KIND OF SCARY

I met Chelle at Grandma’s in 2005. She proceeded to kick my ass with a sub-3:03 (compared to my 3:09). To rub salt into my wounds, she did it on less mileage. Being a “more is better” type of guy, I wondered what she was capable if she cranked up her mileage. How about 2:58 at Columbus over the weekend, for starters? So a huge congrats goes out to Chelle. Nice to see all her hard work pay off.

Saturday I ran my last “long” run – a nice 13 mile trail run through Lebanon Hills Park. With all the leaves on the ground, I paid close attention so I wouldn’t trip over a rock or root. This run gave me 48 miles for the week.

As I've mentioned before 142-144 pounds is pretty normal for me. After Saturday's run I jumped on the scale and saw 137, which is kind of scary. Not anorexic scary, but like senior year of high school scary. I think I was 132-134 as a senior. I feel fine and don’t feel like I’ve done any special dieting lately. We’ll see how that bodes for Chicago.

Sunday it was beautiful outside but I didn’t run. I thought about going for a run, which would’ve allowed me to take a day off during the week instead. However, I took last Sunday off so I thought I’d stay consistent. This meant instead of running during a beautiful fall day I had to run this morning when it was 48 and rainy. I managed an easy 6 miles but felt really sluggish. I hoped my legs would feel better after a day off, but they didn’t.

So here are some things I was thinking about for Chicago;

1) Adjust my goal for hot weather. This doesn’t look like it’ll be an issue this year. However, since I’m a terrible hot weather runner, this is always at the top of the list.
2) Let the pace come to me. It’s a long race and it’s okay to take 3-4 miles to warm-up and get into a rhythm.
3) Let legs do the work rather than my lungs. If I’m breathing hard at all it better be because I tripped at the start and 40,000 runners are bearing down on me.
4) Run my own race. In a race this size, there’s going to be lots of shifting of positions throughout the race. Don’t worry about being passed early in the race. “Everyone” goes out too fast.
5) It will hurt. Even when I ran my PR the last 3 miles hurt.
6) If I slow down and it feels like I’m running 9:00 pace, I’ll probably still be running 7:30 pace. Keep fighting. Everyone else is hurting too.
7) Even if I don’t feel like drinking – drink. I have a tendency to stop taking fluids/carbs during the last 10K.

I’m sure there will be more in the next few days, but that’s what I have so far.

Quote of the day;

“At Marathon arrayed, to the battle shock we ran
And our mettle we displayed, foot to foot, man to man
And our name and fame shall not die.” - Aristophanes, “The Acharnians,” 425 B.C.