First 15K yesterday--Hot Chocolate in Atlanta. 1:53:14. Either the course was a touch long or I need to get better at running the tangents. Garmin said 9.48miles. Oh the hills!!

not a "long race" but I did run a 5K and set a PR! 18:56, first in my age group, second overall. Pink Nose Blue Toes 5K

First trail race - first night race! Half marathon in two hours was good for a top 3 age group finish and top 50 overall.

I like this "small race" business.

did a 5K today...Rosy Cheeks 5K, 2nd overall, beating a number of high school boys in the process of hitting a PR of 18:44!

First annual Belmont Middle School 5k (my wife teaches there). Oldest daughter 1st female, youngest daughter paced my wife and won her age group, wife won her age group, I hobbled in with IT band flare up and won my age group, wife's teacher team won first. Not the most competitive field but a fun day for this running family.

Hadn't posted any of these results.

City of Oaks Marathon (Raleigh, NC) on November 2, 2014: New PR of 4:41:55. It was cold, dry and windy and I second guessed myself about what I should wear for the conditions. Let my legs get too cold with shorts and my upper body get too warm (light jacket). Was roughly 12 minutes off my anticipated pace but nearly 29 minutes faster than last year on the same course. My fueling plan felt good. Recovered very quickly after the race.

Hilton Head 2nd-annual Marathon on February 7, 2015. Another cold race (hey, it's the beach in winter practically in Georgia) with the temperature of 32°F at the race start, but a relatively flat course). It warmed up nicely as the raceA bright sunny day compared to the cold rain of last year and a slightly different course from last year. My legs stayed warm with running tights, but I had to shed my lightweight jacket at about mile 12.

Was cruising along at a 4:30:00 pace when I got ambitious after the mile 20 marker. Left a lot of people behind and passed a number of people over the next 3 miles and then found "the wall" just beyond mile 23. Didn't have any doubts about finishing, I just didn't have much left in the tank to run the last three miles. Left just enough so I could run into the finish area and through the finish line and still looking good. Finished in 4:50:23 (still under five hours and bettered my time from last year by 22:32). This was the most "expended" I ever felt after a race. The bad news....

I was running another marathon just seven days later.

The Myrtle Beach Marathon on Valentines Day. Even colder. Temperature at the start was 25°F with a wind chill of 19°F before we even started running. We would run the first six miles into a slight headwind, the next ten with a tailwind and crosswind, and the most of the remainder of the race from mile 17 to the end running into the headwind that got progressive stronger as the morning drew towards the afternoon. By mile 23 I was running into a constant 25 mph headwind with gusts to 35 mph and was totally exposed to the wind.

I took it much more slowly in the first two miles than the week before and then picked up the pace to a very even pace until the turn back into the wind. At the halfway point I was running a 4:33:00 finish pace. Even at the last timing point (18.3 miles) my time was projecting a finish of 4:33:19, but right after that almost all of the remainder of the course would be run directly into the wind. Got to mile 20 and felt just a bit more tired than the week previous. Stuck with the plan to try to maintain pace but the headwinds were challenging and I ended up maintaining effort as measured by my heart rate. Finally, at mile 23, I punched up the pace for the last 3 miles and dropped to less than 10:00/mile and got progressively faster with each remaining mile. The exhausted feeling in my legs during those last three miles felt just like they did running those interval runs and fast finish runs and I knew I could sustain that for a few minutes more.

I don't remember how many people I overtook in the 385 yard chute at the end. There was one person I didn't think I could catch with about 150 yards to go, but I just decided to go for it and did catch and pass her. She finished one second behind me. Set a new PR of 4:33:59/4:34:00 (depending upon which result you are looking at on the website). Didn't feel anywhere near as exhausted as I did the previous week. Fueling plan worked great. Probably a great course to try the BQ when I'm finally ready to go for it.

Valentine's dinner was incredible with no race to run the next day or next week.

My focus is on training for my 1st Marathon in 7 weeks but do my local parkrun every weekend. Felt good today so pushed it and took 23s off my PB (now 24:11). Hopefully won't pay for it too much in tomorrow's 20 miler!

1:26:40 half!!! 3 min PR!

SonicDeathMonkey80 wrote: »

Heart Mini Half Marathon - 1:28:42

Awesome run yesterday Doug. I can attest that the course was from hell. It's usually a nice event, but with the Ohio river flooding, they had to make some last minute adjustments to the half marathon course. The race itself is a HM that starts in tandem with a 15K. Typically, the HM course splits off from the out and back 15K at about mile 9 (at the crest of a pretty tough hill) and then goes down and across the river and back. This year, at about mile 6 , the HM course doubled back on itself again to make up for the lost miles of not crossing the river. This led to turning around right into slow traffic (for me, that was casual walkers, oblivious to the fact that there were runners trying to get around them). It also made it so that the dreaded hill was now at mile 12 instead of 8. There were plenty of people from the 15K walking that portion of the hill as well. Having done this HM twice before and the 15K about 5 times, I was not at all prepared for this. I was pretty happy with my 1:45:17 in spite of everything, but Doug just flat out killed it!

Wow, that is an amazing medal!