The week leading up to a big race is always a tough week for me. I have a hard time cutting back on training and resting for the race. Most weeks during the year I have a full training load and I get very comfortable with that. When I taper down for a race, I have a hard time dealing with cutting back durations and intensities. I'm sure I've gone into races more tired than I should have been. The 6 days before IM Canada I put in 7 hours of training!
That being said, it's race week now and I'm doing what I always do.
Monday I swam hard in the morning then went out for an "easy 5" in the evening. Well the first mile was a controlled 7:06, but over the next 4 miles I ran my pace down to a 6:38 where the last mile was a 6:09. That made me tired.
Tuesday morning started early and I was at the track by 5:15 for my three mile tempo run. Two mile warm up, some plyometrics, and I was ready to go. The plan was to run two 5:55's and then try to hit a 5:53 for the third mile. The half marathon time of 1:18:00 is 5:56/mile so I wanted to get used to that effort. First mile, 5:57, not bad but a little off. Second mile, 5:56, was better but now I'm three seconds off target time. Third mile was a 5:48, but felt controlled. So overall, I'm where I want to be. I felt very tired during the day, but swam easy at night anyway.
Wednesday morning was another quality swim and an easy run in the evening. It's hard to turn down running when it's this hot out!
Thursday morning was my last track workout. Two mile run to the track, some dynamic stretching and plyo's, then into the workout...4x400 with 400 recovery jog in between each. My 400's were :82, :80, :80, :77. Easy jog home and workout done. No PM workout.
This morning I got in an easy swim since I will be going to coach at Penn Relays tonight for my boys Distance Medley Relay team.
Tomorrow will be an easy swim and easy run. My next post will be the race report!
Friday, April 29, 2011
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Backing out of Eagleman
Well, the title of the blog says it all. I just got a refund in the mail from Tricolumbia making my withdrawal from Eagleman official. I never thought I would ever back out of a race, but life has other plans sometimes. It was a tough decision, and one I wish I didn't have to make, but it was the right one.
To get personal, here's the reason why.
A little less than two years ago, May 13, 2009, my 21 year old cousin Danny was killed in a car accident after moving out of his dorm two days before graduating college. However, Danny was an organ donor and he made the lives of seventy people better.
Here in New Jersey, the Sharing Network Foundation is an organization that handles all of the organ donations in the state. Since Danny's accident, this has been an organization that my family and I have supported. This coming June, the Sharing Network will be hosting their first annual 5K to honor those who gave, celebrate those who have received, and hope with those who wait for an organ or tissue transplant. The date of the event will be June 12, 2011, which is the day of Eagleman. So, as I mentioned before, life has other plans. I couldn't imagine not being at the 5K that day, and I know it was the right decision.
If anyone is interested in supporting the race and Danny's team, you can find all that information at the link here...
http://sharenj.donorpages.com/5KWalkRun2011/TeamBuck/
To get personal, here's the reason why.
A little less than two years ago, May 13, 2009, my 21 year old cousin Danny was killed in a car accident after moving out of his dorm two days before graduating college. However, Danny was an organ donor and he made the lives of seventy people better.
Here in New Jersey, the Sharing Network Foundation is an organization that handles all of the organ donations in the state. Since Danny's accident, this has been an organization that my family and I have supported. This coming June, the Sharing Network will be hosting their first annual 5K to honor those who gave, celebrate those who have received, and hope with those who wait for an organ or tissue transplant. The date of the event will be June 12, 2011, which is the day of Eagleman. So, as I mentioned before, life has other plans. I couldn't imagine not being at the 5K that day, and I know it was the right decision.
If anyone is interested in supporting the race and Danny's team, you can find all that information at the link here...
http://sharenj.donorpages.com/5KWalkRun2011/TeamBuck/
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Rutgers UNITE Half Marathon Race Report
Apr 18, 2011 — bryan913
Several months ago I registered for this half marathon when they offered the first 100 entrants would pay $17.66. How could you say no to that?! So I signed up with initial plans of using this as a training day before I pumped up my cycling miles to get ready for Eagleman. However, plans change and I will not be racing Eagleman this year (that'll be for another blog) and this race became a little higher priority. My PR at this distance was set in 2009 with 1:20:28 on a very flat course. Even though the course for yesterday's race was slightly more challenging, I still had all intentions of breaking 1:20 and the plan was to head out at 6:05 pace.
I had a weird pre-race week that left me feeling VERY fatigued after my last tempo run (in the pouring rain) from Tuesday. I felt pretty lethargic Tuesday through Friday last week, but started to feel better after dinner of Friday. I swam and had an easy 20 minute run Saturday and was feeling much better, so reaching my goal was looking very possible. The forecast for the race was to be mid 50's to 60 with strong winds, so nothing wrong with that.
Saturday night, it poured. It started to rain at around 1:00pm and didn't let up until well after midnight. I woke up to nice weather on Sunday, but more on that later. Sunday morning (race morning) was pretty normal. I like to shower to wake up a little, so did that and then got my stuff together. At 5:15am I went out to get a bagel and everything was closed! So I went home and finished getting my gear together and waited around til 6:00am to leave. I went back to the bagel shop, they were open, but no bagels. I had to settle for Dunkin Donut's poor excuse for a bagel and was on teh road 15 minutes later than I was hoping for. No problem, though, no traffic on a Sunday morning. I got to the race site a little after 7:00am and met up with two friends who were running. We stayed warm in the car for a little and went out for our warm up at about 7:45. After finishing the warm-up and pre-care bathroom break we went back outside to run some striders and loosen up. This is where things got interesting.
