Category Archives: My Running

Need to Focus

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Last Year

Have you heard about the Tough Guy race?  Sounds like fun, in a masochistic kind of way.  Last year’s Twin Cities Marathon filled up, sadly it is only about 75% full at this point.  I got new shoes! I switched over to a Mizuno shoe, learn about my thought process.  This week’s Foto Friday was from a recent camping trip at St Croix State Park.

Last Year’s Mileage

Run: 17.3 Miles

This Year

This week I had hoped to transition from the tough training weekend back into a decent week of running.  I took Monday off to let my body recover and then Tuesday I decided to bike to some meetings in the morning and ended up with 20 miles for the day.  Tuesday was actually a record setting temperature (at 97).  I did go on Wedsnday for an easy 6.2 miles around a river loop with some hills in 46:35 on a gorgeous morning.  Temps were about 70 when I finished.  Thursday was another gorgeous morning and I did the almost 3 mile loop around Lake of the Isles.  I ran it in 20:17 and the temp was about 60.  After that my foot started to hurt again.  Surprisingly it felt pretty good on Monday and most of Tuesday.  I’m realizing that the more/longer I’m on it at any given time the more it hurts.  I am out of excuses for Friday, Saturday, or Sunday. Part of it was that I really want my foot to stop hurting.  It was such a gorgeous week for running though and I should have gone out.  Each day I regretted not doing it, except Saturday when we walked around for hours at the Mall of America with my sister-in-law.  This really made my foot hurt.  Plus I’m racing on Monday.

Weekly Mileage

Run: 9.0 Miles
Bike: 37.0 Miles

TC 10 or 26.2

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A few weeks ago I ran the TC 1 Mile race in Minneapolis which is hosted by the Twin Cities Marathon as part of their annual series of events.  Part of the deal is that every 1 mile runner is put into a drawing for a guaranteed TC 10 mile entry.

You see the 10 mile race takes place on the same morning of the marathon, but has a lottery entry system which caps at around 6,000 entrants.  To encourage runners to compete in  the 1 mile and the 10 mile they offer 1,000 guaranteed entries to the 10 mile race drawn at random from the 1 mile finishers.  This year only about 2,300 runners finished the 1 mile race which means almost 50% of the field received entry into the 10 mile.  Including me.

This was the e-mail I received on May 12:

Congratulations on being one of the 1,000 randomly drawn finishers to receive a guaranteed entry to the Medtronic TC 10 Mile! We’d like to offer a special ‘thank you’ for joining us on a beautiful May 7th evening for a great downtown race, and hope the excitement of two national championship races and a sub-four minute mile is still high.

Sadly, all TC Marathon, Inc entries are non-transferable, including this guarenteed entry.  Don’t worry, even with this entry you still get to pay the full $60 plus processing fees to race.

Even with this “great prize” I decided to get an e-mail that said this:

Congratulations! You are officially registered for the 28th annual Medtronic Twin Cities Marathon on October 4, 2009.

So I have officially registered for the 2009 Twin Cities Marathon, which is currently just over 75% full (pdf).

[tags] Twin Cities, Marathon, Twin Cities Marathon, 1 Mile, 10 Mile [/tags]

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Another Training-Less Week

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Last Year

I ran the 2008 TC 1 mile in 5:27. It was a slightly different course and atmosphere.  Last year had a big focus on the Olympic Games.  I wrote about competition and whether doping was part of the Olympic Spirit.  Have you heard about the Elite Running Cookbook? I still think it would make a great present (hint, hint). Foto Friday was from a muddy trail run at Hyland Hills.  This time last year we also found out that Oscar Pistorius would be allowed to compete for a spot on the Olympic team.

Run: 10.6 Mi
Bike: 21.6 Mi

Last Week was pretty much another down week.  Still letting my foot heal up. Until the weekend.  This was my first “mancation” trip with my running friends to Bayfield, WI.  My tweeted summary says it well:

3 days, 3 tough but scenic runs, 33+ miles, 3 beers, 3 blisters 3 ticks. Snow, Sun and Superior. A fun and sucsessful weekend.

I won’t go into much detail about the runs, except they all had a lot of hills, great scenery, and the kicked my butt! Below are pictures from Google Earth and the elevation charts.

Our first run was in transit to Bayfield and was on the Birkie Trail, home of the American Birkebeiner  Ski Race. It was 11.13 miles in 1:37:01.  (all distances are a little off due to sharp turns and lots of trees, but provides a strong estimate).

Run number two was Saturday morning on the Teuton and Valkyrie Ski Trails in the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest.  We ran 10.17  miles in 1:27:07.

