Second At-Bat to BQ - Hartford

Ok here comes my second attempt. I missed the first at Bayshore by 16sec thanks to a GI pit stop. This attempt will be at Hartford. I haven't run it before but I have run their Half and it's only 30min from my house so I can sleep in my own bed the night before. I'll be looking for 3:25:00.

I'm actually spending the first phase getting ready for my first ultra. It's just to get my feet wet. It's a 12HR night race with loops around a lake. I plan to do about 8HR. I have no intention of pushing myself on this. The goal is Hartford, so if I'm not feeling it I'll drop. Basically I'm treating this like a very long training run with walking mixed in. I usually do a training marathon anyway early to mid cycle anyways.

Mileage should be in the 70's with a peak around 80 or so.

I'm also running the Falmouth Road Race again in mid-August. My favorite race. I'd like to do a Half about 4 weeks out but I'm not seeing anything so I might do a time trial.

Starting tonight I'm doing my long runs late Friday night into Saturday morning until the Ultra. Tonight I plan on 4HRs starting around 9pm. Should be fun.

I've only heard good things about Hartford. 30 min away from your house, I am jealous, Alex.

You would have nailed it last time if not for the pit stop. I think you will get it this time around!

Maybe try experimenting with Imodium before a long run or two to see if it agrees with you. I don't take it for training runs because I run by pit stops if I need them, but I take it before marathons and even before half marathons as a precaution since I occasionally have GI troubles. It seems to do the trick for me with no ill effects at all.

Alex Kubacki wrote:Ok here comes my second attempt. I missed the first at Bayshore by 16sec thanks to a GI pit stop. This attempt will be at Hartford. I haven't run it before but I have run their Half and it's only 30min from my house so I can sleep in my own bed the night before. I'll be looking for 3:25:00.

I'm actually spending the first phase getting ready for my first ultra. It's just to get my feet wet. It's a 12HR night race with loops around a lake. I plan to do about 8HR. I have no intention of pushing myself on this. The goal is Hartford, so if I'm not feeling it I'll drop. Basically I'm treating this like a very long training run with walking mixed in. I usually do a training marathon anyway early to mid cycle anyways.

Mileage should be in the 70's with a peak around 80 or so.

I'm also running the Falmouth Road Race again in mid-August. My favorite race. I'd like to do a Half about 4 weeks out but I'm not seeing anything so I might do a time trial.

Starting tonight I'm doing my long runs late Friday night into Saturday morning until the Ultra. Tonight I plan on 4HRs starting around 9pm. Should be fun.

I now that ultra! That's up in Wakefield or some place, right? A couple of guys have run the marathon there (Martin VW and someone more recently). I've always been interested in the marathon distance for that event, but never focused on it enough to actually do it. But I've never thought about doing the all night thing there. Wow.

Good luck on your training for Hartford. I don't expect to run Hartford this year (unless it's gawdawful hot or something two weeks before at my Clarence race), but I do like the Hartford race. The course is pretty flat (the rolling hills are now in the early miles, and they don't seem like anything at that point in the race - don't worry about the hill you'll see on the elevation chart at the end of the race - it's just the rise back up from the river to the park, and will not seem like a big deal), and it is pretty well organized.

The night time training sounds awesome, but I hope you can get some sleep!

Alex - how difficult is it to enter Falmouth now? I have not run it since 1989 (where I originally hurt my hamstring) and I would love to run it again next summer.

Michael Enright wrote:

Alex Kubacki wrote:Ok here comes my second attempt. I missed the first at Bayshore by 16sec thanks to a GI pit stop. This attempt will be at Hartford. I haven't run it before but I have run their Half and it's only 30min from my house so I can sleep in my own bed the night before. I'll be looking for 3:25:00.

I'm actually spending the first phase getting ready for my first ultra. It's just to get my feet wet. It's a 12HR night race with loops around a lake. I plan to do about 8HR. I have no intention of pushing myself on this. The goal is Hartford, so if I'm not feeling it I'll drop. Basically I'm treating this like a very long training run with walking mixed in. I usually do a training marathon anyway early to mid cycle anyways.

Mileage should be in the 70's with a peak around 80 or so.

I'm also running the Falmouth Road Race again in mid-August. My favorite race. I'd like to do a Half about 4 weeks out but I'm not seeing anything so I might do a time trial.

Starting tonight I'm doing my long runs late Friday night into Saturday morning until the Ultra. Tonight I plan on 4HRs starting around 9pm. Should be fun.

I now that ultra! That's up in Wakefield or some place, right? A couple of guys have run the marathon there (Martin VW and someone more recently). I've always been interested in the marathon distance for that event, but never focused on it enough to actually do it. But I've never thought about doing the all night thing there. Wow.

Good luck on your training for Hartford. I don't expect to run Hartford this year (unless it's gawdawful hot or something two weeks before at my Clarence race), but I do like the Hartford race. The course is pretty flat (the rolling hills are now in the early miles, and they don't seem like anything at that point in the race - don't worry about the hill you'll see on the elevation chart at the end of the race - it's just the rise back up from the river to the park, and will not seem like a big deal), and it is pretty well organized.

