I’m Way Behind

Ok, I haven’t been able to post for a few days. I’m back to explain my PRs.

5k – I think this may be my finest running hour. I ran this time at a cross country invitational during my senior year on a day when our top two runners were out with injuries and our coach was looking for someone to step up. My previous PR was around 16:20 so I was a little worried when the opening split was a 5:05. I had never been that close to the front of the pack in a race before and it was more than a little uncomfortable. I persevered, however, and stuck with the leaders for much of the race. Upon entering the final stretch I was gassed. At this point 2-3 other runners passed me, but I managed to hold off several others and ended up with a 10th place finish. 10th place with a 15:50? You have to understand that, at the time I was in high school, central New York was absolutely loaded with DI running talent. My 15:50 was about a minutes behind the winner and a sub-15 was usually required to win an invitational. I managed an honorable mention all-league that year, but I was a very average runner in high school.

Five miles – This was a really fast training run in January 2006. The mileage was measured with my Garmin, so I don’t count this as a legitimate record. I’ve never raced a five miler otherwise.

10k – I’ve only run two 10k races ever – both in the late 80s. I have no recollection of my times, but they were much faster than what I have designated as my current PR. This time comes from a 10k split (that I believe to be short) from a half marathon that I ran in June 2006. I was running a great race that morning until I tweaked my hamstring in the 9th mile of that race. I ended up limping in to the finish, although that time was then a modest PR. A very disappointing race.

15k – This time came from a race that I ran in November 2006. My mileage leading up to this race was mediocre and I did zero speedwork. I had no expectations for this race, so the PR was a little surprising. My previous PR at this distance came from my high school years when I was in great shape but had no idea how to tackle this distance from a strategic standpoint.

10 miles – Another split from a half-marathon. This time, it’s from my half PR effort in April 2007. I’ve never raced a true 10 miler.

20k – Another training run. I’m relying on my Garmin again for the mileage, so this is another PR that I don’t put too much stock in.

Half-Marathon – From the Skunk Cabbage Classic in Ithaca, New York. I ran this race on April 1, 2007 as a tune-up for the New Jersey Marathon later that month. It was a cold (38 degrees), rainy, blustery day with occasional gusts of wind of up to 40 mph. I thought that I might PR, but I wasn’t expecting the weather. Apparently the weather wasn’t an issue because I got stronger as the race progressed. My last mile was run at a 6:20 pace and I felt like I had at least a little something left in the tank at the end of the race.

Marathon – The New Jersey Marathon on April 29, 2007. I’ve run three marathons, but this one, my second, was my only true effort at the distance. I was woefully unprepared for my first marathon but somehow managed to hold onto a BQ pace for 24 miles. From there I blew up in spectacular fashion in a 3:22:xx effort. I trained with a purpose for my second marathon. I did all of the long runs and all of the speed work prescribed by Jack Daniels. During the race, I ran with the 3:10 pace group and stayed with them for the first 22 miles of the race. At that point a started to slow down some, but managed to hold on to my Boston Qualifying time. It was frustrating to watch the pace group slip away ever so slowly. I was worried for the entire second half of the race that I might blow up again like during my first effort so the BQ was not a certainty until I actually crossed the finish line. I should have been happy, but my oxygen-starved brain didn’t realize that I had qualified at first because I somehow forgot during the race that my qualifying time was a 3:15:59 and not a 3:10:59. So, for the first few minutes after crossing the finish line I was under the impression that I had missed the cut-off by exactly one minute. You can imagine my delight when I realized my error.

Running: lots of easy miles. I have some intervals on the schedule tomorrow. I’ll let you know how they go.

My Personal Records

I've just added them over to the right. I think that, when I have some more time tonight, I'll come back to provide some background because they're all over the place. Some are recent, some are from my high school days and some are from training runs. That should be interesting, shouldn't it?

