More miles to go...

2nd Marathon for the Marathon Icons.

2009-05-02T18:28:00.001-04:00

The marathon Icons have been up a month now, and I 3 weeks ago I ran my first Marathon for the Team In Training, raising money for the The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society,
Tomorrow I run the Flying Pig marathon in Cincinnati, for Team in Training. this will be #2 of the 3 marathons that I will be doing. However my main fundraising tool is the Marathon Icons.

Thanks to everyone who has purchased the Icons, or donated. Wish me luck.

If you want to help me out, you can pick up the Marathon Icons Here. http://mormegil.wincustomize.com/skins.aspx?skinid=1767&libid=2

Or make a donation of any size here.
http://pages.teamintraining.org/mi/anchor09/BoyerHatcher

Paul Boyer (Mormegil) and Stardock have joined forces with the Team in Training to help save lives!

2009-04-07T11:38:00.001-04:00

Since I began running 3 years ago I have been looking for a way to bring my two passions together; Icons and Running. This year I joined the “Team In Training” to help raise money for The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. I am running 5 marathons this year, including the Alaska Mayors Marathon, along with my wife, as a member of the “Team In Training.” We set a fundraising goal of $10,000 dollars between the two of us. This gave me my chance to finally bring my two addictions together. I’ve done this by creating the “Marathon” Icon suite.

In the Marathon Icon suite I tried to capture the scope of running a marathon by creating a uniquely colored IconPackage for each mile of the Marathon - 26 IconPacks for 26.2 miles. The result is an amazing variety and over 1200 icons that will complement any desktop. To top this all off I included three additional IconPacks, themed for the “Team in Training” so you can show your support to the world, making a total of 29 IconPackages. This, to my knowledge, the largest Icon suite ever.

Stardock has been generous enough to join in my efforts, and will donate all the profits from this pack as well, so 100% of the profits from this suite will go directly to the The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society to help save lives.

I hope you will join me in supporting this cause. As someone who has lost family to Leukemia, it is near and dear to my heart. On June 20th of 2009, my wife and I will be running across the finish line in Alaska, in memory of my Uncle, and in support of my brother-in-law. In the end it will be those of you who support me by purchasing the “Marathon” suite that will have made it possible.

For additional information about our story, or to donate directly to the cause, go here:

For additional information about The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, go here:

If you don’t already have IconPackager, you can download try it out, get it here.

To help save lives, and get the full 29 pack suite, go here.

Las Vegas Marathon 2008 (King for a Day)

2009-01-15T21:43:00.001-05:00

Las Marathon, 2008.

Finish Time: 3:45:41, new PR.
Place: Overall 593/3525, Division 85, Sex 485.
Marathon #5, State #4 of 50.

Is been almost 6 week since I ran down the Vegas Strip, dressed as Elvis. When I was looking for a winter marathon, Vegas was one of the first I came across. While I was perusing the races web site, I found that they were looking to brake the world record of the most Elvi to run a marathon. Well I figured if I was going to do Vegas I should do it 100%.

The weekend was a whirlwind, and went something like this…

Saturday:
Flight from Detroit, had to wake up to early…
Walked from airport, 3 miles, sweaty…
Checked in to Excalibur, to expensive…
Walked to Del Taco, 1200 calories of bliss…
Walked to Expo, got packet, and stared at…
Karaoke Pasta dinner, 200 Elvi, 2000 people…
Drank half gallon of Gatorade…
Slept pretty well, woke up at 4:30am…

Sunday:
Dressed as Elvis, walked to race, ate muffin…
Got in starting coral with 200 other Elvi…
Miles 1-5 the strip, still dark, fireworks…
Miles 6-10 sunrise, run thru, wedding chapel…
Miles 11-18, up hill, boring, but steady pace…
Miles 19-24, down hill, 4th place Elvis…
Miles 25-26, called Kristin for the last mile…
Finish, Kristin across the finish on my iPhone…
Got picture with show girl, posted on Facebook…
Walked slowly to hotel, Long shower…
Del Taco again… bliss.
Walked to the Palms, saw movie, forgettable…
Cab to airport, wait 4 hours for flight…
Back in Detroit at 5AM, Very Tired…

I wish I had the words to express the surreal adventure that was this race, It was a great way to my 2008 running season, with a new PR, and people yelling “Go Elvis” for 26.1 miles.

