Praying and Running

A couple of years ago my uncle, who lives about 30 minutes from Detroit, invited me to come run the Detroit marathon and stay with them. It wasn't going to work for me that year and it didn't work out the next year. But this year, everything came together and I was able to put it on my schedule as the final long run in a build up to the 2016 Monumental Marathon. Planning started about 8 weeks ago. The marathon begins in Detroit and crosses into Canada for a few miles. That being the case you need official credentials to cross the border. I haven't been out of the country in years and so didn't have any of the various options. We decided to go ahead and just get full passports in case we decided we wanted to fly to France for dinner some evening. While the State department recommends 6 week lead time to get your passport we actually received ours in about 2 weeks. It was a pretty simple process. The race was scheduled for 7:00 AM Sunday, October 16th, 2016. We headed...

I ran the Indianapolis Half Marathon Saturday Oct, 8th, 2016 as a tune-up for the 2016 Monumental Marathon. I had the basic 3 goals for my big tune-up half marathon. The primary goal was to run in the 1:20s while the stretch goal was to run 1:20:00 and the lest I would walk away happy with would be 1:21:30. The goals were not just pulled out of thin air. I wanted to run 1:20:xx because if you plug that number into my personal equation for half-marathon to marathon time that puts me right at my goal of 2:46 for the full marathon. I wanted to run 1:20:00 flat because that would give me hope to break into the 2:45:xx for the full and the 1:21:30 would still give me a personal course record. I was up at about 5:30 AM for a quick shakeout before breakfast. We headed out right on time and made our way to Lawrence, IN which is a little less than an hour away. It was a cool morning with a little wind from the north that would end up having a noticeable effect in mile 7. We arrived and parked...

The weekend, March 12, 2016 I ran the Land Between the Lakes Trail Marathon. This marathon is run along with options for 50 miles, 60k, and 24k (a little over a half marathon) at the Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area in Kentucky which is a little over a 5 hour drive from my house. I ran, and won, this marathon last year but due to heavy snow and rain in the weeks proceeding it last year it was moved to the roads. So, while I ran it last year, this year was truly my first "trail' marathon and I had no idea what I was in for. As with last year, the purpose of this race was "marathon-as-a-training-run" for Carmel Marathon in April. The goal was to finish the distance and need as little recovery as possible after. Meaning I wasn't planning on going into this and trying to win. I knew I wanted to run slow enough to keep the damage to a minimum. So my plan was maybe 7:30 for the first half and 7:15 for the second if I felt good. That is a minute sl...

The marathon is cruel. Training for it will beat you up and it will wear you down. It holds out to you the hope of glory but with that hope comes the risk of heart break. While I have been blessed and usually win the glory, I experienced this heartbreak first hand Saturday 11/7/2015 at the 2015 Indianapolis Monumental Marathon. I have gone back and forth about writing this and after a few people have inquired I decided to go ahead and put it out there in case anyone else was wondering. As you all are probably aware, I have been training for the Indianapolis Monumental Marathon for the last 18 weeks. I had a rough time starting out and mentally and physically committing fully to another marathon training cycle but got that put behind me after several weeks and I dove in. The goal was to run the 2015 Indianapolis Monumental in under 2 hours and 48 minutes. My previous PR was 2 hours 49 minutes and 46 seconds. This was the same goal I had and missed for the 2015 Carmel Marathon back...

Last Saturday, 10/17/2015, I ran the Indianapolis Marathon as a training run in my build to the Indianapolis Monumental Marathon. I have run the half marathon at this race for the last several years and have used it as a tune-up race and final fitness gauge for what has always been my "A" marathon, the Monumental. This year, the calendar proved a little challenging. This race is usually at the end of my first week of taper. So, I can use it to gauge where I truly am and I am rested enough to run a PR effort which usually results in an actual PR. The way it worked out this year though it was at the end of my biggest block of training both in quality and quantity. Leaving it a full 3 Saturday's out from the Monumental. I have come to rely on my wife as a manager/coach and when I pointed this out to her she had a solution as usual. She suggested I run the full marathon as a final strength workout and find a half-marathon the next week to run as a tune-up race. 21 days is...

I really just finished week 5 according to the plan with the week late start mentioned in the previous training update. About that plan, it went pretty much by the way side over the last couple of weeks due in large part to running Blister in the Sun Marathon on Sunday the 8/2/2015. More on that when I get to it. As I eluded to in my last post, I have really been struggling with getting going in this cycle and I think a lot of it had to do with the vacation to California and then rushing and trying to cram workouts in to get caught up. In the future I think I would simply trust my fitness enough to know that I could have sacrificed that first week and maybe even the second week in order to not start out the cycle stressed and tired. Enough with the psychology and on to the training. Week 4 only had 1 real workout which was a 20 mile long run and 2 other "kinda" workouts with 14 and 12 mile medium long runs. No tempo or race pace workouts scheduled but I skipped the race...

