Taper time!

I thought maybe a blog post was in order now that taper time has officially begun. Things have been going great. I feel good about running and about life in general. The sentencing hearing is coming up, which jars the nerves a bit, but honestly it's not bothering me much at all right now.

In fact, my life-is-good feeling could not even be budged by a bonktastic last long run. I had 17 scheduled for Saturday, but I also really wanted to spectate the Indy Monumental Marathon, so I planned on running the 17 in the afternoon with Tracy. Then we were a little late getting back, and since Tracy had plans and couldn't push the run much later, we agreed to do it yesterday afternoon instead. Over the course of the weekend, I did not eat nearly enough, due to the routine-busting schedule and general excitement, and also did not drink enough water. Then the run itself was hot (71 degrees and sunny after weeks of 50ish is definitely hot), windy, and hilly. We ran probably a little too fast, but I don't think the pace contributed much to the bonk. I had to walk it in for the last couple of miles, and called it 15. Tracy is seriously AWESOME for staying with me and making me sip water as we walked.

So, I still got in a solid just-slightly-shorter-than-long run, and I'm totally fine with it. I still feel confident and really excited for Philly. The route we ran was new to me and I really, really liked it. Just a beautiful, scenic route in the hills south of town. Definitely a keeper, and a route to return to for Boston training!

Now the hay's in the barn, and the fact that the last bale is a few straws short isn't causing me any lack of sleep. Bring on Philly! I'm already going a little stir-crazy, and as a result have signed up for a mess of races for the winter and spring. The newest is the turkey trot at home, which, being just four days after Philly, will just be a fun recovery fun to support a good cause (diabetes education at the local hospital). Who needs money anyway?

New races include:

• Fast Freddie's Festive Five-Mile Foot Feast. Thanksgiving Day. Featuring tech shirts this year, WHOO! A tradition. I've run this race all but two or three years since like 1996.
• First Light Half Marathon. Mobile, Alabama. January 10. Random! But there's a rhyme to this reason. We are going to race in a new state and visit our awesome friend Michelle who just moved there in pursuit of a job. Goal is to go sub-1:37 and get my NYC guaranteed entry. Psst! Mark is doing the full! And I am "coaching" him. More on that later.
• 500 Festival Training Series 5K. February 13. Flat course. Just want to see what happens.
• 500 Festival Training Series 10K. March 6. Ditto.
• Indy Mini. May 8. Three weeks after Boston. This is more about the social aspect of running. Probably won't be gunning for any PRs, but we'll see. I can get seeded pretty far up front this time, so that should be fun.

So, in other racing news, Mark quite suddenly got the marathon bug again and decided to sign up for the First Light Marathon. It's a little soon (9 weeks from yesterday), but I am confident that with the base fitness he built up doing his recent half, he'll be able to do it. I drew up a training schedule for him that will have him peaking at 55 miles per week, and averaging probably 45ish over 9 weeks. It will be challenging, but perfectly doable. I'm excited to see how my training philosophy works for another person.

The longest week ever

When we got back to Bloomington yesterday night and I put my things in order for work the next day, I found myself unable to believe that only a week had gone since the previous late evening arrival home (which was in fact exactly a week earlier). So much was packed into that week. I had the elation of my half marathon race and PR, the feelings of congratulations and disappointment upon hearing about friends' races, and good times with the running buddies in Columbus. Then the slow/fast, excruciating first three days of the work week, trying to focus on work. And then, of course, the trial, which was surreal. I felt by turns light-headed, bored, fascinated, frustrated.

