December 1st- December 7th

"A day wasted on others is not wasted on one's self." - Charles Dickens, "A Tale of Two Cities"

"Life is like a 10-speed bicycle. Most of us have gears we never use." - Charles M. Schulz

Both of these quotes are perfect for this week.  One for the volunteering we did on Wednesday and one for the shocking results from Sunday's race.

Monday:

11 AM:  9.75 miles averaging 7:10pace.  RACE WEEK!!!!  WHOOO!!!!  Between meetings at work so I could run when the sun was out and a little bit warmer outside. Got out from basically 11-12ish over lunch, and it was great out there. Super chill the first half but after the strides the pace naturally increased the second half some. Ankles are a little stiff but outside of that all is good.

Tuesday:  

1 PM:  8.25 miles averaging 7:15 pace.  Easy run from work between meetings in the afternoon. Felt super chill for the most part but did have to pull myself back some because I would look down and the pace/HR would creep up on me. Legs feel somewhat tired but the runs are not really showing that.  Guessing that is the taper.

Plan on doing another hot tub session after work tonight.  Did one last night and plan on doing it every evening until I leave on Friday, trying to maximize every variable I can for this weekend.

Wednesday:

--  Snow day today and worked from home, we got about 4 inches as I am typing this at 8am with the forecast saying another 3 or so inches through out the day.  Paula and I did leave the house at noon to go over to Community Food Share to volunteer half the afternoon.   We spent about 2 hours taking a 1000lb bag of rice and making into 2lb bags for people to pick up.  Good times!

4 PM:  8 miles averaging 7:30pace.  Easy miles on the treadmill in the late afternoon. Roads were getting slick out and did not want to risk slipping and falling so close to CIM. Did do a few 1 min pickups at 6 min pace just to move the legs a little bit faster. Felt good, tired due to work and volunteering at the food bank all afternoon but good.

Thursday:  

1:30 PM:  8.4 miles averaging 7:05pace.  Waited until after lunch to get out when I knew the sun would be out and less ice on the roads. Super chill for the most part with a few miles at moderate effort (6-6:15 pace) in the middle. Still lots of ice on the roads and the dirt road I jumped on by Sterns Lake was a mud fest. One more run tomorrow before flying out to CIM tomorrow afternoon.

--  another hot tub session this evening.  Missed yesterday due to how late I got out to run... Will do one more tomorrow before heading to the airport.

Friday:

8 AM:  7.5 miles w/ 550ft of vert averaging 7:30pace.  From the house up the Simms hill to HWY128 and back. Can tell I have not been doing very many big hills lately. LOL.. HR spikes quite a bit going up the hill. Last run in Colorado, heading to the airport about 2 hours after finishing this run. GO TIME.....

-- Ran into Don at the airport and had a 15min coffee date to catch up.  He was coming back from the trail running expo in Texas while I was going to CIM.  Nice surprise.

-- Went straight to the CIM Expo after landing to get my bib and check in so that I would not have to fight the crowds on Saturday there and could just relax at the hotel most of the day.  Good to get the that out of the way.

Saturday: 

9 AM:  4.4 miles averaging 7:45pace.  Took an Uber across town to meet up with the rest of the Boulder Track Club at the hotel they were staying at for a short 30min shakeout followed by some strides. We just did an out and back on the bike path along the river. You think Colorado has a homeless problem, CA is much worse. There were bonfires along the bike path with about 20 people gathered around them. Crazy.

-- Came back from the shakeout run with BTC just to find out that I got into Hardrock again.... It is going to be another EPIC summer!!!  This Hardrock will be interesting considering it is only 4 weeks after doing the Tahoe 200.  Hopefully the body will hold together, I have a lot of training to do to get ready for this crazy double.

Sunday:  

6 AM:  1.4 mile warmup before CIM with some strides.  Super chill

7 AM: CIM MARATHON- 26.3 miles in 2:37:05 or 5:58 pace.  This might be my best race result that I have ever had. I am blown way with the fact that I pulled this off. My "A" goal going into this race was to go faster than 2:44:18 which was my PR that I ran at Boston in 2016 at the age of 40. I thought hell, wouldn't be cool to break that at the age of 50? Never thought I could pull it off. I thought I would be close, but not blow it away like I did. Anyways, I basically just ran by heartrate most of the race keeping it under 155 as long as possible until the last 6 miles where then I just fought as hard as possible to maintain my pace. Lung and heartrate wise I as good but leg wise it was a fight to the end.  Fell off a few seconds per mile but for the most part was able to pull it off. Ended up 302nd overall out of 10,000 against some of the fastest marathoners in the country and ended up winning the 50-54 age group. Never thought it would be possible for me to break 2:40 after turning 50 and see a 2:3x:xx number. I think I might have hit my genetic ceiling on what I can do in a marathon now or at least come very close to it. Knowing this makes me super please and content with what I have accomplished this year. Sorry if I sound like I am tooting my own horn, I am just very happy with the results of all the hard work I put in this year. What a way to end the racing season.  I will post the race photos in another blog post once CIM has them up for me to download.  This is all I have right now, I did not take my phone out to take photos during the race.

Total Weekly Numbers

Think I had all I have to say above.  Super pleased to pull of a marathon PR at the age of 50.  Hard work does matter.  I have Paula, my friends, Matt (coach), and Boulder Track Club to thank for getting me to this point.  Now it is time to slow down some after a short break and get to training to run Tahoe 200 and Hardrock next summer.  LETS GO!!!.