Morning Running Is Teh Suck

Well, I finally got a morning run in. It was every bit as tortuous as I remembered. In retrospect, it was only the first few miles that were terrible and then I seemed to get into a little groove. Hopefully, the more I do it, the easier it'll get. I also think running outside once the weather improves will also make it more palatable. Several easy miles today.


Has anyone seen McMillan's Performance Page in the latest issue of Running Times? In it, he introduces a different (to me) training pace - the sub-maximal effort. In brief, it's not quite as fast as lactate threshold pace, but also not as slow as marathon pace - it's somewhere in-between. The length of the run starts at 3-4 miles/20 minutes and increases over the course of a training plan to 9-10 mile/60 minutes. I'd be interested in hearing the pros and cons of this type of training from those who have tried it. Actually, all opinions and observations would be appreciated.

January 24th - Nothing All That Interesting

Six miles easy. My legs feel great. I don't have much to say today. I have, however, been checking out several other running blogs that are a LOT better than this one. I'll be linking to them soon - keep checking the list to the right.

ETA: I've added a few - more to come.

January 23rd - Feeling Stronger And Getting Lighter

Today's workout was a set of intervals - 6 x 1 mile @ 6:30/mile with one minute of easy running between reps. Two miles as a warm-up and 2+ miles as a cool-down. Total mileage - 10.5 miles.

Overall, I felt stronger throughout than in past interval sessions. Ok, to be honest, by the fifth rep nothing felt great but nothing felt that terrible either so I just kept on going.

The scale is now at 169.5. I'm nearing my pre-holiday weight so now the hard work really begins.

I should also start thinking about whether I want to run the New Bedford Half in mid-March.

January 22nd - More Easy Running

Another six and a half easy miles today. Instead of running through downtown Hartford, I ran toward West Hartford with a couple of guys I know from my gym. Some points of interest:



Elizabeth Park, Hartford - home to one of the oldest, largest rose gardens in the country.



University of Connecticut School of Law, Hartford.

One of the guys that I was running with always gives me a hard time about the number of miles that I run. He tells me that I'm putting in elite-level miles, but not getting elite-level results. His claim is that one should be able to BQ on 25-30 miles per week (he has run 1:20/3:08 on that mileage) and that running 60-80 miles per week should produce world-class results. If not, I'm obviously doing something wrong. I just smile and nod.

January 21st Run Report

Eight easy miles today.

The official weigh-in for the week has me at 171 pounds so I didn't lose any weight over the second half of the week last week. Oh well, two pounds for the week isn't too bad.

One thing that I find a little frustrating is the extra recovery time that I find that I need after longer runs (usually 14+ miles). In January 2005 I underwent a triple hernia repair. I had a laparoscopic procedure in which I had squares of plastic mesh inserted into each of those hernias to "keep everything inside" so to speak. Now, every time I run hard or run long I need at least an extra day or so to recover. My legs will feel fine, but my groin continues to feel sore for up to three days thereafter. It's merely a discomfort, but a frustrating one. It could always be much, much worse. At least I can continue to run.

Tomorrow is another easy run and I have more intervals on the schedule Wednesday. This week I'll also, once again, attempt to move to morning runs.

Housekeeping

In an effort to make the place a little more user friendly for my visitors I have sorted through the blogs on the right and categorized them according to my perceived level of their running content. The first category - Running and Life - contains blogs that are, for the most part, centered around running. The second category - Life and Running - contains blogs that contain roughly equal parts of running and non-running material. The last category - Non-Running Blogs - is self explanatory.

If you are the creator of one of these blogs and have an issue with where I've placed you, please let me know. I'm not above changing any of them around.

I Am The Lizard King. I Can Do Anything.

First, my apologies to Jim Morrison.