It's marathon training season again. I went back and forth over the off season trying to decide on which training plan I would use this time around. I have always used the plans in Advanced Marathoning by Pete Pfizinger. Because I get bored easily, I was tempted this time to go with Jack Daniel's "Final 12 Week" program found in "Daniel's Running Formula vol. 3." In the end I came back to Pete; "stick with what you know" Since it was by far my best marathon ever, I will be trying to replicate my build up from the last Monumental with the paces just a little quicker to help propel me to a new PR. I got a late start with this cycle because we were on vacation in California the week I should have started. So I basically I planned to run the workouts from week 1 and 3 for the first 2 weeks. I faltered a bit because I had a hard time getting into the groove and getting my mind into the right place. It takes a lot of physical AND mental effort to t...

Race Stats Date 1/18/2015 (7:05 AM) Gun Time: 3:40:50 Chip Time: 3:40:45 Overall 1/136 Male 1/63 For Christmas this year I received a trip to Florida and entry into the Clearwater Distance Classic 50k from my wife and daughters. I had been looking for a couple of 50ks to include as extra-long long runs in my training for the Carmel Marathon this year. In the past I have just done these as self-supported runs but that is a very daunting way to go about it. I figured with a fully supported race and plenty of other runners it wouldn't be such a mental task. My wife and I left for Florida on Thursday afternoon. We flew out of Indianapolis and into Tampa Bay. It was great to get away from the single digit temperatures for a few days. The race wasn't until Sunday so the plan was to spend a few nights at our favorite Disney resort and then drive down to Clearwater on Saturday Morning and check into our hotel for a couple of nights on the beach. I slept remarkably well Satur...

Stats 1:21:07 Chip Time (PR by 2'46") 1:21:13 Gun Time 3rd/1432 Overall 3rd/635 Men 1st/97 40-45 AG Indiana State RCAA Masters Half-Marathon Champion This was my big tune up race for the 2014 Indianapolis Monumental Marathon next Saturday 11/1/2014 and my goal for this race was to run under 1:23. That time would give me a solid PR and put me right where I need to be to feel confident in my ability to run the Monumental in under 2:50. That's it and all indications from my training pointed to success. I have been training for the last 6 weeks in a pretty big calorie debt trying to shake about 10 pounds that snuck up on me. I've always raced at 128 or under and I knew that I didn't want to carry that excess weight for 26.2 miles. In addition, in the 2 weeks proceeding the half marathon I logged 100 running miles  each week . The first time I had ever run 100 in a week and I put together 2 weeks in a row at that mileage. The point is between the...

I am about 6 weeks out from the  Indianapolis Monumental Marathon . I haven't blogged to much about my training to date but I am currently on week 12 of an 18 week cycle that peaks at around 90 miles per week. As usual I have been running a lot of 20 and 20+ mile runs. More than prescribed because it works well for me. I have also been pushing the pace because my primary goal is to drop about 3 minutes and 30 seconds from my marathon PR which is currently 2:53:28. While that might not sound like I knew when I set it that it would require a lot of work...hard work. With that in mind, this morning I ran a tough workout that was not on my schedule. The workout was a total of 22 miles and required me to run at goal pace and faster for about 8 miles after I was already 12 miles into the run with my legs good and tired. In this workout each 6 and a half minute segment begins at 10k pace, pretty hard but sustainable, for a minute and a half and then finishes with 5 minutes at goal mar...

OK, let's get it out of the way to begin with. The race was the definition of suffer-fest. It took me nearly a month to recover mentally. If this is the first post of mine you have read, I spent the last 8 weeks of the cycle literally limping by with a strained groin muscle so when I toed the line on 4/21, muscle still pulled, I was as under-trained as I have ever been heading into a race.. All of that aside, before the injury I was in the best shape of my life and by a whole lot at that. I had a very aggressive goal of 2:49:59 and the week or so before I got hurt I was thinking that I would be in shape to make 2:49:59 look like child's play. I had 8 or 9 weeks left and I could have run a 2:49:59 at  that point. In fact on 2/22/2014 I ran a very tough workout. It was supposed to be 16 miles with 12 at marathon pace. I felt so good I tacked another 4 on the end for a cool down. I just remember how satisfied I was with that run. You can read about it yourself here. This ...