Town limits

So two weeks ago Alex and I decided to train for the Seashore Nature Trails 50k in Virginia Beach. Needless to say my race schedule has changed a bit and now we are on what might be called an "excelled" schedule to running 31.1 miles by December 19th. We laid out a training schedule that consists of two long endurance runs a week with three shorter speed runs in between totaling 5 running days per week.

Our two endurance runs this week are 16 milers, nothing you can do inside the town of Blacksburg without doing multiple loops. So we decided to venture out into southwest Virginia. We got a start around 5:30 and headed out down Mt. Tabor Road to do an 8 mile loop in the country around town. This first half of the run went a bit smoother and also had quite a bit of elevation change, overtraining us for a race that will essentially be flat.

In Alex's words, "everything was poetic" during the first part. The last 4 miles of the run for us was essentially a battle to stay alive. I guess thats the difference between 12 and 16 miles. In the running world you could say, we hit a WALL. A great accomplishment to break through it not having stopped once and finishing in just about 2 hours and 45 minutes. Lets be honest though, we had the motivation of rehydration at Tots Tuesday to keep us going.

Total on the day - 16 miles

Time - 2 hours 45 mins

Shoutouts - Alex for doing something he's never done

- The guy that always runs by us with blinking lights going absurdly fast

Rain

Back from Atlanta last night and today is the big endurance day. I decided to go to the gym in hopes that it would be more realistic of race day weather than the 40 degrees and monsoon style rains that we are having in Blacksburg right now. The treadmills were excited to see me again, they creaked and groaned as always. I set out to do 12 miles and started out going way to fast but kept the pace as to not kill the point of the day (working on endurance).
Typical of my past days at McComas, I found myself getting in a race against the treadmill. About 30 minutes into the run I decided I wanted to be under 1 hour 30 minutes for the run and I was potentially just about right on track. As I passed the hour mark, it became apparent that I was about 3 minutes behind my goal time. With the treadmill already set at 8mph, things started to get fun. All in all, by the end of the run I had the machine up to its max speed barreling along to come in at 1:29:52. A small achievement in the long run but definitely something to feel good about on the day.

Miles on the day - 12
Songs - Billboard Top 100 from 1998
Shoutout - Sam McNett, the running queen

Atlanta

Down in Atlanta this weekend with family and decided to go out for a run to get some fresh air. My sister had been talking all day of a place named Piedmont Park that is a fun place to hang out so I decided to run there and check it out, everyone thought I was a little crazy. With quite simple directions I set out on foot at a very fast pace, as today is a speed training day. Well, lets just say I'm not ready to run a 50k YET. With a little walking I eventually made my way down past the W hotel and down to the park. Pretty park, nothing extravagant though so I took a little rest, did some thinking, took two laps around the park and headed back.
On the way back I started out walking and listening to some tunes. "Goo Goo Dolls - Name" came on just as I was looking up at the clear blue sky and the impressive buildings...and just as I was starting to think "well maybe this is just one of those days that I felt like just BEING OUTSIDE and not really doing any running", a small little chinese man ran by me top speed. Well it must have looked like a music video or something because I got the urge that all those people got when they followed Forrest Gump. I watched him for about 5 seconds and when he was about 30 yards away I just started sprinting after him. The chase was on and the little kid in me was alive more than ever. Whenever he would slow down for an intersection I would somehow have to veer off and pretend I wasn't chasing him...this got interesting a few times, trust me. I chased him for a good 2 miles and finally subsided after he almost ran into a car coming out of some restaraunt parking lot, little did he know, he would have had help right behind him.

Miles on the day: 9.67 (run 6, walk 3.5)
Lesson of the day: Chasing someone random without them knowing = FUN
Shout out of the day: 2 people that were running counterclockwise at the park
Song of the Day: Goo Goo Dolls - Name

Here starts the madness. . .

Following a recent bicycle accident and two weeks of healing time since my last post, I'll mark today as the first day of training. Went out for a run with Alex, and we just kept going on sort of a wandering run around campus. Turns out we wandered for about 7.5 miles! It felt great after topping out at about 4 or 5 on any other runs previous to this. The general game plan will be to use the next month and a half to build up endurance to around 35 or 40 mile distances and then start speed training in late December in preparation for the Cheaha 50k in February.

Distance = 7.46 miles

Time = Approx. 90 minutes

2010, looking ahead

Today marks the start of training for the 2010 race year. Here is a proposed schedule of the races that I'm looking at competing in, not finalized yet and I probably won't get to do a few of them like the Keys 100 (same weekend as graduation, so its either stay for my 11th year of college and go to the keys OR graduate.........Go to the Keys!!). I want to encourage anybody that is a runner or wants to become a runner to join in some of these with me! Also if anyone would like to serve as a support crew for any of them I may be needing a crew in a couple. It would be fun to have a training partner as well. If the distance seems overwhelming some of the races have shorter races that coincide on the same day so thats an option too. The Terrapin Mountain race is a good example of one of these, there are two races one is a 50k(31.1 miles) and the other is a half marathon (13.1 miles). The Keys 100 is another good example, it has a relay version where you do the 100 miles with a team of 6 people. Hope I hear back from a lot of you! You all have to at least read the past entry form for the barkley. http://www.mattmahoney.net/barkley/bark-ent.txt

Races in bold I have pre-registered for.

