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Got my trot on…

To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice your gift. ~ Steve Prefontaine

Turley’s Turkey Trot 5K: 18:56, 37th overall, 7th in age group

Well that was quick. In atypical Stu-style, I went out and ran a Turkey Trot on Thursday morning. This was the shortest running race in which I have participated since High School and I must say, it was a blast.

I was a bit concerned about the weather going in given that it was 3° and windy as hell at the casa when I packed up the car to drive down to Boulder for the race. The weather report called for windy conditions and 15° temps at the start and well… they were wrong. It was about 25°, sunny and only slightly windy as I rolled into the East Campus area, got checked in and started warming up around Potts Field.

I was lucky to run into Caleb as I began my warm-up and then just as quickly lost him again in the crowd. There were ~800 people running this race and so locating people around the starting line was a bit of a challenge. I soon found Sierra, handed her my vest and then hooked back up with Caleb just before the start. After a short wait, we were off!

The first 1/4 mile was fast. Way too fast. Caleb asked me what pace we were running and I checked my Garmin to see 5:15 pop up on the screen. Yeah… that was a little spicy so I backed off and settled into an aggressive but comfortable 6:02 pace for the first mile. My strategy was to punch the first mile, float the second and then try to hammer home the third and as I passed the “Mile 1” flag, felt like things were going to plan and settled into a nice rhythm.

I picked off fast starters during mile two and as we started the second lap of the event found myself pulling a group of about 4 up the only hill on the course and into a slight headwind. At this point the word “strategy” popped into my head and I remembered I was in a race where this stuff actually might matter. So I dropped my pace slightly to let one of the others through then jumped in behind him. Yup… much better. I cruised the second mile in what felt like a sustainable 6:13 then put the hammer down for the final 1.1.

I tried to hang with the last guy to pass me (who clearly had done this before – amazing form and leg-speed) without success but managed to stave off any other fast finishers and even picked off 5-7 people in the closing minutes of the race. I passed the “Mile 3” flag with my second 6:02 split of the day and uncorked my feeble version of a sprint for the last .1 mile (5:35 average pace) to finish in 18:56 – besting my target by a full minute. Caleb rolled in just a few seconds behind me and then we jogged around for a bit to cool down.

We both commented about how nice (and unusual) it was to start a race at 10:00 and be done by 10:20. The same day even! Pretty excited about this effort as it tees me up nicely to go for a sub-40 10K in a few weeks. Testing out some different distance events just to mix things up and keep it all fun. All in all, this was a great event and a lot of fun. I suspect I may make these events part of my regular regimen.

~stubert.

Another Solid Week…

Another solid week of training for nothing in particular. At this point, I am thinking I’ll finish up the year of racing with a 5K on Thursday in Boulder then a 10K in December. Neither is really a good race distance for me but it will be fun to see what I can do in some shorter-distance events.

This past week featured some good, fast running. I have managed to keep the running streak alive and as of yesterday, had logged 23 days in a row. Funnily enough, that wasn’t really planned but once I got teed up, I decided to see where running every day took me. I can say that my desire to run outside hasn’t waned but getting on the treadmill has become a bit of a chore. Lucky for me, the weather has stayed nice this past week. We did have some snow but it didn’t affect me too much and I was able to run in Denver a couple of days.

Here is the week in review:

Monday, 11/15: 00:45, 5.30 miles, Treadmill with 6, 20-second strides
Tuesday, 11/16: 00:45, 5.35 miles, Treadmill with some pick ups
Wednesday, 11/17: 1:12, 9.90 miles, Denver loop tempo
Thursday, 11/18: 00:26, 3.48 miles, Holbrook Park loop
Friday, 11/19: 00:52, 4.19 miles, Mt. Galbraith trail
Saturday, 11/20: 1:35, 12 miles, Teller to Water tower tempo
Sunday, 11/21: 1:25, 9.39 miles, Treadmill and A-Basin ski
Total: 7 hours, 49.61 miles

There were several highlights this week including Wednesday’s Denver loop where I ran from the office in Lakewood, around Mile High Stadium and back around Sloan Lake. A nice little run with some fun hills and decent, urban scenery. Friday, I ran with my buddy, Brad, who paced me to the finish at Leadville this summer. Great to get out with him. And Saturday, I joined Mark Plaatjes and his crew for a fun tempo run in Boulder.

People tend to get all uppity about Boulder but there are few better places to live if one likes to have access to terrific trails, peaceful roads and a veritable cornucopia of talent with whom to run. In the past two weeks alone I have seen big-name race winners out on the trails (Roes, Krupicka, Africa, etc. ) and got to run with a former world marathon champion (Plaatjes). The same holds true for cycling or skiing and there is a lot to be said for the benefits of living near such a desirable town. Sure, it may cost a bit more, but in my mind, it’s worth it.

~stubert.

Hmmm…

Boulder is WAY down there.

Strikes and gutters. ~ The Dude

Interesting week of running. Felt a little wonky all week but kept with it and capped things off with a 14+ miler today that took me a LONG time to complete. Logged quite a bit of climbing though and given the crankiness of the bod, am going to chalk it up in the “win” column. Thinking some of the grumpiness may be due to logging too many miles in shoes that are a bit too supportive. Going to remedy that ASAP. It was a gorgeous day out there with summertime-esque weather, a fast-moving rain/sleet/wind storm and everyone and their dog (quite literally) out there working the trails. Even ran past Tony Krupicka and Geoff Roes between Bear and SoBo. Going the other way, of course.

