Thursday, June 23, 2011

REVITALIZED

Too many people ran well at Grandma’s to cover them all in one post. Congrats to Erin who inspired this article. I don’t know if she followed my advice or not, but I’m happy to take credit for her 11-minute, Boston-qualifying PR. While Kelly didn’t inspire an article, her 1:15 (that’s 1 hour and 15 minutes) PR is nothing short of spectacular. Had I know she’d run 3:27, I’d have been looking over my shoulder. Finally, congrats to my roommate for the weekend, Jared. The 69-year-old negative split a 3:17 and won his age-group by 27 minutes. That’s not supposed to happen when you’re at the far end of your age group.

As I alluded to in my last post, I’m feeling pretty fired up lately. Maybe it’s because I got to hang out with so many people that had such great performances on Saturday. Thinking about it some more, I really miss the whole process of setting a goal and training for it. I miss everything from planning tune-up races, dealing with nagging injuries, trying to peak on race day, worrying about the weather, developing a race strategy and then watching the race unfold in front of you. At the end of the day, this is what I really miss – the race times are just the icing on the cake.

With all that said, I’m going to see if I can become a “competitive” runner again. For me that means getting back into to a lifestyle that involves paying attention to weekly and monthly mileage, taking planned days offs, setting some goals, blogging regularly and so on. I don’t know if they body can hold up, or the mind, but I’m willing to give it another shot.

I haven’t set any goals yet but I’m kicking around the idea of jumping in a shorter race, just so I’m able to see some improvement between now and the fall. Perhaps I’ll find a fall half marathon to run too. We’ll see…

Before I forget, here’s a nice Q&A with Matt Gabrielson who always provides good quotes. With all the talk of Grandma’s lately, here’s a nice video by Carrie Tollefson that summarizes the weekend in a nutshell.



Quote of the Day;

“This most recent run on Old Hwy 61 [Grandma’s Marathon] has revitalized my entire career. It's like I've been given a fresh shot.” – Matt Gabrielson

1 comment:

Brian said...

Hey Chad --

Speaking of all the PRs achieved over the weekend, I have to give a shout-out for Jan, too, for shaving over a minute off of her half PR, 1:26:42. A nice way for her to usher in the Masters Era (starting next Wednesday).

We were meaning to stop by Old Chicago, but we ran out of time. Nice job on the race, considering your unorthodox training plan this spring.