During my testimony, I was shaking so hard that I could barely pick up the glass of water they provided and set it back down again. And I needed that water because my mouth and tongue felt like sandpaper. They said I did a good job and stayed poised during my testimony. What was going on outside and inside were apparently very different. I'm just glad I didn't faint. I was afraid to look at Mark, my parents, or the women from my running group who had come to support me because I thought I would cry. I was very touched and grateful for the people who were there for me (in person or in spirit) those two days. I did come close, but held it together. I had promised myself I wouldn't cry in front of him again. Near the end, the prosecutor asked a series of questions to introduce the fact that I am well acquainted with my assailant's (Murphy's) voice, having heard it frequently during the attack and then again when they interviewed the suspect on the news, and then at his hearings in the following months. Then he asked if the owner of that voice was present in the courtroom, to which I said yes, and then asked me who that person was. I turned and pointed to him and said, "There, that's him." It felt really, really good.

I was not able to return to the courtroom until closing arguments the following afternoon. I spent the interim waiting in or around the courthouse, walking around downtown, or at the Bakehouse ODing on coffee. When I returned, both sides delivered their arguments. I found out then that DNA evidence had been collected (my DNA was found in one of his samples, and vice versa) but then Murphy's appointed lawyer got up and read a statement Murphy had written which accused one of the witnesses of perjury and seemed to be trying to imply that the nurse who had conducted the rape kit and the suspect kit had contaminated parts of both kits.

After this, Murphy and his attorney (Schrems) whispered to each other, and when the judge asked them if there was anything further, they said there had been a miscommunication and they wanted to introduce more evidence. The judge literally put his head down on his desk. The defense's case was reopened, and I was allowed to stay. First they played the tape which had been made by the detective when she first interviewed Murphy the night he was caught. She asked him a series of questions about his activities that day before accusing him of the attack, at which point he promptly asked for a lawyer. He had apparently said he was at home all day, but under questioning began to admit a series of errands that he had been on during the day, including retrieving a bike lock from a bike locked by the trailhead (which I guess turned out to be same one I saw that day? I honestly don't know--I am fuzzy on the details that I wasn't there to see myself). Nothing in the tape seemed to help his case in any way that I could see.

Then he started going about how the SANE (sexual assault nurse examiner) had become hostile toward him as soon as she found out he was a suspect, and how she had contaminated the samples from the two kits she was taking. Finally it was decided that the nurse would be called to testify. She was not on the witness list and had not been involved with the case or the investigation since that night, so the fact that she was there within 45 minutes of being called was pretty amazing. She took the stand and answered an exhaustive series of questions that established that she had done my kit, which took about two hours, always staying in the room with the kit and not leaving sight of the kit until it was sealed and handed over to police, and then done his kit about a half an hour later. She described the many precautions SANEs take to make sure no outside contamination occurs with the samples, including changing clothes after each swab and sample, etc. It was clear from her testimony that everything Murphy was ranting about was complete bullshit.

I learned later he had taken the stand in his own defense. His defense was simply to deny everything and accuse the police and the hospital staff of some huge conspiracy to frame him. Unsurprisingly, the judge was in chambers for less than half an hour before returning to pronounce him guilty. The sexual battery charge was lessened to a misdemeanor, because that charge and another charge would be considered one for sentencing. But the important thing is that he is guilty of criminal deviate conduct, an A felony, which carries a maximum sentence of 50 years. He was also guilty of three other lesser felonies, with varying sentences. Sentencing is supposed to happen with a month, but they were not able to agree on a date at the time, so I'm staying tuned to find that out.

Upon hearing the verdict, Murphy started crying, and I hope it doesn't make me sound like a terrible person when I say that I really enjoyed watching him do so. This wasn't him being remorseful, by the way. This was absolutely crying of the oh-shit-I-was-caught variety.

Looking back over the whole ordeal really makes me appreciate the extraordinary set of coincidences that led to Murphy's arrest, and more amazing than the coincidences, the awesome people who were in the right places at the right times, and alert, to take advantage of these coincidences. I feel immense relief that I was lucky enough to see my attacker brought to justice in such a relatively short time. Ever since I heard his voice on that newscast, I have known he was guilty, but proving it in court is a different story, and I know voice identification by witnesses is not considered the most reliable evidence. I'm so glad that DNA evidence backed it up.

