Muddy Calves

Expectations

When I was planning my training for Grandma’s Marathon, I wanted to run a few training race for a couple of reasons–first to get some high-quality miles in and secondly, to measure where my fitness was.  When no one came through with a complimentary entry into any of the half marathons I was considering, I went ahead and signed up for the Lake Minnetonka Half Marathon, which I ran last year because I figured it would make for a good comparison.

In the days leading up to the race, I really had no idea how it was going to go. Last Spring, I was training for a half marathon and had been doing some race pace work before this race. This year, however, since I’m training for a full marathon, I’ve done next to nothing at half marathon pace. Also, five days before the race, I tweaked my right knee (think it is my meniscus, which I first injured last year after Bjorklund) while coaching a bunch of grade schoolers. the knee hurt some but not too bad, however, to play it safe, I took several days off and while I was always leaning towards racing, I was prepared to skip the race if the knee complained too much.

Bottom line, I didn’t know what to expect but I figured I would play it conservative and head out with the 1:40 pace group since I ran a 1:39:56 last year.

Preparations

The course is a point-to-point course that requires you to get bussed back to the starting area. Last year the temperatures were winterish and the forecast called for rain this year. As a result, I over-packed the night before–making sure that I had more than enough options. The yellow & white and grey bags had extra gear while the red bag had my post-race clothing in it for the drop box.  Note that I took this picture while wearing my race gear so I definitely had a lot of stuff with me. I think I packed more for this one 13.1 mile race than I packed for my entire 2-month back-packing trip through Europe!

Racing

I started out further back than I normally would–and decided to hang out with the 1:40 pace group for the beginning of the race.  I patiently watched this group from behind for the first mile, hitting the first mile in 7:38, right on 1:40 pace.  Eventually, though, I started to get frustrated at the congestion associated with the pace group and when I heard someone else comment on the congestion, I decided to jump up on the grass and just get ahead of them.  I planned on just staying in front of the group. I followed up with running something like (more on that in a bit) 7:21, 7:22, and 7:12 for the next 3 miles. I was starting to feel a little GI discomfort and I ducked into a port-a-pottie at the mile 5 water stop and had a little success. Mile 5 was in 8:00.

I cruised through miles 6 & 7, in around 7:20 pace. I knew I was I was getting further and further ahead of the 1:40 group and still feeling it.  At mile 7, I did some crude math and realized I was within striking distance of a PR. And I decided to freaking go for it. It was like a switch was turned on, I just bore down and ran hard.

Sorry for the Nip Shot!

My splits dipped under 7:00 with 6:52 being the fastest that I remember (more on that later) and I was flying by people. My mantra, with apologies to the censor-bots, became “this is my fXXXing race”. I ran as aggressively as I have in a long time. One thing I had going for me is that I didn’t care if I crashed and burned–this was just a training race. To show how strong I finished, I beat #2144 (in picture) by just over 2 minutes despite the fact he went through the 8.5 mat about 1:14 before I did.

One last stat–I was the 144th male to go through the 8.5 mat but finished 113th! From memory, no one passed me after mile 7 and only one runner held me off and that was in the final mile.

My final time: 1:34:17, 38 seconds off from my PR of 93:39. I’m pretty sure if I had started out with PR in mind or had avoided the toilet, en course, I would have gotten very close to my PR–I let up a little bit in the final mile (7:00 even) once I realized I wasn’t going to get it. The knee also started to hurt the last two miles so I held back a little bit. I’m in PR shape, even if I didn’t prove it.

I also have to confess this was probably my noisiest race ever–I was grunting & groaning & moaning the final 6 miles, which probably just was more frustrating to those that I passed. It’s one thing to get passed but another to have someone who sounds like they swallowed a goose go by you.

Post-Mortem

The only down side to the race happened afterwards while I was wading in Lake Minnetonka.  I was going to review my splits and somehow while messing around with the bezel on my Garmin 405, it asked if I wanted to delete the activity & I rushed to hit “No” and, as you can guess, I somehow hit Yes! So I lost all my data.   I was ecstatic enough with how I ran that I didn’t really care but I would really like to have had those splits–and especially the heart rate data.

I also cut my toe on the rocks in the lake.

