Weekly Wrap-Up: May 22-28

I knew I wasn’t going to be able to do a true long run this week because I’d be on call for the weekend, but my legs decided that it was time to cut back regardless of my schedule.

I ended up not getting called at all this weekend. I need to go buy a lottery ticket.

I was worried that I’d end up running in the rain this week. While we did get a ton of rain, I somehow managed to avoid all of it. Again, lottery ticket.

Hey, I finally got my Teal Diva 5K race report posted. One of the delays was that I was hoping to take a picture of the race t-shirt in full daylight so I’d have a chance of getting it to show up in the right color. I’ve noticed when I take pictures of shirts in the evening, the colors are way off. After all that waiting, the teal t-shirt still looked blue. I give up. (Also, yes, I’m aware that’s a really silly reason for the delay.)

Weight Check: 163.9 pounds, down 0.7 from last week. Considering that my last weigh in was on Saturday, May 20, I’ll gladly take that. It wasn’t a great week, but somehow, I did OK. There’s still too much Mountain Dew, of course. But work was stressful and sometimes, Mountain Dew is the only method of dealing with it that doesn’t end in a conversation with HR.

This Week’s Runs
Day Total Miles
Monday 7.01
Tuesday 5.31
Wednesday 5.01
Friday 6.01
Saturday 5.31

Total: 28.65 miles

On Monday, it wasn’t raining, but it was really humid. This ended up being my long run this week. My legs didn’t feel great, but I got through it.

Tuesday was the run where my body told me in no uncertain terms that this was going to be a step back week. It was still really humid, and my legs were just not interested. I had originally hoped to get to 6 or so miles, but 5.31 was all I could get.

On Wednesday, my legs got a break, even if my mind didn’t, and I got on the treadmill. I still didn’t feel great, but I felt better than the previous two days.

Friday, well, I know I ran 6.01 miles. I got sidetracked with work and never bothered to write down any notes about my run. I guess it was OK. I finished strong. And I do remember it was a lot less humid than earlier in the week. But that’s pretty much it.

Saturday was my “Squeeze in a run while I’m on call and hope I don’t get called” run that only happens 4 or 5 times each year, but it seems like it’s a lot more often than that. Like I mentioned earlier, I didn’t get called before, during, or after this run, which is nice. As for the run itself, my legs felt decent, the weather wasn’t too bad, and I managed to get to 5.31 miles.

Next week, I’ll try to get mileage back up closer to where I was before this week. Also, the month will end, and maybe I’ll get a monthly wrap-up done in a timely manner.

Race Report: 2017 Teal Diva 5K

The good news is that I ran the fastest 3 miles of my life. The bad news is that a 5K is supposed to be 3.1 miles. So, while it was better than last year’s course (2.85 miles), 3.01 miles is still short of a 5K, so I can’t count it as a PR. Bummer. But I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the Teal Diva 5K is a fundraiser first and a race second. If I want to race a 5K, I’ve got lots of options. If I want to help raise money to fight ovarian cancer, then the Teal Diva 5K is the way to go.

I probably should mention the reason I’m doing this race, a family friend named Dolores who passed away in 2015 from ovarian cancer. She was funny, honest, and caring, and the world’s a little less interesting without her in it. I was part of a fundraising team formed in her honor, Dolor’s Ovary Achievers. (I didn’t really raise any money, I just signed up for the race, made a separate donation, and made sure my parents got signed up too.)

They had packet pickup all day Friday in Mooresville, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to make it up there on Friday. It was a small enough race that I can’t fault them too much for not having Thursday packet pickup, and if it had been in Mooresville as well, I wouldn’t have made it up there anyway.

