DadTo2

Venting for a moment...34 days until my first official half marathon and I pulled a fracken calf muscle in my left leg! Applying ice right now and will go see the sports specialist tomorrow or Tuesday. Looks like I won't be running in New York during vacation this week after all. Hopefully I'll be healthy in time for the half.

Still in training for my first half coming up in two months, so I decided to run a half distance yesterday morning. Bottom line is that I shaved a little over seven minutes off my time and finished up in 2:13:47, at a pace of 10:10 per mile. Still have a ways to go to hit what I want, which is to finish a half in 1:45:00. That would put me running a full at 3:30 and qualify me for Boston. It'll take a while, but I will get down to it. Here's the map and stats: http://www.runtastic.com/en/users/eric-dickey/sport-sessions/70175726

That is fantastic!! Congratulations!

I haven't done that one yet, but it is one that I was looking at doing.

Hey BTB, is that the Wounded Warrior Half you're talking about in June?

Okay, so I did my first "official 10K race" today in Ft. Worth. I say official because I have run several 10K distances in my training so far. What upsets me about this race is not how I did, but the fact that I don't think the distance measured for the 10K was actually 10K! I started my GPS tracker as I was crossing the start line, and I was not hitting the distance markers like I should have. What's worse is that When I crossed the finished line, I had actually done 6.41 miles instead of 6.2! Really screwed me up trying to get a PR in the 10K. Here is what they have me officially in the race (I'm number 7 down): And here is what Runtastic (My GPS app I use) says I did: Here are my split times from Runtastic: So it leaves me to wonder, just what was screwed up here? The race distance or my GPS? I started the GPS right as I crossed the start line, and stopped it just as I crossed the finish line. What do you guys think?

So here is my race schedule for the rest of the year. Mayfest Run 5K/10K - May 4 - Ft. Worth - 10K Rock the Block 10k, 5k and Fun Run - may 18 - Plano - 10K Free to Breathe Dallas 5K and 10K - May 19 - Plano - 10K Mission Possible 5K, 10K and Fun Run - May 25 - Ft. Worth - 10K Cure For One, Cure For All 1k/5k/10k - June 1 - Bachman Lake - 10K Irving Marathon Series- Summer Half & 5k June 15th - Irving - Half 3rd Annual Plano Balloon Festival Half Marathon - Sept 22 - Plano - Half The Colony Half - Oct 12 - The Colony - half MCKINNEY MINI (13.1, RELAY AND 5K) - Nov 9 - McKinney - Half Should be a good year, leading up to my first full next year.

BTB, I am jealous. First you run your first half, now you're set up to run your first full marathon. Congrats!

it's streaming here: http://www.bloomberg.com/live-stream/ Yes, prayers need to go out.

Fiddleman, what I am doing is more experimentation right now, trying to find what will work best with me. I can tell you that if my runs are 8 miles or under, I will only use water after the initial 10K distance. So far I have done pretty well in running up to a 10K distance without any need for water or energy chews. The runs I have done that are more than 8 miles, and the runs I plan on running that are more than 8 miles, I will carry two water bottles with me (came with the hydration pack) that are 6 oz each, and will carry a pack of cliff brand energy chews (6 chews) I will use 3 pieces with about 2/3 of one bottle at 6.3 to 6.5 miles out, then do the same at about 9.5 to 10.5 miles out (depending on the distance I am choosing to run for that LD run.) I have tried the Cliff chews twice now and they are not too bad, but are somewhat big and takes a lot of water to go down. I have also tried the Stinger brand honey chews, and those are smaller, and work about the same but there are 10 to a serving in stead of 3 like the Cliff ones. Both take a lot of water (for me anyway) to get down. I also have to slow really down, almost to a walk to get the half serving with water down. I am working on that though, so I don't have to slow down, but I am a mouth breather when I run, so that might not happen very well for me. As far as being in the zone, usually I do get in that zone and the run is fairly easy for me and yes, 8 feels the same as 12. Today's run for some reason was great up until mile 12.5 when it really became more difficult for me. My left upper calf was beginning to become sore and I had to slow down some. I was too close to finishing my first half marathon distance and finally finished it. I think today was more an anomaly than anything. At least I am hoping it is.

May have pushed the boundaries too much today, but it was worth it. I did my long distance run today and decided I wanted to see if I could hit that magical half marathon distance. Well, I did. I finished my run with 13.17 miles, in 2:20:39. I can honestly say that I am really tired and my legs are really sore, but it was a really good run. http://www.runtastic.com/en/users/eric-dickey/sport-sessions/53746772

Pushed the boundaries again running yesterday and went 11.5 miles in 1:46:18. I know I can make the 13.1 miles of the half I am going to run in September, but I want to do more than just conquer the distance. I want to crush the time to do it in. I am setting the goal to run my first half in 1:45:00 minutes. That way I'll have a goal of 3:25:00 when I run my first marathon next year. That's the qualifying time for my age group for the Boston Marathon. That's my ultimate goal: run in and finish Boston with a good time.

It has to be an acive topic, I'm still getting emails when people post to it! LOL Welcome! I actually was born and grew up in Waco.

Looking good there BTB! Great job on the race!

Mass, will keep you and your health situation in prayer. Praying for a good outcome for you so you don't have to give this up.

I actually did a blog post on playlists a while back..I have three main playlists I listen to when running and they are all too long to list here, but if you want you can view them on my blog. http://randomthoughtsbyeric.blogspot.com/2012/10/using-workout-playlist-to-run-faster.html

Nice! Mass, how long have you been running?

Did my long run for the week today and had my best long run yet. I tried out a different park to run in instead of the one I am so accustomed to and I wonder if that may have helped with the run today. Anyway I wound up running 10.6 miles in 2:01:14. I used a new hydration belt today as well. I knew that I got tired around the 8 mile mark on my run so I bought a hydration belt last week to use. Holds two 6 ounce bottle of Water and has a middle pouch to hold energy chews or whatever. I wound up using all 12 ounces of water and three of the six energy chews. That seemed to help quite a lot. Anyway here is the link to the map of the run. http://www.runtastic.com/en/users/eric-dickey/sport-sessions/48009009

Congrats on your first 10K! Good time on it.

Okay, I ran the Form Follows Fitness 5K in Downtown Dallas this morning. I have a new PR, but I am trying to figure out which time is the time I use. My Runtastic App has me at 24:26.04 at the 3.1 mile distance. My official time is 26:35. Now, I started my app as soon as the horn went off, so I had not crossed the start line yet. Either way it was my best run ever and fastest continuous pace ever. http://www.runtastic.com/en/users/eric-dickey/sport-sessions/47755227

All I can say is WOW! One of these days I hope to be able to run the fast.

I thought I would test out my calf today and see just how far I could go on a long run. Considering the fact that I am catching up from not running for a while, it was a good run for me. Nice long and slow. 8.75 miles in 1:41:38. I've trained myself to not need water for runs of 6 miles or less, but I need to start carrying water and gels for these longer runs, that's for sure. I'm just a little tired now, and a little dehydrated. Here's the link to the map of my run. http://www.runtastic.com/en/users/eric-dickey/sport-sessions/46395841