Here is the week in review:

Monday: 00:30, 3.66 miles, treadmill shake out
Tuesday: 00:45, 6.0 miles, treadmill surges
Wednesday: 00:57, 7.9 miles, Sloan Lake repeats (800s and 1-mile)
Thursday: 00:35, 4.0 miles, treadmill shake out
Friday: 00:20, 2 .0 miles, treadmill shake out
Saturday: 00:56, 5.9 miles, Casa Trails w/exploration and surges
Sunday: 3:23, 14.25 miles, Front Range Four: Flag, Green, Bear, SoBo
TOTAL: 7:26, 43.73 miles

All in all a decent week. As you can see, I am logging quite a bit of time on the ‘mill. Really enjoying having the flexibility it provides but certainly would prefer to be able to run outdoors more frequently. Work this week was a bear.

Trying to figure out plans for 2011. I am definitely running the San Francisco Marathon in late July and my primary goal for the year will be to crank out a sub-3 marathon so I am trying to target a good race during which to do that. In the meantime, I am hoping to run some 5K, 10K and halfs and would like to toss in a 50-miler somewhere for good measure. I also may give the Red Hot 50K another go since it kinda kicked my ass last year. If you have any recommendations for fast marathon events, let me know.

~stubert.

Fall to winter…

Man imposes his own limitations, don’t set any. ~ Anthony Bailey

Been taking things a bit easy of late and work has been slammin’ so that has kept me very busy. Still managing to get in some decent running though my volume has been off of a bit. Still gunning for a 2500 mile year and need to step it up a bit in November/December to make that mark.

I have been nursing a calf/Achilles tendon goofiness for the past couple of weeks that seems to crop up after 5 miles or so of running. Definitely wanting to take care of this rather than allow it to become a chronic problem so my longer runs have not been particularly long. Spun 10 on Sunday on trails near my house that take me into Golden Gate Canyon State Park. Still not much snow in that area of the woods but one can sense that it is on its way. Probably not many weekends left of uninhibited high-country trail running so I am enjoying it while I am able.

Very excited about the addition of a Sole F85 Treadmill to the arsenal for this winter. Much more convenient than hitting the gym and it forced me to rearrange the office a bit and commit to a stand-up desk (which I built over the weekend). Still need to sort a few items out in there but it is coming together nicely.

I couldn’t find another good marathon to run this year so will focus my attention on running a sub-3 next season. I am planning to work in a 5K and 10K before the end of the year and hope to put together a couple more long-ish adventure runs before we get completely socked in with snow. We’ll see if those get done before it just becomes silly.

One race that is definitely on the schedule for ’11 is the San Francisco Marathon in late July. That isn’t really a PR kind of race but it should be a blast. Really looking forward to that one. Will have to sit down and figure out the rest of my schedule soon. As always, I’ll keep you posted.

~stubert.

3:10:50…

That sounds like rock and/or roll. ~ Reverend Lovejoy

The Rock -n- Roll Denver marathon was a blast. Going in, I knew I hadn’t fully prepared for a fast marathon so was a bit unsure about how I would perform. Bounced back and forth about what time to target and, in the end, settled on running with the 3:15 group and then playing the finish by ear. Turns out, that was a decent, albeit conservative, plan.

Jammed down to Denver early on Sunday to swing by Caleb and Sierra’s place. Sierra had graciously offered to take Caleb and me to the start so we wouldn’t have to deal with the parking mess which is Downtown Denver. Caleb was teed up for a fast 1/2 marathon and yoinked a 1:32 or so. It was chilly at the start but not too terrible and I warmed up a bit on the grass in front of the capitol building before finally settling into corral #1 minutes before the start. After a poorly rendered version of the National Anthem (seriously, learn the words if you are going to get up in front of thousands of people and sing), we were escorted to the start line and were off.

The 3:15 group was paced by Mike, a 2:20 marathoner from Ohio so cruising us around at a 3:15 pace was not going to cause him any troubles. We started out slowly… just letting the group warm up during the first mile then slowly picked up the pace. By about mile 4, I needed to pee really badly and rolled off the front of the group to give myself enough padding to catch back up once done with my pit stop. I timed it perfectly and was able to rejoin the group around mile 5 as we entered City Park.

At this point, we were back on the 3:15 target pace and I was feeling fine. Pretty much zero effort to this point as we did a couple laps in the park through mile 8 or so. We exited the park, did a convoluted out/back on 17th then headed over to Cheesman for a quick lap around this iconic Denver park.

Upon exiting Cheesman, I was still feeling solid and decided to pick up the pace a bit and see what I could do. I rolled off the front of the 3:15 group around mile 12 and picked up the pace a bit as I crossed the half-way mark in 1:36:20 (or so). I pushed the pace through mile 15 where I started catching runners targeting 3:10. By the time we entered Washington Park and mile 17, I’d caught and settled in with a small group of people running at about a 3:09 finish pace.

This group thinned out considerably to two of us as we exited Wash Park (mile 20). At this point, I was still feeling like I could hold our 7:00 pace and we were staying right on target for a sub 3:10 finish. We headed north up Logan then turned onto 1st at which point I started to struggle to keep the pace. Based on our numbers, we should have had a decent buffer at this point and I lost contact with my fellow runner as we turned onto 5th and my leg speed began to fall off considerably. Miles 23 to the finish were less than awesome as I tried to hold on for a 3:10 finish. By mile 24, I knew that wasn’t going to be an option any longer so I just cruised in. Rach ran along with me for about the last mile, which was thoroughly kickass and I crossed the finish line with a new PR of 3:11:50.

Though I would have loved to uncork a sub 3:10, I was extremely excited about this finish time. It qualified me for Boston (which, unfortunately filled up in 8 hours), beat my previous PR by 12+ minutes, and put me in sniffing distance of running a sub 3-hour race in the future. Given that I didn’t really even train much for this event and quickly made the transition from dirt to road, I am very pleased with my performance and what this bodes for future races. I finished 89th overall (out of 2894 participants) and 8th in my age group. Not. Too. Shabby.

~stubert.