60:23/40th/Team 4th men 5th overall

I think I will just put the race times as a title of that day so they are easy to pick out. This went ok it was perfectly fine not good not bad.

The morning was funny in that i was a little but not too late and then Jeff was significantly worried about finishing stinkily before the race.

Anyway first two miles are downhill generally- I caught up to Serge by about 2 we ran together for like 2 miles then I gradually pulled away from him on the uphills. Btw I need to work on downhills because I can always catch people on climbs but the donhills and even flats are not as good. Slowly was moving up passing a couple guys through the neighborhood on the other side of 29. Mostly just holding my own really. Once I got back across 29 there were still 3+ miles to go and I was fairly tired- the last 2 miles were mostly just survival until I got to the last 1/2 mile and was able to rally a bit. SO overall fine a good long tough run. Breathing was fine throughout really legs just got tired. It was a long way for me which I need to work on really obv.

I looked it up it had been 5 years since I ran a race this far which is crazy both in terms of strnegth building and just in terms of versatility. So that will change obv the focus is still 5k/10k but clearly you need to be able to go up in distance at least to half marathon. The trail races could be a good option for that and then over the summer.

I came 40th and we came 4th men/5th overall as i noted. A fairly good showing by BRRC. I want to improve significantly in this race next year- like very significantly.

Btw the aftermath was not too bad- yet at least. I could feel my foot during the race but not really after- legs a bit sore but not terrible. Good.

Oh btw stats for Feb- 35,35,38,42+12 today. Obv not good but it was mostly a matter of surviving the blizzard. Also made some mild progress over that time in wos and the 10 mile today was a little better then the 8 mile from a month ago so good- although im still running 6 min pace lol. That will happen when you try to run a 10 mile race off of 35-40 mpw.

Im keeping tempo pace for March at 552 and workouts at 80 or so which I already noted I think. Two races on the schedule- WRRC 5000 at McDaniel and Goucher 5000 on the 27th.

Shovel Party

Yesterday ran on the tmill. 6 miles I did a little hill "wo" just going up and down progressively a little higher and higher. Felt fine. Then today ran with Jeff from church out a mile and back on butler then 1.5 out and back on belmont. 51 min felt fine again. Then shoveled at frnaklin for 90 min or so good progress 300m done i was happy with how many people showed up it was like 15- a good sign for the season.

Goals for tomorrow:

1 wake up early enough to get to the race- this is not automatic obv i figure 130 should be good. Sunday 8 am races are not easy haha.

race goal is really just under an hour that would be fine. not really sure what shape im in for a 10 mile but that 8 mile went ok so we'll see. Really just a good strong long effort.

Man Overboard!

So the amusing thing that happened after practice occured when i went to the grocery store. There were some outstanding deals on cereal which is often a big problem. So I stood in the aisle desperately trying not to get two more boxes after I already had 6 in the cart. It took about 3-5 minutes but eventually after some giggling to myself about the ridiculousness of the situation I succeeded. Im not wierd or anything lol.

The run was a pleasent 5 mile run at mcdonogh with the group. Some silly laughing the best part was when Ian tried to say something about a 8 page paper but it didnt work out too well because his mouth was frozen by the high winds. General hilarity ensued of course haha. Then 4x100 strides in about 18 I got dusted by everyone ugh. But my foot felt fairly ok. I still am wearing the old shoes of course- i have gotten the plastic out of one of the new pairs but not the other and still havent bought the inserts. Soon.

Tomorrow I will hopefully take the truck to my moms house so will run there. Maybe some minutes- again im not worried about wos until next week prob wed/fri. Both on track i think.

