The Run For Glory (Travis Entry)

If you’d like to see the full blog entry, click this link: triforglory.blogspot.com

A brief background: January 26th (yesterday) was my 22nd birthday. I had come up with the idea well in advance that it’d be “epic” to run 22 miles to celebrate my birthday. A good friend made a spectacular running route that was a spectacular Tour De Rochester: my Run For Glory, so to speak. That word Glory grew from being a notion of physical undertaking to one of heightened understanding. Map of The Run For Glory.


I dedicate this run (and likely many others in the future) to both my dad and mom: who not only have instilled in me the ability to overcome obstacles, but also understand far better the difficulties and turmoil of a true endurance event than I probably ever will.

:::::The Run For Glory:::::

The preparations: I wanted this thing to go as smoothly as possible, and with some of the stomach issues I’ve had on longer runs I wanted to prep correctly. My intention was to not stop the whole run and just keep turning it over. While training last week was very heavy by jumping up to 15 hours from about 11 or 12, I thought an decent length but easy run/ride Sunday, real easy Monday, and easy ride Tuesday would give me sufficient rest. It was definitely enough, but I surely could have chosen a better time to amp up the training rather than last week. Nevertheless, last week was one of my more solid weeks of training across the board – even with all the rough temperatures and weather. I had my longest run ever (at the time) and am getting some proficiency on the rollers. Plus I got back into swimming even though it is only easy stuff and simple drills. So I woke up my usual 2.5+ hours before and got peanut butter jelly banana toast with honey on top. It was so delicious I considered a couple more slices of toast with it but figured that’d not be a good call. Drank some water and kicked back to a bit of COD Black Ops. I made sure my “quarterback” wrist direction card was set to go, without it I would have been quite lost after about 8 or so miles.

(About 110 turns that ensure the perfect route through Rochester)

The Epic Departure: With a quick tap of the watch, we were off: Tyler and BroBot holding hands (with us for 20m), Tyle, Chanse, and myself. And soon we found ourselves making our way towards the graveyard, moments after the 7:32AM sunrise (insert Ezra’s mock-poetry about light and sunset/sunrise or whatever here).

The run overall was so natural, except the very initial conception and presentation of the idea – as the outside support made it seem far more reasonable and less abstract. My first thought was it had to be forced: when I thought of this idea my longest run ever was 15.5 miles and occurred on September 2, 2007; well over 3 years ago. But over the preparation it quickly became simply an opportunity, something to be excited about. During the run I felt purely detached from the commitment of completion or the failure of coming up short: I just took it all in and experienced pure enjoyment of the moment.

For the full entry on this run: My Blog includes a full mile-by-mile recount of the run.

Upping the Distance

For the past 2 years, despite having run a few half marathons I have been primarily concerned with shorter races such as the mile and the 5K.  I’ve avoid doing many long races besides the 3 half marathons in that time but all that is about to change.  I have been heartened by my recent improvement in both my races and training and have decided to start running longer races this spring.

To that end I am starting a new training cylce that will finish with on May 1st with the Flower City Half Marathon here in Rochester, NY.  Leading up to that goal race I am going to run a 10k, 10 mile and 15K race.  I’m hoping to PR in each of them since I’ve never raced a 15K and my 10k/10 mile PR’s are really quite bad.  I’m also taking a different approach to this training cycle.  I’ve been basing much of my training off Daniels theories, and they have served me well but I feel it is time for a change.  I’m going to lean heavily of Brad Hudson’s adaptive training method for this training cycle and through the summer.  If I don’t see the improvements I was hoping for by this fall I’ll probably go back to Daniels.

As with any training method I think it is imporant to know what works for you.  So while I am using much of Hudson’s theories to guide my training I am not abandoning those things which I know work well for me.  For me to run my best I need to keep some mile race pace work spread throughout my training which isn’t something Hudson would suggest.  He feels running 10% faster than your goal race pace in the final 4-6 weeks of your training is a waste of energy.  I know from experience if I don’t do that faster running I get very flat and don’t race well at all. 

My first race of the “Spring” will be the last Freezeroo race of the year which is a 10K.  Hopefully that will give me a decent sense of pacing for my workouts the rest of the training cycle.  So here is to running long!

Mile Race Report

Today was the last indoor of the season for me.  Rather than run in the last two meets I decided to race the mile, then start building toward some longer races in the spring.

I was in the “fast heat” with 14 guys and 1 woman, fast being anyone running sub 5:15.  I over heard a few of the younger runners talking about their plans to run in the 4:20’s but it turned out to be just a bunch of bluster.  The race went out way to slow and after clocking a 36 200m split in 5th place I jumped into the lead and lead the field through a 2:20 half mile (about 4-5 seconds slower than I was hoping for).

After the the half I tried to start pushing the pace a bit harder but with 600 to go I had dropped back to 5th place. 800-1200 I ran in about 69 seconds and did manage to move up to 4th with 400 to go. With 200m to go I dropped the hammer and ended up finish second running the last lap in 31 seconds. I don’t think those 20 year olds where expecting me to blow by them in the last 30 seconds but it was really fun.

Final time was 4:36.8 2 seconds off my outdoor PR but 7 second faster than I ran indoor last winter. I’m going to take it easy the next few weeks and just get some easy running in before starting on a new training cycle for the spring.  Next race is either going to be a 10K the last weekend of February or a 10 miler in Poughkeepsie the second weekend of March.

200: 36.05
400: 35.2 (1:11.25)
600: 33.21 (1:44.47)
800: 34.96 (2:19)
1000: 34.90 (2:54.33)

1400: 1:09.03 (4:03.37)

Mile (last 209 meters): 33.43 (4:36.80)

Meet Results Here.

Premature end to Indoor Track season

Unfortunately, a couple of different forces have compelled me to cut my indoor season short. Shortly after the 5K on December 30, my Achilles tendon flared up, which is an injury that I’ve never experienced before.

It really started to hurt after a tough outdoor track workout at UR with Josh, and then I left for a job conference in Denver, CO the next day. The conference was very hectic, and I spent a lot of time walking between hotels to attend interviews. The Achilles problem made this quite painful during the first two days! These interviews were the first step in my job search for positions for newly minted Economics Ph.Ds, and they will hopefully lead to a number of (more comprehensive) fly-out interviews.

Although my Achilles is starting to feel quite a bit better, my upcoming schedule remains a question mark, so I’ve decided to back off the training until my employment matters are settled (this could be until anytime between late January and late February). In the meantime, I’m going to try to enjoy the Winter with easy mileage and maybe a few long runs when I can fit them in. My long-term plan following the break will include a one-to-two-month long mileage buildup during which I’ll ease back into some good workouts and races. I still need to think about which Spring races on which to focus.