My parents came down for the weekend to walk the race and celebrate Mother’s Day. Since they traveled by train, and their train home on Sunday was leaving around noon, we had Mother’s Day dinner Friday night at Waldhorn. A large German meal may not have been ideal the night before a race, but it was for Mother’s Day, and that’s where Mom wanted to go. It was good food (and good beer), and I figured for a 5K, I could get away with a meal like that. (Then again, I did PR a half marathon after eating Burger King the night before…)

The morning of the race, I got up, showered, ate a couple of Chocolate Chip Clif Bars, drank some water, brushed my teeth, used the bathroom, and drove with my parents up to Mooresville. I have to give my parents credit, I wanted to leave at 6:50, and that’s when we pulled out of my driveway. I’ve done much worse than that before races when it was just me, so kudos, Mom and Dad. It was about a 50 minute drive.

All week long, the forecast looked bad for Saturday morning. They were predicting a decent amount of rain. While I did hear some rain during the night (Oh yeah, forgot to mention that I didn’t get a very good night of sleep), after we drove through a small shower on the northern edge of Charlotte, we had no more rain. It ended up being 54 degrees, which my parents didn’t enjoy very much, but for running, especially in May, that’s excellent weather.

I wanted to get there early because we still had to pick up our packets. It wasn’t too bad when we got there, but it got kind of hectic later. I had hoped to get rid of some safety pins by bringing enough for my parents and me, but when they gave us our bibs, each one had 4 safety pins attached to one of the corners. My plans were foiled. Anyway, we also got a t-shirt.

It’s teal, even though the light in that picture makes it look more blue, but it’s not as bright as last year’s t-shirt. One improvement this year is that it’s a polyester blend, so I could actually run in it if I needed to.

We had a team picture scheduled for 8:15, but I knew my sister and her family were running late. I wanted to do a warm up of about a mile, and figured I’d better do it before the picture. I started at 8:11 AM. We were on a football field with a track around the outside, so I started from the middle of the field, ran to the outside of the track, and started a loop. At one point, my team was setting up a tent on the football field, so I ran back on to the field to say hello. Between my detours and sticking to the outside of the track, I was able to get to just over 1 mile (1.01, of course) in a little over 3 laps. I probably ran a little faster than normal for a warm up mile (around a 10:15/mile pace), but I was a little pressed for time.

We finally got the team picture taken at around 8:25, and then I ran to the starting line. Like last year, there was no timing mat, it would be gun time only. I got a picture of the starting line, of course.

Yes, that’s a drone taking pictures.

Shortly after 8:30, they counted down from 3, and we were off. I crossed the starting line, hit the start button on my watch…and realized that it was locked after it had saved the stats from my warm up. D’oh! I spent about 10 seconds unlocking it, waiting for GPS signal, and then starting it, all while trying to run. My brother-in-law got 3.04 miles for the course, while I got 3.01, so I covered about .03 miles before starting my watch.

Mile 1: 8:46

After I got my watch set, I noticed that my pace was down around 7:00/mile, which for me is way too fast, so I eased up slowly. I was shooting for somewhere in the neighborhood of 8:45, and I succeeded. This part was pretty flat, although at one point during a very slight incline I heard a guy yelling (I think to his sons) that there was a hill up ahead. I wondered if maybe they were used to running in Oklahoma, because that was definitely not a hill.

Mile 2: 8:50

There was a hill on this stretch, right after the water stop at around 1.5. I didn’t stop, since it was 54 degrees, overcast, and I only had about 1.5 miles to go, so I didn’t really need water. I didn’t feel great on this mile, and it reminded me why I hate 5Ks. I then told myself that 1) it’s for a good cause and 2) it’s almost over. I survived.

Mile 3: 8:31

I was feeling a little better on this mile. The course had already flattened out a little bit, then we turned back into the high school and got on to the track. Yes, a lap around the track, even at the end, will definitely give me a faster pace.

My watch says I was running at a 6:41/mile pace on the last .01. I’m not so sure about that, but I won’t argue.

My watch time was 26:12 for 3.01 miles. Later, I would find out my official time was 26:22. A few seconds of the difference was before I got to the starting line, and the rest was me fiddling with my watch.

After I finished, I got a medal and a bottle of water. They had various types of bagels, and I took one with cinnamon and sugar on it. It was pretty tasty. They also had Clif Protein and Whey Bars in 3 flavors. One was salted caramel, one I think had coconut (yuck), and I chose peanut butter and chocolate. I wasn’t crazy about it. I’m a big ran of the regular Clif Bars, they should stick to those and skip the protein and whey.

