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Well, since I was not selected in the lottery for the ING New York City Marathon, we have decided that Team Agee will be headed to the Chickamauga Battlefield Marathon on November 10th. I am registered for the full marathon, Olivia is registered for the half marathon, and Kate is registered for the Jr. Miracle Marathon. Unfortunately they do not have a “toddler trot” for Sara, but she will be there in support along with my parents.

The Chickamauga Battlefield Marathon is in its 33rd year and is run through the nation’s oldest military park. In the January 2010 issue of Runner’s World readers selected it as the “most family-friendly” marathon, the runner-up for “most scenic” marathon, and third for best overall marathon.

Races and Personal Records (PR)

Recap the 13th annual St Jude Country Music Marathon in Nashville, TN…

Country Music Marathon
April 28, 2012
nashville.competitor.com

My Run:  Overall, the Country Music Marathon (CMM) was my 12th full marathon, but this one was quite a bit different than any of my previous 11. For this race I had applied for and was accepted to be the official 4-hour pace team leader for the race. This was something I have wanted to do ever since my first marathon which I completed with the help of a pace team (Chicago 2009).

Have you ever had the sweet potato casserole at South Street here in Nashville…AMAZING!

I have not, but it sounds like I need to give it a try!

Well…the weather forecast for the 500 Festival Mini Marathon this weekend in Indianapolis is not looking much better than the Country Music Marathon last weekend in Nashville. It’s gonna be HOT for racing. Might not be able to go as fast as I’d hoped.

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

Why I Run…

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.

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.

Skechers Sets New Pace on Sponsors (WSJ)

Even though this is a lighter week leading up to the Country Music Marathon, today’s schedule called for a 6-mile tempo run which included a 1-mile warmup, 4-miles at half marathon pace, and 1-mile cool down. Coming into this morning my legs were fairly tired because of a 2.5-mile run with Kate late yesterday afternoon for the ING Kids Rock Marathon followed by P90X Legs & Back with Olivia last night.

The temps this morning remained cool and quite comfortable with a little bit of cloud cover. Nathan and I met at the Edwin Warner Nature Center and ran our 1-mile warmup on the Harpeth River Greenway. We continued down the greenway for the tempo portion and on into Bellevue. As I’ve said before, my target pace for the 500 Festival Mini Marathon (a week from Saturday) is 6:42. With this in mind I wanted to average around this pace and since my legs were already tired I tried to think about this like the last 4-miles of the race. Nathan took a little bit of a head start since he wanted to run at a slightly slower pace, however he ran really strong and there was no way I could catch him.

Most of the first two miles were relatively flat and the splits were 6:37 and 6:38. Even though my pace was good I didn’t feel that great. Not bad, just not as comfortable as I would like. Miles three and four were mostly in Bellevue and contained a few hills. This caused me to slow a bit for mile three with a 6:40, but I was able to finish out with a 6:35. Still felt ok, but not fantastic.

On the bright side I was able to hold pace even though I had tired legs and was never fully comfortable during the tempo portion. Nathan and I joined back up for the 1-mile cool down which felt great after the hard effort.

Today was also the first time in a while I’ve run with a heart rate monitor. My coach John had asked me to train with one for a while so he could monitor my heart rate during different types of runs. Not sure what he will think about this one, but my heart rate was actually lower than I was expecting during the tempo sections.

Tomorrow is a day off, which is gonna feel strange, but I know my body needs it to get ready for Saturday.

Beast Mode….ON!

500 Festival Mini Marathon Long-Sleeve Shirt – As great a race as this is (and it is fantastic), they’ve had really, really pathetic t-shirts over the last three years:

• Three years ago the shirt was cotton, but almost the entire thing was screen printed, and was about as soft as a cardboard box. 

• Two years ago they switched to a technical material, but again it was covered in screen print, and it had the texture of a burlap sack. Might be good as an exfoliator, but not for running. 

• Last year they had a softer technical material, but again it had a solid screen-print on the front that was bigger than my head, which ended up making the shirt stiff and uncomfortable.

From the picture above, it looks like they’ve finally come up with a more minimal design that is striking. Have no idea about the material, but this looks like a big improvement for 2012.

Well, it is finally Country Music Marathon race week and honestly this feels much different than any other marathon race week so far. Normally I’m in the final part of my taper (bouncing off the walls) and very nervous about my strategy or an ambitious time goal. For this race the “goal” is to actually run my slowest marathon so far. As the 4-hour pacer I’m supposed to finish the race between 3:59:00 and 3:59:59. This would be my slowest finish time by 6 minutes (3:53 in my first marathon – Chicago 2009) and slower than my last marathon (3:12 – NOLA 2012) by 47 minutes.

All of this leads me to a bit of uncertainty about what Saturday will be like. Part of me thinks this will be like a long, slow, training run and that maybe I’ll be able to enjoy a marathon for a change. Another part of me wonders how well I’m going to deal with being on my feet for almost 4-hours in the aerobic heart-rate zone when I have never done a run this long before (by time). Whatever the case, it is guaranteed to be a new experience all the way around, and I’m looking forward to it.

While this week will not be a complete taper, my total mileage M-F has been slightly reduced the past two weeks. For this week I’ll actually be taking Wednesday off in addition to my normal Sunday rest day. Today’s schedule called for 4-miles easy with 4 x 100m stride outs at the end. This morning was cool and windy with temps around 40 degrees. I wish that the cooler temps would hang around for a while, but weather predictions are for temps in the 80s on Saturday (Yuck).

Since I will not be running on Wednesday, I decided to do today’s run in my Saucony Hattoris. This was a solo run through Bellevue, and I really just made up the route as I went along. I didn’t really feel comfortable during the first two miles, so my pace lagged around 8:45. At the beginning of the third mile my legs finally started to feel good and my pace dropped to just under 8:00 for the final two. I finished up with stride outs in the Bellevue Church of Christ parking lot which felt a bit strange due to the strong winds. One direction I was getting a good push and the other direction was like running with a parachute behind me.

Overall, it was a good easy-paced run that I hope will get me ready for a harder effort tomorrow.

Beast Mode…ON!

The Country Music Marathon weather forecast looks NASTY! Hoping this changes before Saturday.