The debacle of re-opening the case and bringing in the new witness meant that the verdict did not come until well after 6 p.m. We had dinner with my parents and then went to bed soon after. We got up early and drove 5 hours to Galesburg, Ill., for Homecoming, which was a whirlwind weekend involving very little sleep. But it was worth it to go even for such a short time because I have missed my friends so much and it was so good to see them. We dawdled around campus until 4 p.m. the next day, putting off the drive back, but we finally got underway again and got home after 9. By this time I was so tired, mentally and physically, that I literally couldn't see straight. When I woke up this morning, I felt like I had just put my head down on the pillow. I think I could have easily slept for another 12-14 hours.

Me and my buddy DOMS

Forty-eight hours since the race and I have some fairly significant DOMS action going on. This is unusual for me after a half, and actually it's a good thing because it means I gave a good account of myself in that race. I really wasn't holding out much hope for this fall, but some focused hard work has paid off and I feel good about another marathon PR in a few more weeks.

So, having the race (mine and others') to focus has been good for the past couple of weeks. But now the next item on the agenda is the trial and I am starting to freak out. I have a big running week, and that is going to help provided I can fit the runs in. My buddy DOMS, however, is not going to help. I work up early this morning, planning on an MLR, but decided to sleep in because I was still sore. I could have run, but thought giving it an extra 12 hours at least might help. I'll go for another short recovery run today at lunch, both to shake out the legs and to prevent freakout. And then hopefully something a bit longer tonight after meeting with the prosecutor.

Columbus Half Marathon Race Report

Up until last weekend, I was ready to go all-out for sub-1:37. Then I got sick. I took three days off and only logged about 25 miles for the week. I was feeling mostly recovered by yesterday's race, but threw the sub-1:37 goal out the window and was prepared to be happy with sub-1:40. I figured I would just start running and see what happened.

Mark and carpooled with three others in two vehicles (was going to be six, but one ended up having to drive separately). Jon, Thom, and Shiva were our companions for the weekend. All three were running the full in the hope of qualifying for Boston. Since this was an important goal race for everyone else in our group, I felt the focus was not on me at all, and I didn't really feel nervous. It was a fun drive. We witnessed a high-speed police chase even (car sped by us in the shoulder, followed on the actual roadway a minute later by a police car). Who does that, seriously? It's not like anyone EVER gets away.

We stopped at Fazoli's for lunch and then arrived in Columbus in mid-afternoon. We headed straight to the expo, meeting up with Ben, Steph, Rick, and Melissa (Steph and Rick were also running the full). After packets and shopping (I got two Saucony shirts for the price of one!), we confirmed dinner plans and headed to the hotel.

Dinner was at a place called Bar Louie's. It was excellent. I had Thai-chili salmon, which was basically salmon with Thai stir-fry veggies/sauce and rice. Best restaurant meal I've had in awhile. Thanks to Steph for picking out this restaurant! Next time I'm in Columbus, I will definitely seek it out again.

After dinner we stopped back at the hotel, and then headed back out for a quick trip to pick up breakfast supplies. Well, it wasn't a quick trip due to some bad directions from the hotel clerk, but we finally managed to find the place. We finally got to bed around 1o p.m. We were sharing a room with Jon, and left the wake-up time completely up to him (5:45). In the morning, I had a banana, a few bites of a bagel, and some Gu for breakfast. I really need to work on forcing myself to eat more on race morning. I drank some water too.

The weather was clear, about 33 degrees. It was supposed to warm up only to 36-38 by the end of the race, so I opted for capri tights, a long-sleeve compression shirt, and a short-sleeve shirt over that. I wore gloves and an ear-warmer also.

