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This morning the Nashville Striders group training run for the Country Music Marathon was a 20-miler on the Stones River and Shelby Bottoms Greenways. There were several members of our group who were planning to participate (most of them are running Boston), so I decided to join them for at least part of the run. My coach had told me on Thursday that for the next couple of weeks he just wants me to try and keep my mileage up as long as my legs feel good, and then we would start thinking about the specific training plan for Milwaukee.

Since I’m only two weeks removed from the NOLA Marathon I decided to just play it by feel with regard to how much distance I would go for today. Most of the route was an out-and-back, so shortening the run would not be a problem.

However, I ended up feeling good for the entire run and actually completed 21-miles. I love this route and the run was fantastic. My overall pace was in the 8:30s, but this was a mix of miles from the 9:10s in the beginning to 7:40s at the end. I was especially pleased with how well my legs felt on big hills near the end of the run. Dan and Mary pushed the pace through this section, and my legs felt strong all the way to the end (BTW…Dan and Mary looked great).

Right now my confidence is still pretty high from NOLA, and I’m excited about the things my coach has in store for my training over the spring and summer. Beginning tomorrow, my Dad and I leave for an 8-day mission trip to southern Honduras. Not sure how much I’ll get to run, but any mileage completed will be up in the mountains at 5,000 ft above sea level.

Two weeks after we get back I’ve got the Oak Barrel Half Marathon in Lynchburg, followed 3-weeks later by the Country Music Marathon (as the 4-hour pacer), and then the 500 Festival Mini Marathon (in Indianapolis) a week after that. Busy Schedule!

Beast Mode…ON!

Last night’s track workout was delayed due to a band of storms that moved through the Nashville area between 5:00 and 6:00pm. For a while I thought there was no way we were going to get the workout in, but by 10 minutes after 6pm we were on the track warming up.

It turned out to be a perfect night after the storm with a beautiful sunset and even a rainbow in the distance. The workout consisted of three sets of intervals:

Set 1

• 800m (200m)
• 400m (200m)
• 3 x 200m (100m) [400m]

Set 2

• 800m (200m)
• 400m (200m)
• 3 x 200m (100m) [400m]

Set 3

• 600m (200m)
• 3-Laps of Straights and Curves

With warmup and cooldown the workout came out to just under 7-miles for the night. I took it fairly easy since I’m still less than 2-weeks removed from the NOLA Marathon, but generally felt pretty good all evening. I can tell that my legs are still a bit fatigued, but this really only manifests itself when I try to push the pace. I did feel a bit of tightness in my calves tonight after my 6.5-mile Hattori run the morning before. However, I think this is more soreness than strain or injury.

Overall, it was a good night at the track! Beast Mode…ON!

Saucony Kinvara 3 – I’m totally getting geeked up about the upcoming Kinvara 3 from Saucony. My initial nervousness about the changes has now turned into…CAN’T WAIT TO TAKE THESE FOR A SPIN. While the official drop is in May, they are supposed to begin showing up at specialty retailers on April 26th.

Dang, yet another reason to move home 🙂

No place like Nashvegas 🙂

On a side note, the Jim Spivey Running Club that I mentioned is now based in Chicago. Jim started a club in Nashville when he was the cross-country coach at Vanderbilt. After a few years he accepted a job with Asics and moved back to Chicago. Pretty cool to be coached through a track workout by a 3-time Olympian.

Easy 6.5-mile run this AM in my Saucony Hattoris with Nathan & Paxton from the EW Nature Center. Slightly faster pace than normal for a Hattori run, especially after the first couple of miles, but it felt pretty effortless. Legs actually felt better than they did yesterday. Really want to do more of my easy miles in these shoes since I can tell such a HUGE difference in my feet and calves since adding them to the rotation. Now will have a full 35 hours off before track tomorrow night.

Beast Mode…ON

Tonight Kate and I started logging miles for what will be her 6th kid’s marathon. The idea is that they complete 25 miles before race day, and then on the night before the St. Jude Country Music Marathon, they all run the final 1.2 miles around LP Field to complete their own “kid’s” marathon.

The cool thing is that Kate enjoys doing this, and it means that we get to do some running together. Also her school has organized runs once per week leading up to the event to help the kid’s get in their mileage. On race day, everyone from their class gets to run together.

Tonight we were able to get in 2 miles on the Harpeth River Greenway running in 1/4 mile increments. Between each interval we took a 1-minute break, with a slightly longer break between miles 1 and 2. Our average pace for the intervals was around 9:30 per mile. I’ve said this before, but even though Kate is just 7-years-old, I wish I had her running form. She is natural forefoot runner which stands in stark contrast to my heavy heal strikes.

