Start time: 4/4/09, 10:30am
Location: W&OD Trail
Distance: 12 miles
Average pace: 9:11min/mile

Start time: 4/5/09, 10:30am
Location: W&OD Trail
Distance: 12 miles
Average pace: 9:17min/mile

Total Miles For April: 28 miles
Total Miles For 2009: 218 miles

Normally, I’d have run a 20-miler this weekend. But more and more I’m hearing the same thing (and from a variety of sources); instead of running a 20-mile training run, you’ll get the same endurance benefit if you run two 12-milers that weekend (one each morning) and it’s less stress on the body. So, since I have no real goals other than “finish” for next month’s marathon, I figured I really need to give this a proper shot.

The first 12-miler I ran with Charlie, who was a great pacer. We ran on the W&OD Trail, first heading downhill for a mile and a half before climbing all the way until mile 7 (marker 7.5) at which point we turned back down towards the finish. It was a beautiful morning, but windy like there was no tomorrow. So windy, in fact, that when we hit mile 7, we turned around there when originally our turnaround point was half a mile further up the trail. I just couldn’t take the wind pushing us backwards, and Charlie agreed. Looking at how much our times promptly dropped once we got out of the combination of climbing and really strong headwinds? Pretty funny. A nice solid pace and even with some negative splits to boot.

Today’s 12-miler was all by myself. I ran an additional mile downhill (all the way to marker 1) before turning around and beginning my climb. Once again, I turned around a tiny bit early (mile 8, or marker 6.5) but in this case it wasn’t wind but rather severe trail congestion up ahead. Seriously, at the 6.5 marker on the W&OD I could see all the way to the bridge where marker 7 is located, and it was just clogged full of families teaching kids how to ride bicycles. Um, no thanks. So once again, I ended up turning early and once I got back to the start, ran an additional half mile before turning around yet again to finish. All on my lonesome (and with additional early downhill) I definitely headed out too fast at first, and on the way uphill I was really dragging. But towards the end I got a little bit of my rhythm back, and best of all my total time for Sunday was only 1:19 slower than Saturday.

The one bad thing is that all weekend my right ankle’s been bothering me a bit. It feels like I strained a tendon in it, so I’ve been doing all the right things (ice, elevating, anti-inflammatories) and I’m going to take a few days off to be certain and let it heal.

Will this really work in place of a 20-miler? I guess I’ll find out in four weeks…

9:15, 9:24, 9:26, 9:32, 9:36, 9:18, 9:28, 8:48, 8:51, 8:56, 8:40, 8:52
8:35, 8:29, 8:40, 9:17, 9:43, 9:32, 9:50, 9:23, 9:16, 9:29, 9:25, 9:46

Start time: 2/1/09, 1:15pm
Location: W&OD Trail
Distance: 12 miles / 3×4 miles
Average pace: 9:39min/mile
Total Miles For February: 12 miles
Total Miles For 2009: 57 miles

There is something rather disconcerting about running in 60 degree weather while dodging sheets of ice on the trail. And yet, that’s what happened today. We had a bizarrely warm temperature (it’s supposed to snow tomorrow night!), and there sure were a lot of people taking advantage of it—including myself. The plan was to run 12 miles; start at marker 3.5, run just down to marker 3, then turn around and all the way up to marker 9 before coming home. (Marker 9.5 is on the far side of Gallows Road and it seemed rather silly to have to wait for several minutes to cross such a major road when I could just pick up half a mile in the opposite direction and ignore the road entirely.)

As it is, when I first left the house, I ended up turning around a minute later because I clearly did not need to be running in pants. I swapped out to shorts, and ignored my jacket, hat, and gloves that I’d put in a bag “just in case.” There was still a strong breeze going on (and at that point my car said it was 57 degrees out) so I kept on my UnderArmour ColdGear long-sleeve shirt, with a t-shirt over it. Originally I was going to just run 12 miles straight, but 4 miles in I stopped for a minute to gulp down some gel, then headed back out. At mile 8, I also stopped, this for a couple of minutes, so I could take off the long-sleeve shirt and tie it around my waist. (Don’t worry, I kept the t-shirt on.) So really, it ended up being three 4-mile sets, I guess, even though the stops were never terribly long.

