Running with the Daums: October 2011

Sunday, October 30, 2011

Rest, Irritation, and Performance Enhancing Awesomeness: Taper Time

Two weeks from today, Emily and I will be running the San Antonio Rock and Roll Marathon. This fact doesn’t terrify me as much as it has in the past, although running a marathon all-out is still an intimidating proposition. I like to think that this time, unlike last time, I’ve truly done everything to be ready on the day. Is that true? Beats the hell out of me. I thought I was ready last year, ran 23 miles at 2:29 pace, then blew up like a car with 4 flat tires and a missing axle. That’s on fire. Good news is there are a couple of things I can take confidence from:

1. Better long runs and long tempos. I actually sucked it up and ran the full 26.2 miles sometime in August, and 2 weeks ago ran a 24 mile tempo at 5:58 pace - much faster than I’ve ever run for a steady run of that length. Confidence, increased.

2. Mileage has been pretty good. I don’t actually know if it’s any higher than last year, but I’ve averaged something like 108 miles per week since the beginning of June, when Em and I got back from our honeymoon. Pretty good. I would call it lower mileage for a serious marathoner, and I know I could definitely do a little more next time around, but for working full time and fitting this running nonsense in around a life, I’m pretty happy with myself.

3. Additionally, this marks the first time I’ve been training full steam and been in good shape for an entire year leading up to a race. I haven’t been seriously injured or derailed in any way since January of 2010.

4. I haven’t had a bad workout since the end of September. I think I’m on a hot streak. Maybe. Okay this one is more of a hunch, but the past three weeks have been pretty good to me, and I think just maybe I will have this marathon thing figured out enough to survive.

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Two Whirlwind Weekends of Races

What the heck have we been up to lately? It’s hard for me to even keep track of it all. Last weekend, Chass, Emily and I headed down to Houston along with our friend David Fuentes to race the confusingly named USA 10 Miler (it stands for United Space Alliance). I think that was a bit of a wake up call for all of us. Not that any of us ran terribly - Chass was 3rd in 52:44, I was 5th in 54:15, and Emily was 1st in 60:48. I suppose it just wasn’t up to expectations of where we thought we’d be. Sure, conditions weren’t great, a little humid and a little windy, but it’s easy to make excuses and difficult to take a cold hard look at what you’ve been doing and what you could do better.

So if last weekend was a time for reevaluating, this weekend was a time for (mostly) celebrating great workouts and races (Emily’s been a little under the weather this week). First Em and I headed south to a small local race by the river to watch Amy and Rob race - for Rob, this was the first race he’s done since February, when he was knocked out with a fracture in the navicular bone of his foot, an injury that is sometimes career ending. Amy won handily with a time of 16:58, and Rob ran strong for 2nd to a good local guy, beating his time in the time trial we did last week handily (16:19 compared to 16:47 last Monday).

After the race, I got to talk to Chass, who had just done a workout of 4 by 2 miles with 3:00 jog recoveries. Last year Chass did a very similar workout in an average of 10:02 per 2 mile, 8 days before running 51:18 for a 10 mile race. This year he averaged 9:54 per repeat, which just sounds ridiculous to me - I’d be hard pressed to do 2 of those in a race-type situation.

Then today I averaged just a hair under 6:00 per mile for 24 miles. Certainly not the fastest workout I’ve ever done, but it’s up there for longest, and it was good to get this one out of the way. The end of the season is rapidly approaching, and it’s good to feel like I’m gaining momentum, rather than losing it.

But unfortunately it’s now time for the mowing of the lawn, before the wife and I get down to business cooking up some borracho beans. They speed up recovery from long workouts by at least a day, and that is a scientific fact*. I leave you with pictures and videos!

*This is almost certainly not true.

Jer at the 10-Miler

Chassy

Rem Dog almost to the finish

Melting from the rain!

Tired guys post race

VIDEO OF THE SPACE ALLIANCE 10 MILER

Start of the Strut Your Stuff 5k/10k

Two Robs?!

Amy!

High Five!

VIDEO OF THE STRUT YOUR STUFF 5K!!

Thursday, October 6, 2011

Hitting the Road

Waterbear Racing (that's the unofficial name of our little running group for now) took our first official road trip a couple weekends ago and had a blast!

We left Friday and traveled to the Eder household in Ft. Worth for a delicious homemade dinner! Afterwards we piled in the car, again, and headed to Dallas. It was our first time renting out a hotel room in Dallas, less than 3 miles from the start of the race (thanks Coach!), and attempted to calm our pre-race excitement in order to get a decent amount of sleep.

The morning of the race reminded me of what it's like to have an overnight trip with a team again. I had forgotten what it's like to room with a handful of people who each have their own pre-race rituals. It was a neat experience...girls braiding hair, Chass ~~shaving his legs~~ being Chass, Jer making sure everyone has everything.

We headed to the YMCA where they were shuttling racers to the Arboretum. It was beautiful and the first time I had ever been to any Arboretum for that matter.

The race itself was awful, for me. I finished 3rd with a time 30 seconds slower than what I ran a month prior,on a much tougher course. Hopefully this was my official "bad race" of the season. I let nerves get the best of me and ended up not eating enough for fear of throwing it up. Running on an empty stomach doesn't work for me. Lizzie had a tough time too, battling sickness, but she still pulled through to get 6th place in the field of elites. Amy did great, especially for her first road race as a post-collegiate athlete. She finished 2nd overall, behind a former Trinity teammate of ours (D'Ann Arthur), with a time of 36:27.

The boys blew away the competition with a strong 1-2 punch! Chassy cruised it in for the win and Jer followed for a nice 2nd place finish. Jer's second place came somewhat as a shock since he could barely run the two days prior to the race due to IT band issues. The fact that he even got on the starting line was a shocker, but the pain was all gone during the warm-up so he went with it.

Although the race didn't play out exactly the way I was hoping, it was still nice knowing that the awards we ended up winning more than covered the cost of the trip - so not a total bummer. Afterwards we listened to the fun 80's cover band they had and then made another food stop at the Eder house before heading back to good ol' San Antonio! Now, picture time!