Detroit Marathon, 2008, Best Run ever.

2008-11-29T20:41:00.001-05:00

Detroit Marathon, 2008:
Finish Time: 3:46:49.
Overall Place: 999 – 3551

I am righting this over a month after the actual race, mostly because I just don't know what to say. It was my best race to date in just about every way. I wanted to write something clever, and give a detail brake down of the entire race, since I have done my best to complain about how all the others went.

But the strange thing is, now that I have had a near perfect marathon, I just don't have the words. So with that said, I will do my best to sum up.

For the first time, I officially signed up with a pace group, since I had run the Milwaukee Marathon two weeks earlier at 3:49:50, I decided to sign up for the 3:50 group. This turned out great, with the help of the pace group, and the leader Pacer David. I was able to stay with in 30-45 seconds of the pace up to mile 24. At mile 24 after talking to the pace leader, I was able to leave the group behind, doing mile 24 at 8:00 and mile 26, at 7:10.

The last mile is were words failed me. I was so pumped up that I was smiling like a mad man, I quite literally bounced down final stretch, almost disqualifying myself by jumping right over the finish line.

Ironically, As I right this I am one week away from running the Las Vegas Marathon, dressed as Elvis, but it will always be Detroit 2008 were I first finished a marathon feeling like a King.

2008 Detroit Marathon, Seems like I've been here before.

2008-10-18T20:57:00.001-04:00

One year ago, I was writing almost the same blog as I am writing tonight.

Tomorrows morning I will be running my Second Detroit Freepress Marathon. This will not only be my second Detroit Marathon, it is my Second Marathon, this month. Two weeks ago I ran the Milwaukee Lakefront marathon, with a finish time of 3:49:56. Tomorrow I will be running with a pace group for the first time, and shooting for another 3:50 marathon. The only thing crazy about this race is the fac that I am trying doing it so soon after the last one.

My goal for this race is simple, run consistently. Two weeks ago in Wisconsin, I ran the first 24 miles at 8:30, and bonked in the last 2 miles. Losing almost 4 minutes in last mile. This I want to average 8:47 the entire race, and finish at almost the same time.

Tonight with 10 hours to go, I am feeling pretty confident, I am in much better shape then I was last year. I will however admit that I have already decided that I wont be trying to do any more back to back marathons for quite awhile.

My only goal is to get some sleep, and digest my pre-race spaghetti dinner.

The Third Marathons the Charm.

2008-10-11T18:55:00.001-04:00

Milwaukee Lakefront Marathon 2008.
Finish Time: 3:49:56, Pace 26.2 @ 8:46.

It took me a few days to decide just what to say about my experience at the 2008 Lakefront Marathon. What I would normally be my primary focus was my Time, which was a full 5 minutes ahead of my original goal of 3:55. This was great, and I am quite pleased. It feels food to be under 4 hours at last.

Perhaps more surprising was that setting a new Marathon P.R. was one of the least memorable aspects of this race. It was a triumphant 26 miles, full of lessons learned, with just a dash of disaster.

The most important lessons learned was that having a Pace Partner can make a Marathon a much more enjoyable experience. At a staring line of the Lakefront Marathon, I was lucky enough to meat up with two fellow runners, Michael and Gabe, both with more or less the same goal time as myself. After showing them my Garman Forerunner, and how the Virtual Running partner worked, Michael suggested that we run together. I was not to sure about this but did not object.

About a mile in, I realized that I had truly acquired a partner for the rest of the run. Michael and I clicked, and buy mile two we had exchanged running history's, and were planning out the next 24 miles. Around mile 4 we lost Gabe, but it was for the best because he was breathing pretty hard. I never did find out how he were he finished, but I am sure he did pretty well. I don't blame him, since we by than Michael and I had settled in at the a healthy 8:30 average pace, about 20 seconds faster per mile than the goal I was originally planning to run, this was the pace that we stayed locked to until about mile 23.

