GLORIFIED TRAINING RUN

I finished week #1 of Pfitz's 12-week program with a nice 18 mile day (and 58 miles for the week) that included the Daws 25K "race" - or as the race director called it "a glorified training run." Being the 30th annual event, the organizers used our $4 entry fee to bring in Lorraine Moller, the 1992 Bronze Medalist in the Olympic Marathon, who was married to Ron Daws for awhile. She and Steve Hoag spent a few minutes before the race talking about Daws and his impact on their lives. Good stuff!

I ended up running the whole race with Nate, who I met for the first time at last Saturday's group run. He's training for the Green Bay Marathon, which is 6 weeks away. We started easy - I think our first mile was 7:50 - and then gradually picked up the pace. We were chatting away and before I knew it we were already 8 miles into the race - rattling off 7:00-7:30 miles, depending on the terrain. This is basically a 2 loop course and around mile 10 we hit the hills for a second time and things got quiet as our focus increased and the effort picked up. We brought it home pretty good with a couple of (barely) sub-7 miles and were able to catch half a dozen people in the last 2 miles.

I think if I didn't meet Nate last weekend, we surely would have met today because our pacing and strategy for the day was exactly the same.

We finished in 1:52 which is 7:13 pace - or about 4 minutes slower than last year. Of course, last year Boston was only 2 weeks away. With Grandma's still 11 weeks away, I think I'm on the right track. Tonight I was looking back at my Boston build-up and it's really no surprise that I ran so poorly (3:12). In the last 12 weeks leading up to the race I only had six weeks over 50 miles. It's no wonder everything ached by mile 16.

Obviously, I don't know what June 20th will bring, but I feel pretty good about where I'm at and the road ahead.

Quote of the day;

"Chad, you made me a better runner today." - Nate