State Meet/night running/Keep Heel Inserts for now

Well the state meet was good. We got there a bit late which was my fault apparently they changed the schedule i guess? due to the snow idk. So warmup for the 4x8 boys was brief/virtually non exsistent. They ran 2:11,2:11,2:13,2:10 we came 10th which was ok 8:46 overall. Then John came 3rd in shotput and Josh 5th in High jump getting 6 feet a good milestone. Laura was the race i was most nervous for and she said beforehand that she wanted to do the whole thing which was fine. SO she did a very good job and ran 1317 which was more than a minute faster than regionals. Splits were 3:03/3:24/3:27/3:23. She will be good in outdoor and xc! Jeff did ok he hasnt been running enough and ran fairly well at regionals but the extra week of not much finally got him he did 1041 not awful but not good.

My running has been ok the last two days I did 4 miles yesterday Belmonet out and back(plus 1/2 mile). I dont want to do the just 3.5 anymore btw.

Tonight was a very nice 7+ mile run also from the church- up to longnecker then out to the ned of that turnaround and come back. 56 min I did the last 4-5 minutes at a comfortably faster pace down the last hill. It is pretty at night when there is snow on the ground obv and so light as well. Felt quite good on this run.

I might just hold off on workouts until next week- it depends what happens with the upcoming storm. I am excited for March when we should finally get out of this cycle. I am going to hold the tempo pace goal at 88/5:52 I am a bit ahead of that really but its better to exceed the goal then to strain to get it. The "5k" pace will be around 80 for a lot fo the workouts.

Guess What?

Chicken butt. That was the nice card the franklin people got me haha. We did a little jog in the rain out to hannah more and back- pre-meet easy run.

Then went to mcd did some fingers running- 32 minutes outside then one of the longest 2 miles ever on the treadmill i was looking at the odometer like every .02 esp in the second mile lol. Legs a bit tired from last two days. I cant decide whether to do a wo tomorrow or wednesday. Also I think im gonna move the farm rd workout to the track just because its softer and then if i come back with the 10 mile race on sunday that would be a whole lot of road running in addition to all the distance runs.

Im making some progress on altering the shoes one pair at least should be ready by tomorrow thank goodness. My poor old shoes are pretty worn down.

State meet tomorrow hopefully it goes well!

12x400

I couldnt think of a good title for this entry so stuck with the basics heh. Ran in the morning with emily- 3.5+ miles 32 minutes. There were some people out looking for a lost dog so if anyone has seen Riley let them know haha. Hopefully he turned up. That reminds me a long haired tan cat has been hanging around the house its funny to watch him. Also in cat news my mom had to put April to sleep which was obv sad ugh.She was a good little mom :`(

Then at noon i rolled down to mcd for a workout. I was going to do 6 800s in 2:40 but the mcd crew was doing 8 400s in 78 or so so i joined them. rest was more or less 2:00 plus a little extra after 4. Im not worried about the rest or the distance of the intervals really- just want to get 3 miles of total distance in at 78-80 pace. It was a bit faster than that. 79,79,76,76,77,75,77,76,75,76,79,70 avg more or less 76-77 with a lot of .5s etc. Patrick ran all 12 which was quite good and stuck right on the 70 at the end.

Then ran 1 mile WD in the gym after- btw only 1/2 mile WU which wasnt good obv I got there late cuz i dozed off for like 10 min. But no real worries. My foot was pretty much good actually my heel was a little more sore than the bottom today. Still 3 miles of total running at just about 5 min pace good sign- also the long rest isnt great for my heel historically so that is good as well.

Im back to icing and wearing the sock at night for my foot which is already helping- try to pay attention to that- actually just pay attention dont try heh.

Now just some good distance runs the next 2 days prob 3 runs inthe 2 days i think. Then wo wed and fri. Tempo and probable farm rd. Not too fast on farm rd though.

Let the melt continue/long run/new shoes at last

Well weve been over 40 degrees for 3 days in a row now yay. Still only one day above normal in all of february. Looks like its going to stay that way for the whole month. But March is coming!