Somewhere around mile 23, I learned my the second Important lesson of the race. Don't skip aid stations, and GU, in the last few miles, just because your "Almost there". I learned this the hard way, when about half way though mile 25 I hit the wall like I have never hit it before. Michael tired to talk me thru it, but I just could not do it. I ended up walking for about 1/8th of a the last mile, costing me almost 4 minutes off my time. I finished with a respectable 3:49:56, Michael finished at 3:46:16. Even though we were in lockstep until the last mile.

Having survived the run, and beating my goal time, 5 minutes cant complain. As a mater of fact I have to say this was with out a drought my best marathon yet.

Most Ironic Running Blog Ever...

2008-10-03T20:37:00.001-04:00

As you may have noticed there was a 7 month gap in this blog. This was caused by my web host changing from Cpanel, to vDeck. Braking my FTP server. I finally gave up and moved the hosting over to blogspot. Luckily I was able to migrate everything over.

The Ironic thing is that in the missing 6 months I broke thru a "Wall". I went from "building back mile", and being content with 17 miles a week, to setting Personal Records in every race I ran, and averaging 50 to 60 mile weeks.

The finally of this exceptional summer arrives this Sunday, with the Milwaukee Lakefront Marathon. Back in June when I decided to train for this, my only hope was to finish it in under 4 hours. My EZ pace has gone form 10:00 to 8:58, and my tempo runs have gone from 8:30 to 7:25. To top it all off, my final Long run of this training cycle was a full marathon, at 3:54.

In Less than 48 hours, I will be running the streets of Milwaukee, I'm still not quite sure what my official goal time is, somewhere between my original 3:55, and 3:45. Even if I finish at 3:55 this will still be my best Marathon yet.

As a start in getting this blog back up and running, I will be bloging this weekends adventure. So check back to find out the gruesome details.

Can you post to blogspot blogs with the iPhone?

2008-10-02T22:41:00.004-04:00

After quite a bit of wasted time trying to get my domain, hosted at ipowerweb to let me host my blogger running blog again, I have finaly given up. Luckly I was able to just change it over to moremilestogo.blogspot.com. It seams to have made the transtion smoothly. I even recovered a post I made back in March

Now that I can post again, I wanted to see if I can post from my iPhone. The answer seams to be yes. But I don't think I will be able easely post photos. There are however several Apps in the App store that say they will do just that. I will have to look into it. In the mean time just posting useing the website seams to work fine for text.

My Unofficial Howell Fitness Treadmill Marathon!

2008-10-02T22:19:00.001-04:00

This is a re-post of my JoeUser blog from September 15th 2008.

Since I started running almost 3 years ago, I have run 2 full marathons, as well as 3 half-marathons. Yesterday I ran my 3rd full marathon, and set a new personal record of 3:54. The sad thing is it doesn't even count.

My 1st marathon, L.A., March 2007, I trained very hard for, but had no idea what I was in for, and I burned myself out in the first 10 miles. I had a goal time of 3:30, but I finished with a time of 4:28. I was heartbroken, and it took me quite a while to be ready to try again.

The 2nd marathon, Detroit, October 2007, went better, but mostly because I had lower expectations, and I trained smarter rather than harder. I finished at a respectable 4:10, though I still missed my goal time of 3:55 by 15 minutes.

The end of 2007 brought with it the the biggest challenge of my short running carrier. I got a bad flu, and was working 18 hour days, not to mention that it was the worst winter weather I had seen since coming to Michigan. My mileage dropped from 30 to 40 miles a week to 5 to 10. By March 2008 I had gained 22 pounds back, and felt as if I was back to square one in running. This low point, not to mention the weight gain, made me realize just how much running had become a part of my life.

In March I decided to get my act together. I came up with a simple plan; build up my running and count calories. 6 months later I have lost the weight, and have set new personal records on every race I have run.

13 weeks ago I began training for my 3rd marathon. Yesterday was my last long run of this training cycle. I had planned on doing 24 miles outside, but the remains of hurricane Ike brought the gift of constant rain and wind. So I found myself at the gym. Running my long run on a treadmill. The problem was the treadmill only lets you do 99 minutes at a time, so I had to stop the treadmill twice, drag the belt to a stop and restart the machine. This cost me 20 seconds or so, but overall the treadmill was helpful, in that it helped me control my pace more than I have been able to in my past long runs.

