(and rest of the week recap)
Saturday was the 27th Annual running of the Bradford Valentine Race in nearby Haverhill, MA. Road races are at a premium at this time of year, so Heather and I registered last week and enlisted my mom's help with the kids so we could run it together for the first time since 2008. There is a 5-Mile and a 6k and male/female team opportunities in a variety of categories, including husband/wife.
Here's a condensed history of our experience at the race through the years:
Heather (6k all four times):
2008 - 27:00 (pushing Ben in stroller)
2007 - 25:13
2006 - 26:47
2005 - 25:44
Me (5M six times):
2008 - 28:05
2007 - 26:21
2006 - 27:23
2005 - 27:43
2001 - 29:10
2000 - 29:33
We won the husband/wife team competition in '05 and '07.
I had pre-race goals of 28:00 ("C") / 27:30 ("B") / and 27:00 ("A").
I was reasonably confident in my ability to break 28, based on recent splits at longer distance races, and felt ok about my chances at 27:30. It's not a fast course, with some good hills and quite a few turns, but my biggest concern was that the roads wouldn't be clear and that would prevent the race from being fast at all. Cold and wind are always possible in early/mid-February, but we got a gem of a mid-winter day in that respect, with temps in the low 40's at the start and insignificant winds.
Heather and I warmed up on the last mile of the course and the roads looked pretty runnable. We had driven in on the first almost-two miles and those looked fine, so I knew if there was any unsure footing, it would be on the middle "neighborhood" miles. We met up briefly with Alex Vlahos, one of my former Ipswich runners, who was running the five-mile and his teammate Hannah, who was in the 6k. Also saw Pat Fullerton at the starting line, who said that there was one hill around 3.5 miles that might be a little snowy.
I tucked into the second row on the starting line and after a brief announcement or two, we were off!
It felt great to be racing, and I quickly found myself in third, as Pat Fullerton (CMS) sped off to an early lead with Jon Lindenauer in tow. I tried to keep Lindenauer within striking distance as we made our way up the long straight climb the first mile and a half. I knew there was a pack of guys all capable of running well under 6:00-pace including Sam Fazioli (Whirlaway), Dan Chruniak (Wicked), Tim Catoggio and Alex. Before the mile, the 6k runners turned to the right and I wondered if any of those guys had chosen the shorter option.
I checked my watch when I realized I must have missed the mile mark (or, as it turned out, there wasn't one) and the Garmin said "5:58" and "1.13 miles". That seemed pretty hot to me, considering we were climbing, but I felt pretty good and tried to roll with it. At the top of the hill, I had closed to just a few meters behind Lindenauer and I could hear footsteps (I thought more than one pair) behind me, coming on strong. As we rounded the first right turn onto the road by Bradford Ski Area, Sam went by me and pulled alongside Jon.
At this point I wondered if Sam would pull away, and secretly hoped he would, which I thought might help me get by Jon. Instead, the two of them ended up running side-by-side and pushing each other the rest of the way. I was only a second back at two miles (by watch, again no marker), but in miles three and four they put 15-20 seconds on me. I was pleased that the roads were well-salted and free of any ice and snow except in a couple small instances.
A little after three miles we rejoined the 6k runners, which made it a little harder to maintain contact with Sam and Jon, but I was really just doing my best to stay as close to 5:30's as I could and see which of my time goals I could hit. It would have been nice to work with them a little more closely, but I benefited from their speed either way.
The hill by the golf course at 3.5 that Pat F. had warned about came and went without incident. I know from my Garmin splits that I was basically running 5:40-pace for miles 3 and 4, which was slower than I would have liked, but I honestly thought beforehand that these miles could be close to 6:00 if the roads were bad, so I will take it.
By mile four, I was back on the road that Heather and I had warmed up on, so I knew how far we had to go and what the roads were like and I was able to pick up the pace a little. The last quarter-mile is a nice downhill and I was able to take advantage of that and close pretty hard. I still wound up 20 seconds in back of third, but I was happy with an official time of 27:13, my fastest 5-mile since I turned 40. Full results here.
Heather was there, cheering me in, and as I turned back to get her race report, I could tell she was excited with her 24:05. We cooled down together over the full 5-mile course, Heather wanted to get some more miles in and make the day into a long day of prep for the Hampton Half next month. We got back just in time for awards and wound up winning the husband/wife category (after a ten-year hiatus from the race - glad the Mahoneys and Vassallo's weren't there, or it wouldn't have happened). Heather was third woman overall and I was first Master.
Today I did almost eight easy in the cold February rain.
65 for the week for the fourth 60+ week in a row.
