Deer Flies

First, I finally took the time to figure out how to add a title to my blog, which is nice. Second, I had a horrible, scary run at Lebanon Hills tonight. Swarms and swarms of deer flies chased me down for a good hour while I ran scared. The uphills were the worst, as my legs were tired and I had to slow down--meaning the evil flies had time to land. Ugh. I wore a white hat and white shirt and sprayed myself with bugspray but they still were horrible. I made it roughly 9 miles tonight, but I hardly enjoyed any of it...

Here is to hoping that the deer fly season doesn't last long.

Alright already Chad…

I ran a 5 Mile race in Apple Valley on Friday and ran it pretty well—nearly 2 minutes faster than last year. The start of the race was total mayhem, with a cross country style start that combined the fields of both the 2 mile and the 5 mile race. The result is that you have no idea as to where you are in the race until the race breaks up at the 1 mile mark, where the 2 milers hang a U-turn. I went out in a somewhat conservative pace and found myself way back in the field with about 8 guys in front of me (and none were that close). I had my work cut out for me. Luckily, I've run enough races to know that patience can be a virtue. After climbing the ridiculous hill that is cruelly scheduled in the race after the first mile, I began to pick runners off, one by one. I had all but the top two pulled in by the time I hit mile 4 with only one runner hanging on to me. Somehow, I held off the 16 year old kid (that’s 20 years my junior-dang I’m getting old) and crossed the line in 28:26. Not a great time for a flat course, but this isn’t a flat course.

My secret? I pre-planned and built in a great alibi the night before. Nathan and I did a 90 minute progression run (30 easy, 30 medium, 30 hard) and ran the last few miles in sub 6. That took off all the pressure of running fast! Could I have run faster had I not done this workout? Sure. Did I have a great Alibi? You bet! And nothing beats a great alibi heading into a race.

Truthfully, I believe I’m having a great early season because of the consistency of training over the winter that I had. Training for the Boston Marathon by only running base mileage built my strength up and made sure that I didn’t burn out after running a marathon like I normally do. I didn’t start doing any real speedwork until a few weeks ago and most of that has been oriented around sprint leg turnover (strides) and speed (short fartleks). I still haven’t run a track workout and I have no idea how fast I’m running during my workouts—I’ll take care of that later in the year when it is time to sharpen. Nor do I know what % of my HR I’m running. I know I’m breathing hard and that is good enough for me. Sure my Boston time suffered, but that wasn’t the goal. Running fast at Chicago was. And I believe I’m on my way. I’m looking forward to it already.

TWIKR Notes

My favorite show when I was a kid was This Week in Baseball and one of my favorite segments of the show was TWIB Notes, when you got to learn about what was really happening in the league. In honor of the show, here are my TWIKR notes (This week in Kirk's Running)..

I hit 80 miles this week, with all but 6 of them on trails. The week started with the Brian Kraft 5K, which went pretty well for me--I ran a 16:55 and placed 51st among males at the race. Yes, the field was that good. While it is a ways off from my PR, it is early in the season and I've only done a few workouts that even resemble 5K speed workouts (If you can call strides a workout...) The rest of the week's runs were amazing runs through Lebanon Hills (my favorite place to run in the Cities, and the Sibley House (Minnesota Valley trails).

The only run of note was a 35 minute Steady State that Mike and I ran on Thursday night. Very good workout in that I was only ready to be done with it once we hit 30 minutes--so only 5 minutes of not enjoying a workout. We then proceeded to destroy any benefit from the run by drinking lots of beer, eating lots of peanuts and popcorn and eating an unhealthy meal at Lucky's in Mendota. Some people eat to run and some people run to eat. I'm Schizo on that one.

24 weeks ‘til Chicago

I’ve been thinking of adding a running angle to my blog for a while, but I’ve been afraid that I’d bore the tears off of my friends and family if I did. I’ve finally realized that no matter what I write, I’m boring them, so why not add some running stuff to the blog?

So, my blog is down to running and wine. I guess that they are two of my major passions in life, if not the major passions. Maybe I should rename my blog to “Running over Grapes” or something similar…

Why did I decide to do Chicago? The (Medtronic) Twin Cities Marathon is one week before Chicago and is my favorite marathon ever. I placed 3rd in my age group last year. I know how to run a great race on the TCM course and I love the local support. So why not run it? Why choose Chicago? I’m not sure. It might be that I’m starting to get up there in my running years and I wanted one last shot on a flat course and a significant PR. It might be that I was impulsive and when Marty and Deb decided to do Chicago, it sounded like a great idea and so I went and signed up. It could also be that I simply needed a change. (and CHANGE seems like the them for the year, doesn’t it???)

I’m already looking forward to the training cycle; hard runs, easy runs, and long runs. Cold runs, yielding to incredibly hot runs, yielding to cool fall runs. To strides, to fartleks, to tempos, to hill runs, to long runs, to easy runs. I’m looking forward to it all. Chicago can’t come fast enough….