This is not to say I did not have some adventures. My headphones cut out on me, and I had time to, while running, call my wife, and ask her to drive to the next town and pick me up another pair. She was able to bring me new ones, as well as some bottles of water, with and hour and a half to spare.

In the end this was the best long run / marathon I have ever done. I was able to nail my pace to 9:05 for the first 20.2 miles, and than speed up for the last 6 miles, finishing with a respectable 7:45 mile. I was even able to talk the poor lady on the treadmill in front of me to take a picture of me as I crossed the imaginary finish line. I finished with as best I can tell at 3:54:15, with average pace of 8:55. This was my best marathon to date, but I don't think I will be in a rush to do an indoor treadmill again.

3000 Miles Officially...

2008-10-02T22:15:00.001-04:00

This is a re-post of my Joe User blog from September 3rd 2008.

Last week I hit 3000 Miles on my Nike+ iPod. In fact I believe I hit 3000 miles of running about 3 months ago, but I don't have any proof. I started running in April of 2006, around 2 1/2 years ago, and did not get my Nike+ until July. I'm not sure how many miles In that intervening 3 1/2 months, but I guess around 200 miles. On top of that there have been many runs lost due to syncing errors, and user error. The most resent was my 23 mile run last last weekend. Which had it been recorded, would have put me over the 3000 mile line 3 days earlier. There have also been many runs that were the Nike+ recorded excess miles, a mile here and a mile there, I think the miles lost and the miles gained have washed out.

Next stop 4000 miles, If I keep the mileage up that I have been doing, I should be hitting it around next July or August.

Long Run, Slowly building back the miles.

2008-03-16T16:10:00.008-04:00

Planned: 6.5 Miles @ 10:00
Ran: 6 Miles @ 10:00 & 1 Mile @ 8:50

I am stating to feel better with my runs, I put off today's run until 1:30 in the afternoon, and I was pretty sure it was going to be a disaster. But much to my surprise, it went fine.

I ran on the treadmill at the gym again. Though I could have run outside today, for the first time in months. I was so comfortable that I decided to bust up the pace for my last mile. However I am looking forward to getting back to 9:00 being my EZ pace. Puts me at a respectable 17.1 Miles for this week. The plan is to add 10% each week until I am back up to 25 or so.

The Treadmill tried to kill me!

2008-03-14T07:02:00.003-04:00

EZ Run: 3mi @ 10:00
Ran: 3m @ 10:00

Today was supposed to be uneventful, a EZ 3 miles, the run itself was pretty much that. I did increase the incline .5 every half mile, ending at a 3% Grade. It's kind of amazing what a difference that makes. But over all it went well.

The Crazy part happened while I was warming up. We got to the gym around 5:20am and as is usual on Friday the it was a bit crowded, so all the "good" treadmills were taken. I went ahead and used a treadmill I had never used before. I stared out at a walk at 3:00, within a few second I was shocked when I touched the guard rail of the treadmill. Shortly I was shocked again. About half way through my .25mi warm up I reached down and touched the Heart Rate reader, and a giant ark of static shot from my finger into the sensor. And before I knew it the treadmill shot up to its maximum speed, and not gradually. I almost got thrown off the back of the thing. With a bit of effort I was able to slap the stop button before I went flying.

Needless to say I will not be using that treadmill again.

Tempo Run (4mi 2@8:30)

2008-03-13T07:30:00.003-04:00

Planned: 4mi - 2mi @ 8:30
Ran: 4mi - 2mi @ 8:27

This was the first time I have tried to step up the pace since I joined the gym. It went pretty well, but I have to admit the I the first mile was a bit difficult, at least mentally.

The only thing of note is that I had a hard time figuring out what pace to run for warm up and cool down, I never really settled, bouncing between 10:00 and 12:00. Oh well back to a simple EZ run tomorrow. I have to admit it is kind of nice not to be training for anything in particular for once.

The Winter of my Discontent.

2008-03-12T16:49:00.002-04:00

The few Friends and family who fallow this blog, are probably thinking i have dropped off the face of the Earth. Well not quite.

