My Better Me than You Log - Page 12 - JP Fitness Forums

twinsavsvikingsfan · 05-12-2006, 03:32 PM

Thanks guys! I'm excited now! Check out the revised weather:

Quote:

When the races start, spectators and athletes alike can expect cloudy skies with a chance of patchy fog. There will be a light, southeast, 5-10 mph wind, as well as a chance of rain throughout the morning. Temperatures will hold in the low 40s with wind chills cooler than that.

Looks like it'll be long sleeves. Happy spring.

K-Court · 05-12-2006, 04:18 PM

Best of luck with the race, Jim. I look forward to the post-race synopsis (and pics?). Hope it goes well for you. You've trained so hard - it's payback time!

Iamjennmedic · 05-12-2006, 04:33 PM

Good luck Jim, you'll do great

Will be waiting with baited breath for your post after the race.

twinsavsvikingsfan · 05-13-2006, 12:36 PM

5/3 Riverbank Run 25k

1:53:09 (7:18 avg pace)

This is just a quick post to report my time. I will post an in-depth report later this evening. I am very pleased with my time, but I am not happy with the way I ran the race. All's well that ends well, right? Maybe so. Thanks to everyone and their well-wishes. I had to draw some strength and energy from them this morning.

BamaDave · 05-13-2006, 01:56 PM

Great job - Jim. That's an excellent time. Congrats!! Looking forward to your report. The time when you cross the finish line is the most important thing - so don't stress too much over execution. Not to mention that it hasn't been too many weeks since you had a goal of an 8:00 pace half-marathon. You've totally blown that out of the water. Your progress has been phenomenal - you should be very proud!

kmwest · 05-13-2006, 04:16 PM

Awesome time! You keep improving, it's great to read your log.

twinsavsvikingsfan · 05-13-2006, 04:50 PM

Thanks, guys! Dave, way to keep things in perspective, thanks.

I didn't sleep for crap last night. I kept myself awake trying to decide if I'd go with short or long sleeves today. I decided that if it was cooler than 42 I'd do long, over 42 I'd go short. (Yeah I am that anal and picked something like 42- not40 or 45 but 42

)Well, when I woke up it was 42 degrees on the dot. I decided to go with the short sleeves and that may have come back to haunt me.

I picked my friend Shiela up at her house and dropped my daughter off and got downtown about 7:15. The race was to start at 8:00 soo we had some time to go to a meeting spot to meet up with some more friends. Shiela's friends didn't show, but my super hot sexy algebra teacher did (I guess I'll just call her Laura, now that I'm not in her class). She was fresh off her honeymoon in Cabo. Nice taper.

I waited in the obligatory pre-race porta-john line so long, I thought I was going to miss the start of the race. Luckily, I made it to the starting area about 30 seconds before the gun. It turned out that I hurried for no reason. The times I was hearing were for the wheelchair division. I still had 5 minutes. Less than a minute before the gun, I was doing my last second checks and realized my shoes weren't double-knotted. Oh no! Got that taken care of just in time and we were off.

mile 1 - 7:33 really crowded. Close to 5000 running the big race.
mile 2 - 7:01 fell into a great groove right away
mile 3 - 7:04 nice
mile 4 - 7:00 nicer
mile 5 - 7:15 water stop
mile 6 - 7:00 wow, feeling real good
mile 7 - 7:04 almost halfway already?!
mile 8 - 7:03 this can't be right. Oh no, it's starting to rain.
mile 9 - 7:15 not bad. some hills and I'm starting to get really cold. Had a water stop manned by the National Gaurd. Really cool.
mile 10 - 7:26 something's happening Better total time than my ten mile race a couple weeks ago.

mile 11 - 7:17 let's try to keep this pace
mile 12 - 7:24 this is getting tough

mile 13 - 7:26 barely hanging on. Man, I've still got 2.5 to go.
mile 14 - 7:30 I am so freezing. I think I started too fast.

mile 15 - 7:41 wha...
mile 15.5 - 4:06 was able to sprint the last 50 yards or so and passed a few of the couple hundred or so that passed me in the closing miles.

There you go. I love the time, but I really wish I had paced myself better so I was able to finish stronger. I lost about 2 minutes on the second half. I really wanted a negative split. Oh well. Laura only beat me by 2 minutes. And Shiela was very happy by beating her expectatons. All in all it was a blast and I know I'll be doing it again and again.

Now, I'm going out for drinks with some friends to celebrate. Next week I'm going to take it a little easy, but then start a base building program because I registered for the Grand Rapids Marathon at the expo. I also would like to hit the weights harder for the spring. I'm feeling flabby and weak. I will run a couple 5k's and maybe a 10k this spring, summer but nothing too serious.

Oh! I forgot! After finishing, I found Laura and we made our way to the gear check. By then the rain was coming down pretty hard and I was shivering uncontrollably. I gave them my number but they could find my bag! I was starting to get really pissed when after ten minutes they finnnaly located it! I was so happy to get into a dry sweatshirt and sweats. That was my day.

