Soon...A Baker's Dozen

March 17, 2010 -

Hard to believe in just over a week I will be running a cool baker's dozen to polish off another 70.3 and the start to my 2010 tri season. But for today, I ran out a clean dozen. 12 miles in the wind and rain to top out my running before next week's race. I plan for one more big bike tomorrow and then slowly taper down and hope that what I did over the last five-and-a-half weeks was enough to tough it out and have a respectable finish.

Usually training plans are 20 weeks...but five to six works too...right?

It's a little sad though, I have gotten progressively faster in every race to this point and had high expectations for a dramatic new PR in this race. I guess setbacks are all just a part of training and racing. I imagine it must be similar to last year when I was peaking and running like a fine tuned, well-oiled machine and my dad was out with a meniscus tear. I guess everyone takes their turn with injury.

Regardless, I'm happy with where I was able to get in this short time and am definitely getting that excitement that comes with race time! I'm ready to go out there and shred it until I either finish or fall over.

Yesterday was one of those Nike days where you have to "just do it". The weather was pretty blah and I was pretty indifferent on my workout, but I did know I had to crank out one more long run before the race.

I set out in about 45 degrees and wind and rain. After about four miles however, the rain let up and it was kind of calm and balmy until the last two miles when the rain came back....pretty decent over all. With my big frame I'll take cooler weather any day over the heat.

The run was solid. In trying to get my pace back to about 7:45 for a long run I was setting out too fast and then dying half way though so I decided today for the interest of a good run and for my knee to set out at a nice easy jog and see how it goes.....and it worked. After my usual three mile warm-up/barrier I was able to get in the zone and just run it out.

I ran with one powergel and one water bottle of Gatorade Endurance. I stopped at mile six to pee, drink and pound the gel. From there, I just kept cranking and enjoying the run with no problems. The last mile was a little tough, but I guess not so tough I couldn't get my fastest mile of the entire 12.

I ended up with 12 miles at 1:40:55 for an average pace of 8:24. Here are my mile splits: 8:35, 8:29, 8:31, 8:18, 8:17, 8:16, 8:35, 8:31, 8:25, 8:14, 8:24, 8:13.

I felt solid after the run and wasn't really sore, so that lets me know I'm on point.

With that in the bag, I'm going to take advantage of beautiful sunny weather and hit my last long bike tomorrow.