The night time training sounds awesome, but I hope you can get some sleep!

You know, it dawned on me after I wrote about the around the lake race that YOU were the person from the boards who ran it recently, right??!!

Jerry wrote:I've only heard good things about Hartford. 30 min away from your house, I am jealous, Alex.

I have a hard time sleeping in hotels so sleeping in my own bed the night before will be sweet.

carleenp wrote:
Maybe try experimenting with Imodium before a long run or two to see if it agrees with you. I don't take it for training runs because I run by pit stops if I need them, but I take it before marathons and even before half marathons as a precaution since I occasionally have GI troubles. It seems to do the trick for me with no ill effects at all.

I picked some up from your suggestion after Bayshore. Hopefully that'll be the end of that now. Thank you.

Michael Enright wrote:
Good luck on your training for Hartford. I don't expect to run Hartford this year (unless it's gawdawful hot or something two weeks before at my Clarence race), but I do like the Hartford race. The course is pretty flat (the rolling hills are now in the early miles, and they don't seem like anything at that point in the race - don't worry about the hill you'll see on the elevation chart at the end of the race - it's just the rise back up from the river to the park, and will not seem like a big deal), and it is pretty well organized.

The night time training sounds awesome, but I hope you can get some sleep!

Last year I did the Marathon there. We'll see what happens going longer. You should give it a shot some time. Fun time.

Michele "1L" Keane wrote:Alex - how difficult is it to enter Falmouth now? I have not run it since 1989 (where I originally hurt my hamstring) and I would love to run it again next summer.

Michele, the registration for the lottery, which is how I got in, was mid May and now closed. They might have charity slots open but I'm not sure. It's tough getting in now with so many doing it. I was surprised I made the lottery. The good thing is if you miss out you're guaranteed the following year. Next year I'll let you know when registration is open.

Well, like some have said (and as I said before) - you were more than ready last time and got hit by bad luck. So... this shouldn't be too tough.

Thanks, Alex - I was thinking about next year.

Thanks Mike. Hopefully it'll come together.

Friday - 4Hrs - Began a little past 9pm and finished after 1am. Time on feet run so did it slow. Did it as mini-bonk run. Other than water and a couple of s-caps, I only had a half glass of coke when I stopped back to refil the water after 2.5hrs. My eyes were starting to play tricks on me near the end. Kind of funny.

Saturday - 10M. Less than 6Hrs after hitting the stop button I hit the start button again. I only slept about 2hrs. I was a bit stiff at first but I actually felt decent until about the last 2 miles. When I was done I had to mow the yard and do some other yard work. By noon, I was completely wiped.

Sunday AM - 6M with strides. Again a bit stiff at first but felt good as it went. Did some leg work after.

Sunday PM - 30min. Just a recovery run on the treadmill. Used the TM to save some pounding.

Monday - 5M - Early morning run. Felt pretty good.

Tomorrow I plan on doing a ladder interval so hopefully my legs are back.

That last entry sounds more like something that happens at Parris Island than a training plan!

Find some time to get some sleep...

Michael, I got some decent sleep on Saturday night. I never sleep much though.

Tuesday am - 4M Easy. Early morning. Because of work things are switched around.

Tuesday pm - 8M Ladder after work. .5M, .75M, 1M, .75M, .5M. These were done around 5K on the roads. First VO2 of the cycle. Not great, but not a failure either. Just didn't have the full turnover.

Wednesday am - 10M LSDish. Felt like crap. Wasn't hydrated enough and it was really humid. I just wanted this one to be over and was glad when it was.

Thursday am - 4M Easy with strides. Early morning again. Nothing strenuous here to have some legs for tomorrow night.

So tomorrow night I'm doing 6HRs. I'll go from around 7pm to 1am. The heat will ease off once the sun goes down but the humidity will still be high. It's strictly a time on feet run. I'm sure I'll be doing plenty of walking, especially the last hour or so.

Friday night - 6HRs. Went from 7pm to 1am. About 90 and really humid when I started. I remembered bug spray this time as last Friday night I got eaten alive. Ran for the first 75min then started a 25min run/5min fast walk until about the last hour. Then it was about a mile of running and a little walking. It was all about time on feet. I figured I'd be doing a lot of walking the last hour and half or so but I wasn't. I was happy about that. Had a PB&J about 3.5hrs in. It was more to test it out as I plan to have some during the race. The last hour was nice as it was pretty quiet by then. Like last weekend only got a couple of hours of sleep.

Saturday am - I did 60min on my bike on the trainer. I did this very early then needed to mow the yard, etc. So again I was wiped by noon.

Sunday am - 6M with strides. Felt good. Did a couple of the miles in the middle faster.

Sunday pm - 4M easy. Did on the treadmill to save some pounding. Six hours on mostly concrete sidewalks beats up the feet.

Today will be 5M easy and tomorrow will be speedwork.