Ok, the weekend’s over and I’m back. Normally, I’d be posting on the weekends too, but my brother-in-law and his family visited us this weekend so I had absolutely no computer time at all. One interesting thing that we did was to bring the girls to a presentation on lizards at the local library. It was a hands-on experience so, in addition to learning about the various lizards, they were able to pet each of them as well. The biggest one we saw was this guy – a monitor lizard. That was pretty cool.



Ok, back to the running. With our visitors, I had to cram it in the best I could. Saturday was a spur of the moment eleven easy miles done right after hauling away all of the branches that had fallen on our property during last week’s ice storm. As you can imagine, I was a little tired at the outset. I was surprised, however, at how easy this run ended up being. About a mile or two into the run my legs really loosened up and I cruised the rest of the way.

Sunday was my long run - eighteen miles. Like Saturday’s run, it was done on the treadmill and, also like Saturday’s run, it was really quite easy if not a little boring. The one saving grace is that I was able to watch three complete episodes of Lost (and part of a fourth). So, yes, watching John Locke blow up the Flame station as well as a submarine, kill a one-eyed Russian and discover his father bound and gagged in a closet at the Others’ camp helped to pass the time. Thank you John Locke.

I'm Really Trying

to find a way to make six miles on the treadmill seem interesting, but I'm afraid that's impossible. It was a beautiful day in central Connecticut - 46 degrees and as sunny as can be - but I missed it. Work duties kept me chained to my desk all day.

One thing that I noticed during this run. It was probably the first run in months where I wasn't feeling the effects of an injury, my excess weight or my relatively poor conditioning of the past six months. To put it another way, I'm feeling almost back to my old self. I'm now keeping my fingers crossed as I still have 13+ weeks to go until Boston.

Until tomorrow...

He'll Be Hard To Beat In Beijing

Haile Gebrselassie runs a 2:04:53 in Dubai - the second fastest marathon performance ever.

Either You Get It Or You Don't

I actually like the newer Pearl Izumi ads more, but this one is pretty good too.

Jack's (Intervals Are) Back

Yes, today was a set of intervals. Although I referred to them yesterday as "cruise intervals," Greg McMillan actually refers to them as "tempo intervals" due to their length. Here's how McMillan defines the two:

Tempo Intervals

Tempo Intervals are like fast tempo runs broken into two to four repeats with relatively short recovery jogs. The appropriate race paces for tempo intervals are 10K to 15K race pace and they should last between eight and fifteen minutes. Unlike the previous workouts, Tempo Intervals are the first workouts to allow for a recovery jog between hard efforts. In this case, you jog two to five minutes between each repeat then start the next one.

Cruise Intervals

The Cruise Interval workout was popularized by running coach, Jack Daniels. They, like the other Stamina workouts, are meant to increase your lactate threshold pace. Cruise Intervals are like shorter and slightly more intense tempo intervals. They last three to eight minutes and the pace is between 8K and 12K. Like tempo intervals, they are followed by short recovery jogs (30 seconds to 2 minutes). You'll probably find that it's easy to run too fast on these. The tendency is to treat them like regular long intervals. However, keep it under control and work on a smooth, fast rhythm. Control in training is key to improvement.

Whatever you'd like to call them, my workout went as follows: a one mile warm-up followed by two 12-minute sets of running at my tempo pace (6:30/mile), with two minutes of running at my easy pace in-between, followed by a little over an hour of easy running. Total distance: thirteen miles.

Overall the workout felt pretty good. I could tell that I was working a little harder during the second interval. I assume that this was primarily because this was my first attempt at the twelve minute length at tempo pace (I have run probably two workouts in the last few weeks with six minutes at tempo pace prior to today). My legs were also a little wobbly for the first few minutes of my 60 minute recovery run, but that feeling disappeared rather quickly.

One final note - the scale said 171 pounds this afternoon.

January 16th - Not Much To Report

All I had on the schedule today was nine easy miles. They were slightly harder than they should have been because I wasn’t properly hydrated. If you read this blog long enough you’ll see that this is a chronic issue for me.