Sunday, February 11, 2018
Thursday, February 8, 2018
Running into the second half of winter
The first week of February has been busy, but I've been able to get out and run so far and here's the report:
Work has been a bit more challenging, with some new clients coming onboard I've been stretched a bit to find good caregivers to take care of everyone who needs help. Honestly, it's been "more challenging" like two customers in a row asking for no pickles on their mcdonald's cheeseburgers, I'm just not always the most eager to tackle change. Or my other analogy was that answering the latest client requests has been as demanding to me as life for the Old-time Mainer on his front porch who has two out-of-towners stop and ask him for directions in the same week. I can't really be too put out about it; it means Marathon Home Care is growing, and that's something we want.
I had a great run to kick off the month on Thursday, the first. I ran out to the snowman-shaped neighborhood on Lord's Hill in Wenham and ran 3x the neighborhood loop with two minute recoveries in between. The loop starts with a big climb (in either direction) and includes some good up and down running throughout. I had run 2x the neighborhood once in January and the loops each took me right around 12 minutes, so I was hoping to add one more in this time without slowing down. I ended up running the first and third loops in reverse direction, partly to make it more interesting and partly because there is a Strava segment up the first big hill that I wanted to grab. I ran 11:55, then 11:58 the normal direction, then 11:55 again on the last one and ran home feeling good like I should after a tempo-type workout. (I ended up missing the hill segment by a couple seconds, but snatched it this Tuesday instead. It is a TOUGH hill to run up fast, and the old segment was run at 5:40 - something pace, so I have been going into oxygen debt immediately, like Gimli trying to keep up with Aragorn and Legolas)
On the cooldown home, I was letting my mind wander a bit to work stuff and warmer weather races as I turned into my neighborhood. I saw my 70-year-old neighbor Mary, out in her apron but no coat, and as I approached her, she reached down with bare hands into the snow and came up firing at me with a snowball. It was such a great tension breaker I was practically laughing when I got home. (Notably, Mary is the mother of five boys, one of whom ran sub-4 in the mile after college, and now has 20 grandkids and her first great-grandchild as of a month or so ago, not that I stop and talk to her much...) 😉
Friday, I met Alex Vlahos at his office in Beverly at lunch and ran almost seven miles with him at 7:38 pace. It was snowy and icy on the sidewalks so we stuck to quieter roads than normal.
Saturday, it was pretty cold again, and I bundled up for an out and back 10 miles by the Beverly Airport at 6:41 pace.
Sunday, Jose Ortiz met me in Ipswich right after church and I joined him for fifteen miles with alternations of 3 minutes on, 2 minutes off for the last three miles. The first twelve passed quickly in spite of the freezing rain, as we got to catch up. It was the first time I had seen Jose in a few years, and we have had some close battles with each other on the roads at Grand Prix events and the Yankee Homecoming 10-mile.
When we got ready for the first "three minutes on" I had in mind 5:40-pace or maybe 5:30 if we were feeling good. Jose had said they were half-marathon to marathon pace, and he is shooting for 2:30's at Boston and probably 1:11-1:13 at New Bedford before that. I knew it would be a stretch for me, but the intervals weren't that long, so I thought I'd be ok.
To my surprise, on the first one, I found I just could not hang with Jose. I was a good 5 seconds back after a minute and a half of running. I probably finished all four pick-ups at least ten seconds in arrears of him. I wasn't sure if I was just tired from the twelve miles, or not in as good shape as I thought I was, or getting sick, or what.
But when I finally caught up to Jose afterwards, I found out what was wrong: he was trying to average 5:30-5:40 over the entire time, including the two minutes off, so he was running the three minutes on at 5:00-5:10 pace. So I was ok with being dropped at that pace.
With the 15 miles with Jose, I wound up with 66 for the week, my highest mileage week since just after the Patriots won their fourth superbowl against the seahawks on the malcolm butler interception.
Monday, I woke up with a bit of a cold and thought I'd be beat up from the run with Jose the day before, but felt surprisingly good at the start of my run. At about three miles, I felt like death, and struggled until about 5, and then was ok at a slower pace, finishing up 9 miles.
Tuesday, I went out and ran the snowman again, relaxed and still recovering from the week before - 8 miles at 7:11-pace.
Yesterday, I had planned to run before it snowed, but a morning meeting ran over by an hour, so it had already started snowing when I got out at noon. I fell once early on some ice that was under a dusting of new snow, but then as the snow got deeper, it was easier to stick in on the unplowed roads and untreated sidewalks. Another 8 miles at 7:19-pace.
Still haven't shaken this cold, it's gone from a sore throat/Superbowl loss hangover to a cough/nasally drip, but it hasn't kept me completely doan and out, so I'll try to keep running through it with a little longer run today (maybe ten or eleven when the ice melts) and back to 6-8 tomorrow before heading to Bradford on Saturday with Heather for the Valentine 5-mile/6k race.
