Road Whore

It's been a hectic few months, to say the least. In June I left my job coaching at Notre Dame. In July I competed in the Olympic Trials, closed on our new condo in State College and got moved in, then got married at the end of the month. After that, it was off to a couple weeks of fun in Minnesota, Mexico, and Chicago, then back to State College for a 2-week math refresher course (the fun was over at that point!). Now I've gotten into the swing of school, and running is coming along well after my end-of-season break. I've been training a little over 2 months now.

In the beginning of September, off just 3 weeks of training, I raced in the Harrisburg Half-Marathon. I wasn't very fit at the time but thought I'd jump in to get a hard long run and to do some road-whoring (running road races in the hopes of earning some meager prize money). Well, some fit guys showed up and I got smoked by one of them in the last 2 miles. I ran 1:09:46 on a flat course.

Four weeks later, I ran the Lancaster Hands-On House Half-Marathon. Far more fit after just another month of training, I went out hard in 14:50 thru 3 miles, then pulled away from the field going up an enormous hill in the 5th mile. My mile splits indicate the severity of the hills on the course: I ran 5:57, 4:25, 6:07, 4:44 from mile 4 to mile 8. It was the hilliest course I have ever seen. I ran well by myself the last 8 miles to finish in 1:07:58. I felt great about that time on such a hilly course (and got some local press lovin').

Last weekend I ran 3 legs on the Tussey Mountainback 50-Mile Relay with a team. My first leg was leg 1, a 3.2 mile ascent including 845 vertical feet of climbing. I covered it in 19:17, and no one I talked with had ever heard of a time under 20 minutes for this leg. My second leg was leg 6, a 5.3 mile ascent including 800 vertical feet of climbing. I covered it in 25:03. Finally, I ran leg 11 which was an out-and-back leg up over a mountain. It included 636 vertical feet of climbing in 4.0 miles, which was incredibly difficult but I covered it in 21:59 to propel our team into the lead for good. I even got some love in the local paper.

So training is going well. I am putting in lower volume due to my demanding academic schedule, but I am doing the right things and it is paying off. Each week I do a tempo run and a long run and one of the following: a fartlek at 5k-effort, or a hill repeat session of 16-24x100m. This coming Saturday I'm racing a small 5k in Harrisburg, the Pumpkin Chase 5k or some such thing. It will be a good chance to get out and have a fun VO2 max session.