The race director then made an announcement that the course had to be changed because of flooding of a nearby river that flooded a large part of the course. The 13.1 mile run was now going to be a 10-mile race!!! I was MAD! But, what can you do? So now I had to get into a little different mindset and think about running sub 6:00's instead of the planned 6:05's. The new goal was to break 60.
The gun went off on time and the race got started no problem. I went through the first mile at 5:36, a little too fast! Mile two and three were more controlled at 5:53 and 5:45. Then we hit some huge head winds and I slipped off with a 6:10 and a 6:02. I was sitting in about 14th overall at this point. Not terrible numbers but I wasn't feeling it. I wanted to go out strong, but this might have been too strong. Miles 6 and 7 were uneventful but painful and I stayed on track with a 5:59 and a 5:53, but better news was that I was starting to reel in some runners ahead of me. I Decided I had to suck it up and go for it. Mile 8 was a 5:39 and mile 9 was a 5:26. I moved into 9th place and was gaining on 8th. I checked my watch and thought I could catch 8th place in this last mile. However, the course turned left and there was the finish line! I looked down again and my watch read 9.4 miles! Oh well, not catching that guy! Mile 10 was only 0.65 miles and I came across the 9.65 mile race in 55:25 for 9th place.
So it wasn't a perfect day, but I am very happy with my fitness. My average pace for the run was 5:44/mile (which was my 5K pace in a race last December) and I definitely wasn't exhausted afterwards. If this was a half marathon, I pretty certain I would easily break 1:20:00. Since things didn't go according to plan, I am going to sign up for another half marathon on May 1st to try to PR. It is the same race I PR'd at two years ago. However, given yesterday's run on a rolling WINDY course, my new goal time is 1:18:00.
So I will put in another hard week this week with a tempo run on Tuesday and my last big track workout Thursday and a 10 mile distance run over the weekend before resting up for the race.
I had a weird pre-race week that left me feeling VERY fatigued after my last tempo run (in the pouring rain) from Tuesday. I felt pretty lethargic Tuesday through Friday last week, but started to feel better after dinner of Friday. I swam and had an easy 20 minute run Saturday and was feeling much better, so reaching my goal was looking very possible. The forecast for the race was to be mid 50's to 60 with strong winds, so nothing wrong with that.
Saturday night, it poured. It started to rain at around 1:00pm and didn't let up until well after midnight. I woke up to nice weather on Sunday, but more on that later. Sunday morning (race morning) was pretty normal. I like to shower to wake up a little, so did that and then got my stuff together. At 5:15am I went out to get a bagel and everything was closed! So I went home and finished getting my gear together and waited around til 6:00am to leave. I went back to the bagel shop, they were open, but no bagels. I had to settle for Dunkin Donut's poor excuse for a bagel and was on teh road 15 minutes later than I was hoping for. No problem, though, no traffic on a Sunday morning. I got to the race site a little after 7:00am and met up with two friends who were running. We stayed warm in the car for a little and went out for our warm up at about 7:45. After finishing the warm-up and pre-care bathroom break we went back outside to run some striders and loosen up. This is where things got interesting.
The race director then made an announcement that the course had to be changed because of flooding of a nearby river that flooded a large part of the course. The 13.1 mile run was now going to be a 10-mile race!!! I was MAD! But, what can you do? So now I had to get into a little different mindset and think about running sub 6:00's instead of the planned 6:05's. The new goal was to break 60.
The gun went off on time and the race got started no problem. I went through the first mile at 5:36, a little too fast! Mile two and three were more controlled at 5:53 and 5:45. Then we hit some huge head winds and I slipped off with a 6:10 and a 6:02. I was sitting in about 14th overall at this point. Not terrible numbers but I wasn't feeling it. I wanted to go out strong, but this might have been too strong. Miles 6 and 7 were uneventful but painful and I stayed on track with a 5:59 and a 5:53, but better news was that I was starting to reel in some runners ahead of me. I Decided I had to suck it up and go for it. Mile 8 was a 5:39 and mile 9 was a 5:26. I moved into 9th place and was gaining on 8th. I checked my watch and thought I could catch 8th place in this last mile. However, the course turned left and there was the finish line! I looked down again and my watch read 9.4 miles! Oh well, not catching that guy! Mile 10 was only 0.65 miles and I came across the 9.65 mile race in 55:25 for 9th place.
So it wasn't a perfect day, but I am very happy with my fitness. My average pace for the run was 5:44/mile (which was my 5K pace in a race last December) and I definitely wasn't exhausted afterwards. If this was a half marathon, I pretty certain I would easily break 1:20:00. Since things didn't go according to plan, I am going to sign up for another half marathon on May 1st to try to PR. It is the same race I PR'd at two years ago. However, given yesterday's run on a rolling WINDY course, my new goal time is 1:18:00.
So I will put in another hard week this week with a tempo run on Tuesday and my last big track workout Thursday and a 10 mile distance run over the weekend before resting up for the race.
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