May 2019 Monthly Running Challenge

Almost to late packet pickup for today's marathon in Brookings, SD. Stopping off at a rest stop now. Good news is that it looks like rain will hold off until I'm done ir almost done. Bad news is that my stomach / GI system is already rebelling and I haven't even gotten started yet. Taking a bunch of OTC meds and hope it all works out.

5-1 injury idle
5-2 rest
5-3 injury idle
5-4 injury idle
5-5 injury idle
5-6 rest
5-7 3.5k slow
5-8 7.5k slow
5-9 rest
5-10 7k easy
5-11 11k slow

May Total: 29k
May Goal: 100k

January Total: 131k
February Total: 159.5k
March Total: 183k
April Total: 126k

Next year when you pop in here claiming your December 2019 mileage, what accomplishments will you have made?
Run at least 4 5k races.
Get under 30:00 and a PR for 5k.
Average at least 135k per month, which would put me over 1,000 miles for the year.

Run the Year Team: Five for Nineteen

Decided to try longer run today. Thought I was tired at about the 6k point and considered cutting it off at the regular 7k and then trying longer run tomorrow. However, I know myself far too well to fall for that, so just chugged along to the 11k point. If tomorrow's 7k recovery run goes well, will pronounce myself healed.

@ContraryMaryMary Well done!!!

Best of luck to all this weekend's racers.

2019 Races:

4-13 Shine the Light 5K - 31:12 chip time; First Place male 65 and older
6-1 Freedom 5K (Will be off the schedule due to another commitment)
6-30 Strides for Starfish 5K

12.2 miles this morning. Quite a nice run. Was misty and cool. But had to cut it short because promised wife to keep it under 2 hours. But really needed a long run after 3 hours driving to graduation, sitting through ceremony, sitting through lunch, driving home, having Mother's day dinner at senior center for wife's aunt. Today another Mother's day dinner, and tomorrow another Mother's day lunch! Yikes, not good timing for a cutback week.

Went out for 5 miles today. I knew it was going to be hot today, mid 80's at this time of year in the PNW is hot, so I had planned to get out by 7 this morning. However, an antsy dog last night messed up my sleep and I ended up sleeping in and I I didn't get up until 9. At that point it was already warm outside and I was considering not going, but then I thought that this was probably the coolest it would be all day, so I went out. In the end the run was really good.

It's funny, I saw that the weather will be cloudy, rainy, and in the 60's next week and even though I'm going to miss the warm summer weather, the first thing I thought was how great the cooler weather will be because it will be more comfortable to run outside.

@ContraryMaryMary fabulous job on the vineyard half! That sounds like a great race and you killed it!

Hoping your race went ok, @midwesterner85.

Good luck to all the racers tomorrow


Date :::: Miles :::: Cumulative
05/01/19 :::: 4.0 :::: 4.0
05/02/19 :::: 3.5 :::: 7.5
05/03/19 :::: 0.0 :::: 7.5
05/04/19 :::: 2.1 :::: 9.6
05/05/19 :::: 10.2 :::: 19.8
05/06/19 :::: 3.0 :::: 22.9
05/07/19 :::: 1.1 :::: 24.0
05/08/19 :::: 0.0 :::: 24.0
05/09/19 :::: 2.8 :::: 26.8
05/10/19 :::: 3.3 :::: 30.1
05/11/19 :::: 3.1 :::: 33.2

Graduation festivities this morning so I didn't go to the usual Saturday group long run. After I got home, I had to take the dog for a much overdue long walk before anything else. I really wanted to take a nap after that but I went back out and did a short run. I am really sore from yesterday's leg workout but it went better than expected given that and my overall lack of energy/enthusiasm. The sun was peeking out a bit which helped after a dreary couple of days.

Then tonight I went axe throwing! It was so much fun. Like darts, but so much more satisfying to hurl a heavy blade. Now I'm tempted to join a league, but not sure I have time for another weekly thing. But it's an awesome way to let out some aggressions

Adding 26.2 miles (as typical, Garmin came up with more because of imperfect tangents, but whatever...) for the Brookings Marathon today.



Race report:

Fortunately, I was able to get the GI issues all worked out with multiple OTC meds in way higher than recommended doses. The weather was great and I was on target for a PR for the first several miles. PR is 4:44:57 and I stayed ahead of the 4:30 pacer for the first several miles.

Towards the end of mile 10, the half marathon and marathon groups split. It was at this point that I stopped in a bathroom for the first time... not for very long, but my Garmin told me I should be either close ahead or close behind the 4:30 pacer... but I couldn't see him either direction. He was wearing a bright orange hat and would have been easy to spot from a distance. I kept asking people - volunteers, spectators - if they had seen him go by... it would have been within a couple min. if they had, so I thought they might be able to remember. Most of the answers were that they didn't know, some said yes and he was just ahead of me, others said he had not yet gone by. I got all these different answers, so kept asking - started when I came out of the porta-john towards the end of mile 10 and the last person I asked was at about 13.25 (the last answer I got was that he was about 2 min. ahead of me). This was a volunteer pointing runners to turn from a short gravel path onto a paved bike trail... it was pretty close to single track towards the end of the gravel path, so it isn't like there were huge crowds of runners at this point.

So at about mile 13.8, the 4:30 pacer caught up behind me... I guess all of those who said they hadn't seen him yet were the ones who were right. Anyway, I stayed with him for about a mile before falling back. My BG had started to run slightly low from around mile 12-ish and it wasn't even close to an emergency, but was starting to affect energy a little bit. Also, I didn't drink enough in the first 5-10 miles either and didn't get enough electrolytes either (I mix with water, so not drinking enough = not enough electrolytes).

At about mile 15 - around the time I fell behind the 4:30 pacer, the drinking/electrolyte fail caught up to me and my calves started cramping. I went from potentially having a PR to walking a lot. I took a Hot Shot to deal with the cramping and focused on drinking more electrolyte mix. Almost every water station after that, for the rest of the race, I added another Ultima pack to water. The cramps started to subside somewhere around mile 17-18, but then I was starting to feel some hot spots / blisters. Towards the end of mile 18, there was a first aid station and I got some moleskin, but it was too little too late.

And that's how I ended up going from a potential 4:30-ish PR to walking a substantial amount of the last 10 miles and finishing somewhere around 5:31 (I haven't checked my official time yet). To be fair, I didn't expect to PR at the start of the day, but the weather was perfect (started at 45F and finished in the 60'sF, and the rain didn't come until I was done). As I got started and was doing so well in the first several miles, I started to get the idea that maybe I could have a PR today and was starting to get excited before everything fell apart. Maybe I went out too fast... and I know there were times where I didn't drink in those first miles because I was pushing too hard to be willing to forgo even a few breaths to hydrate. So I went to the race initially planning to just finish in the allotted time. I did that, and got a lesson about drinking early and often, so I'm still calling it a success.