Highway 350

I ran 13 miles on Highway 350 this morning. AB ran 8 with a sore hip.
I'll update with more info on this run and the week later.

UPDATE: My 13 on 350 this morning capped off an excellent week of running. I love Highway 350. Pictured is hill No. 2. The great thing about 350 is the hills. The course starts out with a two mile flat stretch followed by hill after hill after steep steep hill. If you run 350 often enough you don't recognize what other people call hills as hills. Corinth has a great group of runners who meet on 350 or at Shiloh National Park each week. The group is led by Kenneth "Koach" Williams. He does a great job of keeping everybody charged up and ready to run. He also supplies free PowerAde, or "Hydration". If you live close by you should come join us some Saturday. I promise you this, regular runs on 350 will get you in shape.

I think my body has just about recovered from the St. Jude Memphis Marathon and I'm ready to continue with an upward training program. Here's what I did this week:

Monday: 5 (would have been six but was cut short by rain)

Tuesday: 6

Wednesday: 5.5 on the treadmill (I remembered I don't like treadmills)

Thursday: 6

Saturday: 13

Total: 35.5

That's not a ton of miles, but I was pleased with my ability to run four days in a row with no apparent problems. I plan to do the same thing again next week, and may add a mile or two. 

I now have two goals: 

1. Cut as much time as I can off that 3:57 in Memphis.

2. Complete the Transrockies in August.

Both goals require me to increase my weekly mileage if I want to get faster and stronger. So, I was pleased with this first week of training and my ability to string together four runs with no negative effects. 

I bought a new pair of shoes today - the New Balance 768. Supposedly, it's a "stability" shoe. The arches of my feet did cause me some amount of pain after the marathon. I had been running in more of a neutral shoe, i.e., the New Balance 992. After watching me jog on the sidewalk in front of the store, the guy at the Memphis Fleet Feet told me I definitely needed a stability shoe and that should help the arches. I tried on several different pairs of shoes and my two oldest girls raced me up and down the sidewalk in front of the store as I tested them out. It was fun for all or us. It's always fun to buy a new pair of shoes. I feel faster already.

Boston: The Other Zone

In the euphoria following the St. Jude Memphis Marathon, I began wondering how much faster I could get? Kenneth Williams or "Koach" called on Sunday to congratulate AB and I on our times and told me he'd be glad to make me a training plan to help me improve my time. When I mentioned Boston to him, he asked what my qualifying time would need to be. I told him 3:10. There was a long pause on the phone. Finally, Koach said, "That's another zone." I'm pretty sure that was his nice way of saying, "Why don't we come up with a more realistic goal for you." 

In order to qualify for the Boston Marathon, males 18-34 must run a marathon in 3:10. That's three hours, ten minutes. In order to run a 3:10 marathon one must run just over a 7-minute mile for 26.2 miles. That, my friends, is fast.

I'm not sure if too many endorphins are running to my brain or if I don't like being told I can't do something (not that Koach said that, exactly), but I really really want to run a 3:10 marathon. 

My foot hasn't even quit hurting from Saturday's run, and I'm ready to get outside and start hoofing some miles. If I'm going to knock 47 minutes off my time I better get moving. 

Does this mean the Transrockies is out the window? Hardly. The way I see it, the Transrockies will be great training for Boston. It takes alot of miles to get ready to run a 3:10 marathon. I stumbled on John Kearsing's blog trying to learn more about Boston Marathon training plans. He ran 70 miles in one week! The really cool thing about John is that he completely bonked in his qualifying run, the Chicago Marathon due to hot weather. He got leg cramps and finished in 3:59. Undeterred, he ran another marathon 20 days later and got his 3:10. Wow. 

The next challenge is the Country Music Marathon in late April. I'm going to train my butt off for the next four months and see how many minutes I can knock off that suddenly slow 3:57:29. I realize I won't run a 3:10 in April, but I want to see how much faster I can go to see if 3:10 would ever be an ascertainable goal for me.

Winding Down

After two days rest, I breezed through six miles this afternoon on Corinth's Coca-Cola 10K loop. My goal for the St. Jude Marathon is to run it in under 4 hours. I ran a 3:52 my junior year of college. If I could run a sub-4 Saturday it would be like being 21 again. In order to get under four hours I will need to average a 9:10 minute-mile or better.

Nine-minute miles have gotten easier and easier over the last few months, but I haven't tried to run a nine-minute mile on a long run. I hope I can do it 26 times on Saturday. 

I've been training for St. Jude since last May. It feels good to be this close to reaching the goal. Last year, after I crawled across the St. Jude finish line I didn't run again for the rest of the winter. I gained 10 pounds and by the time I started running in May I felt like I had never even run the marathon. 

Not this year. 

I'm setting goals to keep myself in shape and hopefully achieve some new milestones. I feel like I'm in the best shape of my life and I don't want to lose it again. It helps that AB has started running. She is so excited about finishing the half marathon Saturday. I can't wait to train for the Country Music Marathon with her this winter. We have really enjoyed having something in common other than crying babies and favorite televisions shows. And I really can't wait until this summer when we start training for the Tranrockies Run! 

How do you train to run 125 miles in six days? Luckily, Transrockies offers this handy dandy training program, which AB and I plan to follow to the mile. Check it out. It's been so cold outside the last few days that I have been daydreaming about running on hot sunny days. There must be something wrong with me. 

Transrockies Here We Come!

We've joked about it, talked around it, and alluded to it for weeks, but Tuesday night we pulled the trigger and signed up. Anita Beth and I are going to run the 2009 Transrockies Run! We are both so excited about the challenge to come, and a little nervous. 

This blog will be our log as we train for the run. The "official" training won't begin until May, but we've much running to do between now and then. Anita Beth is going to run the St. Jude half marathon next Saturday and I'll run the full marathon. On January 3 we plan to run the Mississippi Blues Half Marathon, and in April we plan to run the Country Music Marathon, followed by a week or two of well-deserved rest and the beginning of the quest to conquer the Transrockies. 125 miles in six days. It's going to be great!