Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Slowwork and Speedwork

Had a bad run on Sunday. Went out with the intention of completing 20 miles, but only got 13 done. A combination of lack of food and heat caused my downfall. Ah well, that's the way it goes some times. Unfortunately, now I'm getting the urge to "make up for it". I know that's the wrong thing to do, but I'm also feeling like I should be increasing my mileage up into the 70s. So I'm going to start slowly increasing my Saturday runs from 10 miles to 20.

As for speedwork, I again went to the Roadkill speedwork session at the Grant Park track. It was still rather warm this evening, so I took things a bit easier than on previous weeks. Apparently, I wasn't the only one doing that. I still managed to finish the workout, despite feeling rather sluggish. I guess even a bad speed workout is better than no speed workout.

Sunday, May 9, 2010

Doh!

Just learned that a BQ in my age group is a 3:10. I don't think I'm ever going to be able to run that fast. I think 3:20 may be doable with a lot of training, but those next 10 minutes would be insane for a fat man like me. :)

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

WPS Half Marathon 2010

This last Sunday, I ran in the 2010 Winnipeg Police Service half marathon. This has been a year of great improvement in my running. And my result in the race proves that. I started off with a goal of 1:45:00, which would have been a PB by over 6 minutes. I ended with a time of 1:43:43! And the last mile was my fastest ever (even in training). I still had lots of fuel left in the tank at the end of the race. So maybe I'm in better shape than I thought I was?

Punching the numbers into the McMillan running calculator, it shows that I should aim for a 3:38:44 marathon. Yikes! That would be over an hour faster than my last marathon. And it's dangerously close to BQ territory (I would need a 3:20).

It's hard for me to get my head around the idea of me being a fast runner. I've always thought I had better endurance and guts than speed. Maybe it's time I started re-evaluating myself? If I get close to my McMillan time, then I'll probably pour on the training and aim for an early spring marathon with the goal of getting a BQ. Which will leave the rest of the season for accomplishing that goal if I fail on my first try. If I do get a BQ, then I'll be at Boston in 2012. But all this Boston talk is still a ways out. I need to concentrate on getting a sub-3:45 at the Manitoba Marathon first.