Good Running Week - Next Stop: The UCF 5 Miler

When I was attending the University of Central Florida (UCF) 18 years ago, there was a common joke that UCF stood for U Can't Finish. The upcoming annual 5 mile and 2 mile event is now billed as the UCF, U Can Finish 5 Miler and 2 Mile race. This year will be my 3rd or 4th year running this race.

This has been a good running week for me. The Piriformis has not been acting up - and my latest run felt very comfortable at a 10:50 min/mi pace. My chiropractor visit on Tuesday and again today have really helped out! After Sunday's easy 3.1 miler, I ran 5 miles on Monday, 6.2 on Tuesday for my ZenRun 10K, and another 5 miler yesterday. Today is my rest day before my weekend runs.

Tomorrow I will run 8 miles and then on Sunday, the day of the UCF 5 Miler, I plan to finish 16 miles and my Phedip Half Marathon - and do so while having a more "green" footprint.

Instead of driving to the race, I am going to run there (I live about 3 miles away). I am going to run an easy 8 miles before the race - ending at the starting line. Then run the 5 mile race. Then run the 3 miles home. I have no plans to PR this race...I would like to run at my planned marathon pace (around 11 - 11:15 min/mi). I think it will be a lot of fun.

Another bonus is that the weather report is calling for temps to begin around 64 deg and stay below 70 deg for the rest of the morning - with a high of 77 deg! It should be nice and cool until I get home!

A huge congratulations for all the Chicago Marathon participants: Maddy, Petra, Charlie and Melisa - for toughing out the hot temperatures!!! We are all so proud of you all!

Back on the Road

After a week off, I got out this evening for an easy 5K - figured I could use it for my WWFoR 5K race time.

Running 2 min and walking 1 min with my husband, we covered the 3.1 miles in 35:03. Not bad for all that walking!

I feel ok but a bit sore - will need to keep ice and ibuprofen handy.

Congrats to all those who ran today's Chicago Marathon! Tough race with temps getting into the low 80's. I am looking forward to reading the race reports.

Too Good to be True - I Seem to Have an Injury

After two great months of training and stepping up the mileage, I was amazed I was holding out so well.

Then I noticed a pain in my buttocks (yes a pain in my butt!) last week about 2 days after my 18 mile long run. I thought it was from sitting weird but after a few days it seemed to subside. It didn't bug me when I ran with it, so I just thought it was something else.

Well after this past week's 20 miler I experienced deja vu. The pain was back and I found myself limping around the office today. Monday was a rest day but I decided to give Tuesday a rest as well while I investigated.

I think I have figured out what I have: Piriformis syndrome This seems to match the location and type of pain I am experiencing. I also match the profile well for what would cause such an injury.

I am a bit ahead on my training so I can afford to lay off the running for a few days to give this a chance to heal up. R-I-C-E is the prescription.

On Friday I will take a short test run to see how it feels. I may have to wait on my Zenrun 10K and World Wide Half until next week.

Ah well....it's a runner's life.

September Mileage, My 20 Miler and the Parrot Predictor

My running volume has definitely picked up! During September, I had my biggest month of running ever, hitting 177 miles (previously my biggest month was last Sept at 150 miles). October promises to be a big mileage month if I stick to my schedule. My target marathon is Nov 16th so my last 20+ miler is scheduled for October 26th before my taper begins. I am being cautious - watching how I feel so I don't overtrain. I had been keeping to my schedule for the past 5 weeks - but this week I skipped a 10 miler on Wed. I wasn't feeling up to it - and I think the extra rest paid off. Once again, I struggled sticking to my schedule while on travel. I have one more travel week coming before my race. We will see how I do!

Today's 20-Miler
After a great 10 miler run at marathon pace yesterday, today was the big 20 miler! I have been pretty tired lately, but was optimistic because I got a good nap in yesterday afternoon. I was in bed a bit late, but felt ok when the alarm went off at 4:40 am.

After gearing up I headed out in the darkness with 4 hours of running ahead of me. The first miles felt pretty comfortable. My plan was to run 12, stop for water, then run the final 8. I like having more than half my run completed before I stop.

When I stopped after 12 miles, I was feeling a little more worn out than I should have at that point - not so much my endurance - rather my legs were starting to ache. I figured that my 10 miler yesterday probably caused the pain to come a bit sooner today. I could tell that finishing was going to be difficult.

After mile 14, things were getting harder. I pushed it through to mile 18 before I went from my run 5 min walk 1 min routine to run 2 minutes and walk 1 minute routine. Two important but strategic points: 1) by mile 18 the only way home was to finish up the distance, 2) I was going to finish if I had to walk it - but I still had some run left in me.

I finished in 4:09:57 - a 12:28 min/mi pace. I am quite happy with this pace which is within the 60-90 sec of my target marathon pace. My time was less than one minute more than my 19 miler a month ago.

Parrot Predictor
George Parrott, known affectionately as "Coach George" on the Dead Runners Society listserve, presented this idea a few years ago. He suggests that a runner can run no faster in the Marathon than he runs his fastest 26.2 miles in a week during training.

I use a spreadsheet log that automatically does the predictions and so far it has predicted:

August 4 - 5:21:24
August 18 - 5:29:36
Sept 1 - 5:13:46
Sept 8 - 5:07:34
Sept 15 - 5:03:43
Sept 22 - 4:47:45
Sept 29 - 5:01:56

From my previous logs, the predictor did "ok" at getting a ballpark marathon time. In 2006, it was difficult to judge my times leading up to my first Disney Marathon. I didn't have many training weeks that exceeded 26.2 miles. The last data point, about a month before the race, predicted a 5:50 time. I finished in 5:47. Predictions leading up to MCM ranged from 4:50 to 5:16 (about 5 data points). I ran that one in 5:06. For the 2008 Disney, I fell into a training slump after MCM and only had one week with miles over 26.2. It predicted 5:08. My time was 5:35.

So from the numbers above, if I ran my marathon in 3 weeks, I would predict a time of about 5:05. With 3 more weeks before my taper, who knows....The important thing is to be sure that the wheels don't fall off after San Antonio leading up to Disney like they did last year.

On to another week!

Running Sign in New York City

I saw this sign on the corner of 34th Street and 7th Ave. The bottom of the sign says "Keep up or shut up. RUNNYC"

This for all of you running a marathon in the next two weeks!