The First Half of 2012

So one might expect a race report for Grandmas marathon in this space, but I really don't have that much to say about the race.  I went out like I though I should, crashed embarrassingly early, and struggled most of the way to finish in 4:15.  It could have been an issue with my training or with the conditions.  Or it could have been that unexplainable 'bad day.'  Probably a combination of all three.  In the end, I now stand with 2 out of 3 marathons over 4 hours.  At least this time I know I won't quit competitive running for 8 years.

I went with what is known as the WTF plan for my training, which means not following any specific plan.  I knew I needed to up the miles from the previous cycle and I was pretty successful with that (peak week was 55, although there was a stretch of 7 days where I did 63 miles in April).  I had two interruptions: the first in March when I was sick, the second when I had some random knee pain in early May.  I hit my races just about each month--Club Challenge, Shamrock 5k, Cherry Blossom, and Frederick Half.  And they were all a 'success.'  Frederick mostly cause I did still PR, but I did not consider it an A race at the time. I did let the track workouts get away for a while. 

I am considering this period my break after the race, but honestly I am going to keep running.  I am not feeling like it would be a good thing to obsess about weekly mile totals, so I am not going to let myself worry about that.  I do have a bunch of races scheduled, but I am not going to beat myself up if I don't run a bunch of recent bests (Quadzilla should be faster than last year, but much slower than any other 15k purely by the nature of that fiendish race).  Also, I signed up for the 50k fully aware that it was probably a 50/50 proposition.  If I decide to bail it's a nice (little) donation to the trails up there.  And I am going to do a few track races to see what I can do at the shorter distances.  Probably can't crack 2:25 for 800 these days. 

In non-running news, I bought a bike.  Should arrive next week, cause I bought it online.  Probably made a mistake going the online route, but the price was right.



I don't feel like even posting these, but I guess I should:

Location	Race Time	Time of Day	Pace Between	Overall Place	Division Place	Sex Place
Time	4:15:05	12:01:51	10:11	2778/5788	805/1342	1910/3425
25M	4:02:52	11:49:38	12:29	2776/5740	804/1337	1911/3406
23.1M	3:39:10	11:25:56	13:14	2586/5740	767/1334	1814/3403
19.3M	2:48:56	10:35:42	10:49	1830/5773	618/1340	1401/3416
16.2M	2:15:25	10:02:11	9:23	1470/5775	521/1341	1166/3419
13.1M	1:46:22	9:33:08	8:40	1260/5782	462/1341	1030/3423
10K	46:44	8:33:31	7:32	739/5784	318/1341	645/3422
ChipStart	0:51	7:46:47		915/5788	320/1342	757/3425