Friday, January 27, 2012

SAND BAGGING

I'm #1, I'm #1...

Er, I mean, I'm #56, I'm #56, I'm #56!  At least that's what Rick Kimbal says in his list of the top 100 running blogs.  I didn't even realize there were still 100 running blogs out there.  Things were a lot different when I started this thing back in 2005.  It seemed like a really small community and every blogger seemed to follow every other blogger out there.  Seven years later I have no idea whatever happened to most of those bloggers.  Out of Rick's top 100, Andrew is the only other blog that I recognized.

I'm about 13 hours from the Winter Carnival Half Marathon.  I know a couple of sand baggers that posted their goals for the race, so I thought I'd put my goals down on "paper" too.  Based on my Meet of Miles time, my age graded % says I should be able to run 1:31:13.  Keep in mind the Meet of Miles is run indoors, which equals no wind, a flat surface, and minimal apparel.  Considering that and the fact that I haven't run more than 12 miles for months, I'm going to throw in a little sand and shoot for sub-1:32.  On a great day a sub-1:30 may be possible.

I'm giving Steve and Mike a hard time about their predictions because they were both at the Meet of Miles too and they were like 60 and 40 seconds ahead of me, respectively.  And both of them are talking about running like 1:28 tomorrow and maybe 1:25 on a great day.  I'm betting they'll both break 1:25.

Quote of the day;
"You only ever grow as a human being if you're outside your comfort zone." - Percy Cerutty

5 comments:

Tracy said...

Good luck, Chad! (Although by the time you're reading this you'll be done...and I assume you'll deserve a "Nice race!")

SteveQ said...

I know 20 of the top 100 blogs, but I rarely read any of them. My list of best running blogs would look quite different! (I get occasional traffic from someone who has a site called "My Favorite Running Blogs," so someone still cares.)

Andrew said...

Good luck on the race. You'll probably benefit from not having run more than 12 miles in training this early in your cycle.

This winter I'm building very slowly which is a change for me. I get to run my first two digit run tomorrow - after 7 weeks! Looking forward to it!

Rocco said...

Neither Steve nor I broke 1:25 today. So there. But thanks for calling me out. It did make me rethink my cautious plan and I ended up just running on feel which really made the difference.

Chad said...

Thanks Tracy.

Yeah Steve, my top 100 would be a lot different too.

Andrew, I've been building slowly too, just not quite as slowly as you.

Rocco, you guys were only a stones throw from sub-1:25. Nice race!