CMM envy

I did not participate in the Country Music Marathon this year. Instead, Mende, Lana and I walk/ran up to the intersection of Belmont & Clifton to watch the masses run by. It was very cool and inspiring. I envied them. Seeing as it's my hometown Marathon, I don't think I'll let another go by without participating somehow - even at the half level.

PRP

PRP - Projected Race Pace. Along with more strength training, Sunday long runs, and 3 (instead of 1) 20-plus-milers, PRP runs are new to my training regime. Since I'm shooting for a 4 hr marathon, my projected race pace is about 9 minutes per mile. That seems a little slow, but if I'm going to last 26.2, I need a sustainable pace. So, today's 6.2 miler was a PRP run. I measured my splits which were approx 1 mi each, here's the pace: 8:39, 8:25, 9:09, 9:04, 8:41, 8:26. It was kinda hard to dial in the pace. I'll have to work on that. Tomorrow's run is 8 miles easy.

Feeling Better

Im no longer tossing my cookies and running to the bathroom, so that's good. Ran up to Green Hills park on saturday and ran laps (1/3 mile loop) while Mende pushed Lana in the stroller. I clocked one of my miles, and I ran it in 6:04. Other than that, I took it pretty easy. Hit the gym yesterday and did intervals on the stationary bike. As the training plan says, Monday is the cross-training day.

downtime

I came down with a real nasty stomach bug last weekend after the Richland race. I havent run since. This one was at least as bad as the one from September. The doc says it's stress-related. This gets me a little anxious since I know marathon training builds on each week of training. Mende tells me I can do it; it's all in my head. I'm going to try running again tomorrow.

Richland Creek Run

Ran the Richland Creek 5 miler this morning. Goal was to run 8-min splits. Result: 7:54-8:18-7:55-7:50-7:26. Mile 2 was kinda hilly, and I decided to pick it up in the last mile. Otherwise, I was pretty much on target. I finished 3rd in my age group. This was a good "hard workout" before my 10 mile long run tomorrow.

Writing Again

Olivia asked why I stopped posting to this Blog. I'm not really sure why -- just got out of the habit, I suppose. Anyway, in the interest of making my sister happy, I'll make an effort to post regularly. :)

The latest goal is the San Francisco Marathon on August 3. I've already signed up, so I'm (mentally) committed to doing this. The hilly course is pretty daunting, but I've already found similar elevation profiles here in Nashville! I'm working from a 24-week training program that's a mix of what's worked well for me in the past and some of Hal Higdon's methods. (link) The biggest change is that my long runs are on Sunday after a PRP (projected race pace) run on Saturdays. Looking forward to that.

Got a 5 miler race tomorrow at Richland Creek. Will write about that tomorrow.