They give you any veggies with that or what?
Ha Ha! I ordered sweet potato casserole to go with it, and while this is technically a vegetable, it is much more like dessert (lots of pecans and brown sugar) 🙂
Even though tonight’s run was with the JSRC at the Vanderbilt track (as usual), I did not participate in the normal workout due to the Country Music Marathon on Saturday. My schedule called for 4 easy miles with 4 x 100m stride outs. I ended up with just over 5-miles around the track in my Saucony Hattoris trying to keep the pace around what I will need for the 4-hour pace group on Saturday. My first mile was in small segments since I stopped frequently to open the lane gates around the track. The final four were continuous laps with Bill and Jenny who are also running on Saturday. After these easy laps my need for speed was screaming, so the final stride outs were around 5:10 pace. The weather was warm and humid tonight, which I guess is good practice for Saturday since the forecast looks nasty.
Overall things felt good during the run, though I did have a few aches to work through in the first mile. Early this morning I was walking through our bathroom and slipped and fell awkwardly on a wet spot on the tile floor. While nothing was hurt badly, I did twist my knee and stretch my hip in a funny way as I fell. My knee and hip flexor felt sore during that first mile of the run, but thankfully this quickly subsided and was not an issue. In related news, a few minutes after my fall, Olivia had an accident of her own. She was putting up clean dishes into our kitchen cabinets and dropped a glass as she was reaching up to an overhead shelf. The glass fell to the counter below, bounced, and shattered directly into her hand. Even though she had to pick pieces of glass out of her hand, luckily none of the cuts were bad enough to need stitches (though she was in obvious pain).
I’ve got my fingers crossed that we’ve gotten all of the accidents out of our system for today at least 🙂
Do you have to carry 4:00 on a stick the whole way? 🙂
Yep…the whole way 🙂
Actually, depending on the makeup of the group running with me, I may try to trade off with some of the runners to get them more involved in the group.
As most of you know I will be the 4-hour pacer for the St Jude Country Music Marathon (full) this Saturday. As part of this, the Nashville Striders have asked me to write down my pacing strategy for the race so that it can we shared with participants at the expo. Since I had to write it down anyway, I thought I would share that strategy here…
Overall my pacing strategy will be for even splits throughout the race, which will translate to approximately 9 minutes 7 seconds per mile for a 3:59 finish. However, the first half of the course is quite hilly, especially through the first 8 miles. My goal for this stretch will be to maintain a consistent effort, rather than pace (especially going uphill), so that runners will not over-exert themselves in the early portion of the race. I expect that our pace will even out by the 10-mile mark.
For the second-half of the course I plan to be fairly consistent with the splits, but will likely take the big hill coming out of Metro Center at mile-14 fairly conservatively. Runners should not expect to make up much time in the last mile since there are two substantial hills on South 5th Avenue headed back to Woodland Street for the finish.
It’s going to be warm on Saturday so hydrate early and often. Be safe and Have Fun!
Kenya’s Olympic Marathon Teams Announced
There is a lot of debate in the running world as to whether having a single race to determine an Olympic Marathon team (like the U.S.A.) is better or worse than hand-picking the competitors (like Kenya and others). Well today the hand-picked men’s and women’s Kenyan teams were revealed through various media outlets. The picks on the men’s side are definitely controversial in that top-ranked marathoner Geoffrey Mutai, and world-record holder Patrick Makau, will not be included.
What do you think about having a race to determine the team vs. hand-picking competitors? What do you think about Makau and Mutai being excluded?
For all of my new followers, this was the post that got it all started. I occasionally update the stats, but otherwise it is unchanged since I originally posted it two years ago. In addition to my blog, it was also published in the local Funrunner magazine put out by the Nashville Striders Running club. I would love to hear your feedback on why you run. Enjoy!
Not accepted for the 2012 ING New York City Marathon, just like 2010 and 2011. But, as long as I stay injury free, I now have guaranteed entry into the 2013 race!
I’m thinking that my November fallback plan will be to run the Chicamauga Battlefield Marathon in north Georgia on November 10th. Another option might be the Harpeth Hills Flying Monkey Marathon in Nashville on November 18th, but this race is also becoming very hard to get into.
If we can workout all the details, Chicamauga could be a great option for our whole family (aka Team Agee) since they also have a half marathon and kids marathon.
I’m not sure what is going on with the ING New York City Marathon “Opening Day” today, but they are now saying that lottery results will not be officially released until tomorrow, April 26th. It appears the ones who were selected have already had the race fee hit their credit/debit cards, and nothing has come through for me. Guess that means it is unlikely I was chosen for 2012, but at least I’ll get guaranteed entry into 2013!
Update: (From Examiner.com) – Unfortunately, most runners will have to wait until Thursday to see if they have a spot in next November’s race. So many people went to the NYRR website to check the lottery results that the system went down. Some runners, however, learned that they’ll be headed to New York in the fall because the entrance fee was charged to their credit card on Wednesday.
Awesome!!!
WOW. She looks amazing!!
She looks like she is flying!
I wish my form looked SOMETHING like that!
The ING New York City Marathon – Tomorrow I should find out whether or not I was selected in the lottery for the 2012 ING New York City Marathon. Since I’ve NOT been selected the last two years, I’m not really expecting anything different tomorrow. However, if my streak continues then I’m eligible for automatic qualification in 2013 because of the three-strikes policy. They are ending this method of automatic entry in 2014, so I’m glad to be squeezing in just under the wire.