Tomorrow should be more interesting as I have cruise intervals on the schedule.

January 15th Run Report

Nothing too interesting. Eleven miles easy. It felt good to get some miles in during a light snowfall this afternoon. Mostly running in downtown Hartford and crossing over the Connecticut River into East Hartford.

Here's an aerial shot of Hartford:



My office is off to the left of this photo. I'll run through the park and past the state capitol (gold domed building in the lower left corner), then past the old Travelers Insurance Company world headquarters (beige tower in the center-right), over the bridge on the right and then on a footpath that borders the river. A nice run for such an urban location.

Here's another nice view of the city from the footpath in East Hartford:

Whoohoo!!

My weekly weigh-in tells me that my weight is now down to 173. A loss of six pounds this week.

Water, Water Everywhere...The Hydration Issue

I know, I know – the USATF has a guide to optimal hydration. I haven’t tried it out though – largely because it’s kind of a pain in the arse. I’ve noticed anecdotally from my conversations with other runners that I seem to drink an inordinate amount of water before, during and after a run compared to a lot of others. I sweat quite a lot though, so maybe I don’t drink that much. I just don’t know. For example, in the two hours prior to my fifteen mile run the other day, I drank 64 oz. of water. During the run, I drank another 40 oz. Immediately following the run I drank 16 oz. of Endurox and then another 32 oz. of water. I stopped there, but felt like I could have had more. I probably drank another combined 32 oz. of milk, coffee and orange juice earlier in the day and another 20 oz. of milk later that night. A pee test that evening told me that I was definitely NOT hydrated after all of that. Doesn’t that seem like a lot to be drinking without being fully hydrated?

Arrghh. I should probably just do the stupid test.

Intervals? Check.

I finally got them done. 6 x 1000 meters in 3:45 each (6:00/mile). I gave myself a half-mile recovery between each at 8:00/mile. I also did a half-mile warm-up and a quarter-mile cool-down - also at 8:00/mile.

I learned a few things. 1. I'm not in the shape that I'd like to be in at this point in my training. 2. I'm in better shape than I was in a few weeks ago where I really struggled with 4 x 1200 meters at a slightly slower (6:05/mile) pace. 3. While my physical conditioning is currently marginal, I was pleased with my mental toughness today. There was a point where I wanted to quit in each of the last three reps, but I wouldn't let myself do it. 4. Jack Daniels is a sadistic SOB, but he'll get you in racing shape every time.

I'm looking forward to some easier miles tomorrow.

150 Pounds

That's what I'd like to weigh when I run Boston. Right now, I have a long, long way to go to get there. When I ran the Philadelphia Marathon in November, I weighed 167. Not the lightest I've been recently (that was 164), but not too bad either. 17 pounds in six months didn't seem like a lot to lose. However, over the course of the holidays I managed to GAIN 17.5 pounds - too many Christmas cookies and wine I guess.

Anyway, I'm using this space to make myself accountable. My weight on New Year's Day was 184.5. My weight as of last week was 179. I'll be weighing in again tomorrow. It looks like I need to lose about two pounds per week to get to my goal. THIS kind of thing cannot happen again.

Those Elusive Intervals

Arghh!! The intervals have eluded me again. I had every intention of going to the new-found track today but my wife's appointments with her clients ran really long this afternoon, so it was back to the treadmill.

I ended up doing fifteen miles on the treadmill while watching the Cowboys blow yet another playoff game. Running on the treadmill while watching sports is always interesting because, in addition to running, there's also usually a lot of cursing, fist pumping, jumping, running into the console, you get the idea....

So, yeah, those intervals. I'm going to run them tomorrow. I promise. The 12-15" of snow that we're expecting tonight means that they're probably going to have to be done on the treadmill. Ugh.

Sometimes Even The Best Laid Plans....

