For Whom the Dogs Bark

May 07, 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

Fri, Mar 27, 2015

Easy Miles	Marathon Pace Miles	Threshold Miles	VO2 Max Miles	Total Distance
12.17	0.00	0.00	0.00	12.17

45F, 82%, calm and clear. Absoslutely beautiful out, hope it carries through to tomorrow for my last long-long run. Another LLHR run, 12.17 miles in 2:10:19, 10:42/mile, 121 bpm, new low heart rate PR. Thought at first it wouldn't happen, legs felt pretty unresponsive after running TM hills last night, first mile came in at 11:22, then 11:04, but each mile got progressively faster through mile 10, which was 10:28, and mile 12 was 10:38. Met Wade at the halfway point for a couple of loops.

So I am thinking of a somewhat unorthodox tapering strategy, as I am three weeks out after tomorrow. The competing issues for getting to the start line in optimal shape are losing training vs. getting stale. I have noticed that my best performances seem to be when I am on the uphill part of a training cycle rather than on the plateau, like this morning for instance. I'm not sure I have ever figured out how to stay on a plateau, I seem to either gain or lose conditioning. So the strategy would be to take next week very easy, just run hills at night, maybe vitamin D runs from work during the day, with the exception of my last metric marathon about Wednesday (7:30 goal), then maybe run 10 on Saturday, maybe even let myself get slightly undertrained by the end of the week. Then the next week (2 weeks out), go back to 60-70 miles, lots of short hard runs combined with outside mid-day runs, with a 10K race on a very hilly course in Brennam that Saturday. Then the normal final-week shakeout runs before getting on the plane Friday night, April 17. Especially with the race being on Monday rather than Saturday, this layout doesn't seem particularly risky?

Comments

From SlowJoe on Fri, Mar 27, 2015 at 07:12:58 from 12.182.148.249

No, I like that plan. An easy week 3 weeks out helps you get rid of some of that deeper fatigue, and the sharpening week sounds like a good plan. I think it'll work. A 10k run 9 days before Boston is great timing for that final stress/workout day, and you should recover in time.

From MarkS on Fri, Mar 27, 2015 at 07:48:31 from 24.11.38.227

Sounds like a perfect plan to me!

From Yasir on Fri, Mar 27, 2015 at 09:39:06 from 99.20.240.157

confidence is more important than tactics it looks like you got a good plan and you sound confident. Let's go get them.

From Derunzo on Sat, Mar 28, 2015 at 07:09:54 from 73.218.33.75

You eat miles for breakfast, lunch and dinner. You are going to rock Boston!

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