I think I CAN!

Yikes! I can't believe I've gone this long without writing in my blog. I did the Snickers marathon earlier in March which is in Albany, GA. It is a GREAT marathon. The town support is amazing. The race itself goes in and out of beatuiful neighborhoods...which was nice as it got very warm and the shade was a blessed relief.

I picked up a Garmin 405 with heart rate monitor. I've since noticed that I've done a great job training my legs but not my heart. How is that possible? Anyway, I've noticed that I hit near max HR without a whole lot of effort. So for the next month or two I'm focusing my training runs on my improving my HR. It's been nearly 2.5 weeks with no results....yes, I do know it'll take some more time...knowing that doesn't make the wanting to see results go away.

I've kicked off the training for my 100 mile race at Snickers. However, since then my long runs have been pitiful. Not what I was expecting. I scheduled a long run last Saturday and got nearly 4 miles into it before the lightning came. I might be crazy at times but not nuts enough to finish up my long run. Sadly, I was unable to reschedule or finish that long run....family obligations. So I'll have to do those miles this Sat instead.

My next race is a 34 mile trail race early May. As mentioned before, this will be my first attempt at camping before a run. I'm both excited and nervous about that. As for the 34 mile race I think I'm going to have to bump up my weekly long runs by 5 miles each week...15 miles, 20 miles, 25 miles, 10 miles, race weekend (34 miles). I had originally requested to the RD permission to do a 50 mile run that day....I'm not sure I want to do that now. I've got some friends coming up to run as well and I'd rather spend the extra time with them. Yes, I do know the 10% rule when it comes to long runs. I've already have the base to do the above mileage so I don't think I'll run into overuse injuries. I will however listen very closely to my body. OK, that's really all that has been going on this month.

For any of you close to GA (Nevels) there are some good races coming up later this spring that I wanted to share with you:

May 16 -Darkside 8-Hour Run, Peachtree City, GA - only $10...what a bargin http://darksiderunningclub.com/2009Darkside8Hour.pdf

May 30 - SweetH20 50K - you will get wet and punished on this race...sweet! http://www.sweeth20races.com/

July 25 - Make it By Midnight Marathon Macon, GA - Hot, Hilly, Humid, and lots of personality

http://www.macontracks.org/race-pdfs/2009-07-25-MakeItByMidnight.pdf

Addition:  What the heck do they put into Girl Scout Cookies that makes them so darned addictive??

Nice evening run in the rain.  I'm not sure if it is dedication, determination, or delirium that made me go out tonight.  It's been raining for nearly 4 days straight.  Can any of you folks in Internet land tell me how many feet is 300 cubits? I think it might be time to think about arks.

So, I've got my new Garmin that is able to tell me to the 100th of a mile minus the error of standard deviation....OK, I confess, I'm a math geek.  Anyway, I'm still pretty excited over my new piece of equipment. 

The president of our local running club is helping me with my training and my accountability.  I have to run within my "acceptable" heart rate (155-160 BPM for easy runs) AND show negative splits on each training run (for my easy runs).  He believes all runs should have a purpose otherwise you are just putting in junk miles.  He is a tough one but he does it with such humility that I want to make each run count.  I think he's really going to be a huge help in my training.  I'm very blessed to be surrounded by such nice folks.

Sam’s other rule besides making every run count....only 1 day off between runs.  OK, I've had to break that rule once so far due to family obligations.  I sent my running log to the prez and that was picked up immediately.  Soooooo you can believe I'll be blogging much much much more often.

Run dry folks!

Great morning run with my buddies this morning. I love the fact that the topic of conversation will range the enitre gambit of topics.

I don't know if all of you with Garmins know about the FREE software SportTracks but it helps me crunch my data AND makes cool graphs like this:

This graphs shows the average pace for each half mile.  We stopped for water breaks which is why there are a couple of spikes in the middle of the graph.  My buddies quit on me with one mile to go.  I didn't think I had slowed my pace down when they left but as you can see....I slacked.

In a nutshell, average pace for this run was 12:23.  Average HR was 160.  Calories burned: 1431.  Obviously it's time to eat a Dunkin Donut now. :)