#Project18 Fail Turkey Trot 2010

My 9th Turkey Trot(16th annual) didn't go as I had hoped.  The weather turned to crap.  Sleep is a thing of the past with Alex now.  I figured surely I could break 19:00 with all the running I've been doing, especially after running 19:13 last year with zero running.  Well that's what I get for thinking.  19:00.0000.  I screwed myself going out too fast.  I told my self not to get caught up in the wave in the first mile.  Nope did it anyway(mistake #1). 5:36 for the first mile.  I panicked a little and throttled back(mistake #2). Ran second mile a little too comfortable in 6:20.  Fell asleep in the 3rd mile (mistake #3) 6:26.  Saw the finish clock & sprinted for all I was worth to hit 19 exactly. Damn so close.  Should have leaned.  What I should have done was run even splits.  I guess I'll have to regroup & hit a 5k next week.

New Turkey Trot Course

This should make my quest for 18:xx a little easier.  Though I hate long straight stretches.

Week 2 Circle Fail

30+ mile per hour winds pretty much destroyed me & any hope I had of hitting goal times.  I knew better but I figured time is limited so why not try.  I got a hard workout in that about all I got.  Pretty demoralizing.  The plan was for 3x1200 @ 4:00 with 400m recovery.  Came close first interval.  Little farther off the 2nd.  The third one was a waste of time.  With any luck the wind will die down by Thursday & I can try this workout again.


I've been pretty beat up lately.  Mostly various achilles/calf problems.  Friday I woke up without the ability to move my neck very much.  After some heat pad & Amber working on it I got some mobility.  Went to work where the neck pain moved into my bad shoulder.  Its now Tuesday & still bothering me a little.  Saturday night I also managed to whack myself in the shin.  I feel like I should turn this into an injury report blog about myself.

Running around in circles

Its been four years since my last foray into track intervals.  Thanks to #project18 I figured I'd better do some track work or I'd flail mightily.  Especially with the target race less than 6 weeks away.

I packed up my bag, mounted my bike, & rode over to MSU's Plaster field to run some circles. A nice 8 mile ride over, I figured it would be a good warm up.   Oops!  Guess the track is closed in the afternoon till after 5.  SOB!  Turn around & head home to plan B and now 16 miles in my legs.

Luckily the subdivision across from mine has a 400 meter loop(+/- 5 meters) which is good enough for my purposes.  I figured for the first week 10x 400 at or below 1:30 with 400 recovery would be a good start.  Four years ago I stood for my recovery since I wasn't running much & was interested in making the times. Which wouldn't happen if I ran the recoveries.  This year I've been putting in the miles & figured I'd better run the recoveries. Plus the extra mileage might make another attempt at the Sylamore 50K in February a likelihood. 

To sum up: 1) 1:28 (2) 1:28 (3) 1:29 (4) 1:26 (5) 1:26 (6) 1:24 (7) 1:28 (8) 1:28 (9) 1:28 (10) 1:30  Felt the 16 miles of pre riding in my legs on the last one.

All in all not a bad first go around at running speed work. An added bonus was my long run now is 6.5 miles.

Project 18 rolling along

After looking at my work calendar I picked a day for my first 5k warm up race. Sept 25. Thing is there are 4. yes 4! 5k's in & around Springfield on that day. Holy Hell. There is maybe 4  bike races in Springfield ALL year let alone 4 in one day.  I'll have to do some research & find the flattest one.  One I think I have done before so I'll have a time reference for it.  I ran 19:13 with zero miles in November.  Granted my CX form was coming on in a big way.  I figure in 6 weeks of running I can surely run at least 19:45. 30 seconds slower is doable.

I did see there is a 5k trail run with a 5k kayak race the week before(9/24).  Might be interesting.  My creek boat is a pig to paddle in flat water though.  Will have to think about that one.  Might be able to borrow a longish sea kayak.  17' limit.