I took the obligatory car key picture while I waited for the rest of my family and friends to finish.

That’s the goal post behind me. I like to have something in the background to spice things up.

Later, I got to run a little bit with my older nephew Jack, who’s 3 years old. That was a lot of fun. Eventually, after about an hour, my parents, who had walked the entire course, finished. They were the very last finishers, number 197 and 198.

They gave out awards. Our team raised the most money (although my understanding is that we won on a technicality, since another team didn’t get all of their donations in before the deadline). Then they got to the age group awards. I had seen a few F3 guys out there and figured I didn’t have a chance in my age group. As it turns out, they did 10 year age groups, and I was 7th in the 40-49 Male group, but if they had done 5 year age groups, I would have been 3rd in the 40-44 Male group. D’oh! (Side note, this was my last race as a 43 year old.)

And then they got to the final age groups, 70+ Female and 70+ Male. There were only two finishers who were over 70: Mom and Dad. My parents got age group awards. My parents!

One thing I noticed with both the t-shirts and the medals is that there’s no date, or even year. I actually went back and looked at last year’s medal, and the only difference between last year and this year is the ribbon, because they had different sponsors this year. Luckily, I have my pictures, so I can keep the medals straight.

Overall, I ran a really good race, and finished strong, although the track certainly helped with that. I do wish it had been a full 5K, but like I’ve said, it’s a fundraiser first, race second, and as a fundraiser it was a huge success. Also, once I got over the initial jealousy, I have to admit, it was pretty cool to see my parents win age group awards. I guess I’ll just have to stick around for another 27 years.

Vital Stats

Full Name of Race: Teal Diva 5K
Location: Mooresville High School, Mooresville, NC
Date and Time of Race: May 13, 2017, 8:30 AM
Bib Number: 155
Official Finishing Time: 26:22 gun time (no chip time). 30th of 198 Overall, 7th of 18 in Age Group (Male 40-49)

Weekly Wrap-Up: May 15-21

Nope, no race report yet. I did decide that I’m not going to call it a PR. I asked the question of whether I should consider it a PR on Reddit, and I talked to some of my co-workers, and while the answers were mixed, I decided that since it clearly wasn’t a full 5K, it shouldn’t count. I did like one of the answers I got on Reddit: “You’re obviously going to have to get out there and race another.” This is, of course, the correct answer. Too bad I have no idea when I’ll be able to race another 5K.

I retired my last pair of Brooks Adrenaline 16s on Monday. They got me through the Turkey Trot 8K, Joe Davis 10K, and Charlotte 10 Miler. They served me well.

I ended up going to see my parents this weekend so they could take me out to dinner for my birthday, but since I ended up taking off Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, I was able to do my long run on Friday, because I didn’t want to run 10 miles in the heat and then jump in the car and drive to my parents’ house almost 2 hours away.

Weight Check: 164.6, down 1.6 pounds from last week. I did my weigh-in on Saturday, before my run, but it still included my long run. I did indulge a bit to celebrate my birthday, but I got my mileage back up around where I’d like it to be, and being off of work means I drank less Mountain Dew.

This Week’s Runs
Day Total Miles
Monday 7.03
Tuesday 4.01
Wednesday 5.17
Friday 10.02
Saturday 5.01

Total: 31.24 miles

Monday, my legs were a little tired from around mile 2 until after I got to the top of the really big hill. After that, they were fine. I slowed down a little on Mile 6 for some reason. Otherwise, it was a pretty decent run considering it was my first since the race. Also, I went just past 7 because someone was coming towards me from the other direction walking a dog, and I didn’t want to stop in my tracks and have the dog start freaking out, so I waited until I had gotten past both dog and owner.

On Tuesday, I decided to do my weekly treadmill run a day early, because I still wanted to run on my birthday, but there was no way in hell I was going to get on a treadmill on my birthday.

