Medals for 2012 Rock N’ Roll New Orleans Marathon, Half Marathon, & Relay
Pretty sweet…Glad they stuck with the beads. Hope to have the marathon medal around my neck come March 4th! I know there are LOTS of Tumblr’s running NOLA. What do you think?
Medals for 2012 Rock N’ Roll New Orleans Marathon, Half Marathon, & Relay
Pretty sweet…Glad they stuck with the beads. Hope to have the marathon medal around my neck come March 4th! I know there are LOTS of Tumblr’s running NOLA. What do you think?
Tuesdays are my normal tempo run days during the week, and my schedule usually calls for adding one mile to these runs each week leading up to the marathon taper. For pace, I try to shoot for something in the vicinity of marathon pace (7:26 for my 3:15 goal).
However, for the last two Tuesday mornings my tempo runs have not had nearly the “Tempo” I would like. Just running below 8:00 minute pace feels very hard. It is interesting because two Saturday’s ago, I ran for approximately an hour just under 7:00 minute pace and felt fairly comfortable. What happened between that Saturday and the following Tuesday? Am I training too hard? Am I not training hard enough?
Anyway, I guess this is all part of the learning process. I have to keep reminding myself that even though I’ve done 10 marathons, it has only been 3 years. I’ve obviously still got a LOT to learn.
Saucony Kinvara 3 Sneak Peek
RunningWarehouse.com has posted a fairly detailed preview of the upcoming Saucony Kinvara 3 on their running blog. I expected more details to finally start coming out after the bi-annual Outdoor Retailer show last weekend.
As I’ve said before, I have been concerned about the changes since the Kinvara 2 is pretty close to perfect shoe for me. However, after reading this and other reviews, my concern is slowly turning into excitement. I also LOVE the colors that are going to be available in this revision. Quite outside the box for Saucony. What do you think?
Saucony Kinvara TR
I finally found a picture of the upcoming Saucony Kinvara TR (Trail), which had its coming out party at last weekend’s bi-annual Outdoor Retailer show and is supposed to drop in the middle of the year. I have been using the Saucony Peregrine as my trail shoe since last spring, but am excited about the possibility of an even lighter-weight trail shoe made on the same Kinvara last. According to a blog post from someone at the event, the Kinvara TR weights 8.5 oz, which is almost 1.5 oz less than the Peregrine. (also…the same blog post has additional details on the upcoming Kinvara 3)
Update Was forwarded some additional information from a fellow runner in Nashville. A friend of his at the Outdoor Retail show was able to try on a pair of the Kinvara TR. His exact quote was… “Just tried on a pair….if you like the Kinvara….sweeeeeeet!”
As the battery life on my Garmin 405 continues to dwindle, I had pretty much decided on the touchscreen 610 as a replacement. However after reading about the new 901XT (pictured), I’m starting to think that this might be the GPS watch for me. No Touch-Bezel, No Touch-Screen, just good old-fashioned buttons. That combined with a 20-hour battery life and barometric altimeter make this new model extremely compelling. What do you think?
Last night I was worried about having to run today on the Dreadmill due to overnight storms in the Nashville area. We’ll, regardless of the storms, I just could not get out of bed early this morning to get in my run.
Even though I was bummed about this for most of the day, it ended up working out really well. After the storms passed, it was a really pleasant day with highs near 60. I came home from work a little early to try and sneak in my run, and ended up taking Sara with me in the running stroller. This was the first time I had tried the stroller in quite a while, because Sara used to HATE it. Tonight was a different story. We talked the whole time and had a great time. Awesome 6.5-miler in the books, and I didn’t have to run on the Dreadmill!!
I pride myself in always running outside, no matter the conditions. This comes with one exception however….Lightening.
To that end, it sounds like we’ve got some nasty storms moving into the Nashville area tonight which should still be around tomorrow morning. If that is the case, then my planned 7-miler might end up being on DREADMILL in the morning. Just thinking about running on the Dreadmill makes me a little bit crazy, but I really need to get in the miles, and would rather not wait until tomorrow night.
While training for my 10 marathons over the past 3 years, I have completed a LOT of 20+ mile training runs which incorporated the 16.5-mile loop in Percy and Edwin Warner Parks. This loop makes for a challenging long run because of the 2,300 ft. of elevation gain from start to finish.
This morning, our group was again scheduled to run the 16.5 as part of training for the Rock N’ Roll New Orleans Marathon / Half Marathon. My plan called for 20 today, so John and I decided to start 30 minutes early from our normal post-run breakfast spot, Bread & Company, to add the additional 3.5-miles before and after the group run.