Anyway, it was a beautiful evening and a fun run with my daughter.

Is the coach a local guy or are you doing on-line coaching?

David…he is local. He is actually our track coach at the Jim Spivey Running Club, and is the buddy who just ran a 2:49 full in New Orleans.

After taking two days off it was good to get back on the road with Nathan this morning for a relatively easy paced 9-mile run. We ran a modified version of our “Steeplechase” route through Percy and Edwin Warner Parks, which is quite hilly. My legs are still a bit sluggish after the marathon last week, but overall this run felt pretty good, especially considering the hills and the humidity. Even at 6am, the temps were in the mid 60s and the humidity was nasty. Not looking forward to the summer months when we get this type of humidity with temps in the 80s and 90s.

On a side note, I have decided to hire a coach to help me develop my training plan for the Milwaukee Lakefront Marathon in October. I know I’m going to have to take my training up to another level to qualify for Boston, and I really wanted someone else with a lot of experience to give me their recommendation on what that should look like. Very excited (an nervous) to see what he comes up with.

Beast Mode…ON

Even though I had already been selected by the Nashville Striders as the “official” 4-hour pacer for the Country Music Marathon, I was not officially registered for the race until today when I finally got my code for FREE registration. This is obviously part of being a pacer, but it was still pretty cool to go through the registration process and see this at the end…

If you are running either the CMM Half or Full and see my 4-hour pace sign, make sure you stop by and say hello. Keeping my fingers crossed for great weather!

Today has been a pretty miserable day in Nashville with widespread rain, frequent downpours, and gusty wind. I was afraid that our weekly track workout with the JSRC might get cancelled, or that no-one else would show up, so I got to track about an hour early to get in some miles around Vanderbilt campus in case either of these happened.

I was pleasantly surprised to see Susan also show up early for the same reasons and we ended up getting in over 5-miles prior to the workout in the heavy rain and wind. By the scheduled start time, Sue Anne, Aine, and Paxton had also arrived and we were able to have a great track workout.

Since I am still only four days removed from the NOLA Marathon, I took this workout really easy. Even with the nasty conditions I am happy to have completed the miles. The final total with the warmup, workout, and cool-down was just under 9.5-miles.

On a side note, it has been 2-hours since the end of the workout, and I am just now beginning to regain feeling in my toes. I don’t ever remember my feet being as cold as they were after the run was over. During our warmup miles, Susan said “We’re either really tough, or really stupid” to be out here doing this. I responded that to be long distance runners, I think you really have to be a little bit of both.

Beast Mode…ON

My next scheduled marathon is the St. Jude Country Music Marathon on April 28th in Nashville as the official 4-hour pacer. Saw this picture today of the various medals for the race, and I’ll have to say that these have got to be some of the most blah medals I’ve seen for a big race (40k+ participants). What’s worse is that the best of the three is the “Mini Marathon” which is a 2.6-mile race.

What do you think? Anybody else out there running the Country Music?

With my 2-year “Quest for 3:15” completed at NOLA on Sunday, today begins a new challenge and a new “Quest.” This time the focus is solely on one thing….BOSTON!

Officially that means a 3:10 (or 3:09:59) to qualify, which is 2min 29sec faster than my NOLA finish. However, with the new staggered registration process the actual time to get into Boston could end up being a few minutes faster. Also, it would not be outside the realm of possibility for the B.A.A. to bring the times down even lower. Finally, I’m only three years away from turning 40 which will hopefully bring an expanded qualifying time (currently 3:15). Since the qualifying time could be a moving target, this quest will not be centered on time, but on actually qualifying for and running the Boston Marathon.

For the remainder of 2012 I plan to run 3 or 4 additional marathons. One of these will be as the 4-hour pacer for the Country Music Marathon in April, so that will obviously not be an attempt at qualifying. The other race I’m registered for is the Milwaukee Lakefront Marathon in October which will be my next point of focus. After that, I’m in the lottery for NYC again, and thinking about the Chickamauga Battlefield Marathon as a backup option.

I know it’s going to take a lot of work, and lots of help from my family and friends, but I’m very much looking forward to the challenge.

Beast Mode…ON!

My thoughts on the 2012 Rock n’ Roll New Orleans Marathon…

Rock n’ Roll New Orleans Marathon
March 4, 2012
runrocknroll.competitor.com/new-orleans

My Run:

Overall, the Rock n’ Roll New Orleans Marathon (NOLA) was my 11th full marathon, and first since setting my current PR of 3:18:44 at the Rocket City Marathon last December. For NOLA I had been very public about my goal of breaking 3:15 for the first time (i.e. my “Quest for 3:15”).” My training leading up to the race had been fantastic, having only missed 4 scheduled runs due to two stomach bugs and a flare-up of my Small Fiber Sensory Neuropathy in January.

