8.63 miles; 1:27:24; pace 10:08

Beautiful run this morning in Dayton, OH. We're staying in a Courtyard Marriott near the University of Dayton. It's right on a river (I should probably look up which one). I ran on streets, across a bridge, for about three quarters of a mile and then turned on a hike and bike trail that ran next to the river. The trail was marked every half mile so I was able to track my progress. I ran on the hike and bike trail out three and a half miles and back. It was early enough that I had the trail to myself until I turned back. The weather was awesome. It was about 60 degrees this morning and low humidity. I could handle running in this weather on a regular basis.

6.3568 miles; 1:03:10; pace 9:56

What a difference a day makes! I felt tons better this morning. I ran the same 1K loop around the lake as on Sunday. This time I ran 5 laps one direction and 5 laps the other. It was nice and cool and, although I felt like I was trudging a bit, i was surprised by my pace at the end.

2.6689 miles; 28:24; pace 10:38

So, i went out this morning and attempted a long run. I'm not sure if its the air, the heat or just a general lack of sleep but i felt terrible. I'm going to try again on Tues. I actually really like this route, its around a lake and a little hilly, so I feel like I'm getting a great workout.

2x800; 4x400; 8x200

I started interval training this morning. I jogged the mile and a half up to the middle school track. To be honest, I wasn't 100% sure the gate would be open at 5:00 in the morning. It was. It was also fairly dark on the track. Unfortunately, the light on my watch is out so it was a bit tricky to see my times.

The workout was incredible. I was consistently ahead of the target times that I got from the McMillan calculator. Also, I didn't need as much recovery as I anticipated. I recovered for about half the distance I ran. In other words, I walked a half lap between each of the 400's but only 100m between each of the 200's. And I really only recovered for a half lap between the 800's. I didn't fully appreciate the workout until I started home. Talk about fatigued, my legs were jello. What a great way to start the day!

McMillan Running

I have to say a big thank you to a friend of mine for pointing me to the following site:

http://www.mcmillanrunning.com/

They have a fantastic calculator that takes your time on any run, from 100m through marathon or any distance in between, and calculates a realistic goal time for other distance races, the pace required to reach that goal as well as various training paces. I can't wait to incorporate this into my training plan.

6.026 miles, 56:52, Pace 9:26

I managed to shave about 15 seconds off of my 6 mile pace this morning. I felt really good. Part of it may be that I got out before 5:00 AM. It was nice and cool and there was a nice breeze. Surprising how many runners are already out on the road by 5.

This morning as I was hitting a long, straight 2 mile stretch, i saw a light I hadn't noticed before and it was coming toward me. It was too small to be a motorcycle and moving to slowly to be a bicycle. As it got closer, I realized, it was a runner with a head lamp on. It made me chuckle but it also made me think. I'm not sure I could wear a headlamp but I am going to have to get used to wearing a belt. What's your favorite? Do you wear it on shorter runs or only on long?

Intervals

This is going to be an interesting couple of weeks. I've gotten off to a good start. It has been much easier than when I started training for the half marathon last November. That being said, we're leaving on vacation this Friday. I'm trying to figure out how to work that into my training plan. I've decided I'll push my long run to Friday morning (meaning no rest before but 2 days of rest after).

I'm also going to try to work in intervals on Thursday. I'm not entirely happy with my pace. I'd like to see if I can get into the low 9s or upper 8s for my half marathon (my goal for the full is just to finish). It may be ambitious, but life has taught me that I push myself harder if I fall short of ambitious goals than if I exceed uninspired goals.

8.25 miles, 1:23:24, Pace 10:06

Today I have begun to increase my weekend distance. I have to say, the last 2 miles were actually easier than the first 6. When I left my standard 6 mile loop (about mile 5) I wasn't sure I was going to able to finish 8 miles but once I crossed 6 miles, i felt pretty good. My plan had me running 7 this weekend. I decided to push it to 8 and actually ran 8.25. So far this week, I've run a total of 24 miles.

As you can see, i've decided to post my milage, total time and pace as the title of my posts. Hopefully this will make it easy to see my progression toward the marathon.

Alyssa's 5K

I have to take a moment to congratulate my wife. Today she completed a 5K. She participated in a program called Couch to 5K (C25K) with some of her friends. They started a Facebook group and each trained individually for 9 weeks. They all went from not running at all to running a 5K. Congratulations, Alyssa, Elania and Amanda. You guys rock!

Whew

6 miles again this morning before 7:00. The first mile and half was all in my head. I'm beginning to appreciate the quiet solitude of running. As I walked in the door this morning, I could already hear the yelling. "He coughed on me!" "No I didn't" "Aidan/Alex!" Kinda want to go run another 6, think they'd notice?

Early Mornings

Got up at 5 this morning to run my six miles. Its awfully early but worth it. I've noticed I keep a consistently faster pace in the early morning. That's the good news. The bad news is that its too early for my brain. As I rounded the corner into the last mile, I realized I couldn't really remember thinking about much of anything during the entire run.

It's an addiction

I've found that now that I've been running, I look for opportunities. Today, I dropped off our Durango at the mechanic. I decided instead of getting a ride, I'd just run where I needed to go. SO, I ran the mile from the mechanic to the Y. That wasn't such a big deal, since I normally do a warm-up before my workout. After my workout, I ran the 2.5 miles home. It isn't really the distance as the fact that 9 months ago, i'd have never even considered running home from the Y.

Off we go

Last November, 2009, I decided I wanted to train for and run the Austin Half Marathon. I put together a plan and managed to stick to it and completed the Half marathon in February 2010. Since then, I have been trying to decide if I want to run the marathon.

Recently, I made the decision that I do want to run the marathon in February 2011. To accomplish this, I have registered for the Austin Distance challenge. The distance challenge is a series of races beginning in September that lead up to the Austin Marathon.

I suppose there is some accountability to putting your milestones out in cyberspace, so I guess I'll give it a shot. As you might imagine, running leaves me with an abundance of time to think. Hopefully that means I'll come up with some good material. Unfortunately, it's difficult to type and run and since I have the memory of a 32 year old father of three, I make no promises.