Time To Run

I am back at running after going almost 2 weeks without doing a thing. I had been going at it pretty well since last July and going into my half-marathon was ready for a break. All the microtears should be healed from that race so I figure the break was a healthy one though I could see myself slipping into the non-exercise mode I was in previously. So I told myself it is "Time to Run". My plan is to get 3 days a week during the week and then 1 or 2 runs on the weekend. Nothing too crazy mileage wise but I want to build a base that can be used if I decide to do a marathon in the fall.

Today I did 5 miles on the tmill, starting out at 6.4 and increasing it .1 every minute to warmup. I maintained 7.3 for 10 minutes, 7.4 for 10 minutes and then 7.5 for the remainder. I did the 2nd to last quarter at 8.5 and then did the final one as a cool down at 6.5. I also threw in inclines as this is one area I want to emphasize to build up strength. After the warmup I did a 1 min hill every 5 minutes at 2.0,3.0,4.0,5.0, and then 6.0. The rest of the run was at my usual 1.0 incline. Total time for the 5 miles was 41:09. It felt good to run that pace and not feel like I was pushing (except for the last couple inclines...).

It's good to be back!

Posted by Jeff at 10:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Posted by Jeff at 03:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As i crossed the start line in what felt like "Wave 23" 20+ minutes after the start I told myself to relax and take it easy the first mile. There were lots of runners with paces slower than mine so I non-aggressively made my way through them. The positive thing about the wave start was that after about a quarter mile it was fairly clear and I could almost always find a path through the crowd by keeping my head up and planning ahead as I approached those in front of me. The first mile mark approached and as I came up to it hit the lap button on my watch and came up and saw 8:25. I grabbed a cup of water, slowed to a walk for a few steps once I was clear of the station to drink it and settled into a nice easy pace which I hoped was about 8min/mile. The next mile went very easy and as I glanced at my watch prior to reaching the mile marker saw that I was going to be right on. The split on my watch was 7:54 which was a little faster than I wanted but was so close to the goal that I just told myself to take it easy and not get any faster. I didn't see the mile 3 mark but at mile 4 hit my watch and saw 15:50 for the 2 miles and I was feeling really good. The first part of the course headed north on PCH away from Huntington Beach towards the Sunset Beach area and I enjoyed the beautiful morning with a view of the ocean to my left. The course continued on another mile in this direction and as I continued to pass people hit 5 miles in 40:01 which meant a 7:52 mile split. I was exactly where I wanted to be after 5 miles and most importantly was feeling great. The legs felt good and I was in a "conversational" mode which means that I would have been able to converse had I had people to run with. Since I had started so far back in the pack all the people that were running near my pace were way ahead of me. That was bad in that there was no one to pace off of or to race but good in that I could focus on my pace and passing all the people wasn't bad for my ego either.

Right after mile 5 the course U-turned on PCH and headed back to the South. Since my splits seemed to be creeping faster towards the 7:50 mark I told myself to maintain for the next 3 miles then I would see how I was feeling. I was cautiously optimistic at this point and wanted to gain some time on 8 min/mile pace but wasn't ready to pick it up yet. Mile 6 was nice and I ended up with another 7:52 split and as I kept going into Mile 7 popped a Gel Blok into my mouth and I guess played with it in my mouth would be the accurate term on how to describe what I did with it. It probably took me a full mile to get 2 of them down but I wasn't in a hurry as what else did I have to do other than run and play with the Blok....The seventh mile was when I first started feeling a little tightness in my hip flexor but other than that was still feeling good. That mile ended up with an incline on PCH (we had gone down it after Mile 3 but I didn't really notice it then) which I could tell slowed a lot of people but I kept plugging and actually ended up with a 7:45 mile split there. After the 7 mile mark we turned inland for a 3+mile loop through a residential area. I could feel it getting a little warmer after leaving the direct proximity of the ocean and told myself to just take it easy and maintain my pace. The water/aid stops were about every mile (staffed pretty well too!) and I told myself to stop at each one now. I had skipped a couple earlier but wanted to take care of myself at this point of the race. I did Mile 8 in 7:46 and was starting to feel it a little more in the hips but overall wasn't too bad off. I told myself only 5 miles left and I had trained through times I had been hurting a lot more. The ninth mile had the biggest hill on the course which I thought I overheard someone say was the last one so I focused on maintaining my form, using my big muscles to push up it knowing that I would get to go back down soon and hit the 9 mile mark in 7:50. The 10th mile had a downhill equivalent to what I had gone up and I concentrated on floating down. The hills took some of the pressure off of my hip flexors so in a way the change in grade helped. As I headed back towards the coast I went through Mile 10 in 1:18:52 with a 7:37 mile split. They were passing out Gu at the intersection of what would have been either after Mile 8 or about Mile 9.5 but I passed on it. I still had some Bloks in my pocket (in a little baggie) but at that point I figured it wasn't going to do much for me.
Sometime after passing Mile 10 is when the race really became work. I knew that the 1:43 mark was right there for me simply by maintaing my pace but as I ran the 11th mile and reached PCH again it was taking more and more concentration to keep my form. They had balloons right on top of the mile markers and I hadn't seen a Mile 11 mark but saw a balloon up ahead. As I approached my watch read over 8 min. for the mile but as I got closer saw that the balloons were marking something going back the other way so I must have missed that mark. The course was headed back to the South towards Huntington Beach downtown and at that point wished I knew the area better. I found myself playing the games of "just get to the next light" and things like that. I even justified slowing down and told myself that even if I slowed I was still going to end up with a great time for me as I should still break 1:45. I felt like I was slowing down but as I hit Mile 12 my watch read 15:37 for the 2 miles so I was still running at a good pace. I could tell my form was going bad as my hip flexors didn't want to lift my legs anymore but I told myself it would be all over in another 8-9 minutes and that if I kept running it would be over sooner. I was still passing almost everybody I came up on as the 5k walkers were on the same path finishing their race and heard them call out "stay to the right" as the wheelchair marathon leader went by towards the finish. Finally I could see the finish line banner and balloons and as I got closer found a little spring in my step and dug down to the finish. I didn't see a Mile 13 marker but my split as I hit the finish was 8:23 for the last 1.1. Somehow I had kept up the pace the last few miles! My watch read 1:42:51 (my official time was 1:42:58).

