"By failing to prepare you are preparing to fail"

Treadmill speedworkout. Intervals. Approx 3-4 minutes at 90% MAX HR, followed by 3-4 minutes of recovery. Repeat 5 times. Great workout! Betablockers keeping max hr to about 160 -- even at 12 MPH!

Ran 4 miles at lunch. 5K in 21:50, followed by 1 mile cooldown

Ran with Tom and Wes after work. They had about 5 minute headstart. Caught them at about 1.5 miles doing 7:00/mi. Ran the remaining 2.5 miles at about 10:00/mi. Very slow! Felt good to get in the miles.

8:58 overall pace. Out and back with Ty. HR avg about 130.

Rest Day.

 Pushup challenge.

 20 - 20 - 16 - 16 -20  ...1 week down, it's getting easier!

Treadmill fartlek. Maxed HR at a155. 45 total minutes. 50% fast/50% slow

Took a rest day from running.

Mostly due to Kathie's reminder, I did my pushups -

 20-20-20-20-20

With about 1 minute rest between the first 4 sets, and about a 3 minute rest before the last set...there, I did my 100. :-) 

Today my oldest child, Megan, turned 17! Wow time sure flies. 

Today was going to be a mid-week 1/2 max mileage day (I have 22 planned for Saturday, so I was going for 11 today), but life got in the way. I ran 3.1 miles at lunch with a coworker (Eric). I was planning to do the other 8 miles after work, but I got called home to watch my 6-year-old (who wasn't feeling well),so my wife could go to her Wednesday night church meeting.

Today worked out a little better than yesterday. I managed to get in 9 quality (tempo) miles today. I ran w/ Eric again at lunch. We did 4 with a few hill repeats in the middle.

I didn't take the betablocker today, to test the waters. Yep, my HR is back to normal ranges for me. I manged to max out my HR at over 160, and it felt great! This afternoon I went an check my BP on the machine at work -- 143/72 (that's about normal for me), a tad high, but I was at work. HR 51.

The lunch run was pretty good. Eric and I started out together. But, Eric isn't the most talkative person, so we settled into a 7:30ish pace. It was about 70 degrees, and S wind about 15 MPH. We actually broke a sweat!

 After work, I ran with Darin (my Boston training buddy from last year). Everytime we run together it almost seems like a race. We stuck together for the first 4 miles (7:20's), and then I decided to kick it in on the last mile (6:40). I finished up a hill with my HR at about 160. AP: 7:14 for 5 miles.

No real aches of pains to speak of (knock on wood). The usual Achilles tenderness, but I'm grown accustomed to that.

I also did my pushups today after my lunchtime run.

 21-21-18-18-21- they're not getting much easier. Maybe I shouldn't try to do them right after a hard run?

It's taper time!! Less than 2 weeks 'til Cowtown.

Got a late start Saturday morning. Ran 12 miles before my son's b-ball game. Then ran the remaining 8 miles back home from the game. I thought that after a 45 minute break in the middle of the run, that the last 8 miles would be easier. Nope - I think it was actually tougher than if I had just kept going and did all 20 without a break.

It was about 40 degrees and a little breezy. I didn't feel very motivated, and walked a few long sections. I'm finding that it's tough to run alone. I need someone to chat with to pass the miles..or maybe I'll start running with an MP3 player (I haven't run with tunes in a few years).

Had a great Valentines dinner at home with our friends. Cooked steaks on the grill! Yumm..

AP: 9:40

HR- 125-142BPM

Rest Day.

Went for a bike ride with the boys. 

PC: 25-23-21-21-26  Pushups not getting much easier,though I think I could beat my initial max test of 30 without any problem. I hope I don't get too buff! :-)

Treadmill Intervals at work.

Got the HR up today.

Speed	Time	BPM
9.0	4:00	150
9.5	5:20	157
10.0	3:30	163
10.0 - 12.1	3:30	170

Tuesdays have been turning into rest days lately. Not intentionally, but just not finding the time to run.

I did coach 5 and 6 year olds soccer practice. We scrimmaged for about 30 minutes, that's got to count for something, right?

PC: 30-25-20-24-18 fizzled at the end.

Another run with Eric at lunch. It was about 75 and sunny. A little warm, but I'll take it. Light breeze. Felt great. Started slow (8:10) and finished with a 7:00 last mile. Tomorrow I'll go for about an 8 miler..I hope.