Things have been crazy at work, I have been splitting my time between 3 Different Games we have in development, as well as the art direction for the rest of the company. I have been working on several side projects, and to top it all off this has been the worse winter since I moved to Michigan. It has been difficult to say the least to run outside. Oh, and my treadmill is more or less dead.

Back in December, While I was still training for the Snowflake Run, which has come and gone, I got the flu, It took me off my feet for almost 2 weeks, and it took me another week to be able to run at all. Beside that I have been sick twice since then. I have tried to get back on the road ever since December, with mediocre results.

But winter is ending, and I have joined a gym, so its time to get back on the road. I am starting with a nice 10minute mile pace, I am going to use the rest of March to build back up to a 20plus Mile week.

So I am back to the blog, to get myself motivated. I still have allot of miles to go...

Snowflake Run (Week 2 - Day 1)

2007-12-04T07:53:00.000-05:00

EZ Run: 2miles @ 9:05
Planned: 2miles @ 9:10

One week seams to have gone along way to getting me back on my feet. Today's run was more the cake walk that I was expecting last Monday. Though I am now getting board by the treadmill alarmingly fast. I am going to have to set the TV back up before I go mad.

Snowflake Run (Week 1 - Day 4)

2007-12-04T07:44:00.000-05:00

Long Run: 6.6miles @ 9:05 - .5miles @ 6:57
Planned: 7Miles @ 9:10

How long dose it take to be board to tears on a treadmill, the answer seams to be 6.5 miles. I Can say that I am happy that I was able to do this run with no other problems then boredom. It seams my recovery plan is going well. I continued to have no further knee problems, and each run becomes easier, and more relaxing.

However I have to be careful not to fall into old bad habits ad start over running again. Slow an easy, is my motto for this winter. Slow and Easy.... sometimes equals boring.

Snowflake Run (Week 1 - Day 3)

2007-11-30T07:35:00.000-05:00

EZ Run: 2miles @ 9:05
Planned: 2miles @ 9:10

This run was more like what I was expecting of on Monday. Quick and easy, no discomfort at all.

The weather has turned cold, as in well below freezing, since the bulk of the next 6 weeks runs are short, I my end running the next six weeks on the treadmill.

Snowflake Run (Week 1 - Day 2)

2007-11-29T08:26:00.000-05:00

Speedwork: 5miles - 3x800m @ 3:26
Planned: 5miles - 3x800m @ 3:27

This was the first time in weeks that I ran any distance at any real speed. I was a bit concerned that It would be hard, or bring back my knee problems, but I am happy to say it smooth sailing.

I think this lighter program is going to work out well.

Snowflake Run (Week 1 - Day 1)

2007-11-27T07:04:00.001-05:00

EZ Run: 2miles @ 9:05
Planned: 2miles @ 9:10
It seams two weeks of not running have effected me more then I would have imagined. Bringing both positive and negative effects.

First the bad:,I have not run this slow "on purpose" in over a year, and yet it was not the cake walk I was expecting. I never felt like I needed to stop, but the fact that I felt any discomfort at all tells me I have fallen quite out of shape.
Also, I cant help but notice I have gained almost 10 pounds since the marathon, only 5 weeks ago. This is entirely my fault, but that wait dose not help my comfort Laval. I think It may be time to go back on a diet. I was hoping to avoid this, but what must be done, etc.

Ont the good side, I did not have any problems with my knees, sure it was a short slow run, but afterword I was able to go up the stairs without any hint of trouble. I think this lighter schedule is just what my knees asked for. I also have to admit that I kind of like being able to run in the morning without it taking a over a hour, 2 or 3 miles seams to be the sweet spot, for a morning run, if you want to finish it feeling awake and empowered, not beat up and exhausted.

Well, I'm back on track, or maybe I should say treadmill, the weather has already turned to full out winter outside, so it looks like most of this program will be done in the basement. Now the challenge is to push on through the winter.

Snowflake Run

2007-11-21T05:13:00.000-05:00

On Sunday I will not have run for 2 full weeks, this is the longest I have gone without running since I started running back in April of 06. I was have been having some problems with my knees, so I wanted to take a bit of a brake from doing long distances, so now with a few weeks off under my belt, I'm ready to start back up, and I'm going to force my self to take it easy for a while.