What'd you do?

BamaDave · 05-13-2006, 09:02 PM

Jim - your race execution looks fine. I was expecting something more dramatic, like you were running 6:45's and slowed down to 8:30's at the end. This just shows that you gave it your all and your body was at its limits toward the end. Personally, I think some people get too hung up on even or negative splitting, and it's overrated - especially for relatively new racers (or maybe I just think that way because I'm not very good at even splitting :p). I think it's generally difficult to get that perfect combination of absolutely best effort and even splits. Anyone can get an even or negative split if they aren't running at maximum effort. Your mile lap times indicate a best effort. Sure, if you had run 7:10's from the start, you may have been able to hold it for the whole race and save a couple of minutes - but it's really hard to know what that perfect pace will be.

Great job again!! Very impressive. I was LMAO at your stressing over what temp to go long or short-sleeved. Pre-race madness for sure!

kmwest · 05-14-2006, 11:39 AM

Next time, wear short-sleeve shirt with a cheapo long-sleeve over it and ditch the long-sleeve as necessary.

And oh yeah, ditto what Dave said.

twinsavsvikingsfan · 05-14-2006, 02:42 PM

14MAY06

nap
3:00 (avg pace 0:00)

twinsavsvikingsfan · 05-15-2006, 09:25 AM

15MAY06

bench press
185 x 6, 6, 6

squats
225 x 6, 6, 6

cable row
170 x 6, 6, 6

sumo deads
235 x 6, 6, 6

superset
ez curls/
70 x 6, 6, 6, 6
swiss ball crunches
40 x 10, 10, 10, 10

Man, were my legs sore before this workout! But they feel really good afterwards. I think working them was a good thing. Weights were not spectacular, but I'm hoping to get back in the groove quickly. I'm just going to do some light running this week and then pick that up next week.

BamaDave · 05-15-2006, 10:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by twinsavsvikingsfan

14MAY06

nap
3:00 (avg pace 0:00)

SLACKER!!!!!

Good weight workout... Are you scaling back on your running now and then ramping back up for marathon training later in the Summer??

twinsavsvikingsfan · 05-15-2006, 07:55 PM

15.5 miles plus 10 (or so) beers equals nap!

I won't do that again for a long time! (The drinking that is!)

I'm going easy this week, but hope to keep about 30 MPW until marathon training which is scheduled to begin the last week of July.

twinsavsvikingsfan · 05-16-2006, 08:43 AM

16MAY06

3.75 miles
29:11 (7:47 avg pace)

Recovery run. It was nice to get out after taking the past couple days off from running. I didn't know if I could get my legs to do anything at first. lol
I'm pretty sore from lifting yesterday and maybe still the race a little. I'm guessing its more from the weights, though, seeing I haven't lifted in awhile.

Tomorrow I'll do my first run with my new "coach"- my friend Laura. (I'll call her friend now that I'm not in her class. She's still smokin' hot, though

) We're planning to do 8 on Saturday as well.

twinsavsvikingsfan · 05-17-2006, 09:37 AM

17MAY06

~5.5 mile run
40:38 (~7:23 pace)

It was really cool to run with someone else. I did get some looks like "why is that big dork running with that hottie?" Ach! Who am I kidding? No one was looking at me!

Anyways, our time would be a little faster save for some traffic lights. We ran pretty hard. My legs were absolutely leaden, but I had to show off- she had me set the pace. Laura said she'll pace us on our 8 miler on Saturday.

I'm probably going to become a little less worried about keeping exact times and distances as long as I'm training with Laura. She doesn't quite subscribe to the "kill yourself every time you go out" methodology I've kind of fallen into. We will have speed days but our intermediate to long runs will be at a slower pace than what I've been doing.

kmwest · 05-17-2006, 01:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by twinsavsvikingsfan

17MAY06
She doesn't quite subscribe to the "kill yourself every time you go out" methodology

Just like a woman - never the best she could be.

I'm slowly learning this point myself. When I was only running 3x weekly I had to thrash myself every time to see improvements. You just can't do that when you up the mileage.

twinsavsvikingsfan · 05-18-2006, 08:02 AM

18MAY06

incline DB press
65 x 8, 8, 8

squats
195 x 8, 8, 8

DB upright rows
40 x 8, 8, 8

good mornings
130 x 8, 8, 8

DB curls
35s x 8, 8, 8

dips
BW+50 x 8, 8, 8

ab roller thing
3 sets of 8

Nice workout. I need to learn how to do front squats. I always sub in back squats for them and I think I need to mix it up a little. They just kill my wrists, though.

Tonight I plan on doing an easy 3-4 mile run. (hopefully it will keep my DOMS in check from this morning's workout- thanks, Dave). That run hinges on the weather, though. We may get some T-storms and strong winds this afternoon. If so, I'll run early tomorrow. If I do get it in today, my workout tomorrow will consist of HIIT in the form of chores and homework.