10 days 'til Cowtown. Worked on my pace spreadsheet last night for a few hours. Taking elevation and my splits from last year into consideration to figure out the best way to finish in 3:40:00 exactly...won't that be cool if I can hit it on the nose...with my whole group intact?!

I ran alone today after work. I didn't get started until 6:00pm and it was getting dark so I did the 1 mile loop around the Motorola campus. It's a nice loop and exactly 1 mile. It has a nice drop of about 60 feet followed by a climb of 60 feet, and about 3/4 miles is very flat. It was a good night to practice my marathon pacing pace (8:24).

Mile	Pace
1	8:00
2	8:13
3	8:32
4	8:26
5	8:29
6	8:31
7	8:13
8	8:33

I averaged 8:23 -- right on average, but my standard deviation is a bit wide. I only looked at my watch after each mile and tried to adjust accordingly. Not bad. I'm really set on trying to hit the 3:40:00 on the button in less than 9 days at Cowtown.

 Today's food (I'm going to start tracking my intake. It might make me think twice about eating too much unhealthy stuff):

Breakfast: 2 bowls of frosted mini wheats w/ 1% milk. 8 oz of OJ

Lunch: Fajitas and all the fixin's at Joe T Garcia's in Ft Worth. 2 glasses unsweet iced tea.

Dinner: Leftover Rice-A-Roni with chicken added. 1 birthday cupcake with chocolate frosting. A dozen grapes. 2 small chocolate hearts from Valentine's Day. 2 glasses 1% milk.

Going to do Pushups now...woohoo.

Was planning to run 6.2 miles with a few friends after work. About mid-way through I needed to take  "pit stop" (I'm not sure if it was the chicken pesto past from lunch, or the mid-afternoon Coke and Milkyway bar...). But, I had to stop. Ended up taking a short-cut back and finished the last couple hundred yards with my buddies.

AP: 7:40 (if you don't count the break)

Breakfast: 2 bowls of shredded wheat with 1% milk. 8 oz OJ. Had a bagel w/ cream cheese when I got to work (Friday's the managers supply donuts or bagels for us common workers)

Lunch: Chicken Pesto Pasta. Slice of bread. Water.

Snack: Milkyway and Coke

Dinner: McD's 10-piece chicken nugget, fries, and chocolate shake

(so much for the idea that posting my food intake would somehow curb my bad eating habbits..I'll do better next week -- race week)

Rest day. My son, Christian's 5th birthday. For his special birthday breakfast he wanted chocolate donuts with sprinkles. Who was I to argue.

PC: Did 50 straight. 1 set. This is 20 more than my original max-out a few weeks ago. I might have been able to pump out a few more if I had to.

Bfast: 1 cinnamon roll, 1 cup coffee (I made it almost a whole week, but my in-laws are visiting and they made coffee and I figured, one cup wouldn't raise the BP much)

Lunch: Grilled chicken breast, grapes, some cheetohs. Ice water.

Dinner: Roast beef, mushroom gravy, 3 popovers, mashed cauliflower. 1 can ginger ale. 2 birthday cupcakes.

Wow..that's a lot of food for one day. I'll be a Clydesdale again in no time.

BP 124/73, HR 41 (sitting in bed, blogging my running buddies)

Got my butt out the door early this morning...woohoo! Only and easy 4 miles. Wanted to get a run in and have time to make breakfast for the family. Most of my runs have been after work. It's good to get a feel for what it's like to run in the mornings. Race day is only 6 more wakeups away. I sure love the anticipation leading up to a marathon. 

After my run, I made pancakes and waffles for the family (my in-laws were still here). I'm such a bad influence on them. They see the types of food I eat and must be thinking "and this guy runs marathons".

bfast: 1 waffle and 2 pancakes w/ strawberries and whipped cream, butter, syrup, 1 cup of coffee, 1 cup OJ. 

lunch: Pizza Hut buffer (I'll spare the sordid details). It was my wife's parents' treat..I couldn't say no. Though I did drink water with the meal.

dinner: Sonic Chicken Wrap, oranage slushy. 3 homemade cookies.

(I plan to go coffee-less for the rest of the week..I only back-slid this week due to my MIL being in town, and it was there). I am so weak...

Rest day.

Not much to report today. Less then 5 days until Cowtown!

Ran 5 easy miles after work with Darin. AP: 7:50

PC: 30-30-30-30-50 (yes, that's for real...even surprised myself)

bfast: 2 bowls honey nut cheerios, 1% milk

lunch: brough lunch from home (sandwich, chips, 16oz Sprite (no caffeine this week), yogurt, and a mini-cupcake)

dinner: French dip, chips, milk, 2 mini-cupcakes (the birthday cupcakes are almost all gone...can't wait)

4 days 'til Cowtown!!!

