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Mar 18

AVR – Running Week in Review 3-18-12

Categories:

Reflection, Running, Running Shoes, Week In Review

by hshawjr

Today was the first day of summer – oops sorry that is wrong – we are just having a week of summer about 3 months early. This sure as hell isn’t like any March weather that I remember – I don’t care if it is man-made or a Mother Nature warming things up – there is some kind of “warming” going on. I am not a big fan of hot weather, if it is this hot already, what kind of summer are we in for? Could be a long hot summer, which is going to suck for summer running

Running Summary This Week

RunLog Week of 3/18/12

Weekly Summary 3-18-12

Miles walked this week: 24.9

Three things Running

  1. Cut-Back Week - While I went over 30 miles for the week (3 in a row), I also had two days off, which helped my legs recover a lot! I didn’t go with my planned running schedule and just took each day as I felt. I didn’t put pressure on myself to run a certain pace and didn’t try any speed work this week, I just ran to enjoy myself running and I ended the week feeling pretty good
  2. Newton Gravitas: I got a pair of Newton’s this week, they were tied for first choice when I was going through my search for my next running shoes last month.  I didn’t think that I would ever get a pair, because of the high price tag that Newton’s have, but the Natural Running Store had a great sale going on and I couldn’t resist the opportunity to get them. I have run in them 3 times this week and think that I will like them a lot!
  3. Lesson Learned on my long run: I am experimenting on my long runs to see what I need to change and improve to make them better. First thing is having some water available on those runs. I am going to use my wife’s EMS small water pack (similar to a camelback) on tomorrow’s run to see how it works and if it is something that will work for me. It would be nice if it did work – would save some money. Then I learned that you definitely need water with an energy gel and that they are almost sickeningly sweat. Having TP in the pack is necessary after yesterday’s “emergency pit stop” in the woods and throwing some lubricant will be a good thing too. I think that having this little pack will be just right, now to try it out and see how it works :-) .
This week in a word:
Cut-back

Blog Posts

Below are my posts from last week:

  1. 10 Miler & Lessons Learned 3-12-12
  2. Newton Gravitas – Initial Impressions
  3. Loosing Weight Makes You Look Different!
  4. First Real Run in the Newton Gravitas
  5. Wordless Wednesday 3-14-12
  6. Visiting Dad & Running a Hilly Course 3-15-12
  7. Runners – Who Do You Listen To?
  8. Not too much Mud – RunLog 3-17-12
  9. Summer Running in Winter 3-18-12
I have basically figured out that other than my running log entries, that I want to try for only 2-4 added blog posts a week and am even thinking about going to just twice a week for those posts. With nice weather coming I will not have as much time to devote to blogging as I have this past winter.  I just have too many other interests that will be taking up my time and I don’t make any money doing this, so there are other priorities that will take my time over the next 6-8 months.

Top 10

Here are my top ten posts for the past week based on pageviews:

My Favorite post from last week

Loosing Weight Makes You Look Different!  Where I look back on how different I look after loosing over 30 pounds and how it makes me feel – Pretty damn good.

Weight

I have bounced between 161-163 all week – so I did go down a pound. I am not trying super hard to lose the weight, but it is coming off slowly but surely. This week I am going to start being more diligent about what I eat and what I put down the old pie-hole. I would like to break 160 at least once this week.

Injuries

My left hamstring is doing a lot better that I didn’t do any speed work to speak of during the week, but it still snarls at me when I go faster than 8:30 pace, so I just have to go slow until it heals up more. Without any emphasis on speed and just focusing on the distance, I feel a lot stronger and don’t have that tiredness that I was feeling last week, even though I only ran a few miles less than I have been. I know that I have got plenty of sunshine and that always makes me feel better.

Running Shoes

Saucony Kinvara

So far the Kinvara have proved to be a great shoe, I have run long runs without any problems in them and they allow me to just run in them. I am concerned about the amount of wear on the blown rubber portions of the sole and wonder how many miles I will get through before it wears down too much.

