For Whom the Dogs Bark

April 29, 2024

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Location:

Cypress,TX,

Member Since:

Oct 10, 2009

Gender:

Male

Goal Type:

Other

Running Accomplishments:

5K: 24:22 (March 2010); 22:33 (October 2010); 20:47 (May 2011); 21:05 (May 2012); 21:33 (September 2012); 21:23 (November, 2013); 22:31 (September 2014)

5M: 39:22 (November, 2012); 35:54 (November, 2013); 36:03 (March, 2015)

10K: 44:08 (November, 2010); 49:20 (July, 2013); 44:07 (April, 2015)

12K: 56:03 (December, 2013); 58:58 (December, 2014)

10M: 1:11:58 (October, 2012); 1:15:24 (October, 2014)

Half Marathon: 1:53:xx (London's Run 2010); 2:05:21 (Cowtown 2010); 1:37:04 (Gusher 2011); 1:42:19 (Huntsville 2011); 1:33:47 (Baytown Jailbreak 2012); 1:33:50 (The Woodlands 2012); 1:42:52 (Texas 2015); 1:49:17 (Jailbreak 2015); 1:38:34 (The Woodlands 2015)

25K: 2:01:47 (Fifth Third River Bank, May 2014)

Marathon: 5:51:35 (Texas Marathon 2009); 6:21:36 (Ogden 2009); 4:58:29 (St. George 2009); 4:13:45 (Texas Marathon 2010); 4:04:12 (Utah Valley Marathon, 2010); 5:11:14 (Hartford ING, 2010); 3:41:43 (Richmond SunTrust, 2010); 3:39:27 (Texas Marathon 2011); 3:41:46 (Utah Valley Marathon, 2011); 3:30:35 (St. George 2011); 3:41:51 (Richmond 2012); 3:49:15 (Texas 2013); 3:46:59 (Paavo Nurmi, 2013); 3:34:04 (St. George 2013); 3:49:51 (Texas 2014); 3:31:59 (Richmond 2014); 3:28:34 (Boston 2015)

Short-Term Running Goals:

3:20, 1:30, 0:20

Long-Term Running Goals:

I'm 60, there is no long term.

Personal:

I live, work and run in Houston, Texas. I have run 17 marathons, some good ones and some others. I prefer straight, flat, cold, sea-level marathons, still waiting for my first one. I feel like there are more PRs out there. When I have them, I am told it is time to dial it back, run for healthy reasons. I'm sure that's right, and I'm sure it won't happen.

My wife and I are from the mountains of the west. We have five kids, three granddaughters and three grandsons. The kids and grandkids are native Texans but we are not -- you have to be born here.

As for my blog title: I run most of my miles before sunrise, sometimes hours before. On the back road of my neighborhood two hours before daylight, I can depend on a pack of mutts behind the boundary fence lighting up when they hear my footsteps. I have wondered what they wanted; but according to Hemingway I needn't ask.

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Miles:	This week:	0.00	Month:	0.00	Year:	0.00

Sat, Mar 13, 2010

Easy Miles	Marathon Pace Miles	Threshold Miles	VO2 Max Miles	Total Distance
27.67	0.00	0.00	0.00	27.67

49F at beginning, 66F at end, wind WNW 18 mph, ran 27.67 miles in 5:03:35, average pace 10:58 per mile. The theory on this run is that I have been getting killed the last 10K of every marathon. I hardly ever run more than 20 miles and sure enough, right around mile 20 I lose it every time. I think younger runners can get through the last quarter by digging deep, but for me I am what I ran getting ready for the race. So I am thinking that if I start running 30+ miles twice a month I can get that monkey off my back, or at least make him lose some weight. So for a while instead of running 15-20 hard every Saturday I am going to run longer but easy about every other weekend, and for now keep doing hard runs on the other two weekends as long as I can tolerate them.

Today I planned to make 30 but it didn't happen. Is that what they call a DNF? I ran the first 10 at low heart rate, almost exactly 12:00 per mile. Then I picked my heart rate up to 150 for the next 10, which equated to about 9:45 to 10:00 per mile for a while. But then my heart rate began edging up pretty fast, like the needle on an overheated engine, so by the time I got to mile 22 or so I was getting pretty trashed -- it felt remarkably like a race. I pushed through to the marathon distance in 4:45:13 (a time I would have killed for at St. George last fall) then kept on a little further before getting to the house and deciding to pass on the extra loop. My wife called just after I reached marathon distance, wondering where the heck I was, then she called me a slob when I told her I had decided not to do 30 -- she was just kidding of course.

I think if anything this run proves that I need to do more of these. Those last miles are really tough and I think it is naive for me to assume they won't be tough in a race if I haven't been running them to get ready for the race, even if I only run them easy. So there you go.

I am thankful to be relatively injury-free and to have the health to run.

Comments

From jasro on Sat, Mar 13, 2010 at 16:44:23 from 72.62.172.79

Wow, that is some serious mileage. Incredible job. I was thinking of doing a couple of those runs next August in preparation for St. George. You'll have to let me know your impressions.

From flatlander on Sat, Mar 13, 2010 at 18:15:39 from 198.207.244.102

Thanks, you can bet I'll be reporting on it throughout the summer, so by August I should know whether it helped. I think the main thing is to be out running, everything else is good but it's just fine tuning.

From SlowJoe on Sat, Mar 13, 2010 at 20:12:57 from 75.23.41.184

I think it would be hard to argue that you didn't help yourself a lot today toward your marathon goal. I have never run half that far. As far as cutting out a loop, I don't think it can count as DNF when you've already done 27 miles. Nice going.

From lightitup on Sat, Mar 13, 2010 at 22:14:29 from 67.185.20.107

This makes my 22 with a water stop seem pretty puny, wow! And 76+ miles this week, I was proud of 45. Hey, I still am. :). Check out the long report on runningthrougthecorn.

It certainly sounds logical. Amazing your body is handling it so well...I know I couldn't handle that much mileage and going hard every weekend. Great job.

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