I'm looking forward to having an actual race to write about soon!
Work has been a bit more challenging, with some new clients coming onboard I've been stretched a bit to find good caregivers to take care of everyone who needs help. Honestly, it's been "more challenging" like two customers in a row asking for no pickles on their mcdonald's cheeseburgers, I'm just not always the most eager to tackle change. Or my other analogy was that answering the latest client requests has been as demanding to me as life for the Old-time Mainer on his front porch who has two out-of-towners stop and ask him for directions in the same week. I can't really be too put out about it; it means Marathon Home Care is growing, and that's something we want.
I had a great run to kick off the month on Thursday, the first. I ran out to the snowman-shaped neighborhood on Lord's Hill in Wenham and ran 3x the neighborhood loop with two minute recoveries in between. The loop starts with a big climb (in either direction) and includes some good up and down running throughout. I had run 2x the neighborhood once in January and the loops each took me right around 12 minutes, so I was hoping to add one more in this time without slowing down. I ended up running the first and third loops in reverse direction, partly to make it more interesting and partly because there is a Strava segment up the first big hill that I wanted to grab. I ran 11:55, then 11:58 the normal direction, then 11:55 again on the last one and ran home feeling good like I should after a tempo-type workout. (I ended up missing the hill segment by a couple seconds, but snatched it this Tuesday instead. It is a TOUGH hill to run up fast, and the old segment was run at 5:40 - something pace, so I have been going into oxygen debt immediately, like Gimli trying to keep up with Aragorn and Legolas)
On the cooldown home, I was letting my mind wander a bit to work stuff and warmer weather races as I turned into my neighborhood. I saw my 70-year-old neighbor Mary, out in her apron but no coat, and as I approached her, she reached down with bare hands into the snow and came up firing at me with a snowball. It was such a great tension breaker I was practically laughing when I got home. (Notably, Mary is the mother of five boys, one of whom ran sub-4 in the mile after college, and now has 20 grandkids and her first great-grandchild as of a month or so ago, not that I stop and talk to her much...) 😉
Friday, I met Alex Vlahos at his office in Beverly at lunch and ran almost seven miles with him at 7:38 pace. It was snowy and icy on the sidewalks so we stuck to quieter roads than normal.
Saturday, it was pretty cold again, and I bundled up for an out and back 10 miles by the Beverly Airport at 6:41 pace.
Sunday, Jose Ortiz met me in Ipswich right after church and I joined him for fifteen miles with alternations of 3 minutes on, 2 minutes off for the last three miles. The first twelve passed quickly in spite of the freezing rain, as we got to catch up. It was the first time I had seen Jose in a few years, and we have had some close battles with each other on the roads at Grand Prix events and the Yankee Homecoming 10-mile.
When we got ready for the first "three minutes on" I had in mind 5:40-pace or maybe 5:30 if we were feeling good. Jose had said they were half-marathon to marathon pace, and he is shooting for 2:30's at Boston and probably 1:11-1:13 at New Bedford before that. I knew it would be a stretch for me, but the intervals weren't that long, so I thought I'd be ok.
To my surprise, on the first one, I found I just could not hang with Jose. I was a good 5 seconds back after a minute and a half of running. I probably finished all four pick-ups at least ten seconds in arrears of him. I wasn't sure if I was just tired from the twelve miles, or not in as good shape as I thought I was, or getting sick, or what.
But when I finally caught up to Jose afterwards, I found out what was wrong: he was trying to average 5:30-5:40 over the entire time, including the two minutes off, so he was running the three minutes on at 5:00-5:10 pace. So I was ok with being dropped at that pace.
With the 15 miles with Jose, I wound up with 66 for the week, my highest mileage week since just after the Patriots won their fourth superbowl against the seahawks on the malcolm butler interception.
Monday, I woke up with a bit of a cold and thought I'd be beat up from the run with Jose the day before, but felt surprisingly good at the start of my run. At about three miles, I felt like death, and struggled until about 5, and then was ok at a slower pace, finishing up 9 miles.
Tuesday, I went out and ran the snowman again, relaxed and still recovering from the week before - 8 miles at 7:11-pace.
Yesterday, I had planned to run before it snowed, but a morning meeting ran over by an hour, so it had already started snowing when I got out at noon. I fell once early on some ice that was under a dusting of new snow, but then as the snow got deeper, it was easier to stick in on the unplowed roads and untreated sidewalks. Another 8 miles at 7:19-pace.
Still haven't shaken this cold, it's gone from a sore throat/Superbowl loss hangover to a cough/nasally drip, but it hasn't kept me completely doan and out, so I'll try to keep running through it with a little longer run today (maybe ten or eleven when the ice melts) and back to 6-8 tomorrow before heading to Bradford on Saturday with Heather for the Valentine 5-mile/6k race.