More importantly, though, sections of the trail were absolutely covered in ice. Anywhere there was a hill and some shade was fair game, really. (Or at one point along the infamous “hill of doom” where two people couldn’t be bothered to shovel their sidewalks. Thanks, jerks! And on a pretty steep hill, no less.) So it’s hard to say how my run really went; there was a lot of slowing down and speeding up going on as I ran. I certainly didn’t feel as strong after this run as I did last weekend’s, alas. (I’m glad after next weekend’s 14-miler my schedule involves some shorter distance weekends.) Overall, not great, but under the circumstances I’m glad that I never wiped out, and kept moving pretty well. I’d really wanted a stronger time in that last 4-mile stretch, but considering two of those miles had seriously bad iced-over sections that made me slow down, I am not complaining one bit.

And hey, it sure was gorgeous out. 60 degrees by the time I finished, and I sure was glad I stopped to take off that long-sleeve shirt. It felt marvelous out.

38:33 (9:36, 9:23, 9:46, 9:47)
39:02 (9:34, 10:04, 9:53, 9:29)
38:17 (9:06, 9:50, 10:01, 9:18)

Start Time: 7/12/08, 7:00am
Location: W&OD Trail
Distance: 12 miles
Average Pace: 9:30min/mile
Total Miles For July: 31.5 miles

Well, after missing my planned runs on Wednesday and Thursday (just wasn’t feeling well, alas), Saturday morning I was back out there, and I’ll admit a little worried on if the nasal steroid was really going to help or not. Thankfully, it seemed to; my nose was definitely not as bad as the last few times and I had an easier time with my breathing. Still wasn’t at 100%, but it was a real improvement.

Laura’d had a couple of weeks off of so we decided to take it easy and stick together, letting Paul and Donna zoom off. Our first four miles were really consistent, right around a 9:30 pace. The fifth mile dropped a bit, and that was around the point that Laura decided she was going to just run 9 miles today. So, we stuck together until mile 7, at which point she turned around to run two miles back, and I kept going. It was also around there that we saw Paul coming back, which seemed a bit off (was he really 3 miles ahead of us?) and it turned out that he’d turned around too early on the second leg of the course. (Start at marker 5, run to marker 2.5, turn around and run to marker 8.5, then back to marker 5.) He went to get some water, and I kept heading on, picking up the pace a bit, although the mile after that was the return of the Hill of Doom, which meant slowing down a bit.

It was around there that Paul caught me, and we ran the rest back together, although after mile 10 I decided to slow down a bit, and offered to head back by myself but Paul said he was running out of fuel too.

Not a great run in terms of, “Wow, I was really flying” but it was good in that I did the whole thing with no issues. What a relief to be, perhaps, out of the woods.

(9:32, 9:29, 9:26, 9:34, 9:55, 9:49, 10:05, 9:08, 9:31, 8:45, 9:20, 9:24)

Start time: 3/3/07, 10:00am
Location: W&OD Trail
Distance: 12 miles
Run:Walk ratio: none (miles 1-9), then 7:1 (10-12)
Average pace: 9:23min/mile

Apparently everyone decided to take advantage of the nice weather today; I managed to see no less than four people I knew while out running. I saw Katie and Julie about 4.5 miles into the run as they were getting into their cars, Noel was coming around the bend a quarter mile later, and Laura D. from work was out riding her bicycle (with one of her daughters strapped in on the child seat) around mile 10. Fun!

Oh yeah, the run itself. I definitely went out of the gate too fast; it probably didn’t help that because of my roundabout route (start at marker 3.5, run to marker 2, turn around and run out to marker 8, then back to 3.5) the first mile and a half are a slight downhill grade, meaning that those got hit pretty quickly (8:58, 8:57). From there, things fell into a groove and I was pretty consistant through mile 6 (9:19, 9:10, 9:03, 9:15). Since the farthest in the past month I’ve run at this particular speed was 5.4 miles, it really shouldn’t be surprising that I then began to run out of gas. I pushed through three more miles (9:34, 9:39, 9:39) and then decided to see what would happen if I started adding in some walk breaks. I figured the first mile would go slower, but future miles would then benefit from the brief rest. Sure enough, the final three just about hit that pattern (9:56, 9:28, 9:36).

Had this been the actual half marathon? Well, if you added on another 1.1 miles and went with a pessimistic 10:00min/mile speed, that would’ve landed me a finishing time of 2:03. So still a PR, not a sub-2. I’m still mulling over various plans in my head for what to do for the race itself. If I can find someone to pace off of early on so I can save the fuel for the end, that might help. But alternately I can always just plan to shift into adding some walk breaks as need be for the second half. Either way, at this point I’m not concerned about hitting sub-2. Coming off of an injury a month ago, I’m delighted to hit the speed I am. (Still, looking back at the end of December’s 12-miler it’s easy to lament what might have been. Oh well.) Hopefully a PR is still in the stars, though!