The knee hurt a bit after but the soak in the lake and a poor-man’s ice pack helped out:

Peas on the Knees

Race Review

Last year, I had a couple significant complaints about the race organization–the start was messed up, they stages us 200 meters or so from the actual starting line and really didn’t indicate what was going on, so we ran an extra 200 meters before the race started. The finishing line was also a muddy mess, which normally I would be all in for but at the end of 13.1 on roads, was a bit uncalled for.

This year, though, they fixed those both right up and my only complaint would be that they serve red gatorade, which I personally dislike, but can’t really blame them for. They also reportedly had no race-day race packet pick-up, I think because the shopping mall they had it in last year got demolished but also I think one of the sponsors wanted to get everyone into their building. A bit of a hassle but nothing major although a detail I almost over looked.

The race shirt was a nice technical one & the medal was big & heavy, albeit not a design I’m thrilled about. I’ve actually already lost it–brought it to show the kids I’m coaching & somehow it disappeared.

One small bonus I’ve never had before was a personalized video of you at the start (although i can’t see myself) at the 8.5 mat, and at the Finish.  If you watch, you might notice the announcer mentions “Matt Rantala from Lambeau, Minnesota” and then makes a comment. I signed up for this race & Grandma’s as being from Lambeau Minnesota just for kicks (I live on the wild side, huh?).

Overall, a race I’ll strongly consider doing again next year–unless the timing is off or I decided to try something new, this will probably serve as my tune-up race again next spring.

What others say:

• The Right Fits was disappointed in her personal performance but at least she got a great picture of wiping her nose on her singlet! (In case you think I mock, let me just say, I love the way running allows me to publicly do/talk about certain bodily functions as naturally as they are).
• Nora, AKA BitterHag, Kicked Ass! and PRed in both Lake Minnetonka AND the day before in a 5 miler!!! That’s crazy, man!
• Jared, who just ran an ultra two week before, met his goal at LM to qualify for Corral 1 in the Twin Cities Marathon this fall! Dude really kicks at the end–go watch his video!
• Anna had tough time but “battled to the bitter end” & showed a lot of guts!

One of the great benefits of being a member of the Minnesota Distance Runners Association (MDRA) is that they put on some great races including the MDRA Ron Daws 25K which is an old-school, low-key race. It reminds me of many of the races I ran in the 80s–registration is in the basement of a gym, there’s no fancy chip timing, there’s no T-shirt, and the cost is only $5.

Wayne’s Photography

Now, I’ve mentioned this before, but I’m a huge Ron Daws fan. Daws was a Minnesota runner who described himself as having average talent but was stubborn enough to make it to the 1968 Olympic marathon through had training.  Daws later wrote two books, Self-Made Olympian and Running Your Best: The Committed Runner’s Guide to Training and Racing.

I found Daws’ books at an impressionable time–it was when I started running again in college after a few years of Not Running (AKA The Dark Period). While my high school coach had been very good about including everyone, I think I could have been pushed harder. Or maybe I just wasn’t very coachable. Anyhow, in high school, I never trained over 6 miles.

When I got back into running, two thing inspired me to go beyond the limits I had learned through my previous training.  First, I had my sister, who now was running in high school but with a different coach, her training schedule and it included runs of at least 9 miles, maybe more.  And I read Daws’ books where he raised my expectations.

One sad note, sometimes I’m a letter-writer. If someone inspires me, I like to let them know. I sent Daws a letter a couple of months before he died. Because I only had his publisher’s address, I doubt he ever received it.

Daws used Athur Lydriad’s training, especially emphasizing the hill work.  In  Running Your Best, he wrote,  that “(hills are) so much better, in fact,  may be that shortcut or gimmick every runner wants.”

Given Daws’ belief in hill training, it is only fitting that the course for this race is on a “VERY hilly course“.

Just like last year, I wanted to use this 25k as a training race as I train for a June race.  I’ve been dealing with a couple of problems–first it was a groin probably caused by compensating for a muscle imbalance. I’ve seen a physical therapist (Margi at Viverant) who diagnosed the root problem as lazy glutes. After my first session with her, I went out too fast on a cold day and strained my calf which has become the bigger problem.

