Ellie's B-day and the Future

Today is Ellie’s birthday! I can’t believe it has been two years already. She is growing up so fast!!

Things have been going very well with my training for the half-marathon. I was able to get in a fartlek last Wednesday and a 6 mile tempo run on Saturday followed by a 14 mile run on Sunday. I took yesterday off and felt great on my 8 mile run this morning. I am defiantly starting to feel a lot stronger than I have in a long time. I am planning on doing some hill repeats tomorrow and probably some sort of interval work on Saturday followed by a 15 mile run on Sunday. I am also probably going to do the Alpha Phi Race for Your Heart 10K on October 4th to get a better idea of a goal pace for the half. If I can just stay healthy I think I will be able to run a good race on November 1st.

I have also been thinking about my running future a lot lately. I have started to become intrigued by the idea of ultra-trail races. I am really starting to feel like I need a break from road racing and I think this may be the direction I go next year. I feel like I need to challenge myself in a new way rather than just how fast I can go over the same road distances. It feels like I have been doing this forever. Unfortunately, I know nothing about ultra-trail running (gear, shoes, training, etc.)! I have done a lot of trail running, especially when we were out in Colorado but have never really taken it that seriously. Anyway, I am getting excited about the thought of doing some races and would love to hear some feedback from anyone who knows what they are doing and could guide me along the way.

Race Recap

Our weekend started out with a 6:30 AM drive up to Bellaire Ohio to run the Awesome Autism 5k. This was the first year for the race put on by my former high school coach and long time running friend Dennis. It had been a while since Erin and I had been back to Ohio due to the store taking up most of our time on the weekends now. Bellaire is where both of us went to High School (St. John Central) and where we were married. I also got to see Ben, another long time running friend and former college teammate that I have not seen in a long time.

The weather was perfect as we stood at the start line. The temperature was in the mid 50’s and the fog was just starting to lift. The course was flat as a pancake as it ran alongside the Ohio River. Ben gave me a good laugh right before the gun went off when he looked down and realized he had forgotten to put his number on. It’s a good thing he is also good friends with Dennis and well known in the Ohio Valley (and not to mention his huge margin of victory) or he could have been in some trouble for that mistake.

I felt good from the start and went through the first mile in about 5:30. Ben had already opened about a 20 second lead on me and the third place guy was starting to fade as well. I was pretty much on my own the rest of the race. I could see Ben in front on me most of the time until about the last half mile so that gave me at least something to run towards. Ben won the race in 16:07 I ended up finishing second in 17:35. I was hoping to finish a little closer to 17:00 but I was happy. I could defiantly tell that I was missing the turnover from lack of speed workouts lately but I felt very strong at the finish and could have probably kept going at that pace for a little while longer. That makes me feel a lot more confident in my Half Marathon training right now.

Erin did awesome in the race. She once again ran another PR of 20:35 winning the women’s race and finishing 9th overall. She just seems to keep getting better and better.

As a side note, we have finally settled on a fall Half Marathon and have decided to do the Spirit of Pittsburgh. We registered last night so we are defiantly set now.