Today was actually a rest day. The weather was so beautiful at lunch time, (75 degrees) I decided to walk around outside. I tried to call my father to wish him a happy birthday, but no answer. So, I called my mom, and talked with her for a while. Most of my family is in Illinois. They miss me (not sure why) :-)

About 2 days 'til Cowtown. The current weather has temp at start time around 44 degrees, but 20 MPH WIND OUT OF THE NORTH!!!! The last six miles of this marathon come from the south...so can you say 20 MPH headwind?!?! There's still time for the weather to change..I just hope the wind is a little calmer until we finish. It is what it is...this should make pacing extra fun!!!

bfast: 2 bowls cereal, 1 banana, milk

lunch: sandwich (some kind of deli meat, not sure what), strawberries, chips, Sprite.

snack: yogurt

dinner: about a pound of cheese tortellini and red sauce (marinara). milk, a handful of yogurt covered raisins.

 OK...what happened to Teena's account! Did she say too many bad words and get kicked out? :-)  What's up?

Ran an easy 4 miles at just under 8:00/mi after work with Darin. Darin's running the 1/2 marathon on Saturday with his 15 y.o. son. This might be the year when the boy overtakes his father and finishes first. This will be his son's first 1/2 marathon, and he might be in for a little surprise. It's all about preparation and pacing. We'll see if the old, wiser patriarch prevails! :-)

My shoulders were a little sore today during the run. No more pushups until after Saturday!!

Tomorrow is packet pickup. I'll head to downtown Ft Worth and lunch time and get all my goodies. I'll pick up about 5 GUs or PowerGels--I'll probably get three of them with caffeine, for the extra boost in the second half. This is exciting!!!!!

 I'm messing with my Garmin today, trying to figure out which fields to display for optimum pacing. I'm turning OFF the auto-lap feature, so I can manually hit the "lap" button at each mile marker to give me a more accurate idea of where I am. Even if my Garmin says 26.5 miles when I finish, I'm still only getting credit for 26.2, and need to make each lap average 8:23/mi...I'm going to have "Avg Lap", "Last Lap", "Laps", and "Current Lap" on one screen. HR, elapsed time, distance (in case I forget what mile I'm on), Avg Pace on the other screens. I'm also going to wear an "old school" Timex on the other wrist -- I'll probably set the timer to 3:40:00 and start it counting down once I cross the finish line. Sometimes it's easier in the later miles to divide the miles remaining by the time remaining to figure out what kind of pace I need to maintain to the finish. Can you say, I'm overthinking this Pacing role just a little bit..:-)

OK, enough of my pre-race babblings..

bfast: shredded wheat, milk

lunch: PBJ, small bag of potato chips, yogurt, grapes, water

dinner: Chicken/pasta/spinich/bleu cheeses/ strawberry salad, milk, 2 biscuits w/ honey.

Well it's off to my massage appointment....(my wife is a massage therapist...lucky me!!!!)

Cowtown Marathon - 3:40 Pace Group Leader.

That was a blast!!!! I was so worried about the weather, and I guess I must have prepared for it and managed to hit my splits fairly closely. At the expo yesterday I bought an optic yellow/green sleeveless windbreaker..I was thinking wind break, and maximum visibility for the pace group to find me. It turned out to be just what I needed. I also bought a new headband / ear covers...wow, they were perfect for today (I usually wear a stocking hat or stay inside when it is cold outside). Not sure why I've never gotten one of those before. They're great.

Up at 5:00. In downtown Ft Worth by 6:15 (7:30 start time). The owner of Pizzeria Uno (yum) is a local ultramarathoner and opens the restaurant up to the local running club...can you say "flush toilet?" (sweet). I felt like I was in the elite tent or something :-)

Mosied a block down to the starting line at about 7:15, and stood in a freezing wind tunner for what seemed like an eternity. While there a local newspaper reporter took my picture and asked me a bunch of questions, so maybe I'll make it into the Startelegram tomorrow.

I was a bit nervous as the wind was at a constant 20+ MPH directly into our faces at the start.

The race started about on time at 7:30 and we were off. I kept telling myself not to do my usual take off too fast routine. My first split was a bit slow...so I made up for it in the next couple miles.

