Another Week, Another Hundred Miles

The title of my blog sums up the activities of this past week. Most of my runs were entirely uneventful and completed in the rain and the dark. I begin with a quick overview of the week and then elaborate on some highlights. On Monday, I ran 100 minutes after school. I followed that up with a 30 minute run on Tuesday morning and a 120 minute run Tuesday night. Wednesday, I ran 30 minutes in the morning again and 100 minutes after school. I felt really good an hour into the run and decided to do some work at tempo pace. I put in 25 minutes of tempo running before easing off the pace for the last 15 minutes. We had the annual Epiphany Gala on Thursday and all I got in was a 30 minute run in the morning. Friday, I came back with a 150 minute long run. On Saturday I only ran 30 minutes, partly out of laziness and partly from genuinely feeling tired. Today, I ran 30 minutes in the morning. This afternoon, I raced the Groton 10k and finished in 32:57. Between the warm up, race, and cool down, I was at 100 minutes for the afternoon. Now for the highlights.
Highlight #1: Wednesday Tempo Run
It was great picking up the pace from the normal 6:40 to 7:20 miles and I felt smooth doing it. I figure I was clipping off around 5:40 miles and got into a great rhythm. Racing and competing are great, but runs like this where I just get to enjoy running fast are some of my favorites.
Highlight #2: Monday Science Class
We are learning about Newton's Laws of Motion in science and I was introducing the Second Law of Motion. I told the kids that F=ma and asked them if they knew what any of the variables stood for. One kid said mass so I said "Great, so "m" is for mass, but we still have f and a." The way it came out, the end of the sentence sounded just like "effin' a" and I couldn't stop laughing. Only one kid picked up on it at first but, pretty quickly, the rest of the class caught on too.
Highlight #3: Today's Race
I was hoping to be able to run my goal marathon pace for the race today (about 5:30 miles) but I was very uncertain about my current fitness. The first mile was mostly downhill and was the fastest of the race. After that, I settled in and started to pick people off. I finished in 32:57 (5:18 pace) and was very pleased with the race. I am not sure when I will race again, but this effort increased my confidence in my high mileage/lower intensity marathon build up.
I totalled 700 minutes for the week on 9 runs and am hoping to be above 800 minutes this coming week.

Kids Say the Darndest Things

The rest of this week was fairly boring until today's run. I went 100 minutes in wet and dreary weather on Friday, complaining to myself the entire time about how stupid New England weather is. Yesterday was going to be another 100 minutes, but my legs were not having any part of it. I figured I would wait until 15 minutes in to make an executive decision. When the time of reckoning came, I was still feeling like crap and turned around to make it a 30 minute day. On my run today a few funny things happened in the first 20 minutes that would have been more than enough excitement for one run. First, as I passed a woman in the first few minutes of my run, she turned to the man she was walking with and said "Was that Larry Bird?" Usually, I wouldn't expect this comparison, but I did put up 23 points in my Teacher Hoops League game on Saturday, so I can't totally blame her for the mistake. Mostly though, it just goes to show how long it has been since Boston has been any good at basketball, how good Larry Legend was, and how few tall white people go on that section of Talbot Avenue. Then, about 15 minutes later, came upon a woman sitting in her parked car. She rolled down her window as I approached and, as I ran by she yelled "You have absolutely gorgeous legs!" As if those two interactions weren't enough, as I was running around Jamaica Pond without my shirt on, a little boy said one of the funniest things I have heard in a while. He was sitting on his bike and his dad was trying to put a helmet on the kid while explaining the importance of bike safety. The kid was looking all over the place, making it hard for the father to get the helmet fastened. All of a sudden, the kid turned to look at me and said very matter-of-factly, "Daddy, that man's naked." I was laughing out loud while running for close to a minute after hearing that. The run started to go downhill after passing the little guy on his bike. It was in the mid 70s while I was running and I am not at all used to the heat yet. I started to get dehydrated towards the second half of my run and then started wishing it was overcast again. I crawled it in for 120 minutes on the day and 750 minutes for the week on 8 runs. I am hoping to keep up the pace next week and add a few more doubles to be closer to or over 800 minutes.

Good Omen

So the past few days have been fairly uneventful. I ran 80 minutes on Wednesday and 120 minutes yesterday. One funny thing did happen on my run yesterday as I was running through the BU campus. I was sort of spacing out, but just aware enough to notice the incredibly tall person riding his bike in shorts, a t-shirt, and sandals. Instinctively, I yelled "Zach!" and then spent the next 15 minutes telling myself how dumb that was and listing the millions of reasons why that obviously couldn't have been Mr. Kimberling. I am beginning to feel fit again and am looking forward to racing the Groton 10k next week. This will be the closest I have ever been to having absolultely no idea about what type of shape I am in. I figure go out in 5:30 miles and see how I feel. Anyhow, the most exciting running-related (sort of) part of the week was early Thursday morning when I woke up to pee at 2:21. Hopefully, it was a sign about my marathon time in November. Most likely, it was the 32 ounces of water I drank before going to bed working over my bladder. The picture is of a NES console that a guy made into an alarm clock. He also rewired it so that the controller can work the clock. Absolutely amazing.

Week 1 Wrap-Up and Marathon Monday

No that is not a picture of me, and before I get to talking about the Boston Marathon, I need to fill you all in on a few runs from last week. I went 120 minutes on Friday after school and then went 80 minutes on Saturday after playing in our first game of the Teachers' Hoops league. More importantly than either of those runs, we won our game on Saturday and I played better than Jesse McDaniel ever could (not saying much). I was going to run another 80 minutes on Sunday, but the basketball team didn't have enough players for the Cinco de Mayo league they play in on Sundays, so I got suckered into playing my second game of the weekend. I was too tired and beat up after the game to run and called it a week, logging 560 minutes on 6 runs (not ideal, but I'll take it).
After taking a day off, I had the Boston Marathon to bandit on Monday. I had made up a training plan for one of my coworkers, and the race day plan was for me to start the race 40 to 45 minutes after her. This was supposed to allow us to meet up at around the half-way point and we planned to run the second half together. I never saw her on the course so the plan didn't work at all, but it ended up being fine. She ran great, finishing in 4:23 and I got in a 26.2 mile long run that took just under three hours. My favorite parts of the marathon were:
1. The fans are amazing. You never go more than 100 feet without having someone cheering you on. I had to make a concerted effort to not get sucked into a faster pace than I wanted because of the atmosphere. I can only imagine what it would be like to have that experience when racing. Hopefully, New York will be similar.
2. I saw a guy who was racing veer off the course and duck into the woods to light up a mid-race cigarette.
3. There were hundreds of people running for the Dana Farber Cancer Institute. They had really sweet singlets that had a neon yellow back, so they were super visible. I received my treatment at DFCI, so to see that many people running a marathon for the institute was inspiring. As a singlet enthusiast, I really need to get my hands on one of those neon yellow numbers.
4. The weather was supposed to be horrible with heavy rain and strong winds. Neither of those happened and it was great running weather.
Today, I woke up around 8 to go for a 30 minute run. I have off school this week, so I should be able to get in solid mileage and top the century mark for the first time in a long while. This evening, GBTC practice was cancelled due to weather. I met Ryan A. at the track anyway and we went for what ended up being the windiest run I have ever been on. I was practically walking while we were going into the wind, but it was awesome having the wind at our backs on the way back to the track. We were flying. I ran home from the track to make it a 90 minute run.