I was supposed to run intervals at the local high school track today. Not a big deal since the all of the snow in Connecticut has melted over the past week - well, except at the local high school track. I can't quite figure out how, but it remains covered by about four inches of ice. Angry and frustrated, I returned home and ran an easy ten miles on the treadmill.

On a positive note, I later went to scout out the neighboring town's track and it is s.w.e.e.t. It's nicer than most college tracks AND it appears to be kept cleared of snow. So, it looks like I have a new favorite place to run.

January 11th Run Report

The initial plan was to run six in the afternoon and then six more at night. Work sorta got in the way of that plan so I had to do the whole thing on the treadmill last night. Nice easy miles. Nothing too interesting to report other than when I asked my wife if she could refill my water bottle around mile nine I ended up getting warm water. Blech. It's ok though, I don't think it was intentional....or was it?

A Blast From The Past - A Report From My First Marathon

As some of you may already know, I'm a regular poster in the 30-somethings group on the Kickrunners website. One thing I've always liked about this group is that after each race we run, it's tradition to write a race report - sort of a summary of the race as it's happening from the runner's perspective. Anyway, I managed to locate my race report from my very first marathon (Wineglass Marathon '06) this afternoon, so here it is - unchanged from the original post:

Official Connecticut Wineglass Marathon Report

I’ll apologize for the length up front. You can skip down the bold “bottom line” paragraph to skip the boring stuff.

I’m not sure that I can add much more to what has already been said about the pre-race festivities. In fact, DrChris accurately captures the essence of upstate New York in his race report – if you haven’t read it yet, I highly recommend that you do so now.

However, there are a few additional things that I thought I’d point out:

1. Maria’s room made me very jealous. Instead of a wall separating the bathroom and sleeping areas of her room, she had a ginormous hot tub. That’s right folks – if you were lying on bed you could simply look to your right and see your SO sitting on the can.

2. The good Doctor also sang a rousing rendition of “Save A Horse, Ride A Cowboy” at the karaoke bar. I also know for a fact that there is photographic proof of this event.

3. Nobody has mentioned yet that we also went to see a band named the Upstate Funk Machine at the world-famous FatsCats night club in beautiful downtown Corning, New York. I don’t think there are any photos of the band, but if there was I’d say that they were much better than what you’d expect at first sight.

4. It was great see Maria and Chris again and to meet Norah, Myron and Michelle (CR name = TrailOBite) as well as Maria, Michelle and Norah’s SOs who were all great (and very lucky) guys.

OK, the race report:

This was my first marathon and I was happy that I ran it close to my childhood home for no reason other than this is the part of New York where I started running in junior high school (I grew up an hour northeast of Corning) – so it was a returning to your roots kind of thing for me.

I was quite nervous the night before the race, so I was surprised that I slept so well that night. I woke up around 6:30, drank a liter of water and checked the weather – 55 degrees and overcast. Perfect. After a quick shower, I put on my race gear and ventured over to the hotel’s continental breakfast in search of bagels and bananas. I had what I thought was a plain bagel with peanut butter – it turns out that it was actually an onion bagel – not the best flavor combination, but I was too tired to make another so I ate it anyway. After breakfast I met up with Maria and we walked over to the bus that took us to the starting line.

We met up with Chris at the bus stop and found Myron already on the bus. The trip to the starting line took us about 30 minutes. All I could think at this point was that I had to RUN the entire way back. This caused my most severe panic attack I’ve ever had re: running. Fortunately for me, Myron was waxing poetic about the state of the adult book/video store industry in the state of Pennsylvania and this managed to calm me down somewhat.
Once there, the three of us found Maria and Norah and, after a few pre-race pictures and several port-a-potty stops, we were off.