December 19th - Seashore Nature Trail 50k Location: Virginia Beach, VA
http://www.tidewaterstriders.com/docs/races/seashore50k09.pdf

February 16^th – Holiday Lake 50K* Location: Appomattox-Buckingham State Forest, VA http://www.extremeultrarunning.com/hlakeinf.htm

February 27^th – Cheaha Mountain 50k Location: Cheaha St. Park, AL http://www.pinhoti100.com/mountcheaha50k/

March 28^th – Terrapin Mountain 50k* Location: Sedalia, VA http://www.eco-xsports.com/terrapin.php

^{March 28th} – Barkley 100 Location: Frozen Head State Park, TN
http://www.mattmahoney.net/barkley/

April 25^th – Promise Land 50k* Location: Bedford, VA http://www.extremeultrarunning.com/promise_land_appl.htm

May 15^th – Keys 100 Location: Key Largo, FL http://www.keys100.com/

October 2^nd – GrindStone 100* Location: Swoope,VA http://www.eco-xsports.com/grindstone.php

November 7^th – MMTR 50 miler* Location: Lynchburg,VA http://www.eco-xsports.com/mmtr.php

December 8^th – Hellgate 100k* Location: Natural Bridge Station, VA http://www.extremeultrarunning.com/hellgate_100k.htm

Race Log!

Haven't had too much time to update the blog recently! 1 day until the race. It starts at 6 am on Saturday (5/16) and here is the link to the race log that Hannah will be updating!

Click Here to go to Race Log!

Total on the day -

Distance - 9.4 miles

Total on the day -

Distance - 10 miles
Time - 76 minutes

Just a few more steps . .

This week life's events just come together into a big ball of madness and its one of those times where you're not really sure how everything gets done but somehow it just does, and then you realize you haven't slept for like 3 days. Exams, running, projects, work will rule my life this week and once 10 AM on May 12th rolls around there will only be one things left to think about, the keys. In fact, there will be 2 things to think about, the other one being Carol Lee Donuts.

I got my last shipment of race gear in the other day, 3 blinking LED lights that were on back order. Just one more reason to run fast in the race, I tested JUST ONE of them out and it really makes concentrating on anything just that much harder, in fact with all three of them turned on its going to be like some european rave out there on the 7 mile bridge.

This week the last aspect of the training will be getting my body used to being up at 6 am. However with exams and all the other fun exciting school things that happen within the last week of school I think it might be more accurate that 6 am will be my bed time but we'll see what happens.
Wanted to give a shout out to Lisa, Bohon, Gretchen and Evan for getting me some good songs! I like them all and I'm getting excited about this playlist!!

Heres what we've got so far!

The Decemberists - O Valencia
David Bazan - How I Remember
John Butler Trio - Funky Tonight
Toto - Africa
Tone Loc - Funky Cold Medina
Coldplay - Fix You
Third Eye Blind - Motorcycle Drive By
T Pain - Church
and 2 cd's full of jam packed goodness!

Total on the day -

Distance - 10 miles

The faster you run the harder it is for the mosquitoes to catch you . .

We went down to Gainesville, Florida this weekend for my sisters graduation from grad school. Cheers to Hannah for becoming a doctor! After being stuck in airports and having canceled flights for almost 12 hours on the way down, I finally arrived with a fever. Slept it off that night and participated in all of the graduation activities on Saturday! After the food coma from lunch started setting in and then following the watching of the sensational win by Mine That Bird in the Kentucky Derby, I figured it was time to go out for a little run. It had been a few days, as this past week I had lots of exams and projects due and what better time to do it then actually being in Florida!

Figuring it was about time I try out all my gear for a longer run, after taking about 10 minutes to get it all on I was ready to go (or go find my camel as Mark might say). Heading out the first mile or two was like trying to make homemade ice cream, the gears were just not turning so easily. After getting a little loosened up I was cruisin though. Felt great to be outside, felt great to be running by things I had never run by before, felt good to explore the city of Gainesville. I stopped about 5 miles into the run and walked for 1oo yards, at this point covered in sweat. When I started again I felt cold? This new material I was running in is amazing, granted the sun was going down so it was getting cooler, it was still 77 degrees, and I was cold. Sauna training is paying off big time.

If there's one thing I can't stand from all the camping trips and hiking explorations I've been on, it's that high pitched buzzing sound of a mosquito in your ear. Maybe thats why I started running fast/hiking fast, who knows. Well I figured out right quick that in Florida, mosquitoes do not fly at 8.0 miles an hour, so if I just keep running, well thats enough motivation for me.

The hardest part about the run, as I had guessed, was the flat/straight/boring pitch that I was running on. As much training on the treadmill as I've done, its still a whole different ball game looking out there in front of you and all you see is sidewalk, for miles, and miles. This being said, I can only imagine whats going to be going through my head once I get to mile 53 of the race and have to cross the 7 mile bridge without support crew help.

Here is my solution and I'm going to leave it up to those of you reading my blog to help me here. I've asked a few people already in person, and gotten some great responses and even a few cd's already :-) For anyone who wants to participate I want to know everyones favorite song (now I know for some of us its hard to pinpoint one, so if you can't make up your mind between 2 or 3, go ahead and let me know them all!). It can be your favorite workout song, or just your favorite song in general. Collectively I will put together a mix of all the songs on my mp3 player and play that during the race while I am running. Probably the easiest way to do this would be just send me an email at mccoyan@vt.edu with the title as Favorite Song or something along those lines, don't leave out your name either! I'd like to know who they are all from because thinking about my family and friends is one of the things that keeps me going so when your song comes on during the race you know who ill be thinking about! Looking forward to hearing all the different tastes!

Total on the day -

Distance - 8.21 miles
Temp - 82 degrees at 45% humidity (Temp is about the same as keys, humidity will be double)