I spent some time looking around for a local 5k in January, a bit hard to fined in Michigan, and found the Flushing MI, Snowflake Run, on January 13th 08. This is a 5 and 10k races, but I have decided to stick with the 5, since the entire point is to cut my mileage for a bit. This only gives me 7 weeks to train, starting Monday. Once again I terned to RunnersWorlds SmartCoach for a plan.

I think this schedule is quite realistic, and should allow me to get back in the swing of things, and I should be able to use my race time as a baseline for a my next program, starting on the 21st of January, when I begin taring for the Cincinnati Marathon in May.

2000 Miles, some ups some downs...

2007-11-11T14:42:00.000-05:00

10Miles @ 10:00
Planned: 16 Miles @ 9:10

Well the good news first. This run Finlay put me over the 2000 mile mark on my Nilke +. My only complaint is that with the runs I have lost I should probably be more like 2200, but hey, I cant complain. I think I can officially say that the Nike + was worth the money. ;). I have know sure way to know, but I think I am at around 2500 hundred miles total since I started running back in April of 2005.

The bad news is less encouraging. I purposely was not blogging over the last 2 weeks because I was trying to decided if I was up to going to Vegas on December 2nd, to run the Las Vegas marathon. After Detroit I was feeling pretty positive, and wanting one last crack at a sub 4hour marathon in 2007. For some reason my knees are not to keen on this Idea.

It has been 3 weeks since the Marathon, I took 6 days off completely, and then tried to keep my miles down over the last 2 weeks. This seamed to be working well, but today's run went like poop. I think I am fighting off a cold, and perhaps losing, because I had to stop about 4 miles in because I thought I was going to puck. After a bit I realized I felt better if I just continued to run, and took it EZ. So I slowed my pace and cut my run down by 6 miles. Now that I have had a hour or so to think on It I think this problem was caused by not eating all morning, then downing some Gatorade and running out the door.

What this boils down to is I need a bit more recovery time before I start doing any kind of scheduled running. I am going to take next week almost completely off, and see what happens. The last thing I want to do is give myself some sort of serious knee enjoy, when a week or to of recovery should solve the problem.

So It looks like it will be 2008 before I get my sub 4 marathon. Currently I'm looking at Cincinnati, in may. But I can leave that decision for a while. Ill be back with more in a week or so.

Detroit 2007, The Race.

2007-10-21T19:18:00.000-04:00

Detroit Marathon: 26.2 Miles @ 9:34
Chip Time: 4:10:56
Place:
Overall: 1600 of 3819

Age group: 241 of 471.

Well, that's that.

While I missed my goal time, by 10 minutes, I am actually OK with the the race, over all.

I still hit the Wall, but allot later. I spent most of my effort keeping my pace controlled. Around 1 mile in I glued myself to a 3:55 pace group. And managed to stick with them, tell around mile 20. I crossed the 20 mile mark right on the schedule, at 3:00.

I noticed them pulling ahead but decided it was more important that I just kept running. So I let them go. The Wall did not truly hit my until around 23 miles. But when I hit it I hit it hard.

And to my shame I must admit, I walked, 3 times, the first time was just for a few seconds, right at the 23 mile mark. Then again around 24, for 200 or some meters. And last at the 25 mile mark. During these last 5 miles my pace went from a constant 8:58 to a dropping 10:00 to 12:00. I managed to pull it together for the final mile and finish with a respectable 9:30 or so. The crazy thing is that I lost 15 minutes off my time, all in the last 5 or 6 miles.

In the end I finished with a respectable 4:10:56. But feeling good, and over all happy with the results. The best part is I did not finish feeling like I messed up, or like I was just stupid. I felt like I acceded something, to be proud of, and walked away read for the next one.

Now its time for a nice rest, I will be back on the road in a week or so, and back on the blog around the same time.

PS. I seam to have lost my Ipod somewhere between Detroit and home, hopefully its just wedged in the car seat or the like. But I will be post the graph as soon as I found it.
(Found it, it somehow got clipped to the seat belt. ;)

10 Hours 29 minutes to go...

2007-10-20T20:39:00.000-04:00

Ok, tomorrow is the big day. And according to the website I have just over 10 hours of pain free life left.