I don’t think I’ve been to the Y on a Tuesday morning recently, but it seemed a bit more crowded than usual. When I got past 30 minutes, I noticed that all of the nearby treadmills were taken, and I started to worry that a Y employee might ask me to stop to free up a machine for someone else. I sped up to get to 4 miles, then stopped. By the time I had wiped down my treadmill, I saw several open treadmills nearby, so I guess I could have stuck around a little while longer. Oh well. Also, I didn’t feel like I was ready yet for a tempo run after my race, so I kept it fairly slow until the end.

Wednesday I ran 5.17 miles for my birthday, 5/17. Since my legs were feeling OK, after a warm up on the first mile, I decided to make it a tempo run. I ran fairly well. The weather was still pretty nice.

On Friday, I decided to do my long run. It got a lot more humid. And since it was a weekday, I didn’t want to drive all the way up to Freedom Park, so I had to stick to the McMullen Creek and Four Mile Creek greenways, with far fewer water fountains than I’d like. My legs held up pretty well, though, and I was able to speed up a bit on the last mile. I don’t know how I ended up with 10.02 miles. I guess I just waited a little to long to hit the stop button on my Garmin.

Finally, Saturday. It was probably worse weather than Friday, but luckily, I only ran half as far. My legs didn’t feel great after Friday’s run, but I somehow managed to get a reverse split anyway. Go figure.

Next week, I’ll be on call for the weekend, so I won’t have a proper long run, but I’ll try to get a slightly longer run in Friday morning before work, and maybe get a couple of extra miles here and there during the week. The forecast isn’t looking so good, with a decent amount of rain, but I’ll get through it. Also, I’d really like to finish my race report.

44

I turned 44 today. Only one more year until I move into a new (hopefully less competitive) age group. (You might be a runner if birthdays make you think about age groups.) I celebrated with a tempo run of 5.17 miles for 5/17. (Good thing I wasn’t born on December 31. I suppose I could handle a 12.31 mile run, but I’d rather not.)

I don’t really want to do a year in review, since I already covered the first 6 and a half months in my 2016 wrap-up, and I’ll save the other 5 and a half months for my 2017 wrap-up. I will say that at this time last year, I was working my way back from my ankle injury, so my mileage was a lot lower, although my pace was faster. I think I was trying to make up for the low mileage by pushing myself harder, and in hindsight, maybe it was too much. This year, even though the paces for my training runs may be a little bit slower, I think my legs are in better condition. My average pace for the 2016 Teal Diva, right before I turned 43, was 9:21/mile. This year, right before I turned 44, it was 8:42/mile.

I ran my 5000th mile at the age of 43. And, of course, I was 43 the first time I ran the New York City Marathon. So I guess it was a pretty big year. Here’s to 44 being even better.

Weekly Wrap-Up: May 8-14

The Teal Diva 5K is done. I ran really well. I just haven’t figured out if it’s a PR. They certainly improved over last year, when the course was only about 2.85 miles, but it still came up a little short. I’ll fill in the details in my race report this week, and then we’ll see if I need to change my banner or not.

Something I noticed is that the race had packet pickup on Friday at Charlotte Running Company in Mooresville. (No, I did not drive up to Mooresville on a Friday afternoon. I’m not that crazy.) I wasn’t previously aware of that CRC location. So the two biggest local running stores in Charlotte are Run For Your Life and Charlotte Running Company, and the one with the city in the name is the one that has locations in Mooresville and Rock Hill, SC, but all 3 locations of Run For Your Life are within the Charlotte city limits. Go figure.

Oh, and I got to see my nephews this weekend. They’re still the best. Jack doesn’t stop moving or talking, and Quinn just smiles and laughs all the time.

Weight Check: 166.2, up 2.7 pounds from last week. Yeah, that’s not good. When my parents visit, my weight goes up. Dinner at a German restaurant Friday night, then a party after the race where I drank beer and ate a bunch of food. Also, with the race, I didn’t really have a long run, unless you want to count my 7 miler on Monday(!) which ended up being my longest run of the week.