We left the hotel at a little before 6:30. After a little confusion, we finally parked in a surface lot and walk/jogged for 10 minutes or so to get to the start with about 10 minutes to spare. The start was extremely crowded, with lined-up racers and people in line for the bathrooms all mingling together. There were no corrals or any indication of pace. Pacers were holding up white balloons with the paces written on them, but they were high up, and bobbing up and down, making them impossible read even from close by. Most things about this race seem well done, but their start line set-up needs some serious work. What a clusterfuck. Mark and I split off from the group and worked our way backwards to find shorter bathroom lines. This worked and we were in and out in five minutes, but working back up to the front of the sea of people was impossible.

I started with the walkers and took about 15 minutes to cross the line. I immediately went to the far right and luckily the road was quite wide and I was able to run relatively unencumbered. I was passing walkers for more than 2 miles. The mile markers at the beginning were on the left and I was to the right, so I missed the first mile.

1/2 - 14:28

I realized that I had actually started out a tad too fast. HA! I tried to ease up. I quickly found that settling into a groove was going to be impossible. Constant dodging and weaving.

3 - 7:27

The course narrowed and I found myself in a bottleneck. It was necessary to run in the grass much of the time.

4 - 7:40

We went through some residential neighborhoods with sidewalks, so I hopped up to take advantage of the "express lane." I had to pass everyone there too. Argh! I hope people didn't hate me too much! Still, I had a couple of better, more steady miles.

5 - 7:25
6 - 7:19

Miles 7-8 kinda sucked. Course was still causing me some bottleneck problems. I was getting plumb sick and tired of weaving. The crowds had thinned out a little, but not much.

7 - 7:43
8 - 7:30

The road widened again and I took advantage with a couple of faster miles. I was starting to feel tired and worried that I would crash again at mile 10.

9 - 7:16
10 - 7:26 (new 10-mile PR 1:14:18)

I realized I was through mile 10 about a minute faster than at Capital City, and I still felt like I could hang on. It was so tempting to give up. I really think my mental game in this race wasn't very good overall. It was a little boost to come around a corner and see mile 11.

11 - 7:35

I really lost focus in mile 12. I knew I could go faster, but that annoying little voice kept telling me I could slow down and still PR.

12 - 7:39

With 1.1 to go I finally dug in and got my legs moving again. There was an actual hill in this mile and it was fun to pass people on the way up. I was ready to be done but still feeling strong.

13 - 7:21

Coasted down the hill and managed a respectable sprint to the finish. I think my clock time was 1:5x. Ha. The announcer gave an admirable attempt at pronouncing my name.

13.1 - 0:41
Official Time: 1:37:33 (7:27 pace)

I went through the line and collected a mylar blanket, medal, finishers' fleece hat (very nice), and some water, then ducked aside to wait for Mark. I knew he had been stuck in the back too, and if he hit his goal, he shouldn't be far behind. Sure enough, he came through just a few minutes later. He didn't know his time, but we found out later he ran 1:40, nearly tying my old PR. YAY MARK! We spent about 45 minutes searching for the car; it didn't help that we misread one of the confusing confusing downtown maps. At least it was just a half and I could jog instead of hobble after the race. :) I was cold and shaking and Mark's hands were about to freeze off, but we finally made it to the car and changed into the warm, dry clothes.

We headed straight back out to mile 26 to cheer on the rest of our group. The first person we saw was Rick...on the sideline. The clock time was still sub-3, so we were surprised to see him and I stupidly asked him if he had already finished (his goal was 3:15). Unfortunately, Rick had an injury act up that forced him to pull out at mile 17. He used Mark's phone to call his wife Melissa and then headed off to find her. We stayed and waited nervously for the rest of our group. We cheered for everyone, but missed Jon and Rex.

Finally we swung back by the car and then headed to the finish to find our runners. We gathered in the warmth of one the buildings nearby and traded stories...it turned out to be a pretty tough day for the marathons corps. Jon was on pace for his BQ until mile 23, and then was hit with full-leg cramps. He was forced to walk it in. Shiva and Steph had both been battling injuries and finished around 3:22, short of their goals...but gutsy performances nonetheless. Thom ran a stellar, negative-splitted 3:04 after having a similar problem as me and starting way off the gun. He had been hoping for sub-3.