I'm looking forward to having an actual race to write about soon!
Thursday, February 1, 2018
January 2018 Recap
The first month of the New Year is on the books, and it was fairly successful by most measures. I wish I had gotten a race in, but weather caused Whitaker Woods to be moved, which hopefully means I'll race more than once this month.
Total Mileage for January:
243.8 in 29 days of running (2 days off with stomach bug)
8.4 miles/day for days run; 7.86 miles/day for the whole month
This was my second consecutive month over 200 miles, for the first time since 2015, and my highest single month total since March 2015 (256.92).
As far as January's go, this was in the middle of the pack - I've had some big first months of the year, including 2015 (475.38), which is the most miles I've ever run in any month. It's hard to imagine running twice as many miles as I did this month, since it didn't feel like I was slacking off. I was just completely committed that January three years ago. There would be a link here to the video of the wilesthing saying, "My wife says I need to be committed...so I am." but I think it's been removed.
(Since I've been compiling data lately...)
January mileage:
1. Jan. 2015 - 475.38 (#1 mileage month all-time)
2. Jan. 2013 - 389.73 (#5 mileage month all-time; #1 mileage month of 2013)
3. Jan. 2012 - 342.43 (#15 all-time; #2 mileage month of 2012)
4. Jan. 2011 - 246.96 (big dropoff from 3 to 4; #8 mileage month of 2011)
5. Jan. 2018 - 243.8
6. Jan. 2014 - 224.49
7. Jan. 2007 - 176.2
8. Jan. 2016 - 62.6
9. Jan. 2017 - 18.76
(Where are 2005, 2006, 2008, 2009 and 2010?)
It's a big improvement from the last two years, and I hope foreshadows a year of greater consistency (and success) than the past couple.
My longest run was 16.13 at 6:07 pace on the 3rd of the month, which I'm also counting as one of three workouts. The other two were on the 19th (2 x 2-mile T on hilly roads) and the 24th (3 x mile T on the track).
Also, notably, I ran with Heather twice, including a longer run as we prep for a half in March.
I ran three times, including one of the workouts, with Alex Vlahos and Nate Hausman, and once each with just one of them.
And the inaugural run of the Bill and Bob's Famous Track Club with Jordan Kinley, Kevin Hankens and John Page happened last Saturday.
Also, the hat that I'm wearing in the banner pic (at Gil's Fat Ass 50k in Bradley Palmer, January 2015) has gone missing, so keep an eye out, please - my mom knit it for me.
Total Mileage for January:
243.8 in 29 days of running (2 days off with stomach bug)
8.4 miles/day for days run; 7.86 miles/day for the whole month
This was my second consecutive month over 200 miles, for the first time since 2015, and my highest single month total since March 2015 (256.92).
As far as January's go, this was in the middle of the pack - I've had some big first months of the year, including 2015 (475.38), which is the most miles I've ever run in any month. It's hard to imagine running twice as many miles as I did this month, since it didn't feel like I was slacking off. I was just completely committed that January three years ago. There would be a link here to the video of the wilesthing saying, "My wife says I need to be committed...so I am." but I think it's been removed.
(Since I've been compiling data lately...)
January mileage:
1. Jan. 2015 - 475.38 (#1 mileage month all-time)
2. Jan. 2013 - 389.73 (#5 mileage month all-time; #1 mileage month of 2013)
3. Jan. 2012 - 342.43 (#15 all-time; #2 mileage month of 2012)
4. Jan. 2011 - 246.96 (big dropoff from 3 to 4; #8 mileage month of 2011)
5. Jan. 2018 - 243.8
6. Jan. 2014 - 224.49
7. Jan. 2007 - 176.2
8. Jan. 2016 - 62.6
9. Jan. 2017 - 18.76
(Where are 2005, 2006, 2008, 2009 and 2010?)
It's a big improvement from the last two years, and I hope foreshadows a year of greater consistency (and success) than the past couple.
My longest run was 16.13 at 6:07 pace on the 3rd of the month, which I'm also counting as one of three workouts. The other two were on the 19th (2 x 2-mile T on hilly roads) and the 24th (3 x mile T on the track).
Also, notably, I ran with Heather twice, including a longer run as we prep for a half in March.
I ran three times, including one of the workouts, with Alex Vlahos and Nate Hausman, and once each with just one of them.
And the inaugural run of the Bill and Bob's Famous Track Club with Jordan Kinley, Kevin Hankens and John Page happened last Saturday.
Also, the hat that I'm wearing in the banner pic (at Gil's Fat Ass 50k in Bradley Palmer, January 2015) has gone missing, so keep an eye out, please - my mom knit it for me.
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