But even though I came into this race feeling out of sorts because these problems have affect my consistency–especially my weekday runs–and nervous about making these worse.

But, as this Tweet shows, the day started off good in one aspect.

Even though temps were mild–upper 40s at the start, I wore my tights to make sure my legs were warm.  The start was a bit tight as the ~170 runners had to run along a sidewalk so I just hung back taking the first mile easy. Eventually we turned onto a road and things spread out from there. I spent most of the rest of the race slowly reeling in the runners.

Originally I had planned to just try to run consistent 8:00 (marathon goal pace) effort–running even splits was unlikely given the topography of the course. But at some point during the race I decided to try to go through 10 miles at a 8:00 average pace and then speed up from there.  Basically, that is what I did as shown by my 5k splits:

25:01 (8:04)

24:41 (7:58)

24:01 (7:45)

23:49 (7:41)

22:20 (7:59, 2.8 miles,hilly finish)

The groin was fine but the left calf complained, especially climbing the hills.  The race went pretty smooth, can’t complain about anything. I though I was going to be able to extend it to 20 miles but after I finished, my left calf & hamstring said they were done.

I’ve worn my compression socks for 24 hours straight now, only taking them off for a cold-water bath (I haven’t worked up to ice, yet) and actually legs feel great other than the top of my left calf which is still bothered but I am walking fine so it’s not too bad.

My average pace (via Garmin) was 7:53 this year–on a different course last year, it was 8:1o so I’m happy with the improvement.

As part of my training plan for Grandma’s Marathon, I want to run a half marathon a little over a month out. Grandma’s is on June 16th, so I would prefer to race one of the first two weeks of May–sometime between May 5th and May 13th. That would give me a week to recover, one last long run and then taper city.

I like the idea of doing a half around that time for a couple of reasons. First, it will be my best speed workout for the marathon. I’m not planning on doing any sort of track work only some tempo work so running 13.1 miles at a faster pace will be a challenging workout. Second, I’m hoping it will help me gauge a reasonable pace for the marathon. As I said, I’ve got a goal time set (3:29:59) but that’s flexible depending on how my training goes–if I need to adjust, I will and running a half 5-6 weeks will provide an indication of where I’m at. I won’t do any half-specific training so it’ll be interesting how it goes.

I haven’t decided what half marathon I’m going to do but I’ve basically narrowed it down to three.

Eau Claire Half Marathon, May 6th.

The big draw to Eau Claire is that I lived in the area for close to 20 years & still consider it home. So I know the course–looking at the map, I can visualize exactly where it is going, places I have run for decades.

The downside is I would have to travel a bit–it is only a 2 hour drive & I’ve got a sister (Hi Beans!) or a sister-in-law that I could probably bunk with if needed. The price is a little high at $65 right now (if I had been more decisive and registered before the end of last year, I could have gotten in for only $40).

I have not run this race before (this is the third year) but I think it is put on by the same organizers that did the Tour de Eau Claire which was a well-organized race in its one year of existence. The course is not overly hilly although I see a few in there including the steep entrance back into Carson Park during the final mile. Last year over a 1,000 runners ran this race with 300 more doing the full marathon, which was run at the same time.

Lake Minnetonka Half Marathon, May 6th.

I ran this race last year and while there were some unusual problems for a well-established race, it was still a well-organized race overall.

The fact that I ran it last year and can compare time make this my default race for this year. The course has some moderate hills, there were around 2,000 finishers last year. It’s a simple 45 minute drive for me and the current price is $55 now.  One of the small bonuses is that the Minnesota Pacers will be there–I’ve considered trying to be a pacer with them but have hesitated because I don’t know what it entails. So I would like the opportunity to see them in action again.

New Prague Half Marathon, May 12th.

This is another established race that I have not run. It has a good reputation and I believe has some rolling hills (a positive). The Minnesota Pacers will also be here. It is probably about a 45-60 minute drive and the price is right, $40 (I can get in for $35 through tomorrow using their Facebook code).

I like idea of running a race I haven’t tried before but this is a week later than I would ideally like, it would mean probably running my final long run seven days after doing a training race. I could logistically do both this race and one of the other two but that is getting away too much from my main focus unless I use it as an aided training run & tack on a few extra miles before or after.

