Milestones

Five and a half weeks to go before the half-marathon, and training is going well.

My NY virtual running partner is slogging on, although snow and ice storms, and a cold moved his recovery week, originally scheduled for this week, up a few days. Like me, he's following a training plan from Runners' World. Unlike me, he's following it exactly, while I've been adapting mine tremendously -- using club runs on Tuesday for tempo work, weekend races for speed work, and then cramming in long distance and easy runs whenever I can.

I've run three Saturday races in a row, for a total of 11 races in my running career. My 5K mile pace is now around 9:21. My race partner says I'm reaching the finish line farther ahead of him each time. I ran a 5 miler with a Club member a couple weeks ago, and he said I'm improving as well. Statistics agree. A year ago I was running at a 10-11 mile pace, and only running 6 to 7 miles a week. So that's encouraging.

In a race three Saturdays ago, I ended up running solo for a spell. That often happens, as I'm faster than the back of the pack but slower than the middle. With no one in view, and no heavy breathing from runners behind, I actually forgot I was racing, got lost in thought (ADHD). I still managed about a 9:21 pace. And that was an enjoyable run.

The Saturday after that was my toughest one in a long time; my asthma flared up and remained out of control for several minutes. It was in the mid-30s, and windy, the worst weather conditions for me. Snow flurries danced. I nearly quit at the half-way point. Since the course necessitated running around the same loop two times, it would have been easy to have just stopped at the half-way point. But I finished, slogging into the finish with a 9:32 pace, my slowest this year. My lungs are feeling great again now though; I think I also had a cold.

Last Saturday's race though was in shorts in pouring rain on a trail -- and, I think, my favorite race so far. But then it seems that I say that at the end of every race. Nonetheless, because of allergies, I always do better when running in the rain. The pollen and dust are reduced. The air is clean. It felt so good to be running in shorts again. The freedom to just fly.

My last long distance run was 10 miles in 1:45:00 (10 minute mile pace). My half marathon training plan says this is the right pace for a 9:30 Half Marathon, which would bring me to a finish of just over two hours. The view on that run though was fantastic -- around the North Fork of the Shenandoah, through a grove of trees, up and down hills, through quaint little Timberville -- always with the mountains in view. That 10-minute ten miler was 2 minutes, 33 seconds faster than the October Staunton Ten Miler. Hmmm...can I knock off another 37 seconds and get the Half done in two hours?

We'll see...five weeks to go!