Those four words used to be the slogan of the Columbus (OH) Marathon. Obviously a play on dear explorer, Christopher Columbus, after which the city is named probably because it was the edge of western expansion in the early 1800s and all the grass made it look mighty flat. The marathon is fairly flat although not Chicago flat and it well organized and well liked even by non-Ohioans. I had never been to Columbus other than on the highway(s) (both I71 and I75 border on the east and western sides accordingly) and I was pleasantly surprised last October when I went down to run the half marathon that is held the same day as the marathon. it is a young city still as compared to Cleveland and Cincinnati and although listed as the 3rd largest, it really is the same size as the other two large Ohio cities. My daughter also has an interest in re-locating to C-Bus after she graduates as it still has growing suburbs, a large young(ish 20-30 something) population, an excellent graduate school of Education at OSU, and most importantly, and NHL team with affordable tickets. Any way, most of my local running group gears off and runs either the C-Bus full or half as Akron is a little too early in the fall and C-Bus is strategically placed in the middle of October. History has indicated good weather, if not too cold, and lots of BQ times. I would love to be as fit as I was last fall and have a good course on which I might just be able to run sub 3:45 at least one more time. We will see.
That goal being said, I am working once again on slowing down on those long runs and recovery days. When I was coming back from injury and surgery back in 2012 and 2013, I did just that, but as I got more fit, I started to run faster paces for those long and recovery runs, and I know that I paid for it by crashing and burning earlier this year. I read a recent article in Running Times that so nailed the Masters runner that I am in that it identified those of us who have been running tend to train too fast and with all runs at the same speed except identified fast pace runs which of course, we run faster. I guess it just goes way back to my running everything in training at a 7 min pace back when I was in my 20s and 30s. I mean that is what we did mimicking the likes of our running heroes in the Bill Rodgers era.
I must say that slowing down my recovery runs have been the hardest and with the advent of summer (coming and going over the last few days), I have been able to run them around 10 min pace. I also ran a successful long run this weekend where I averaged 9:24 pace. Still maybe not slow enough, but it was a hilly course with uphill being around 10 and downhill around 9 allowing gravity to do its job. With the slowing down and general lack of sleep these past few days (Stanley Cup Final and the Cavs), I was worried about yesterday's first LT run. Thankfully the real hot weather had left and it was just a beautiful 75F with moderate humidity and I was able to run the 8 prescribed miles with the 4 LT miles at 7:57, 7:57, 7:58 and 7:29. Oops on the 7:29, but this guy caught up to me that was also running harder miles and I was not about to let him pass if I could hold him off until my watch beeped for the 6th mile (lol). After all , he was a lot younger and I'm sure did not appreciate getting chiced even in training.
Back to the grind, I guess, and I hope to keep this up to date!
