Birthday Weekend Recap

Many apologies for the belated blog update! But in my defense, was a busy, busy weekend and work has been brutal this week! First, let’s start with last weekend’s major racing weekend. Congrats to Geb for his victory in the Berlin Marathon, his 4^th consecutive win! He was on world record pace through 32 kilometers, but faltered in the unusualyl hot conditions. Regardless, impressive victory and he continues to exude dominance in the marathon. Next, congratulations to Ryan Hall in his victory at the Philadelphia ½ Marathon on Sunday! He is on schedule for an amazing race in NYC, and held off a good charge by some quality opponents. Finally, Martin Lel continued his comeback with a victory this weekend at the Bupa Great North Run. Impressive to hit sub 60 minutes in the half marathon, one of his faster runs ever. He will be running NYC again, and hoping for a 3^rd victory in the Big Apple.

Last weekend was crazy busy, but fun! Tim was in town headed to Barcelona with his parents for vacation, so we took the opportunity to celebrate my birthday early on Friday night. Headed over to Laurie’s Place with Pat, Crystal, and Stacy, and proceeded to drink many, many, many, many Blue Moon pitchers. Met up with my buddy Ryan who was in town, awesome to see him! Woke up on Saturday morning unable to stand let along execute our scheduled 10 mile pace run, so postponed to later that evening. Not a good start for our final major training weekend! Later that evening, pulled Crystal out on the trails for the workout. Weather was humid, but cool because the sun was going down. Decided to do out and back on the Troy loop, and felt ok starting out. Wasn’t sure we were going to actually get pace work in because we felt like garbage, but quickly got into a good rhythm. First few miles felt pretty good, and felt like we were jogging. I let Crystal take the lead and she was pushing the pace, but I didn’t say much other than point out when we were hitting sub 7 minute pace. Coming back, still felt amazing and the miles were passing by pretty quick. Last 2 miles, Crystal was struggling a bit, but we were maintaining our splits. Fell off the final mile, but I pushed the last half to get us back on track. Workout felt amazingly easy, I was on cloud nine afterwards. Total mileage: 10 miles – splits were: 7:18, 7:08, 7:04, 7:11, 6:59, 7:07, 7:08, 7:05, 7:05, 7:13.

Pleased that almost every pace run I hit was under marathon pace (this one was 7:08 average), and felt so good despite being massively hungover :) Stretched, went home and got to bed a couple hours later to get ready for our final 20 miler in the morning. Woke up to yet another heavy rainfall, and wondered if Mother Nature really had it in for us? Steady rain, both of us were kind of tired from doing our 10 mile pace roughly 12 hours earlier, and we got going with our typical long run route. First few miles went by slowly, and we were definitely going at a leisurely pace to get going. Hit the long Meridian Hill, and like the previous 20 milers the miles went by pretty quickly. Felt ok, GUed around mile 8 and was having no problems. Decided we were going to go an extra mile out and get in 22 for the day, so ended up way out in the university where we had never been before. Turning around, hit a long uphill grade and legs started to get sort of tired. Around mile 12, legs started to get really heavy and wondered if I was going to be able to finish this run. Really tried to suck it up since I knew we had a lot of downhill miles coming up. Rain was falling pretty hard at this point, but was sort of therapeutic and made our minds focus on the crappy rain instead of our tired selves. Hit the downhill stretch, felt better and squished away the next 5 miles. Splits were getting faster with the downhill as I had thought. Got back to final 3 mile uphill stretch, saw a lone runner about 100-200 yards ahead of us with this obnoxiously bright orange shirt and told Crystal we were catching this guy much to her chagrin. Picked it up slightly, but obediently followed the guy. Didn’t seem to be catching up much, and with about a mile and a half left thought it would probably be impossible without going suicidal the last stretch which wasn’t really in the cards seeing we had run 20+ miles already. All of a sudden, we were making up ground pretty quickly, and he was definitely not too far ahead. Got to the last ½ mile and we were within striking distance when he heard our footsteps and looked back a few times. He picked up the pace (bastard), but so did we. Caught him as we finished (well right behind him – another 10 seconds and we would have passed him), and was definitely pretty beat having hit 6:30ish pace the last ½ mile. Ecstatic that our final major training run was over, hello taper! Total mileage: 22 miles – splits were: 8:55, 8:53, 8:55, 9:02, 9:11, 9:11, 8:58, 8:57, 8:57, 9:12, 9:01, 9:04, 9:10, 8:53, 8:44, 8:40, 8:33, 8:37, 8:23, 8:19, 7:58, 7:27.

Really pleased that we hit the weekend workouts against pretty much all the odds – massively hungover, little rest time, and crappy weather conditions. If we can do that, I think we are in really good shape. Hit a whopping 60 miles last week, pretty high for this training segment, and killed pretty much every run. Got in a 3 hour run as we wanted to (actually 3:13 run), and nailed all our marathon speed work (Yasso 800’s, long pace run). Feeling pretty good about these last few months, but definitely happy that marathon taper has arrived! Monday, worked really late, didn’t get in much mileage but probably a good thing because my legs were pretty much smoked. Am doing volunteer work all week at a golf course in St. Albans (far, far away), and literally ran around all day so I got in a little cross training to make up for the non run.

Tuesday, my 30^th birthday! Woke up early to get in our scheduled run, only to get texted by Crystal to cancel it. Not a big deal, my bed was looking amazingly comfortable, so got in an extra hour of sleep. Finished work, went home and cleaned up and waited a little bit for the humidity to settle before heading out for my scheduled run. Was going to do 8, but with dinner plans decided to cut it to a harder 6 and just pick up the miles later this week. Weather was hot and humid, but sort of cooled down as the run progressed. Felt ok the first couple miles, and definitely felt like I was working at the turnaround. Legs were cramping a bit, and was dehydrated from literally running around all day at work. Last 2 miles, was just wanting to get this over with so picked it up and just flew home. Was tired, but was happy to get in a solid birthday run. Total mileage: 6 miles – splits were: 7:20, 7:12, 7:23, 7:14, 6:55, 6:25.

Went out with a few friends to dinner, then to Erato (local wine bar) for some drinks. Enjoyed a nice, relaxing evening, and truly had a great 30^th birthday :) Thank you to all that helped me celebrate this occasion! Today, wasn’t feeling too particularly hot and starting to come down with what appears to be a cold, so decided to scrap the easy run and will attempt to get in early tomorrow if I feel better. Headed to Chi this weekend (to continue with the birthday festivities), so will try to get in some Lakeshore miles as well as scout out the marathon course!

Birthday Shots!

Drinks at Erato