Alex - where do you do those Friday night runs? I think about safety issues, knowing the roads around my neck of the woods, so am curious how you are getting that done.

Michael, these Friday night runs I've been just staying in my town running all different types of loops. I'm never too far from my house so I can refill the water.

Monday - 5M. Easy. Did some leg work on Sunday so my legs were dead as usual.

Tuesday lunch - 8M. 3 x 1M around 5K with .25 interval. Not totally happy with this run. It was warm but the second one was a real struggle to maintain pace and the third I couldn't. Oh well.

Tuesday PM - 4M Recovery. Just clearing out the legs.

Wednesday PM - 12M GA. I'm glad I brought extra water. Legs were a bit heavy from yesterday.

Thursday - 4M with Strides. Shake out run.

Tonight will be around 4HRs starting around 7pm and tomorrow morning I'll do 10M. The night race is in two weeks so this will be the last big weekend. I'll do a week taper and then take a couple of days and get right back at it for Hartford.

Friday night - 4 HRs. 7pm - 11pm. This was my third straight weekend going really long. The last hour was a bit of a struggle. Again it was a purpose bonk run. Very humid for the run.

Saturday - 9M. About 8HRs later I hit the road again for this. Didn't really sleep much as the power had gone out and was hoping it wasn't going to be for too long as it was warm and didn't want to lose everything in the fridge. Fortunately it was only out for a few hours. My legs were pretty dead for the run.

Sunday - 5M. Three straight big weekends and I had little left. I usually do a double on Sunday but bagged the second and went for a walk instead.

Today is a speed day. We'll see how that goes.

Glad the power didn't stay out. How far did you get Friday in 4 hours? I'm still amazed by your training schedule for the ultra.

Michael Enright wrote:Glad the power didn't stay out. How far did you get Friday in 4 hours? I'm still amazed by your training schedule for the ultra.

Michael, my GPS died about a mile in so I don't know how far. It wouldn't have been too far as I was just going slow. It's more about time on feet. Hopefully I didn't over reach. After recovery I ramped up to the big mileage quickly and did three big weekends in a row. Right now my legs are kind of dead. Hopefully they'll be recovered for the race.

You sound like a real ultra guy - you don't know how far you went! I bet it was still pretty far.

Hang in there. Weather should break late tomorrow (thank goodness).

Alex - As long as you let those legs heal up in time for when your marathon training gets really serious (12-4 weeks out), those ultra training runs are going to do wonders for you.

Thanks Mike and Michael.

Monday Lunch - 8M Intervals. .5M, 1M, .5M, 1M, .5M. It was over 90 for this and I didn't have enough water so other than the first two I really didn't hit the paces I wanted. Oh well.

Monday PM - 4M. Still nice and warm out.

Tuesday - 11M LSD. It was near 100 with heat index over 100. My legs were pretty tired going into this. Just ran at a pace that I could sustain. Didn't want splits that tailed way off at the end because I went too hard early in the heat.

Wednesday - Resistance Training. My legs needed a break.

Thursday - 6M with strides. With an all-day meeting this was a 4:30am run. Legs felt better after day off.

Tonight will be 12M as the race is next Friday night. I'll do an easy run Saturday and probably some tempo miles on Sunday.

Friday night - 12M. Legs were a little heavy. After three straight Friday nights of 4hrs, 6hrs, 4hrs only going 12M was weird. I actually got more than an hour of sleep.

Saturday am - 6M. Nothing special. Just got it done.

Sunday am - 7M. Did some tempo miles. Didn't want to go overboard with the race Friday night.

I'll do a couple of runs this week. I'm basically doing a one week taper.

Get some sleep this week and enjoy the mini-taper and the crazy race!!

Well I did a couple of runs and strides since the weekend along with some walking.

Weather is not looking good for tomorrow night. TStorms are being forecastsd. There would be nothing worse then getting started and then the race being halted and wait around for it to start back up again. Especially if it happens multiple times. I don't know how they would handle the official time as it's a 12-hr race and there's a 24-hr going on to. I guess I'll see.

Had the race Friday night. First they f'd up my results. This was a loop race. After 5 loops one of the officials comes up to me and lets me know my chip wasn't working. Great. Takes them 5 laps to tell me. It was the D-tags on the shoe which I hate. So they gave me a new one and I assumed they would make sure the first 5 laps counted as we also gave our number as we crossed the finish line. Looks like they didn't

Regardless the race didn't go as planned. I broke a racing rule. I had something during the race I hadn't tested. Well not entirely true. I had a PB&J and some Gatoraid. I had tested the PB&J on a training run but only had water. I've had Gatoraid plenty of times in races. But never both combined. Oops. Right around 26M in I threw up. I went another 6M but it was mostly walking as when I tried running my stomach was coming up again. So officially it was 32.56M. I could have kept going but it wasn't a goal race and didn't see the point of mostly walking for a non-goal race.

Overall it was a nice introduction for Ultras. I plan to do a 50M next year.