The weather for NOLA was just about as good as anybody could have hoped. The temperatures were right around 50 degrees at the start, with low humidity, clear skies, and a light breeze. By the end of the race the temps were just over 60 degrees. Can’t ask for much better than that in New Orleans in March.

For this race I tweaked my preparation schedule and nutrition plan slightly. This included:

• For the second time in my 11 marathons, I only did a two-week taper as opposed to three. The other was before Rocket City last December.

• I ran 3.5-miles the day prior to the race. I normally don’t run the day before.

• I ate a peanut butter PowerBar, a banana, a Honey Stinger Waffle, and a bagel 3-hours prior to the race.

• I drank a full cup of caffeinated coffee 1.5-hours prior to the race.

• I took a 2x caffeine Gu 1-hour prior to the race, and another 15-minutes prior.

• I took 6 more Gu packs during the race at 30-minute intervals. I only washed these down with water, taking Gatorade occasionally between Gu packs during the first half of the race. The first of these six was a 2x caffeine, the next two were 1x caffeine, and the final three did not have caffeine.

• Starting 1-hour prior to the race, I did a 12 minute warmup run followed by 4 x 100m stride outs 15-minutes prior to the race.

All during the warmup my legs felt good with no unusual aches, pains, or stiffness. My strategy for this race was to start off fairly conservative and then slowly work my way down to goal pace (7:26). I wanted to try and delay “the Wall” as long as possible, and knew that starting off too fast would bring it on a whole lot sooner.

Congratulations on an awesome time! When does Quest for 3:10 start?

Thanks man….hope you had a great time in NOLA! Just now starting to work my way through all of the posts that I missed over the weekend.

Quest for 3:10 starts tomorrow with a 6-mile recovery run!

Races and Personal Records (PR)

There seems to be a dead person bottom left??

Yeah….unfortunately we lost one along the way 😉

Seriously though, that person was on the ground sleeping and someone from our group almost stepped on them while we were trying to line up for the picture.

A HUGE thanks to all of you who have offered so much support and encouragement throughout my “Quest for 3:15.” It has been and continues to be greatly appreciated. Below is just a sampling of the awesome shout outs I got after my 3:12 yesterday at the NOLA Marathon (Any my wife’s PR in her first half marathon after injury). THANK YOU!

davidsgoals said: Fantastic news Tim! Congrats to you both

beautifulday4running said: Congrats!!

runtastic said: So fantastic!! Many, many congratulations to both!

losingitall said: Congratulations to you both! 3:12 thats within the mens qualifying time for the Virgin London Marathon here, amazing time!! Well done.

lagirlontherun said: Congrats!!!! You killed it!!! Revel in your success 🙂

runslikeapenguin said: Congratulations!!

livelongtrainhard said: Awesome job!! Congrats to you both.

runrunningrunner said: Congrats – to the both of you – that’s awesome!

catchthemontherun said: Man that’s incredible!!! So proud of someone I barely know, haha. Great job!!

Olivia and I arrived safely in NOLA this morning just after 9am along with 10 other members of our group.

After checking in to the hotel we enjoyed a ridiculously good lunch at Pat O’ Brian’s before heading out to the expo. We are now waiting on the rest of our group to finish up at the expo before heading back to the hotel.

It is nice to be in NOLA, but we’re worried about our kids, family, and friends back in Tennessee with the impending severe storms. Everybody be safe!!

Beast Mode…ON!

Tonight was our weekly track workout with the Jim Spivey Running Club (JSRC) at Vanderbilt University. Since the NOLA Marathon is on Sunday, I did something a little different than the planned session. After a 3-mile warmup, I ran 3 continuous miles with Dan at goal Marathon pace. The idea was to get in one last practice at maintaining consistent pace.

I came out of tonight feeling confident. 7:26 pace felt very comfortable, and I was able to have a nice conversation with Dan during the run. Other than a planned 2-mile shakeout run on Saturday morning, this will be my last tune-up before NOLA.

So, tonight I need to finish up my packing and then we fly out at 8am tomorrow morning with several members from our group. Thanks to everyone for your support and encouragement. The next time I post will most likely be from NOLA!

Beast Mode….ON! 

P.S. – I haven’t said much about this, but the NOLA 1/2 Marathon will be my wife Olivia’s first race back since being diagnosed with bilateral tibial stress fractures last summer. Major props to her for working so hard to get back! Hope she has a great and fun race. I am very much looking forward to spending the weekend together (with no kids)!