This Week’s Runs
Day Total Miles
Monday 7.01
Tuesday 5.51
Wednesday 5.01
Thursday 5.11
Saturday 4.02 (1.01 mile warm up, 3.01 miles in the Teal Diva 5(ish)K)

Total: 26.66 miles

Monday was really nice, weather-wise. My legs felt OK. My pace was all over the place, though, which was kind of odd.

On Tuesday, my legs felt worse, so I only went 5 and a half miles. I still managed a reverse split. Shrug.

Wednesday was the worst kind of run, the slow treadmill run. I didn’t want to do a tempo run with my race coming up, but I wanted to get on the treadmill to give my legs a break. My legs did feel pretty good, but my mind felt worse than usual, since I had to spend a little bit more time on the treadmill. I survived.

My legs felt fine on Thursday. I tried not to push too hard (except at the end) since it was my last run before my race. Also, I broke out my brand new pair of Brooks Adrenaline 17s. They were just as good as my last pair, so they passed the test, and I decided to wear them for the race.

Saturday, of course, was the race, along with a 1.01 mile warm up run. I find it amusing that my mileage for the race was 3.01 miles, considering that most of my runs end with an extra .01. Like I said earlier, details are coming in the full race report.

Next week, I’ll hopefully get my mileage for the week back over 30 miles, post a race report, and one other post.

Weekly Wrap-Up: May 1-7

Monday morning it was 72 degrees. This morning (even though I wasn’t running) it was 41 degrees, with a high temperature of 70 today. Go home, Mother Nature, you’re drunk.

In other news, I have a coach now. I mean an official, professional coach, not just my co-worker who answers my questions and helped me create my marathon training plan the past two years. My coach is starting up a virtual training group for fall marathons, so I decided to join. I think I’ll do well training with a group, even if I’ll still be running alone.

Also, I ordered my next pair of shoes this week. I went with another pair of Brooks Adrenaline 17s, but had to order them because my local running store only carries Adrenalines in one color for size 10.5 wide. As long as I swap colors each time, I can rotate them and still keep track of which pair is the newer one and which one is the older one. My last pair of 16s is up to 389.4 miles, and I’ll be retiring them at 400.

I might be doing some different things in my training this year now that I’ve got a coach, but one thing I’m not changing is my shoes. Some day I’d like to try out a different running shoe, but that day will be after November 5.

Weight Check: 163.5 pounds, down 0.5 from last week. I’ll take it. Too much stress at work led to too much Mountain Dew, but I guess my eating was good enough, and my mileage was good, so I had a small loss. Next weekend we’ll be celebrating Mother’s Day, which will mean food and beer with my family, and with a 5K race on Saturday (more on that later) I won’t really have a long run this week. I’m hoping I can buckle down during the week and stick to water.

This Week’s Runs
Day Total Miles
Monday 6.21
Tuesday 6.31
Wednesday 5.03
Friday 6.01
Saturday 11.06

Total: 34.62 miles

So, Monday. LIke I said, 72(!) degrees, and it was humid, too. And because obviously I wasn’t miserable enough, nature called. I had hoped to get in 7 miles, but I had to cut it short. My legs held up OK, though.

Tuesday was much better weather-wise, 56 degrees and no humidity. I still took it easy, which is what I’m supposed to do, because my legs didn’t feel great. Somehow I managed a reverse split without really trying, so there’s that.

Wednesday was my weekly brain torture session treadmill run. I really pushed the pace near the end, because I knew I wasn’t going to do another workout run before my 5K race. I started at 10:43/mile, and finished at 9:05/mile. My legs felt fine. I didn’t put anything in my notes why I went to 5.03 miles, and I can’t think of a good reason why I would do that. Well, I’ll take the extra .02. If I finish the year at 1500.01 miles, I’ll look back on this run as the reason I hit my 2017 mileage goal.

Friday was a little warmer and a little humid, since it had rained a lot Thursday night, but it still wasn’t Monday bad. My legs felt a little tired early on, then they got better as I kept going. I don’t understand why that happens sometimes, but I won’t complain too much. I managed another reverse split.