It felt so good to be over and even better to break 1:43! I followed the crowd through the chute, got my chip cut off my shoe, grabbed waters, a blanket and headed back towards my car with a huge feeling of accomplishment as I rushed home to get ready to coach my son's basketball game....(that was another story which didn't go so well....)
After the game I went to the store picked up weekly groceries and Super Bowl munchies and rewarded myself by eating and drinking more than I should but Hey! I had earned it....

Posted by Jeff at 12:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The Pacific Shoreline Half Marathon marked the end of the third phase of my running adventure. I had started running consistently last July, struggling to run a few miles at over 9 min/mile pace, trained for a 10k in November running it in just under 47 minutes, and then went right into training for the half marathon. After the 10k I plugged my time in the various predictors out there which indicated my expected half marathon time would be around 1:43. This sounded very ambitious to me but I used that time to guide me to plug into the training plan for my tempo and interval paces. Training went ok but not great. I did not get all the mileage in as a lot of times I didn't get in one of the general runs in for the week and didn't get the mid plan races in but I did do the prescribed interval, tempo, and long runs. The toughest workout for me was a 4 mile run at half marathon pace followed by a 800 recovery, a 800 at 10k pace followed by a 400 recovery, and then 2 more miles at half marathon pace. The first time I tried it I was done after the 4 mile stint but the following week (the plan had repeat weeks) I did complete it. This was 8 days before the race. I had also done the last 3 of an 11 mile long run in under 24 minutes and the last mile of a 12 mile long run in under 7 minutes (thank Jesse of the 6:42's for that) so overall I felt I was ready though worried a little about losing about 6 miles per week off of the plan. I was also becoming a little burned out by the running. I think this was due to being in a dedicated training plan since September for the 10k where it was mapped out what I had to run each day. I didn't have the flexibility of doing a spin class instead of a run or to lift weights as it took all my efforts to find time just to get the run in. (let alone blog about it....) I told myself that after this race I would take a break to reward myself.

For goal setting obviously the 1:43 would be my goal but due to the incompleteness of my training I made it my "A" goal. I felt that anything under 8 min pace or 1:45 would be great for that distance so that was my "B" goal and made finishing comfortable in the 1:48-1:50 range an acceptable fall back or "C" goal if thing didn't go well. My race plan was to start off easy and hold myself back to the 8:00-8:10 range the first 5 miles, pick up to the 7:50-8:00 range if things were feeling good for the next 5, and then take it from there. I felt if I could get through 5 miles in 40 minutes I could then gain almost a minute under the 8min pace miles 5-10 and then another minute the last 3.1 which would give me the 1:43.
Race day was a gorgeous day with an early morning chill of about 45-50 degrees but the sun was out so I wore a long sleeve tech shirt for the race. I got parking plenty early and hung out near the car for awhile and then walked towards the race area. After making a last minute potty stop I got to the start line about 5 minutes before start and got myself lined up. Hindsight would have been to get there earlier and scout it out as evidently they had a few different chutes where you could line up according to pace. The race had over 7000 runners starting on a 2 lane side of PCH so they had a "wave" start. Race time arrived and the first "wave" was allowed to go. From where I was I could not see where they came from but from using my height to look over the crowd I could see heads bobbing as they set off. Every 2 minutes or so they let another "wave" go. Though I was probably only about 100-150 yards behind the start line I could not see any movement of the people directly between me and the start line. Finally about 15 minutes after the start I could see some movement ahead of me and just over 20 minutes after the start my "wave" was allowed to cross the line and I was off.

Posted by Jeff at 11:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

2/4/2007 Huntington Beach CA

Pacific Shoreline Marathon - Half Marathon
Bib: 2177
Name: Jeff Emenaker
Gender: M
Age: 40
Hometown: Orange CA
Place Overall: 647 out of 7386
Men: 508 out of 3229
M 40-44: 85 out of 500
AgeGrade: 59.37% Place: 1191
FINISH: 1:42:48 pace: 7:51
5.2 Mile: 41:24 pace: 7:58
9.4 Mile: 1:13:14 pace: 7:48
Chip Time: 1:42:48
Gun Time: 2:03:19
Splits:
Mile 1: 8:25
Mile 2: 7:54 16:19
Mile 3: 7:55 24:14
Mile 4 7:55 32:09
Mile 5 7:52 40:01
Mile 6 7:52 47:53
Mile 7 7:45 55:38
Mile 8 7:46 1:03:24
Mile 9 7:50 1:11:14
Mile 10 7:37 1:18:51
Mile 11 7:49 1:26:40
Mile 12 7:48 1:34:28
Mile 13.1 8:23 1:42:51

Race report to follow soon

Posted by Jeff at 08:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)