The first mile felt slow, but when I looked at my watch it was a 7:27. The next mile was roughly a 7:10. Then a 6:50? (Myron has the splits, I think) followed by an uphill 7:00. After that we slowed down to roughly 7:05-7:10 pace and maintained that for a while. At this point, I knew that there was going to be an extra hurting in store for me down the road, but it was a little too late to worry about that – I’d just revise my race strategy on the fly. Around mile 5 Myron and I are joined by a young local kid named Andy. He was a pretty decent miler in high school from what I understand and he tells us that this is also his first marathon. Andy, since he’s a local guy, has friends all over the course. I’m now thinking that Andy can hang with us for as long as he wants so that we can feed of all of his crowd support.

Around mile 6 the three of us pass a couple of Canadian 40-somethings. Myron hears them talking trash (“We’ll see you guys again at mile 22…”). We laugh. They pass us a mile or two later and ask us rather condescendingly what our goals are. I tell them that I’m just looking to finish. Myron tells them that we’re really hoping for a 3:15:59. Andy says something about how he has no idea what a BQ time is. They respond with something smug in Canadian and move on. I don’t like them very much.

At this point we’ve left the town of Bath behind and are now running through the countryside. There is little in the way of crowd support around here - unless you count roadkill. At mile nine we see Maria’s smiling face – we are still running well and are probably there a few minutes earlier than Maria was expecting. Andy has supporters everywhere here – “Great job Andy!” “You’re looking smooth Andy!”. I’m now pretending that my name is Andy.
The next few miles were rather unremarkable. I take my first GU at mile 10. At mile 12 I notice that Myron has dropped back. I leave Andy and drop back to see how he’s doing. He sticks with me for a while, but then begins to drop back again. I’m now confronted with a dilemma – Should I stick with Myron? Should I push on ahead? I think about this for a few minutes and I come to the conclusion that I should keep pushing as this is what I’d tell Myron to do if the situation was reversed.

Andy is now roughly a minute ahead of me. I continue on with the pace that I had been running. I’m now thinking that a BQ is a possibility – a thought that, just last night, seemed absurd. My new, on-the-fly race strategy is to hold my current pace through 20 miles. Then, I calculate that I’ll have enough of a cushion such that I could run approximately 9 minute miles over the last 10k and still BQ. I know, I know, but it seemed reasonable at the time. I hit the half at roughly 1:33 – give or take a few seconds either way (Myron?). I believe that Myron’s half split was a PR for him.

At mile 15 I pass one of the two Canadians I mentioned earlier. I tell him as I pass him that this isn’t quite mile 22, but that he won’t be seeing me again. I know that wasn’t very sporting of me but, then again, I’m not always a very sporting guy once someone makes me angry. At mile 16 I begin to feel some twinges in my calves – an ominous sign. I run mile 17-18 with a local kid (a 14 y.o I think) who was running the relay. He was quite friendly, but he kept talking to me which, at this point, was getting harder to do. I appreciated the pacing he was providing, so I humored him anyway. He kicks it in the last quarter-mile before the second relay exchange zone which was a little demoralizing. At the second relay exchange I see Norah and Jason (Maria’s BF). I assume that Andrew (Norah’s BF) is there, but I didn’t see him. Between mile 18 and 19 I pass Andy who is now hurting in a big way. Shortly thereafter I take my second GU. It is chocolate and is thicker than frosting. It just won’t go down. So, I’m stuck with it in my mouth for about a half of a mile. That was not fun.

Mile 19 was my last easy mile. My pace began to slip around mile 18, but I was running fast enough (somewhere in the mid-to-high sevens) to maintain my BQ pace, although I’m now eating into my reserve. Since this is already ridiculously long, I’ll just say that each mile was increasingly difficult through mile 23 (at which point I notice that I'm bleeding from a most unfortunate area). I was now running roughly 8 minutes per mile, but it seemed much slower. I was also stopping to drink at each water station. In addition, both of my calves as well as my left inner thigh felt like they were going to start seizing up at any time.