Saturday had a little bit of everything. It was only 52 degrees, which felt glorious after last Saturday. It started out overcast with a little bit of drizzle, and by the time I was done, the sky had cleared, and the wind had really picked up. My legs felt OK, though, and it was a decent run. My pace was pretty steady most of the run, and I finished strong. Oh yeah, the reason that I picked 11.06 miles is because I forgot that I got to 5.03 for my treadmill run, and I thought a run that ended in .06 would give me a semi-round number for my weekly total.

Next Saturday is the Teal Diva 5K. I’m curious to see what I can do. I will say that I’ve looked at the forecast, and right now, I don’t like what I see. A lot can change in a week, though. Hopefully I can still run well regardless of the weather.

Monthly Wrap-Up: April 2017

A monthly wrap-up on the 1st day of the following month? What’s gotten into me? I guess it helps to not have an overdue race report weighing me down.

April had a really tough finish, but overall, I guess it was OK. I didn’t have any milestones or races (good or bad). Base building isn’t very exciting, but if I do it right, it will pay off on in the New York City Marathon.

April 2017
Total Mileage: 140.55 miles
Average Pace: 10:50/mile
Number of Runs: 21
Last Month (March 2017): 140.11 miles
Last Year (April 2016): 50.15 miles
Races: None.

Total Mileage for 2017 (through March 31): 538.53

Last April was during recovery from my ankle injury, so my mileage was much lower than usual, but at the time, I was overjoyed just to be able to run again.

I set a new record for most miles in a non-marathon training month, breaking the old record of…140.11 miles in March 2017.

Time to check in on my 2017 goals.

Goal 1: 1500 miles

Average miles per day would be 538.53 miles divided by 120 days, that’s about 4.49 miles per day, times 365 days for the year, comes out to over 1,638 miles for the year. Like I said last month (when my projected mileage was only 1,614 miles), wow.

Goal 2: 6 races, with 2 that are 13.1 or greater

I didn’t run any races in April, so I still have 3 races overall, 1 so far that’s 13.1 or greater.

Goal 3: A PR in 3 different races

No races means no new PRs. I still have 2 PRs this year.

As far as my non-specific goals, I kept up the bodyweight exercise routine except when I was at my parents’ house. I do need to do a better job keeping up with that when I’m not at home. Otherwise, it’s going well, I guess. I’ve kept up the slower easy run/faster workout run routine pretty well. I do think my slower runs were gradually getting a little bit faster without me putting in more effort, which is good. (That improvement went out the window with the insane heat and humidity that showed up for my last two runs of the month, but I digress.) My diet is unchanged, and that’s not good. I really need to drink more water, especially with temperatures going up and causing me to sweat a lot more. And I had exactly 0 posts here in April that were not either a weekly wrap-up or an overdue March wrap-up.

Best Run: April 6, 4.21 miles, 9:44/mile pace

I didn’t have a race this month. I had 3 treadmill runs that were both longer and at a faster average pace. But this run ended at Triple C Brewing. It’s the only run this month that ended with a beer, so of course it wins. Seriously, on the last mile or so, I kept up with my co-worker who ran the Boston Marathon this year. Granted, he was tapering, and it was an easy run for him, while I was putting in considerably more effort, but still, I kept up with him, and that’s something.

Worst Run: April 29, 11.02 miles, 12:06/mile pace

April 30 was a planned rest day, so this was my last run of the month. I hate to finish the month on a down note like that, but the weather was just brutal. It felt like August out there, and it probably didn’t help that it was my longest run since the Tobacco Road Half.

I do think May will be slightly lower mileage. I’ve got the Teal Diva 5K on May 13, so that will lower my mileage that week, plus I’ll be on call for work on Memorial Day weekend, and that will take away a long run as well. And if this weekend is any indication (as well as my May 1 run – spoiler alert: it was miserable), I’ll probably have to deal with some heat and humidity in May. Oh well, the decent weather was nice while it lasted.