Stats are in on the Country Half Marathon

I fared well. Finished in the top 15% in my age group in a little over 2 hours and 7 minutes. I have the full story on another blog. Click here to read about it.

Nashville Country Half Marathon

I rolled to the finish line, rock'n and roll'n to fine country music this morning, arriving about the same time as those Kenyan runners in the full marathon. They were vying for the 10,000 prize and the $10,000 bonus on who crossed the finish line first. The ladies were given an 18-minute head start to make it a contest. This is an interesting event from many angles. It has gotten better every year in its 10 year history. This year they opened up a pasta dinner cruise for contestants the night before the race. They also made the course more difficult by adding the famous streets in downtown Nashville. That added steep hills near the end of the race. I was physically stressed to the limit and made sure I kept myself a survivor at the end. I saw one girl collapse and felt I could do the same if I was not careful. It was too hot for a marathon, 15 degrees higher this year than last year. At the last minute, they added several water stations and had fruit at several places. There was location where a resident turned on their water hoses and was giving cooling showers. I went into it and came out soaked. But of course I was already soaking wet from sweat. How great that water spray felt!!!

The preliminary stats gave me a 2 hour and 8 minute finish. I wanted a 1 hour 53 minute finish but that was not in the cards today. 36000 contestants lined up in corrals (it felt like we were cattle as well.) I could not see any end to runners in either direction - behind or in front of me. I was in the 6th corral, with runners expecting to complete their race in 1hr and 53 or so minutes. I lost the 8 minutes when I nearly collapsed going up the hills. Three times I walked part of an uphill section. The street was crowded all the way. Very little space to run past people. At the end, there was insufficient space to properly cool down. Everyone came to an abrupt stop, but I did find a place to sit down and stretch.

Calf Cramps

I have been fighting calf cramps off and on during the last two months of training. I believe mine are from two issues: dehydration and strain. These two excerpts apply to me and may help you as well:

Calf Cramps: Causes and Solutions
Calf cramps can be exceedingly painful, and everyone has experienced this pain at least once in their life. The most agonizing pain comes at some point during your sleep, but painful cramp pain can also occur during athletic training.
http://www.associatedcontent.comarticle/218563/calf_cramps_causes_and_solutions.html

Calf Cramps: Causes and Solutions
Calf cramps can be exceedingly painful, and everyone has experienced this pain at least once in their life. The most agonizing pain comes at some point during your sleep, but painful cramp pain can also occur during athletic training.
http://www.associatedcontent.comarticle/218563/calf_cramps_causes_and_solutions.html

Training finally complete

This week is rest week. I will run a little just to exercise some muscles. Last week, I ran over 40 miles including two full half marathons. This is recuperation week. Saturday is the big race in downtown Nashville. I am in the 9 minute mile corral, as well as I recall, but worry a little that I said 8 minutes. Anyway, this will be a new and interesting experience with live country western music at each mile marker. This event has a normalization factor for age. They will compensate for times of older contestants by factoring their time with a speed/age curve so that runners will know how they did relative to age brackets.

After several days of rain

I don't know about you, but I had a hard time getting myself out of the house and on to the road this week. I did need a little rest and break but 5 days? I got out when it was dry enough this morning, but guess what? After about one hour, I heard a clap of thunder and whack! Down came the rain. I was not carrying my cell phone this time but was carrying my wallet which got soaked! I turned into a frog. Been thinking about doing that anyway with so many contiguous days of rain. As it turned out, I enjoyed running in the rain. I wore a long sleeve running shirt this time and a cap. That kept me warm. Yet on arriving at the house, I stepped in the shower with the cold water running and wham! It felt like it was boiling! The surface of the skin was super cooled by the rain and cold even though it wasn't but in the 50's. A few minutes later I adjusted to the water and even got take a real warm shower in the end.

I resumed the alternating sprints in the distance strategy. I ran 12.98 miles at a 8.9 pace. Full stride sprints occur on downhill and a slower shorter stride pace on uphill. That is Ok. Slower than I want to run a half marathon, but ok considering I was playing it safe on the wet surface.

Randy has broken his speed record - now under 8 min/mile

This has been a pretty good week for training. Despite the heavy pollen count, I have finally managed to break 8.0 min/mile in a decent length. I went out this morning on a relatively short course speed training run. I was not consciously trying to break my record, just get a good workout. It was 7.36 miles. This ends a week of two long and one short run for a total distance of over 36 miles in 3 runs. The longest was more than 15 miles. I am happy with this progress. I am proving to myself that I can run under 9 minute miles in the half marathon. Other runners tell me that I should be ready now for the full marathon, but I have not really been seeking extreme sports as my goal. Now I see I can do that and probably will make that the full marathon my goal before I turn 65. The only problem I experienced this week was some wheezing. That occurred on the 15 mile run, right after I drank while running. So I decided to stop that practice and only to take a drink while walking. That is defined as three gulps and no more. I carried my own water on the 15-mile trip. That was extra weight and it helps to further strengthen the leg muscles. All of this training is done on the Woodlands hills. My course is quite challenging for runners in this area. I will need it in Nashville! Today I will also cross train on a bicycle.

Next for Randy comes Nashville

I am planning to run the half marathon in Nashville, Tennessee in late April. The setting will be downtown on the river. The venue will of course be Country Music! It includes an evening party the night after the race. We will run to the music as there will be music stations along the way.Refer to the site below for additional information, for those who might be interested in running his with me.

Nashville Country Music Marathon -April 25th