Even though I still feel crummy (can’t seem to shake this cold I came down with on Tuesday), today’s run was the best I’ve ever felt on a 20-miler in the parks. The hills were challenging as always, but my legs felt good all the way to the end, and I felt like I could have easily kept going if needed. Weird thing about how good this run felt is how bad I’ve felt the rest of the day (my cold, not my legs). By far the best I’ve felt all day was during this 20-mile run, which is a weird thing to say.
Anyway, it is good to have this first 20-miler of NOLA training in the books. My schedule calls for two more 20+ runs over the next 4 weeks, and I hope I continue to feel this good during those efforts.
Each race and workout is like a mini battle in a personal war of fitness and self-discovery. Running provides the context we need to look deep inside ourselves and discover personal characteristics only visible when we push our physical limits.
Thursday night is usually one of the highlight’s of my running week since it is when the Jim Spivey Running Club (JSRC) has their weekly track workout. However, I expected tonight’s workout to be extremely difficult for me for two reasons:
Well, with those things going on I was just hoping to survive tonight and get in the miles. I ran an easy 3-mile warmup, and then we began the workout which was:
I ran very conservative, but still did all the intervals at faster than 1/2 marathon pace. What was amazing to me was that once the workout began I suddenly started feeling great. I’ve said for a long time that running is the best drug on earth and tonight it literally felt like a drug. Once I started felling better, there was a great deal of temptation to pick up the pace, but I just tried to stay steady and finish the workout.
When you don’t feel good, it is hard to get in the miles, and even harder to maintain confidence in yourself and your training. Tonight was a good confidence boost towards the New Orleans Marathon in the midst of what was otherwise a crummy week.
Check out the sick new colors which will be available in the upcoming Saucony Kinvara 3s!! I’m nervous about the changes they are making to the shoe, but the styles are awesome. Picture was tweeted out earlier today by @clindyrun – Saucony CMO
Update: Looks like these babies are going to hit in July 2012 – at the same time as the Kinvara TR.
Update 2: There will be six colors total for each gender (picture looks like eight, but this comes directly from Saucony). Four colors will be released on May 1, 2012. The other two will be released on July 1, 2012.
20 Outstanding Running Blogs for 2012 and Beyond
Just saw this list today published by healthynomics … I was already familiar with some of these, but not all. Seems to be a good list.
What great running blogs are missing from this list?
2012 Milwaukee Lakefront Marathon
This morning our running group decided on the 2012 Milwaukee Lakefront Marathon (October 7) as our official fall marathon. I’m excited about this choice for two reasons:
1.) I have never run a marathon in Wisconsin, so this will help me toward my lifetime goal of running a marathon in each state. Will actually be my first time in the state of Wisconsin.
2.) This is a small marathon (cap at 3,000) which is organized by the local Badgerland Striders Running Club. I’m anticipating that this will mean a true “runner’s race.”
Anyway, registration opens at midnight tonight, so I plan on signing up tomorrow.
Anybody else run this race before?
I’ve noticed a number of new followers over the past few months….Welcome! The link above is to one of my first posts entitled “Why I Run…”
While I post about a number of different topics, I primarily started this blog as an outlet to share my running journey which did not start until I was 33-years-old. This initial post was something I had been wanting to get out, and the blog gave me the outlet. I periodically go back and update the numbers in the post, but everything else is unchanged.
Why do you run?
Today was our group’s second marathon interval workout as part of training for the Rock n’ Roll New Orleans Marathon or Half Marathon. The workout consisted of:
*While my goal marathon pace for 3:15 would be 7:26 per mile (or 7:16 for BQ pace), I decided to do these intervals around half marathon pace to better prepare my body to go fast.
I ended up with just over 14-miles and felt FANTASTIC today. I ran the intervals pretty hard, but felt very smooth and comfortable at sub-7:00 min pace. My last 15 minute interval was at 6:46 pace, and I felt like I could have gone farther or done more intervals when we finished (that’s the goal). Very positive day today.
Also big congrats to @runmeb, @ryanhall3 & @Abdi_Runs on making the 2012 US Olympic Marathon Team #Houston2012 – Major kudos to Meb for taking down Ryan and setting his second marathon PR in the last three months at age 36!! USA! USA! USA!
Official Results:
First time 4 Americans under 2:10 ever, any race.
Big congrats to @ShalaneFlanagan @des_davila & @KaraGoucher for making the 2012 US Olympic Marathon team. #Houston2012 – What an awesome group of women to represent our country. USA! USA! USA!
Official Times:
All under old Trials record.