After showers, we ate lunch at Gordon Biersch, another great recommendation from Steph. The beer was yummy. Shiva and Jon were already talking about running Monumental in a few weeks, and Rick had mentioned that possibility as well. You can't get a good marathoner down! We lingered awhile and then finally hit the road to return home.

Post-Race Thoughts
I'm very pleased with how I did, but wish I could have gotten my splits under control and been better mentally. I know the dodging and weaving probably cost me some time. But even so, I plugged this time into the McMillan calculator, and this is my best running performance ever; it predicts a 21:06 5K, which is one second faster than my PR. It also predicts a 3:25 marathon. It looks as if my goal of 3:30 might be possible if I have a very good day. That will be my A goal, but my realistic B goal will likely be 3:32-33. C goal will probably be just to actually BREAK 3:40. :) Excitement! I kept having to check my watch to make sure the 1:37:xx was real.

Capital City River Run Half Marathon

On Friday Mark and I drove up to Michigan, both for a visit with his parents and to run the half marathon, one of the organizers of which is a family friend. The drive up there always turns into an epic journey because apparently the favorite thing to do in both northern Indiana and Michigan is road construction and random, unexplained traffic backups. On no other drive have we come to a dead stop on the interstate so many times for no apparent reason. It's only a little more than 300 miles, but it usually takes us 6.5 to 7 hours to drive. There's nothing like inching forward past signs that say "Speed Limit 70 MPH" when it's past your bedtime and there's still more 100 miles to go.

We FINALLY got there, had a snack, and went straight to bed. Luckily this is a Sunday race, so we slept in to 9 a.m. the next morning, went for a short run (6.4 mi) and had breakfast. Mark's dad is a big Michigan football fan and has season tickets. They went to the Big House for the game (against IU, ha!), and his mother and I went to a movie (Up, which I have seen and she hadn't yet). It's a great movie and I was glad to see it again. Joan enjoyed it too. We got back in time to watch the last quarter of the Michigan/IU game.

Afterwards, we went out for dinner and went to bed soon after--we were waking up at 4:45 in order to get some breakfast and an early start on the 1:15 drive to Lansing for the race. We arrived around 7:30 and got shirts/bibs with no trouble. My new last name makes for easy locating on bib number lists, and low numbers (7!). I got a 15-minute warmup in and then we jogged to the start.

I was not sure what to expect from the race. My only real speedwork recently has been 2 tempo runs totalling 9 miles. The only other miles I've run under 8:00/mile were 8 MP miles at 7:58 a few weeks ago. Otherwise it's all been easy LSD. I know from last cycle that this works for me, but I didn't feel sharp and I didn't feel confident in my ability to run much faster than 8s for 13 miles. I always want to go for a PR, but I knew that probably wouldn't be in the cards for this one. Columbus has always been the secondary goal race of the season. This one was more for fun, at the suggestion of the family friend, and an opportunity to visit family.

Then there was the matter of the week preceding this race. I didn't want to sacrifice any workouts toward the bigger goal of Philly, so I wanted to keep the mileage right up. No taper to speak of. Because of the two days I took off the week prior, I had backloaded that week. Then I frontloaded the week preceding the race, so as to give myself a bit of extra rest. As a result, my 7-day total on the Wednesday before the race was 90 miles. Ouch. For me, that's a LOT. The two calendar weeks ended up at 64.3 and 68.0, which really masks the insanity of those 7 days. I ran a tempo run as part of a 16-miler (partly by accident...see my last post) on the Monday before. I hit 7:40 pace and it did not feel easy.

What I'm trying to get at in my rambling way is that I've never come close to running this much before, and I was feeling it. And I felt SLOW.

