Week 16

Well I just finished up week 16 with a 12 mile run this morning. It was a cold Christmas Eve run with the temperature hovering around 30 degrees. There was a good frost on everything, including us after about an hour's running. Our hats and my gloves had a light dusting from the sweat condensing on them.

I ran all the mid week runs at night this week. It was nice because I got the see all the Christmas lights in the neighborhood each night. I had good intentions of still getting up at the same time each morning just to get to work earlier, but...

I ran 5 miles Tuesday night at a 10:10 pace. Wednesday I tried to run the 8 miler at race pace. I did it at 9:44 pace which would put me finishing around 4:15. I think I've finally settled on this as me taget time for the race. Running 10:18 would put me at 4:30, which I feel sure I could do (famous last words). I'd love to finish in under 4 hours, but doing so would require me to maintain a 9:10 pace. I just don't think I've got that in me yet. So I've settled on 4:15 as a challenging but hopefully attainable goal and signed up to run with the 4:15 pace group.

I got off work early Thursday and so I got to run during the daylight for a change. It was only a 4 mile run, so I didn't wear my knee wraps. My legs were feeling really tired though and by the time I got home my left knee cap felt like it was on the verge of melt-down. Thirty minutes later it felt OK, but it kinda scared me for a minute. My average pace was 10:34.

As I said above, we ran 12 miles this morning. My legs felt a little better today than they did Thursday and we tried to run a little slower, but still wound up keeping a 10:17 pace. It's funny how a lot of our long runs have been 10:17 or 10:18, even the 20 miler was 10:18.

Well, that wraps up the first week of the "taper". That means there's only 2 more weeks till race day. Speaking of the race, I just found out that you will be able to get my split times emailed or texted messaged to you. Just go the this website and sign up for the service. It will then email and/or text message you when I cross the start line, at 10k, the half-way mark, 20k and of course when I cross the finish line. Pretty cool! If you have any questions about how to sign up call or email me and I'll help you through it.

Well, I better go. I've got lots of toys to assemble for tomorrow. Merry Christmas everyone!



Tuesday 5 Miler


Wednesday 8 Miler


Thursday 4 Miler


Saturday 12 Miler