The miles just flew by. A few people were talkative, which really helped. A few people were going for Boston qualifiers, one guy was running his first marathon. I have no idea how many people were in my group until the half marathoners split off from the marathon route at about Mile 8.  I looked back to see a pack of about 20 runners. It stayed that way until we hit a gradual uphill section around mile 14, when I noticed we had lost a few. At about mile 16 we headed back into the wind and up some hills, and then they started dropping like flies. I did my best to keep and "even effort" -- going slower up the hills, and a little faster when the wind was behind us.

At the halfway point we had about a 2 minute cushion built up. This isn't much..but I knew we would almost all of it. With 5 miles to go I remember calculating that we would have to run 8:40/mi for each mile on the way back. By mile 23, my pack dwindled to 3 other runners. With 1.2 to go, it was me and one other guy. By the finish, I was all alone (the one guy with me ran up ahead a little -- I guess he didn't want me in his finisher photo :-).

When I saw the finish line with .2 miles to go I was about 2 minutes under 3:40. That's the first time I was sure I was going to hit my mark (or close to it). I finished in 3:39:39 (according to my watch...official results aren't out, yet).

The woman I lost w/ 1.2 miles to go finished about a minute behind. She still BQ'd! ..and the guy who stuck with me the whole way and ran ahead at the finish, it was his first-ever marathon.

It also turns out that the man and woman who finished directly in front of me were using me as motivation. The woman thanked me for not passing her :-). I think some people think of pace group leaders as The Grim Reaper or something and the "3:40" sign I was carrying was some sort of sickle!! :-)

Overall, this was a very satisfying day on so many levels. I managed to stay healthy all week even though I had a sore throat almost every morning and evening (no coughing..could be allergies). I met my goal pace (OK, I was 20 seconds fast...but what's that over 26.2 miles??) I had a blast and met some very nice people. I would highly recommend running a marathon as a pace leader, if ever the chance arises. My PR is 3:20:02 (SGM '07), and I found the 3:40 pace quite comfortable to maintain. So, if you pace a group you might want to pick a group that is 20-30 minutes slower than your current abilities.

Pace Report: 3:39:39

Weather: 35-45 degrees, Wind: 21 MPH NNW

Cowtown Marathon - Marc Elliott - 3:40 Pace Group leader Date: 2/28/2009 Time: 3:39:39 Distance 26.27 Avg Pace 8:22 HR avg 152 Lap Lap# Time Distance Tot Dist Pace HR Elapsed Time Projected 1 8:50 1.02 1.02 8:39 162 0:08:50 3:47:30 2 8:01 1 2.02 8:01 170 0:16:51 3:39:08 3 8:06 1 3.02 8:06 156 0:24:57 3:37:02 4 7:54 1 4.02 7:54 147 0:32:52 3:34:47 5 6:48 0.84 4.86 8:05 147 0:39:40 3:34:25 6 9:39 1.17 6.03 8:14 148 0:49:19 3:34:51 7 8:33 1.01 7.04 8:27 151 0:57:53 3:36:00 8 8:38 1.01 8.05 8:32 150 1:06:31 3:37:04 9 16:18 1.99 10.04 8:11 146 1:22:49 3:36:42 10 0:02 0.003788 10.04 8:48 147 1:22:51 3:36:42 11 8:03 1 11.04 8:03 148 1:30:54 3:36:13 12 8:07 0.98 12.02 8:16 145 1:39:01 3:36:20 13 8:36 1.05 13.07 8:11 146 1:47:37 3:36:14 14 8:25 1 14.07 8:25 148 1:56:02 3:36:35 15 8:10 0.99 15.06 8:14 149 2:04:12 3:36:36 16 8:13 1 16.06 8:13 151 2:12:25 3:36:33 17 8:43 1.01 17.07 8:37 150 2:21:08 3:37:09 18 16:58 2 19.07 8:29 153 2:38:07 3:37:46 19 0:06 0.011932 19.09 8:22 150 2:38:13 3:37:46 20 8:24 0.98 20.07 8:34 155 2:46:28 3:37:56 21 8:10 0.98 21.05 8:20 151 2:54:38 3:37:59 22 8:51 1.03 22.08 8:35 153 3:03:29 3:38:21 23 8:34 0.98 23.06 8:44 154 3:12:04 3:38:51 24 8:51 1.02 24.08 8:40 157 3:20:55 3:39:14 25 8:39 1 25.08 8:39 160 3:29:35 3:39:34 26 8:14 1 26.08 8:14 161 3:37:49 3:39:26 27 1:50 0.21 26.29 8:43 160 3:39:39 3:39:31