I wanted to take this opportunity to sum up my Detroit 07 Training experience, as well do a few predictions based on what I have learned.

First off, training.

As some of you will know, last year when I trained for the LA Marathon, I was obsessive about staying on my training schedule. I am of the opinion I over trained, and it cost be, since thought I was in better shape then I was when race day came. I burned out in the first 10 miles, and rather then finishing at 3:30, I was lucky to come in at under 4:30.

This time I tried to relax my schedule, and my goals. I think this was a good plan. I am feeling allot more confident that I will be able to meat them. That said, I do think that perhaps I could have trained a bit smarter, and even a bit harder, this time. But my goal is not to run harder, its to run smarter. Over all I am content with my 16 week program, I only ended up missing 4 days total, and most of them Turing recovery weeks.

So, that said, here is my plan for tomorrow (with my reality hat on):

1 ) Run (No walking) the entire race, no stops.
2 ) Do not run to fast, If I ad more then 100ft each mile (About 10seconds) I will force myself to slow down.
3) Finish under 4 hours.

I based my training on running a 8:30 pace, this would give me a time of 3:42. However after all the trouble I had with the "Wall" I have decided to drop my goal pace down to 8:58. This will give me a finish time of 3:55. Giving me a 5 minute buffer, so even if I drop at the end I should still be able to come in sub 4:00. However, if by some miracle I feel good after 20 miles, I might try and pic things up and finish with 8:30, but that dose not seam to likely.

So wish me luck, I will post the results, tomorrow as soon as I can find my way home.

MIA (Detroit 07, Week 14, 15, and 16) Taper.

2007-10-20T16:09:00.000-04:00

I have not died, nor quit running. I am still running the marathon, I have just been VERY Busy, and blogging about my Taper weeks would have been about as interesting as watching paint dry.

I have several Large side projects, as well as a "crunch" going on at work, this translates into working 10-12 hour days at work, and 4 or so more hours each night. As well as most of the weekend. This has barely left me time to do my taper runs, and none to write about them.

So I will sum up the last 3 weeks. I ran to fast on the short runs, and had a hard time with the long runs. About the only thing worth mentioning is that my long run, the week after my above mentioned 20 miler, was horrid, I ran to fast, did not sleep or eat properly, and was in a bad mood to boot. The long run, last week was only 12 miles and it went very well, so in short. Some good runs, some bad runs.

Anyway. Back to work. Tomorrow is the Marathons, and I plan on doing a separate post later tonight about my game plan.

Much Better (Detroit 07, Week 13 Day 4)

2007-09-30T20:08:00.000-04:00

Long Run: 20Miles @ 8:53
Planned: 20Miles @ 9:00

I cant begin to say how much better I feel after this run. This was the first time I have every ran 20 miles under 9:00 without stopping or walking. This was my primary goal. I have run further in the past but not without walking.

I have been having such a hard time with the wall, for the last month. Today I pouched right through the Wall, and was able to run the last mile at at respectable 8:30, up hill. This week my entire goal was just not to walk, even if my pace dropped. Luckily since I had already decided to relax my pace back down to 9:00 for this run I was able to do this entire run without ever drooping behind my goal time.

I am going to treat this run as a kind of dress rehearsal for the marathon. I have officially decided to make my goal pace 9:00 instead of 8:30. This should allow me to keep on track and not burn out. And will still give me a planed finish time of 3:55, which will officially make me a Sub 4hour runner. Helping me secure better starting location in future races.

I don't know how much of the success of this run was due to my new shoes, but I can tell you for sure that they did not hurt the run at all. I think I my have found the right marathon running shoes. I will reserve final judgment until I have done a few weeks on them, but with 32 miles in them this week I am feeling pretty positive.

No Chart today since I had to restart my run at around 7 miles due to audiobook problems. And I ended up recording two. one 7 and one 13. Both were pretty accurate. But would just be confusing if I posted them.

Next week starts my taper. The hard part of training is over, lets just hope it was enough.