Archive for September 2022

I’m about 1 week post-race and have been reflecting quite a bit on the experience.

Looking back at the last 9+ months, I’ve worked extremely hard and I’m thrilled with my race performances.

One year ago I became an Ironman. What an incredible accomplishment, one of my proudest! Then I transitioned into an off-season, and prepped for a race I had done before, that I was familiar with; Eagleman 70.3.

All of a sudden, Ironman announces Ohio70.3 is changing locations essentially to my backyard, and I feel excited and decide to race it! That may have been a bit much, but I still enjoyed myself. Immediately following that race, I dove into an 8-week marathon prep and found a ton of success.

I pr’d my marathon by 16 minutes, and pr’d the Akron Marathon course by over 90 minutes! Wow…

I’m thrilled with the work I put into this season. My goal was to race under 5:30 minutes for a 70.3 and I accomplished that in 5:27. My next goal was to race a marathon in under 4 hours and I accomplished that in 3:52.

So what’s next?

Well, I still have plans to race Ohio 70.3 next season. But just yesterday, Ironman announced Pennsylvania Happy Valley 70.3 and I simply can’t miss it!

So I will be racing TWO 70.3 races in July. PA in early July and OH in late July.

I’d also like to sprinkle in a marathon in April, if possible, so we will see if that happens.

As of now the race season schedule isn’t necessarily SET, but it’s close…

Off-season for now, but I’m already stoked for next year!

#HillPursuit

Tomorrow I’m running my 6th marathon, and 2nd Akron marathon. To say I have unfinished business with this race is a wild understatement.

The last time I ran this race was 3 years ago. It was about 90 degrees and incredibly humid. The heat advisory threw a lot of athletes off their games. I was one of them. Not to mention I had about a 2-month old daughter, lacking sleep, lacking recovery, lacking sanity, lacking training time…it was a bad experience. I think I crossed the line in 5hours20minutes. Or something like that…

Looking ahead at tomorrow’s race is much different. I’m a much more intelligent athlete. I trained pretty hard for this race. I put in a ton of miles. I didn’t have the BEST or most IDEAL taper in the world due to a minor injury, but I still feel pretty ready. Not to mention, the weather looks incredible tomorrow in Akron. At the start of the race it will be about 45 degrees, only reaching 55-60 by the end of the race. That’s great for me, because as a larger athlete, I produce more heat, and quicker than others. So if I can keep my core temperature relatively down, that will help me over the course of the race.

I’m really looking forward to this one. I trained incredibly hard and what I believe to be incredibly smart.

Triathlon is still my number 1 sport, and the sport I want to see the most improvement in as I progress and grow as an athlete. But open marathon running is an important part of that growth. I would say that despite the experience I have with running, it is probably my weakest leg of triathlon. So I really want to improve as much as I can.

My first ever marathon was May of 2018, when I ran a 4:21 in Pittsburgh. My most recent marathon was October of 2020 when I raced virtually (not fun) and set a PR of 4:08. Tomorrow my main goal is for my finishing time to begin with a new number…3. If I can do that, I would consider that a massive victory and big step in the right direction.

Wish me luck!

I haven’t blogged in a little while. So I have some updates…

First of all, I decided to begin my taper 1 week early! Instead of a 1-week taper, I decided to listen to my body and go with a 2-week taper. I made that decision because I started getting really tired, lothargic, and lacking some energy in workouts. These are signs of overtraining, and that is the LAST thing I want to have happen right now. So I ran my 20-mile run last weekend, and began my taper!

A couple days after that, I ended up re-aggravating an old injury in my lower back. It’s an injury I’m quite familiar with, so I knew I just needed to rest. Well unfortunately, I haven’t run in about 6 days due to this injury!

I decided to complete a missed track workout from last week this morning. It was a great session and my back felt great!

I was ecstatic once I began running this morning. Not only did I miss it, but I felt incredible.

2-mile warmup
7x1200m @ 7:25/mile pace
2-mile cooldown

I executed perfectly and all that’s left to do now is maintain my fitness, stay hydrated and fueled properly, and rest as much as I can this upcoming week!

26.2 in 7 days…here we go.

Today was challenging.

To be honest, the entire marathon prep has been challenging. Filled with highs and lows. Mainly highs!

Some workouts have gone perfectly, even better than expected, and some have gone terribly. Today’s fell somewhere in the middle, and it has me wondering if I’m slightly overtrained…

I was planning on 4 intervals of 3miles, relatively faster than TEMPO pace. As I started the 3-mile warmup, I realized I didn’t have my best effort. So when I began my working intervals, I started slower than planned. I made it through two intervals fairly well. However, these intervals were on rolling hills and it took a lot out of me. So instead of hitting my pace goals on the track, I worked harder than I anticipated and ran slower than I expected. I got onto the track for my 3rd working interval, and immediately turned it into my cooldown. I only got 2 of the 4 intervals that I had planned today.

Not great. But as I was running, I realized something. I realized that today was a hard day. In fact, training often brings good days and bad days, but the truth is that you can’t recognize either of them unless you consistently show up EVERY day. So I found a victory in that.

It’s possible I’m overtrained! What does that mean?

I need to begin tapering sooner than later.

I will still hit my last long, slow-distance (LSD) run this weekend, but after that I am planning my taper. This is one full week earlier than I had originally planned.

I hope it pays off.

#HillPursuit