The ability to compare year over year gives Lake Minnetonka the lead this year–the numbers geek in me finds that very appealing from an analytical point of view although I already plan to run the Ron Daws 25k in early April so I’ll have that as a measuring stick.  If New Prague was a week earlier, it would be a stronger contender. Eau Claire is the one I would do if I just picked one on its own merits and not part of a larger plan.

Any suggestions or recommendations? Anyone run any of these before?

Well, this bonus edition of February is almost up.  The running is going fairly well, I had a little problem with consistency.  Things (i.e. work, family, and a minor, annoying pain) led to missing a few runs–I was able to adjust my schedule in most cases so that it was only my recovery runs that got completely skipped with the one exception that I did miss a long run. It was the first weekend that I did not do a long run since September. I did take a snow day today (Happy Leap Day!) and did a 10 miler so I partially made up for it.

It wasn’t until the end of Jan (1/23) that I started to get serious about tracking how the weight loss was going. Seems to be going good so far–seems like I was losing about a pound a week, right around what the conventional wisdom says is a maintainable weight.

Thursday of last week, I lost control a little & ate too much on both Thursday & Friday. I’m weighing myself twice a day–once right away in the morning and once at night and then calculating four values on a weekly basis, they are:

• Extreme High (aqua line on graph), this is my heaviest weight of the week.
• Median High (yellow), this is the median of my daily high weights.
• Median Low (purple), this is the median of my daily low weights.
• Extreme Low (royal blue), this is my lowest read of the week.

Looking at the chart, the lines all are trending downward, the last set of data points is for this, uncompleted, week. Not sure why I struggled late last week but I also ended up being pretty crabby on Saturday & Sunday.

I’m right around 160 now, I had originally thought I might get down to 150-155 but I’m not sure that I really notice any difference yet so I’ve started to think I might be able to get down a little bit lower. Hopefully, I’ll be at 155 by the end of March and 150 by the end of April.

I’ve really made one simple change–I’m eating less. I just stop eating a little earlier. I tend to really get into eating and eat until I’m “full”.  With full being “stuffed”. Now, I stop a little earlier, seems like it is working, not sure if/when I’ll plateau–I’m sure I will but I’ve definitely still got some more weight I can lose.

One of the unexpectedly benefits of having an extremely obscure blog is that I’m not bothered by trolls or comment-bots (cue the crickets) so it has been awhile since I have had one of those messy email/message board exchanges that happen from time to time.

I’ve sure you seen and/or participated in them–people going back going back & forth in a futile exchange, quickly losing any resemblance of an actual discussion, mis-interpreting and mis-understanding each other on each on a larger and larger, often on an increasing personal, scale.

Human communication is a flawed method of transmitting information as it is. Not content with mis-communicating with local humans, we have greatly expanded our ability to mis-communicate over long distances with people we have never met at instantaneous speeds.

Enter the 10% rule.  Although, probably not the 10% rule that runners might think of–the long-standing rule of increasing your weekly mileage by a maximum of 10% per week (A rule I have issues with but that’s a different post).

A long time ago (20 years, give or take) in a galaxy (online community) far, far away… I learned a different 10% rule–be 10% nicer online than you would be in person.

My first web experience was skimming the Usenet groups, especially rec.running. From there I found the dead runners society. This presented a wonderful opportunity for me to have other running buddies around the world. A phenomenon that was noticed pretty quick online was that it seemed disagreements could quickly explode into “Flame Wars”, much more quickly than in real life. A big reason of that is typing messages back and forth is a different, if not inferior, method of communication.  You lose the body language (part of the reasons emoticons were invented–to partially fill this gap), you lose the ability for quick back & forth (parties typing long, partially disconnected rebuttals), and you lose some context (this person is responding in the 5 minutes they have before the tater-tot hot dish is done).

So at some point, and I wish I remembered the genesis, the dead runners society (drs) adopted the 10% rule. There were still disagreements and Flames but over the decades, it has been one of the least contentious online groups I’ve been a part of. I believe that the 10% rule is a big part of that. I also believe that the group has held nearly annual world conferences where deads meet each other has a big rule–reminds you that there are actual people at the other ends of the Interweb. I believe that keeping in mind the limitations of this form of communications is important in keeping conversations, either in a message board or via eMail, respectful.