On to the running- the good thing is that 40 degrees feels perfectly comfortable now- just imagine its Jan 15 again and 40 is not so bad. Ran with Jeff starting from church- over to mantua and up to the Gnist turnaround- back to church and then out and back a mile on Belmont. It was pretty much 10 min pace the whole way which was fine. 85 minutes total which is my longest time of running in quite a while. Even though the pace was slow my legs were a bit tired by the end.

Then ran with Emily at 430. We did 35 minutes at Longnecker. She got into Navy so was very excited :) That is fabulous the only bad thing is that well prob see a lot less of her around here now but shell be doing awesome so its all good. I felt fine on this run.

Tomorrow is AM run with em and then 6x800 in 2:40 w 3 min rest at noon. Im still looking at doing the columbia 10 mile its hard to say what kind of time under 60 i hope possibly under 58. Havent been doing enough long runs for it ugh.

Also I need to get mileage up starting next week. Btw my diet is improving a bit so thats good.

Also as noted in the title my new shoes arrived im going to open them now!

to shovel is divine

Ran at the nicely shoveled mcd track today. Luckily we(i helped yesterday) did an exceptional job so there was practically a full lane all the way around so there was room to run as well as wait. So i did 4x1600 with a 1:00 rest. Marc V ran a little more than half the wo. 5:50,5:52,5:46,5:41. It was fine in terms of effort not overly difficult. Fairly windy- what else is new heh- it will be like that for about 2 months now haha. Then ran a nice 2 mile WD with Franklin/Jeff and Dave.

Franklin wo was 8x200 Josh,Andrew,Mike B,Sierra,Luke V,Brandon the front 2 were running around 30.

I predict the following for our 4x8:

Josh 2:08
Martin 2:08
Andrew 2:12
Jeff 2:08

8:36 say 8:38 with rounding. Honestly any of the 3 could go as low as 206 I think. Of course they could also run 212- 210 would be ok 212 not so good. It will be fun! Jeff 1022. Laura hm 606- she was mildy shocked about the plan for just running a mile btw heh. We'll see how that goes.

Careful thought

So ran yesterday on treadmill again. 12 min warmup then 3x9:00 at 6:15 pace with a 2:00 jog. It was fine felt ok I was considering doing 4 at the beginning but wisely did not as that would have been a jump from 24 min last wweek to 36 this week which obv I could havae done but it would have prob been too hard. Of course I knocked off the emergency stop thing in the last 9:00 run which was mildly annoying heh.

Before that we went to randallstown comm center for a workout which was good. Im glad I didnt run though the turns are very tight. Everyone did a good job. Im pretty sure ive decided what to do with Laura next week which obv ive been worrying about significantly. First of all the 3A west times werent that incredible which is good but I still think she should run 1600-2000m and try for a PR in the mile and then stop. That is way smarter than having her run along in the back and will get her ready for outdoor. And if she feels great then she can finish. And she gets a chance to run which is good obv as well.

Later in the evening last night my right foot was sore on the bottom like a bruise- maybe from lots of treadmill? I thought it would get better and its much better this am so it should be fine. I feel like ive had this before at some point.

So 2 easy runs today. Then if the track is clear workout on that on friday. Maybe something a little quicker ono Sunday in the field house? well see.

Weather still looks cold for the forseeable future. Possible snow on Monday/Tuesday people are worried about big storm it doesnt look too threaening on forecasts right now though(at least that ive seen)

Oof/It sure feels good to run again too

Well today was my first run after a 3 day unwanted break. Significantly to blame on the snow. I had a leak in the house and Saturday after driving lots of extra time and napping i worked on it for like 5 hours so ran out of time to run. Sunday I had to drive tons of extra time obv and then me went to Matts house which was nice but again no time. Then yesterday we had regionals which was na all day affair. I was very very tired this morning ugh.

So napped and rested and then went down to mcd- i was thinking about running fingers etc but ran on the treadmill instead that might happen a little bit at least until it gets up to 40-45 degrees or so. This is the last stage of winter when even though you are used to the cold you get worn down and it just feels cold again. At least thats how I feel right now.