At mile 23 I hit the wall in a big way. I managed another 8 minute mile to get me through 24 miles in 2:59. This now means that I need to average roughly a 7:45-50 pace over the last 2.2 miles to BQ. Under normal circumstances, this would be a walk in the park for me. Unfortunately, the 24 mile mark of my first marathon does not qualify as a normal circumstance. I knew that I was done. My legs simply would not move. This point was probably the low point of the race for me. In any event, my next mile split – 10:00+ put to rest any thoughts of a BQ. My last 1.2 was equally as miserable. To add insult to injury (or injury to injury) both of my calves as well as that inner thigh muscle all went into full blown seizures during the last mile, so my finish was rather pathetic looking to say the least.

The bottom line?: a 3:22:42 chip time. 70th OA and 9th in my AG. I’m quite pleased with the overall result as I was thinking that a 3:45+ was a realistic time at the starting line. If I hadn’t been so aggressive during the first half of the race, I might have had a shot at a BQ. Oh well, it was a lesson learned for the next time. It think that with: (a) a more consistent running schedule, (b) the re-introduction of strength training, (c) actually following a diet plan and (d) the addition of some speedwork (OK, and maybe the use of a pacer – Chris?) that I can get that BQ next year.

All in all it was a memorable weekend with some good friends – one that I’ll remember for a long time.

I’m sorry for the book. I’ll catch up on all the other race reports in the morning, I promise. From everything I’ve heard, our weekend racers were quite impressive.

Good runs to all.

Trevor

Upgrade #1

I've added a menu of blogs that I read over on the right-hand side of the page. Some are about running, some are not. A few things that they have in common are, first, they're all written by runners and, second, they're all better and more interesting than this one. Do yourself a favor and check them out.

January 10th Run Report

I ran a double today. The first run was an easy four on the treadmill at 6:15am. I have to say that I HATE morning runs. My legs always feel heavy, I never feel like I can get a full breath for the first few miles, I'm always hungry and I'm just generally groggy for the first few miles. All in all an unpleasant experience. Anyway, they're in the book and that's all that counts.

Run number two was six miles at the gym around noon. I missed my usual running group (you'll probably hear more about them later). I did notice, however, that group of 50-something guys that I had seen around the gym every once in a while was also leaving for their run at the same time that I was walking out for my run, so I asked if I could tag along with them thinking that this would be a nice easy run for me. I was wrong. At first I thought that my legs were still fatigued from yesterday's mile repeats but then somebody told me at the four mile mark that we had covered the distance in 30:04. Yep, the old-timers were really moving. I usually run my easy runs at 8:00/mile give or take a few seconds either way, so this was definitely not the easy run I was hoping for. Overall, the new guys were great to run with - friendly and generally conversational - plus they ran a nice even pace (even if it was a little fast) so I'd definitely run with them again. Plus, I now feel the need to figure out what their PRs are....

Getting Started - Background

Well, here I am - at that awkward point where I want to get my blog up and running but not quite sure how to get things rolling. I guess what I'm trying to do is bring my running into the 21st century and blogging seems to be the latest rage, so here I am and here it is.

I'm not entirely certain what form place this will ultimately take and thus the name - Junk Miles. You see, just as there is a healthy debate in the running community about whether junk miles add any value to a training program, I'm not entirely certain this blog is going to have any value to anyone - myself included. At worst, I'm hoping that it'll be a nice tool for me to collect my thoughts on running into one central place rather than having articles torn out of magazines, a stack of dog-eared books and other training notes scribbled on wrinkled pieces of paper haphazardly stacked and then left in the dark recesses of my bedroom closet.

A bit about me: My name is Trevor and I'm 37 years old. I've been married for almost a dozen years to my lovely wife and have two amazing daughters aged 6 and 5. I currently live in north-central Connecticut, so I get my share of hills during my daily training runs.