My blog represents a portion of who I am, what I think, and what I feel. Sometimes because of my own inability to express myself, a lack of time, or a desire to keep some personal information personal, you may or may not get an accurate impression of who I am, what I know, or what I mean. This blog is mostly focused on my running & I try not to pull too much non-running stuff into it. But I don’t put everything about my running in it either–I would bore the snot out of you (wonder if I could monetize that) if I gave every little details of my running, especially since the vast majority of my training is boring, aerobic work especially now during base season. So sometimes a post will be based off a fleeting thought ( a rumination, if you will) that lasted 10 seconds.

Without proper context I can see how a post like Worries might make someone think I’m stressing out a goal time when I really wanted to reflect a moment of doubt I often have in the winter while I am still building base at a slow, ice-dodging, layer-encumbered, aerobic pace and before the spring thaw has brought back the bounce back to my step. And sometimes in a post, without realizing it, I don’t fully explain something–say, for example, my goal of running Grandma’s in 3:29:59. I am well aware that basically as  a first-timer, I should just do it for the experience–that if I insist on setting a goal pace, it should be at least 15-20 minutes slower than what my other race time might predict. But I’m also willing to experiment and fail. I’m also experienced enough that if  I  need to revise my goal in a month, or two months, on race day, or during the race–whether due to laziness, injury, conditioning, weather, or the view–that isn’t the end of the world. At this point, a goal time is almost meaningless anyhow since I’m still just doing aerobic runs. Once I run a couple of training races–the Ron Daws 25k in early April and probably a half in early May (Eau Claire? Lake Minnetonka? New Prague? anyone want to throw a blogger a freebie?)–and really judge my fitness, will a goal time really be meaningful. At this point, the goal time mostly serves as a motivational tool for me, not something I’m married to.

I welcome questions, comments, or scathing rebuttals–an intelligent, respectful disagreement is both fun and a learning experience but please abide by the 10% rule and don’t assume you know everything about me based off of a couple blogs posts or 140-character snippets, don’t make wild-ass assumptions, if something makes your spidey-senses tingle-ask about it, don’t read too much into random blog/twitter/email comments, don’t extrapolate what I may knowingly choose to do in my running to what I would recommend someone else do, consider that maybe “what we have here is a failure to communicate“, don’t assume that because I don’t instantly agree with you that I’m a  moron, and as Mighty Mur Lafferty  says, “Don’t be an Ass”. And, for my part, I will continue to delete personal insults like “Arrogant old butt blister” from my responses.

If you can live with those terms of engagement, great, let’s have a civil discussion & debate–if not, have a good life.

I just posted a little bit of an update on how my running is going but with January just completed, I want to take a fuller look.

source

I ended up running 124 miles even in January, not sure actually how that compares to my plan but I know I only missed one workout and that was because something came up at work. I was going to make it up during the first week of February but on my last run of January, I twisted my knee a bit on some snow-covered trails and have taken the last two days off. I don’t think it is anything major but want to give it some extra time to heal.

I have also gotten my long run up to 13.5 miles. For comparison’s sake, I didn’t do a 10-miler last year until late February and the first time I did 13+ was April 2nd at the Ron Daws 25K so I’m feeling good about where I am. Still have a lot of work to do but think I’m on track for Grandma’s.

I wasn’t as diligent about attacking my gut but have taken some action the last week or so. I have been more aware of the amount that I eat and I’ve mostly avoided bingeing when I get home from work. I am also trying to take advantage of two plus hours I spend driving and do some abdominal clenching, might not be the best exercise but feels I’m doing something, only wish I could breathe as I do them.

In totally non-running news, my family got 3 pounds of furry fun. Since I’m the one that generally walks the dog, I’ve been reluctant to get a second one. But we stopped at the pet store to get fish food for my wife’s classroom and ended up with a Cairn Terrier (the same breed that Toto from The Wizard of Oz was) .

Toby Zoe is a puppy so she is a little nippy. And she leaves puddles (especially when I pet her). She whines a little when she is in her kennel. She was small enough to walk under our miniature schnauzer. And she is hilarious when shes runs with her tiny legs.  Once she is parasite-free, she is going to spend days in my wife’s classroom.