Start time: 12/30/06, 8:00am
Location: W&OD Trail
Distance: 12 miles
Average pace: 9:15min/mile

My running buddy Craig (whom I trained with in 2005, and who did AIDS Marathon again in 2006) has been working on his new five-year plan to qualify for Boston (which in his 50-54 age-group is a 3:35). He’s been improving by leaps and bounds and I popped him an e-mail to see if he was running this Saturday, since next week he’s got the Disney World Marathon-And-A-Half Goofy Challenge. His response?

Will try to make it at 0800. Supposed to run 12. Will be running without taking a walk break. Will average 9:30-10:00 for 6 then shoot for 9:00 for the last six if I can take it!

Well, I love me a challenge. (Sometimes.) When I run with Pacers for 4-to-5.5 miles it’s without walk breaks, so I figured this shouldn’t be too much harder. And if it was, well, I’d bring my iPod along and prepare to run back the other six miles by myself. So, we met up on Saturday and headed out into a beautifully cool, foggy day. The way out went great; we settled into a groove pretty quickly and knocked out the front six right on schedule (9:50, 9:25, 9:34, 9:52, 9:37, 9:27) with only the Hill of Doom in the fourth mile slowing us down at all.

On the back six, we buckled down and at first said we’d be talking a little less. Well, that didn’t last, we kept talking but aside from the other side of the Hill of Doom (which is pure evil because it’s steep and long on both sides!) we once again stayed pretty true to form (9:01, 8:45, 9:10, 8:48, 8:51, 8:44).

The best thing? Well, aside from it being a really good run and more than doubling the longest distance I’d ever run without any walk breaks, it was knowing that if I’d added in another 8:50min/mile pace for an additional 1.1 miles? That would’ve meant a half marathon finishing time of 2:00:53. My current half marathon PR is a 2:06:08. Barring disaster and keeping my eyes on the prize, this upcoming year I should hopefully get a sub-2 hour half. Fingers crossed!

(Oh, and 2006’s mileage total is 650.75 miles. Nothing like last year’s 732.9, but with a combination of a month off due to injury and no 26-mile long run, I think that’s more than respectable. Bring on 2007!)

Start time: 02/09/06, 6:00pm
Location: W&OD Trail
Distance: 4 miles
Run:Walk ratio: 6:1
Average pace: 10:40min/mile

Technically a few seconds slower per mile than Tuesday, but much more consistant; Julie peaked fast on Tuesday and the times slid (as happens when you haven’t run for three weeks) but Thursday was really on pace and good. Yay!

Start time: 02/11/06, 8:00am
Location: W&OD Trail
Distance: 12 miles
Run:Walk ratio: 5:1
Average pace: 10:45min/mile

I ran with a bunch of my pace group from last training season (the first time in a while) and the results were… interesting. Some of them were running a 20-miler so several of us joined them partway into their run. Their pace was all over the place and I just tried to tag along as best I could. An… interesting morning.

Start time: 12/17/05, 8:00am
Location: W&OD Trail
Distance: 12 miles
Run:Walk ratio: 5:1
Average pace: 11:00min/mile

Seven of us were foolish enough to decide to brave the W&OD Trail again this morning, which is pretty respectable numbers for winter running based on past experiences. Portions of the trail are still clogged by snow and ice, so one has to be careful; a lot of running off of the trail and alongside through the snow on the grass was necessary to keep from sliding to one’s death (or at least a broken ankle). Julie and Katie ended up just running four, while Chanty stuck it out for ten miles. Mark, Randy, Craig, and I were insane enough to do the full twelve that Mark had marked down for his marathon training schedule; I still have no idea if anyone besides Randy (and even that’s really up in the air) is going to actually run the Frederick Marathon, mind you. Once Mark starts upping the distance some more I’ll probably be cutting out early unless I see a marathon that I’m desperate to run.

Oh, and as an added bonus, I ran into first Pam, then Katie G on the trail. I came seriously close to smacking Pam on the butt (she had headphones on and didn’t know I was coming) but there was that 5% chance that it might not have really been Pam and just looked like her from behind. That’s always hard to explain.