Back Above 35 Miles Per Week

I now have two weeks in a row that I have over 35 miles per week. Haven't done that since the Route 66 marathon due to knee problems. Woohoo!

Thursday tempuratures were in the teens, but I went out twice and ran - about three and a half miles at noon, and then again with the RunnersWorld group in the evening. It wasn't so bad except that my cheeks froze when running against the wind. And my eyeballs froze and went numb :)

Saturday was an enjoyable run. The schedule had us down for ten miles, which we did by running from the store to Turkey Mountain, and one loop of the red trail and back. Patty wouldn't run the nice velvety smooth dirt trails, but instead ran down the west bank paved trail to get in her extra distance. So, Curtis, Kathy, Becky, Janet, and I ran down the paved trail to meet Patty after we had our delightful run on the dirt paths.

Turned out we had eleven miles by the time we got back to the store. Then we added on another four, this time taking Larry and Bill along. Our chosen route for the last four was the neighborhood route that we did last week. The last mile felt a little weird because my shoes were full of sand. Wonder how that happened?

Sunday I went up to Kansas City with my wife, Marilyn. She was going to a birthday party for a college friend, Gracia Burnham (former missionary to Philippines, kidnapped by Abu Sayef and held hostage for nearly a year, husband killed in firefight during rescue attempt - you may have seen it on the news, but it was about 7 years ago), and I went to visit my dad during the party. I was tempted to run a few laps at my old high school track while I was there, but not enough time.

Got up this morning and ran for ninety minutes on Turkey Mountain. I covered most of the yellow and blue trails, all of the red trail (twice), plus I did a whole bunch more. I'm calling it nine miles, but since I don't have a Garmin, there is no telling what the distance really was. It was a beautiful day. Saw Tom Dorothy during my run, but no other runners. A few hikers were out there.

Total for last seven days is a little over 41 miles. It may be harder to get my distance in this week because I've been called up for jury duty and probably won't be running at noon, as I usually do.

Last week ended with a nice, hilly, scenic run through the neighborhoods behind RunnersWorld, north to Utica Square, past Swan Lake, and back to the store along the same route. Most of the runners seemed to like the route, but Cheryl and I are not on speaking terms anymore. The run went pretty well for me, except that my group left without me, and even running at a quick pace, it took me four miles to catch them. I finally caught up while they were stopping to drink at Swan Lake. My average pace for the 9 miles was 8:26. (That is not the pace I should be doing these long runs.) Then I added 5 more miles at a more reasonable pace - about a minute per mile slower. Just for the record I have posted the route and profile in this blog entry.

This has been a good week of running so far. On Monday evening I ran around Zink Lake with Brian plus I ran a little extra, so I am guessing it was about 4.5 miles. I really wasn't paying attention to my watch, but I think we were running a little faster than an 8 minute pace most of the time, but we did stop to walk a few times.

Tuesday I ran 4 miles at an easy pace, around 8:50 per mile. It was from 3rd & Boulder, south on Boston and then Cincinnati to 26th, and then back north on Boston and Main. I ran the same route today, but this time I ran it as a tempo run. It was pretty windy today, which made it tough heading north, but I still managed a pace of 7:37 (that includes stopping to talk with Andy and Dustin at about 5th and Boston for a few seconds). It was my first run in my brand new adidas Supernova Sequence shoes, which I got from the best running store in Tulsa - RunnersWorld.

First Blog Entry for 2009

I'm glad to see a new year begin. The old year ended not so good, with worries about whether my knee was going to ever start feeling normal again. My first run of the new year was in Ozawkie, KS, a hilly 6 miles at a fairly relaxed pace, but because I still had a cold and maybe because I wasn't used to the hills, I was pretty tired at the end of the run. January 2 I was going to do 10 miles, but stopped at 4. The run the day before had left me sore and tired. My left knee was also a little sore during both of those runs, so it was probably best that I cut that run short.

This week I had a good series of runs. Monday I did an easy 4 mile run. Knee was feeling a little better, but not quite right. Tuesday I did 5.4 relatively hilly miles (through Maple Ridge and Woodward Park) at my eventual goal marathon pace (about 8:14 per mile) and I felt great! It was the first time since Thanksgiving that I wasn't thinking about my knee hurting during the run. Wednesday I did a 4 mile tempo run, and felt good the whole way. Thursday I ran twice, first 4 easy miles at lunch, and then 6 miles with the RunnersWorld group; the first 3 miles were done at a relatively slow pace, and I did those with Jean, Tom, and Wade. I had never run with any of them before and had a great time! At 2.5 miles Jean and Tom turned back and Wade and I kept going. The last 3 miles we kept increasing our pace until we were going somewhat faster than 8:00 per mile. At one point I ran about a quarter of a mile almost all out. It was a good solid run that left me pleasantly tired. Best of all - no knee pain!

If things go well in my training this year, I would like to run a spring marathon (OKC) at about an 8:30 per mile pace, and a fall or winter marathon at an 8:14 pace. Here are my planned training paces as I start out this new year:
Easy and Long runs: 8:45 to 10:00 per mile
Marathon pace runs: 8:10 to 8:30 per mile
Tempo/steady state runs: 7:30 to 8:05 per mile
Mile repeats: 7:00 to 7:30 per mile