I haven’t found a good way to imbed my Grandma’s Training Schedule in a blog post yet but I’ve worked out a preliminary schedule. It is essentially out of Marathoning, Start to Finish by Patti and Warren Finke who taught the RRCA Coaching Class I attended last summer.

After following Jack Daniels’ (the coach, not the whiskey) plans for several years for my 13.1 races, this plan seems relatively tame as far as speedwork–I’m planning on doing 4 weeks of hilly fartleks and 5 tempo runs at race paces, maxing out at 4 miles. But it is heavy on endurance–I just ran 13.5 and my long run will be 16 miles by the end of February. Overall, I plan on doing 15 runs of 16-20 miles before the marathon. Currently, 20 (5 times) is the longest but maybe I’ll bump that up to 22.

On paper (or on LCD) it seems to make sense but we’ll see how it looks on the road. I’ve started to experience early-season doubts, you know the ones, “I can’t run 5 miles at 8:30 pace, how the hell am I going to run 26.2 at 8:00 pace”?!

Buy This at CafePress.com

I know with training it will come but it is still amazing to me how the same doubts pop up at the beginning of every training cycle. I am worried that my body won’t hold up to the training–I’ve nursed the miscellaneous aches & pains & chafing (on some very sensitive bits) so far but the miles are just starting to rack up.

The gut battle is on-going. I started compulsively weighing myself on Tuesday, with my weight ranging from a post-long run, dehydrated 158.4 to a high of 163.8. Median daily low of 162.4, median daily high of 163.8.

I tracked my diet for a few days & the biggest thing I learned from that is serving size. Often one of my servings are two or more legitimate servings. That awareness will help me just eat less I hope. And I’ve implemented the “Banana Diet”, my own invention. Before I snack, I need to eat a fruit (most often a banana). This helps fill my stomach with a healthy food and slows me down–helps me think about what I’m eating. I think I did OK this week, my youngest daughter had a birthday party on Saturday and I was measured in what I ate.

I missed one workout this week because of a combination of a work situation and a couple birthdays I needed to celebrate but overall a good week, methinks.

Spent a chunk of time driving around listening to National Public Radio today and of course most of the coverage was deservedly focused on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

At some point, my mind wondered why running, especially at the recreational level is so . . .  white (or at least lacking in African-Americans). I remembered wondering that at Bjorklund last year when seeing an (non-elite) African-Americans runner made the “whiteness” of the race all too obvious but I forgot about that thought until today.

And not to pick on any one organization, I thought that this header image from RunningUSA.org pretty well represents my impression of the racial make-up of most races.

Now I’ll admit, my impression might be totally off-base, maybe the participation by race is closer to the actual demographics of the country and I’m just out of touch. But if my impression is right, I can make some guesses related to sociology, economics, geography,  and culture but they would just be assumptions–mostly based off popular stereotypes and not any actual factual information.

Right now, I’m wondering what part of the running community are African-Americans and other minorities? And if these percentages are different from their proportion of the country’s overall population, why is there a difference?

No answers, just questions.

Ok, my family thinks I’m a geek. Their latest evidence is this excellent documentary by Paul Sanft of Ideatap Studios about Team USA Minnesota, a training center for elite distance runners.

Olympic Marathon Trials from Paul Sanft.

After seeing a link for it a couple of days ago, I had to show it to my family. It went something like this:

“Come here, watch this!”

“See that train, I know where that is!” (0:02)

“Oh, look they’re running on MY route!” (0:04)

“I run across that bridge!” (0:19)

“They’re doing my hill–that’s my hill, that’s where I do my hill workouts!” (0:25)

“Oh my god! Who is that? That’s Josh Moen? He fit me for a pair of shoes & I didn’t even know who he was! Oh, my god!” (0:51)

“See that garbage can! I know where that is, I ran by that garbage can today!” (1:13).

…and so on. I’m not sure when they snuck away but they did at some point.

It is really cool to watch these great runners running on my courses. I especially liked the slow-motion sequences where you can really see their form–I’m looking for a way to slow it down even more so I can see their form frame-by-frame.