Run number 3 (which I skipped) was on the Jerry Jolly Trail. Run number 4 (my third) was at the amazing Jay Cooke State Park. We ran 11.03 miles in 1:48:06 (which included scenic overlook and walk breaks).

Weekly Mileage
Running – 32.3 miles
Biking – 32.8 miles

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No Training Week

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Now that the half-marathon is over I can relax a little bit and let my body recover (and race a mile!).

Last Year

The 2008 Indianapolis Mini-Marathon ended in a tie. I was a little surprised to see 2 Indianapolis and 0 Twin Cities running stores listed in the Top 50 US Running Stores by USATF.  Last year’s TC 1 mile included a $25,000 prize for the first male to go sub-4 and female sub-4:28.  Neither happened! This week’s Foto Friday was from last year’s Get In Gear starting line.

Run: 7.0 Miles
Bike: 4.0 Miles

Last Week the only running I did was the TC 1 Mile and the few mile warmup.  I’ve been trying to let my foot heal up so that I can start getting ready for a fall marathon.  After the race it hurt a bit more than before, but that was to be expected.  We also went camping this weekend to Gooseberry Falls and did a lot of walking (some hiking) around it seems that after icing any pain goes away.  I did do some significant amount of biking, including a hardish 20 mile ride on  Tuesday after noon along the Greenway and Cedar Lake Trail.  It felt pretty good.

Run: 4.5 Miles
Bike: 40.3 Miles

Race Review: 2009 TC 1 Mile

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The mile is an interesting race for a post-collegiate, non-elite runner. You don’t really do much “race specific” training for that distance. Training for a 5k doesn’t even compare for training for a mile, let along half-marathon training! Yet, on May 7th I lined up with about 2,100 other runners and raced 1 mile down Nicollett Mall in downtown Minneapolis.

The multi-wave start meant that there were probably closer to 20-50 runners in my wave – the USATF-MN Team and Open Wave which went off at 7:53pm. Over an hour after the mass wave. I probably should have raced with my age-group so I would have had more competition around me and wouldn’t have gotten passed by a swarm of almost sub-elite women!

This year’s TC 1 Mile also served as the US 1 Mile Championship, featuring runners like Shannon  Rowbury, Sara Hall, Jon Rankin and David Torrence.Torrence actually broke 4:00, winning $10,000 and Rowbury missed her money mark by 2 second running a 4:30.  Both were great races to watch.  I did see Ryan Hall right after the elite women ran by, but he was on his way to see Sara so I didn’t stop him.  This also means Flotrack was there so be sure to check out their coverage.

My official finish time of 5:26 is a 1 second PR over last year’s performance so for that I should be happy.  I am pleased with that.  Asked about my expectations I said “I’m not as fresh as I was last year, but I’ve done more speed work. So somewhere between 5:15 and 5:30.”  I hit that pretty well.

I began feeling by quads about a 1/4 into the race – maybe at the top of the initial incline, and maybe because of my 1:17 split. A little aggressive but I was trying to take it out a little easy!  My body quickly reacted to the pain of moving so fast and then my mouth became really dry and my throat started to burn.  It was 74, dry, with a slight cross-breeze.  I came through the 1/2 mile in 2:39 having run a 1:22 second 1/4.  I really struggled to keep myself together passing through a ton of cheer zones and cheering people.  Half-way through and feeling it.   The third 1/4 was 1:26 and the flow of passing women had stopped except for this one wearing green.  We ran past 3 guys wearing full green suits who let out a huge cheer and screamed for her.   We fought back and forth for most of the rest of the race until I dropped the hammer (albeit a small one) for a final surge into the finish.  My last 1/4 was 1:19.  For a 5:26 official time.

My throat continued to hurt until mid-day on Friday.  We were all coughing and hacking for the rest of the evening we spent relaxing downtown.

Here is a map of the course which is mostly downhill but as you can tell with the below elevation chart it isn’t exactly all downhill.  According to my Garmin it does have a net elevation loss of 6ft!

Updated: In the comments Nathan disputed the elevation data from my Garmin.  So I looked at MapMyRun.com’s data for the mile stretch and it looks pretty similar.  Here is a chart I created from their information.

tc1mile09mapmyrunelevation

Check out the Twitter tag #tc1mile for more fun.  And @tcmarathon for more information about TC Marathon related events.

[tags] TC1Mile, TC 1 Mile, Mile, Hall, Rowbury, Road Mile, Torrence, Minneapolis, Nicollett Mall [/tags]

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