New Balance MT110

I didn’t run at all in the MT110s this week, but I walked in them every day and they are not bothering me at all. I plan to find a trail and do 3-4 miles on them Tuesday or Thursday.

Newton Gravitas

I have run in them 3 times, they are a comfortable shoe, but they do require you to get used to them. I can tell when I am running correctly in them very quickly and 3.0 miles is pretty easy to do. They want me to go faster, but I am holding myself back, so I avoid any injuries because of rushing things too much.

Racing Schedule

I started a Google Calendar - Running In Maine 2012 with a lot of the dates of races in Maine during 2012. Yesterday I worked on updating and adding a lot of races to the calendar, so it is a lot better than it was before

[googleapps domain="www" dir="calendar/b/0/embed" query="showPrint=0&showTz=0&height=400&wkst=1&bgcolor=%23FFFFFF&src=s9uk0sc70vc17rghgcb76qn2jc%40group.calendar.google.com&color=%23182C57&ctz=America%2FNew_York" width="560" height="400" /]

I have it sort of narrowed down to the races listed below

Date Name of Race Location Result
3/4/2012 Chamberlain 5k Brewer Didn’t run
4/7/2012 Fly Like An Eagle 5k China
4/28/2012 Joseph’s 5K Fairfield, Maine
5/26/2012 Pineland Fams Trail Running 5k New Gloucester
6/24/2012 Rail Trail 5K & 1/2 Marathon Augusta
7/4/2012 Friends of the Fourth Winthrop
7/12/2012 Bond Brook 5K Race Series Augusta  Wednesday Evening
7/15/2012 Bradbury Mountain 6 Miler Pownal
7/19/2012 Bond Brook 5K Race Series Augusta  Wednesday Evening
8/2/2012 Bond Brook 5K Race Series Augusta  Thursday Evening
8/5/2012 Bradbury Mountain 9 Miler Pownal
8/11/2012 Topsham Fair 5k Topsham
9/9/2012 Bradbury Mountain 12 Pownal
11/10/2012 Maine-ly Moose 5k Portland

As we go through the season, races will change and I have added the Bond Brook series already and taken out a couple of others :-) . This at least gives me an idea of what I would like to run. I have also made a widget for the sidebar of this blog that has the calendar in it.  It you see any errors or other information that needs to be updated or added please let me know.

Running Goals

This section shouldn’t change too much from week to week, but I want to keep them right in front of me so that I don’t forget what my goals are

A slight change to my goals – is to make sure that I am enjoying running and not letting it become too much like work.

This year my big goals are to run 1,200 miles, run a sub 20:00 5K and get through 2012 without any significant down time or injuries (running related or others).  My unadvertised goals from the start of the year are to be able to finish a half-marathon (notice I said finish not race) and run a few trail races when the weather gets better.

My long-term goal will be to run the 2013 Marine Corps Marathon. I finished the 1983 Marathon and to run/finish Marine Corps again 30 years later would be very cool. This is one of the major goals that I have in mind for my running and it would be even more fantastic if I could qualify for Boston that same day. Therefore, I am doing a 2 year work-up to the Marathon distance, just to see if my knee will hold up.

The reality is that

This has been a very good week overall. A couple of long runs, over 30 miles three weeks in a row and got a fantastic deal on a pair of Newton Gravitas running shoes, which I am finding that I can run in. The weather is unseasonably warm, which means that the local trails will be more runnable starting sometime this week and we can go to Bond Brook Recreation Area to see what that trail system is really like.

Thank You again for your support and reading posts from “A Veteran Runnah“.

Keep smiling and good things will happen! :-)

Originally written by Harold Shaw published at “A Veteran Runnah” © 2011 – All Rights Reserved. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Harold Shaw and A Veteran Runnah” with appropriate and specific directions or links to the original content.
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2 comments

  1. thewondermya

    March 18, 2012 at 8:19 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

    Reply

    Wow I am just impressed at how you record and manage your runs ! Amazing !

    1. hshawjr

      March 18, 2012 at 9:34 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

      Reply

      Basically, just a simple Google spreadsheet that I have been using for a while now :-) But thank you.

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