So I started in the race and just ran. I hit my watch at mile 1 and saw a 7:40. Well, that wasn't so bad. In fact, I was feeling good and thought maybe I'd speed up a little. A little too much actually! I missed mile 2 and at mile 3 realized I'd run 14:17 for two miles. At that point I just figured, the heck with it...I ran how I felt and just hit my watch for the splits. And they were varied. Miles 2-3 were fastest, but I ran a 7:20 quite late. This wasn't a race in which to hit a groove...this was a race to experiment and FIND that groove. I tried on paces like shoes. It was kind of fun to not worry so much about the end result and just run.

And of course, that took its toll at about mile 10. I actually came darn close to my 10-mile PR, but I was done. I knew I could basically call it in for the last 5K and run a 1:45 or so...a very good time, and my hard-fought PR from a year and a half ago. But I also thought this was a good opportunity to practice running marathon pace in an end-race-situation. Mile 10 was 8:00 and I just wanted to keep that up. Miles 11 and 12 did end up in the 7:50s, but then mile 13 slipped to 8:20ish. I picked it up a bit, finished, and saw that I'd PRed by 2 seconds with a 1:40:22. Ahhh, if only I'd kept up those 7:55s for one more mile, I'd be under 1:40! But truly, I am VERY pleased for a number of reasons.

Let's compare my previous 1:40 to this 1:40. In February I was in the middle of a painstaking marathon buildup. I had a very solid, long-term base. Six weeks earlier, I had a run a huge 10-mile PR. I averaged 62.7 miles in the 8 weeks before the race. The week preceding the race, I ran 41.8 miles and no speedwork, the longest run of which was 12 miles. It was a true mini-taper. I was gunning for 7:40 pace from the outset.

Right now, I'm coming off a shaky base. When I went back to get my 8-week average before CC, I realized that 8 weeks out I ran 15.3 miles, and that was just about what I was running for many weeks of the summer. The miles were higher since I started marathon training, but the 8-week average is 56.7. Six weeks ago I was very excited about simply making it through a 14-mile long run, and it felt like a 20-miler. The week preceding this race--well, I've already talked about that. Ouch. As I've mentioned, I had no clue what to pace for and ended up just doing them all--LOL!

Now let's compare the races themselves. Last Chance for Boston is a one-mile loop on perfectly flat ground. It's like time trial with race-day magic thrown in. Not only was pacing very easy, with every quarter mile marked, but there was nothing to break my rhythm and the mental part was very easy.

Capital City features a twisty, turny course, often narrow, with a variety of running surfaces, including asphalt, concrete, bricks, boardwalks, and dirt. No real hills, but a few inclines just big enough to make the legs whine. I actually really enjoyed it. It's a fun, interesting, scenic course, but I would NOT call it a PR course. I am grateful that my "fun" race fell to this course, and my secondary goal race will be at Columbus, which is in fact supposed to be a PR course.

We could even look at the weather. In February it was cold (duh!). Yesterday it was cool (55-60), but VERY humid (90-100%). I didn't feel like it bothered me that much, but most likely it did have an effect.

So, as you can see, I'm pretty stoked for Columbus. I feel that as long as I continue training well and avoid illness/injury, do a real mini-taper, execute a sensible race, and with a little luck in the weather department, I can sustain 7:20-7:25 pace and run a 1:37 half.

Training for Philly--three weeks in the bag

Ugh, I'm such a once-a-month blogger. But luckily, my free time has been spent running. I've gotten some very good weeks in so far. I have been a little worried that I jumped back in too quickly, but so far the only hiccup was a slight strain of some sort that I had on my lower leg after an 18-mile trail run. I took two days off and it was good as new. Other than that, each week so far in the training cycle has been significantly higher than the average mileage from the last training cycle. I'm interested to see how the 12-week program works out.

Once significant change that I've made is to run tempo runs outside, albeit on the flattest routes Bloomington has to offer, and in places that make it easy to pace (marked, paved trails and last night, a track). It feels MUCH harder. But I think it's mostly mental.