So anyway it was a good run- ran for an hour- 2 miles at 8 min pace then slowly dropped down to 7:00 pace. Even down to 7 felt quite comfortable it started to feel a little faster when i got to 653. So that is progress def. Also I was watching some Olympic biathalon on tv for the first half of the run which was quite exciting and inspirational.

Tomorrow prob run a workout with Jeff at the randallstown comm. center that could be interesting and different.

Treadmill- good run

Went down to mcd with the sbs. Hopped on the treadmill 2 mile wu at 8:00 pace. Then 6x4:00 at 10.2 mph which was 5:52 pace with a 2:00 jog at 7:30 pace. The first one felt really fast for my legs I havent run that fast on a treadmill in a while. However breathing was quite good. I was a bit stuffy/congested in my chest just a little- stopped to get a drink after 3. Overall though it felt quite good just the way it should really- fast and somewhat of an effort but not really tough at all. Was just starting to get tired on the last one which was from 46-50 minutes of the overall run so that makes sense obv given how far I usually run right now.

Also the best thing was that I didnt feel my foot at all until a tiny bit on the last one and I can feel a bit now after. I'll ice it before the PM run which will be an easy 3.5 at Belmont with the Franklin crew. Had a good meal(fairly good) of PB+J and some cheetos- banana earlier- i guess not that great but at least im not stuffing myself with total junk. Oh and chocolate milk might be the new drink of champions. I recall some nonsense on some message board about how it was the perfect recovery drink etc etc. Who knows but it tastes good! so i might have it periodically not a lot at once though.

Im pretty sleepy so might hopefully hit a nap before leaving at 230 which is in 90 min ugh lol.

Let it Snow?!?

Haha jk. But driving home from the run I was like you know what this isnt so bad. Its just my contrarian nature coming into play now that everyone is whining and totally sick of the snow I start to like it lol. But not really. Anyway it was a balmy 37 degrees today and im being mostly serious it was nice.

I was sick yesterday with the standard sore throat/stuffy nose/cough cold or whatever it is I get. So im moving into the cough stage now which hopefully will only be a couple days. I need to do a good job of continuing to take decongestant!

The run was nice and easy today since i felt ok but i didnt want to push it. belmont out and back with sb then up the pinet grove hill almost to longnecker and back. Felt fine it was pretty slow obv but ok. 55 min at least!

Hopefully I wont be coughing for weeks heh. Wo on treadmill tomorrow. Idk if im doing the 10k on saturday they might not even have it.

Computers dont know everything...yet

It is 1:45 AM on Wednesday. I am guaranteeing we get way less snow than they said. 100% lock. I dont care about some stupid little remnants in Michigan and West Virginia. The main moisture is already east of Philadelphia and moving relatively rapidly northeast. If there is wraparound from that range I will its just impossible or extremely unlikely. I have obv been burned by this frequently but I dont care.

Also Im mildly sick but hopefully the extra rest Im getting today(i just had to do the stores) will help with that.

Snow Part Infinity

So more snow falling now. No biggie its just annoying to look at radar and see what looks like will pass by but you know now it wont. But whatever its feb 9 so almost hlafway through feb. It hopefully will get warmer at some point maybe 2 weeks.

Anyway ran with Jeff Martin and Sierra at Belmont. Out to Tufton and back then 8 200s(or 40 second runs) up and down the little hill after the bridge. I ran them fairly relaxed but my foot felt fine like 100% no problem so that is good. Sierra and martin could both be good in xc because they are hard workers. And Sierra in outdoor- I kind of want her to join our group cuz it would be good for her- maybe in March especially to get ready for 800 and 300 hur. But I dont know if Christine will throw a fit.