Running History - Part 1: I'm already on my second running life. First, however, a little about the prior one. I started running indoor track in the winter of 7th grade. I'm not entirely certain why. I had zero experience running prior to that time. Well, I shouldn't say zero experience - in both 5th and 6th grade I was subjected to a 600m time trial as a part of the Presidential Physical Fitness program. I wasn't particularly good at it either - always finishing squarely in the middle of the pack. Nevertheless, I showed up on the first day of track practice in my Pony high tops, cotton t-shirt and a hideous pair of purple shorts. I clearly remember my first workout, "Run around the track for 20 minutes." I was insulted at how easy the workout was going to be. Three minutes later I had a whole new respect for it. It was ugly.

Rather than bore you with all of the grisly details, let me summarize the rest of my high school running career. I eventually worked my way to varsity status and finished with 14 varsity letters - 4 in cross country, 6 in indoor track (yes, even as an ill-prepared 7th grader) and 4 more in outdoor track. I specialized in the quarter and half-mile distances with PRs of 53.7 seconds in the quarter-mile and 1:56.1 in the half. I occasionally ran the mile and had a rather unspectacular (relative to my half) PR of 4:42. My cross country races were all 5 kilometers in length and I managed a PR of 15:50 during my senior year - my only time under 16 minutes ever.

These times were solid, but not spectacular. Despite that, I did manage to interest several (pretty awful) D-I and D-II track programs in obtaining my running services. Interestingly enough, I turned all of the offers down and decided that I'd run for the University of Rochester. At that time U of R was the #1 D-III track program in the country, so I was was quite excited to be going there. Unfortunately, I never ran a step for Rochester. Let's just say I discovered early in my college career that fraternity life was much more appealing than waking up at 6am for a 10 mile run.

Running History - Part II: Fast forward seventeen years. I'm now 100 pounds heavier (ok, I only weighed 120 pounds in high school, but still) and I'm miserable when I think about how much I've let myself go physically. I had also recently been on the receiving end of a lecture from my doctor in which he told me, not so gently, that my current lifestyle was going to lead me to an early grave. That was my wake-up call. The next day (ironically, perhaps, it was April Fool's Day) I was at the gym for the first time in a long, long time. I decided that I would return to running since it was (a) something I could do on my own, (b) one of the more effective ways to get back into shape and (c) something that I used to be pretty good at. It was a struggle at first. Day one was one mile in ten minutes - a far cry from where I had been. Day two was even more humbling - half a mile (because I couldn't run a whole mile two days in a row) at the same pace. My stubbornness took over at that point and I set a goal for myself. I decided to run a half-marathon - certainly farther than I had ever raced before and a distance that I had only run once before - almost 20 years earlier. Eventually, over the course of six months, I worked my way up to 30 miles per week, lost 50 pounds and managed to finish that half-marathon (and learned a thing or two about pacing along the way) in just under 1:38.

At that point I was hooked and started searching for ways to make myself faster. In addition to running half-marathons I was also now becoming interested in the possibility of running a full marathon. This initially surprised me as I distinctly remember thinking that anyone that raced anything longer than a 10k had a screw loose. Not only was I now interested in running a marathon, however, but I started looking into whether I might be able to qualify for the grand-daddy of all marathons, the Boston Marathon. I decided that the best way to achieve my goal was higher mileage training and eventually turned to Jack Daniel's marathon training plans.

Ok, to make an increasingly long story short - I held a BQ pace for 24 miles in my first marathon and then proceeded to hit the wall hard, very hard. Six months and many miles later I managed to get that BQ on my second attempt. Now, I'm training for Boston and I'll be toeing the line on April 21st.

Well, I think that's it. Congratulations if you made it through all of that. I didn't mean to ramble on for so long. And ,while that's certainly not everything about my running background, you certainly got the most of the highlights. Plus, I have plenty of time to fill you in on the rest. Hopefully my future posts won't be quite as long-winded.

On a side note, I'll apologize now for the pretty boring layout. I'm still learning how all this blog stuff works and I'll start adding new, cool features once I figure it all out.

Good runs to all.

Trevor