Last night's workout was a monster, and a little more than I bargained for. I was originally scheduled to run a 5-mile tempo today, but I figured, with the half coming up and the group doing speedwork of their own on the Rail Trail yesterday, I would join in and get an extra day of recovery. Despite what happened there, the Rail Trail is just such a wonderful place to run, and it's good to take any opportunity to run there safely (i.e., with other people). Some were doing 800s and others 2-mile repeats.

I figured out that I could run to the store to meet the group, then with the tempo plus warm-up and cool-down, I would have a total of 11 miles on the day, which was only one more than written. The route on the trail was out and back with a turnaround that fell right on a road. It was meant to be!

So I left work, beat the rush out of the parking lot, and ran down to the store. Upon my arrival, I learned that the group was heading up to one of the local high school tracks...3 miles away (the Rail Trail is 1.5 miles away). Urgh. And the thought of doing 5 miles of tempo on a track wasn't exactly attractive. I certainly didn't want to head down to the Rail Trail alone. I'd kind of had my heart set on getting the tempo done.

As we ran up to the track, I argued with myself and finally decided that 14 on the day wouldn't kill me. I would simply cut out today's morning run. We ran up to the school (mostly uphill) and turned into a subdivision. I had dropped behind because the main group was doing sub-9s for their warm-up. I later found out that this was a shortcut, but unfortunately I didn't know the shortcut and ended up going in a big circle and then found myself back out on the main road. I finally found the track, where everyone else had already gotten started. Good thing I'm doing my own thing anyway. The 3-mile warm-up turned into 4.58 miles. I started the tempo and felt meh on the first 2 miles, ucky by mile 3, and hanging on for miles 4 and 5. But somehow I still kept chugging out 7:40 miles. It was very humid, and I would like to think that that coupled with the Epic Warm-up made my effort level good for more like 7:30 miles. My splits were 7:40, 7:35, 7:40, 7:41, 7:39. I honestly don't know how I managed any kind of consistency.

I finished and rested and had some water while the others finished, and slogged back in the dark. This time we took a real shortcut and it was "only" 3.2 miles back. My grand total for the day? 16.12 miles. My legs were in real pain. Not soreness or injury pain. Just pain. We swung by the grocery for some recovery ice cream and when we got home, I ate, drank, and put on my OxySox (just ordered them last week). I honestly don't know if they really aid recovery, but damn they feel good.

So...anyway, that was pretty crazy and I hope I'm better for it. I am thinking that should just replace the 15-mile MLR I had scheduled for tomorrow. This week was already weird with a pre-race recovery run replacing my long run. And now it is in for more rearranging. Whoo.

I have no clue what to expect for the half this weekend. My tempo run was at at pace that matched my PR pace from February, and I don't think I could have gone another lap. I am just going to start running and see how I feel. Race-day magic might take over...or I might turn it into an MP run...we shall see!

The fall racing season

It is going to be an interesting cycle. After two months of very little running, I'm about to start marathon training again. I mapped out my schedule (a Pfitz 12-weeker), which starts August 30 and culminates with the Philadelphia Marathon on November 22. I have one, possibly two half marathons planned in the interim.

And that's about all I really know. I don't know about goals, and I certainly don't know what to expect. With my current fitness, even the first week of the schedule is going to be challenging. I am fully prepared to modify it, and I will probably have to.

I do have one hopeful sign, which I'm clinging to for dear life. The Red Eye Relay went unexpectedly well for me; in fact, I had a pace PR. Last year (on a solid base) I averaged about 8:00/mile, and fell apart during the last leg. This year (on a shaky base, after barely making it through a 9-mile trail run just a week before), I ran strongly on all three legs and finished with a 7:54/mile average. Since then, I still had two very low-mileage weeks, but have since picked the ball back up.

I believe I needed some time off physically and mentally to recuperate from what was basically a two-year push to BQ. Maybe I'm just well-rested? Time will tell. I think I'm going to run the Capital City River Run Half Marathon in late September to tell me how I'm doing.