Then at 430 went back down to Belmont for a pleasant run with Jeff S in the snow- nice relaxed 3.5 miles so at least get in a little more mileage for the day. Hopefully will get in a run tomorrow I dont now it depends on the snow total. Then treadmill worout on thursday prob modify the 1000s to 6x4 min with 2 min jog. Possible race on saturday that 10k at loch raven if they still have it. Hopefully they will. Also hopefully I can show up more than 5 minutes beforehand haha.

Oh pS we had all 4 of us in the cab of the pickup I think that was a first lol. It wasnt that bad really but I dont now if anyone else could have fit heh.

Off to bed then up super early for papers but Im 95% that ill just do the stores obv if its bad.

Farm Rd wo/The Berenstein Bears and Too Much Junk Food

Got out for a workout on Farm Rd today hence the title. It was solid not amazing or anything but fine. 12 times 400 alternating up and down with a 2 minute rest which had a 200 jog in there. The downs were all pretty much 80 or 79 the last down which was #11 was 77. I could feel my foot not bad but there so I kind of just strided the downs and tried to work the ups. The ups were into the wind as well obv which was moderate. SO they started at 89 heh I thought it was more than a 400 at that point but it didnt matter(and it was pretty close). But I got going on the last 3-4 ups like 85,84,82 were the last 3. So almost the same as some of the downs. The limiting factor was then my speed and the cold rather than the hill and wind which is fine at this point. Also the ups were harder.

Actually I like this type of workout because you get varying paces and efforts. I think the up could be longer like a 600(on the grass from the 2 1/4 mile mark to the top of Corcoran hill for instance). Then jog back a 200 and run the 400 down to turn the legs over. So you get some good hill work and also speed and it also simulates surges in a race situation for xc. 6-8 sets of those would be a pretty good workout you could use it in a couple diff places depending on the rest and speed obv(like anything).

So anyway this was a good tough workout- nice solid work on the ups def. My foot feels fine right now like 100% well see how it is tomorrow. 6.5 miles total I didnt warm down too far of course due to cold and foot caution. Btw I have a little sore throat so hopefully that wont be anything big. Which leads to...

Im tired of having such a crappy diet. I need to cut way down on sweets I have dessert with pretty much every single meal/snack and Im def prob addicted to sugar(or HFCS heh). Also too much soda. Really I kind of need to get down to like 145-146 and im always hovering around 149-150. More importantly its just not healthy to eat like that so much im sick of it. The problem is that people are always selling or giving me various forms of candy ugh. So i have to be better about it! Perhaps some goals for the rest of Feb soon.

Ok hopefully it doesnt snow too much tomorrow night/Wed and I hope I dont get sick btw. Sleepy now. Btw I think every single post in Feburary has dealt with snow somehow.

Oh since I said that I just remembered the workout would have looked cool from the side- the snow was so high obv that you couldnt see Farm Rd surface from Main drive for instance so it must have looked like I was running along through a big field of snow- amusing.

This post is a little too long haha.

Oh S(no)w

So it wasnt a miss of course haha. But the roads are clearing somewhat. I took yesterday off- maybe I should get a treadmill- its actually not a terrible idea. Anyway today just ran 3.5 down in the valley did a fair amount of shoveling obv and had to wait to get the papers etc- whatever the point is got in a little run. Missed the long run that was going to be the trail race. At the very very latest by this summer I have to crank the long run back up to like 14-16. Im tired of struggling on the long run- i mean all you have to do is go out and run for a while heh.

So tomorrow I think ill do a 12x400 workout on farm rd if its clear by the afternoon. I raised the rest because its still so early this is just to get a feel for the pace. It was going to be 1:00 originally but i moved up to start every 3:00 and I might go all the way up to 2:00 which is not a bad idea. Originally i put 16 but that is too much of a jump obv- go to 3 miles total first esp if well have to run on the roads for a while. Maybe some of the mcd people or possibly Jeff R can do some of it.

It's a miss!

