’ve said it. Now only time will tell what the truth is.

I just signed up for the following races: the ARA 20 Miler on 1/7/2007, the 3M Half Marathon on 1/28/2007, and the AT&T Austin Marathon on 2/18/2007. Wish me luck.

I was to do an easy 4 miles this morning. I woke up late since I’m on vacation. I only realized that I was supposed to run at about 9 AM. Also after yesterday’s hill workout I was stiff. So this morning only 12 hours later I ran, but I felt so sluggish. I just couldn’t catch my breath. The 4 miles seemed to take so long to complete. I forced myself to get it done. It was a hard 4 miles.

Last year I pushed real hard. This year I’m taking it easy. What surprises me is how hard it is regardless. In Chicago I took my time and I still had troubles. My muscles still got tight. I still ached afterwards. My ankle still burned. However my heart rate was less. My stomach was less upset. I wasn’t panting trying to catch my breath. So I feel somewhat better physically going slower, but mentally I’m sad that I can’t keep up with what I did in the past and that I can’t go faster. Nevertheless I need to accept myself as I am – faster, slower, or in-between. That’s the tough part.

Last Christmas Kathy gave me a shadow box for my running medals. It has sat on my desk for almost a year and today I did something about it. I put my four marathon medals in it and hung it on the wall above my desk. I think it looks quite nice, and I think I’d like to do more for some of the other medals that I’ve gotten over the past few years of running.