For the record, I’m not disagreeing that I’m a geek.

But I’ve got a growing conflict–I’m starting to root for locals and that is making me feel uneasy because, well, they’re Minnesotans.

To back up a step, I grew up and lived in Wisconsin for the first 40+ years of my life and developed a healthy disregard for Minnesota–mostly due to a game played with an mis-shaped leather ball. A sport where my believed home-state team has been World Champions 13 times & counting; Minnesota’s team, not so many (0 in case you need to know the exact count). We’re the big brother and the Minnesota team is the jealous little brother always trying to prove they’re just as good despite the fact that they’re just not.

source

Football rivalry & related issues aside, I’m not completely uncomfortable with the concept of Minnesota–I shop at Target & Best Buy and love Famous Dave’s (although I’ve got to point out the first and best Dave’s is in Hayward, Wisconsin). And one of my all-time favorite runner/writers, Ron Daws, came from Minnesota, so the state has some redeeming qualities.

I’m actually learning to deal with the football thing and blend in with the non horn-wearing portion of the population. Heck, I even joined the Minnesota Distance Runners Association (MDRA).

UW Badgers 2011 XC National Champions

source

And while I celebrated the Badger’s Cross Country National Title, I’m also starting to root for local runners like Kara Goucher who grew up in Duluth and just qualified for the Olympic Marathon, Andrew Carlson, Matt Gabrielson, Jason Lehmkuhle, Katie (Koski) MacGregor, and Josh Moen. I’m even starting to appreciate Carrie Tollefson, Minnesota’s First Lady of Running, for the rock star she is.

Last week I posted my running goals for 2012 without much explanation.

Well, I can either sit around in my underwear and watch The Big Bang Theory or I can actually write something for this blog (also while sitting around in my underwear). While the goals themselves are pretty straight-forward, I want to explain my motivations.

First, I’m gonna man-up and take ownership. I was pussy-footing around about running a marathon. Well that’s bull-shit. I am going to run Grandma’s Marathon on June 16th, 2012. There, I said it.

I hesitated to actually commit to this because I was not sure if I was willing to properly training for it. I have run one marathon before–Grandma’s 2000–and while I didn’t die, I went into it under-trained and struggled in the second half–I went through mile 16 in about 2:14:29 (8:24 pace). From there on, though, I struggled and ran/walked the final 10.2 at 10:22 pace, finishing in 4:00:14 (watch time).

To confess, while I was happy and proud that I finished, it was not a life-changing accomplishment for me. I guess having started running at 14, I just assumed that I would be able to do it if I tried–I had run as far as 16 miles before I started training for the marathon so I just had the mentality that I just needed to run longer.

I was not even disappointed in how the second half went–I knew I was under-trained. I had some more important things going on in my life (we were expecting our first child and my mother-in-law, who lived 5 hours away, was dying of cancer) and battled a cranky ITB during training so I did not have extremely unrealistic expectations. Although when I went through the half in about 1:50, I started to think I might run a 3:40-ish.  Ha!

And while those final 14 seconds lingered in the back of my mind, I did not care enough to do anything about them. Although every time I told another runner I had run a marathon, I had to confess that those 14 blasted seconds existed.

But I thought I was content running 10 to 13.1 milers–those are great distances to race. They are long enough to be an endurance event but short enough that I can, if I want, jump into one if I’m in any sort of shape and not have to worry about being able to finish.

But then as I started to re-connect with other runners and I heard about their marathon experiences, I got the itch to try 26.2 again. Not sure when the I gave in-in August I was still saying I did not plan on running a marathon. But since September, I have run a 10-miler nearly every weekend “in case” I decided to train for a marathon. I am not only going to train for & finish a marathon but I’m going to run a marathon.

So I am starting my training. I have sketched out my plan, I have penciled-in a couple of practice races and I am going to do it. This coming weekend, I up my long run to 12 miles. I plan on doing 16 by the end of February.

And I am setting an aggressive time goal, 3:29:59. That is about what the race predictors say I should be able to run but considering I am a recycled Marathon Virgin, it should be pretty difficult.

Not sure how these old legs are gonna hold up, but I’m hoping for the best. And I’m sure I’ll bore you with some of the boring specifics.