I am declaring as of now that we will get no more than 8 inches of snow from the current storm. Perhaps I am being an idiot but thats the way it goes. Im not just making this up(although most weather forecasts are pretty much that). My way is very direct and simple- just look at the radar and see where everything is going in a straight line and extrapolate where it is going to go. This screws me for things like the wraparound effect which I hate and is bullshit- if that happens again then we will get lots of snow. however I think the southern part of this storm is too organized and fast moving for that to happen. The eastern shore will get pounded significantly i predict too bad. There is a big gap in precip that is heading this way and the main moisture will just miss us to the east. Lets see if im correct.

The other thing to do is look at the our by hour for various cities in different parts of the storm and see if they make sense which they do not. In fact the hour by hour for here(which has been getting milder and milder) doesnt even agree with the special weather statement(which has been getting worse and worse).

So we will see what happens but I will go on record that this storm will be a big dud.

In terms of running today I ran at Longnecker- out 15 min then ran into Sanborn who was having his longest run in 3 years of 78 minutes. He talked to some new doctor who adivsed him to go slower on distance runs which apparently worked quite well! Then I did 6x2:00 with 3:00 jog it was fine fairly fast just on effort obv. My foot was a little sore on #4 so I took it a little easier and 5 and 6 felt better. 52 min which was a little short of 7 prob.

Now lets see if im right! haha

Slip Slidin Away

Ran at mcd today. Hurried down from franklin to get there to run with some of the guys who were going to do a wo with me. They had decided not to run on the track so I did 1 1/4 wu and then got started. Unfortunately it was starting to get icy on the first 200. The first 1600 it was somewhat tolerable and i ran 6:00 or so even though it was slick and annoying. The second one it was getting ridiculous by the end it was getting hard to run on that 200 and spreading it was 613. So i ran one more lap and then stopped hmph. The 600 pace was quite easy though so thats good. 1.5 wd for 5 miles total which is not a lot but this week is screwed already. That is dumb to think but also im still just getting started and things are going ok. Once the snow and ice is gone i should be fine. my foot felt sore this morning but fine on the run.

I think i will do minutes on the roads tomorrow before the storm. Then hopefully ill get to run saturday? idk maybe ill just sit inside all day heh ugh. sleep and clean the house. sounds fun lol.

12-16...Feet!

An ok run today. Im tired often- my nutrition has been bad recently so im working on that. Ran at mcd 25 min outside and then 3 miles on treadmill. I proclaimed on the treadmill that years ago I wouldnt have been such a baby as to run half the run on the treadmill but i dont get tired of that and i do get tired of the road so whatever. We are going to get over 10,000 terrainches of snow over the next 48 minutes so im prepared. Anything less will be a severe disappointment.

I am Run Paul and I approved this message.

An actual workout/snuck fow

Practice was cancelled today which was silly of course. Apparently its going to snow tonight- more on that later. So we went down to McD where they had shoveled lane 1 quite nicely. Ran 3+ mile WU while watching the mcd people workout and waiting for Jeff. He got there and warmed up- then off we went on 4 800s with a 3 min rest. They were 2:37,2:33,2:34,2:34. He led the first and third I led the second and fourth. Then he did 4 200s in the 34 range. My foot was tight on the first two and loosened up a bit- that is the main thing obv seeing how it responds to this workout. Good pace obv and it wasnt super difficult. Obv its 1/2 the distance of a full workout but ill try to gradually work up to that. At least its a start and it really wasnt super tough interestingly.

And of course its supposed to snow tonight and possibly Saturday also. Just keep battling Ive been feeling grumpy about it but feeling a little better now(prob just cuz I got a workout in). Mileage still too low 16.5 in 3 days meh. So hopefully there wont be a blizzard any time soon. 65 days down 25 to go sigh. I wont go into all the various milestones of days for the rest of winter etc etc that would be excessive. Ugh- snow is my friend snow is my friend snow is my friend.