Tiki tiki tiki tiki tiki run (comments welcome)

[NYC_MW]

Good luck and have fun!

 

[Herding_Cats]

So I'm supposed to be in Dallas next weekend.....as a northerner, am I 100% going to want to just use a hotel treadmill, or are the temperatures bearable at like 8am? I've also been trying to figure out if any of those running trails you talk about are close enough to the hotel to use. It looks like no.

 

[Cabius]

So I'm supposed to be in Dallas next weekend.....as a northerner, am I 100% going to want to just use a hotel treadmill, or are the temperatures bearable at like 8am? I've also been trying to figure out if any of those running trails you talk about are close enough to the hotel to use. It looks like no.

There's obviously variability in the weather from day to day and week to week, but I would expect morning temps in the 60s or low 70s, and fairly humid. I'd definitely run outside, but I hate treadmills with a fiery passion and would much rather run outside in 80-degree heat than on a treadmill. =p

You'll be down at the Convention Center for the robotics convention, right? You'll want to check out The Katy Trail, which starts within walking distance of your hotel and runs through the city. It's one of the signature amenities in Dallas. https://katytraildallas.org/trail-info/

 

[Herding_Cats]

There's obviously variability in the weather from day to day and week to week, but I would expect morning temps in the 60s or low 70s, and fairly humid. I'd definitely run outside, but I hate treadmills with a fiery passion and would much rather run outside in 80-degree heat than on a treadmill. =p

You'll be down at the Convention Center for the robotics convention, right? You'll want to check out The Katy Trail, which starts within walking distance of your hotel and runs through the city. It's one of the signature amenities in Dallas. https://katytraildallas.org/trail-info/

I don't mind treadmills (obviously) and there's also the consideration of being a female running alone, in a strange city, and DH's comfort level with that; I'd be OK with it, but I don't want him to be worried about me, or feel obligated to run with me.

And yes. Our hotel is about 0.75mi from the convention center. I was trying to look at maps and garmin stuff, and was having a hard time figuring out just how far we would actually be from the trails.

ETA: Thank you for that map! It looks like we are just over a mile from the south trailhead.....so that's a solid possibility.

 

[Cabius]

I don't mind treadmills (obviously) and there's also the consideration of being a female running alone, in a strange city, and DH's comfort level with that; I'd be OK with it, but I don't want him to be worried about me, or feel obligated to run with me.

And yes. Our hotel is about 0.75mi from the convention center. I was trying to look at maps and garmin stuff, and was having a hard time figuring out just how far we would actually be from the trails.

I'm up in the suburbs, so it wouldn't make sense for you to run on the greenbelt trails by my house.

But the Katy Trail in Dallas is down by you, and it is a super popular, dedicated pedestrian/cycling path that runs for miles through the city. It's an old railroad line, so it's flat and straight and elevated above street crossings so you don't have to interact with street traffic or stop for lights.

It's really popular, so if you're running in the morning you should see a steady stream of other runners, walkers, and bikers. I think it's generally as safe a public running space as you will find.

Here's a short review of it: https://www.cntraveler.com/activities/dallas/katy-trail

 

[Cabius]

Annnndddd.... the Half tomorrow is cancelled due to rain. It's expected to rain all morning, and while I don't think there is lightning in the forecast, I imagine there is concern about flooding along the riverfront course, and perhaps issues with volunteers dropping out.

I don't think I needed the POT, since my 4:53 M would get me the same placement as a 2:12 HM this weekend. But it's disappointing, to say the least!

Since I'm all tapered (and already on my 3rd or 4th serving of Maurten 320 for the day) I honestly may just run an unofficial half tomorrow anyway. I'm not sure when my next HM opportunity will be, and I'd hate the planning and training to truly be for naught.

 

[RuntheMouse]

Annnndddd.... the Half tomorrow is cancelled due to rain. It's expected to rain all morning, and while I don't think there is lightning in the forecast, I imagine there is concern about flooding along the riverfront course, and perhaps issues with volunteers dropping out.

I don't think I needed the POT, since my 4:53 M would get me the same placement as a 2:12 HM this weekend. But it's disappointing, to say the least!

Since I'm all tapered (and already on my 3rd or 4th serving of Maurten 320 for the day) I honestly may just run an unofficial half tomorrow anyway. I'm not sure when my next HM opportunity will be, and I'd hate the planning and training to truly be for naught.

UGH! That’s terrible! I don’t blame you for still wanting to run an unofficial one, especially with all your training. If you go for it, smash it!

 

[WillRunForPizza]

Oh no! That sucks. There's not another half you could run nearby this weekend, is there?

 

[avondale]

Wow, I'm surprised they would cancel just for rain unless it's supposed to be apocalyptic. I agree that you should run anyway.

 

[Cabius]

2024-04-21 End-of-Week Summary / Unofficial Race Recap
This week I completed 21.4 miles across three runs, including an unofficial / make-up Half Marathon.


The headline: I set a new unofficial half-marathon PR, with 13.1 miles completed in 2:06:18 and 13.35 miles in 2:08:57!!

I over-tapered a bit this week, due to business at work, but I was still feeling good heading into Friday.

I did some serious carb loading on Friday, with almost 900g of carbs anchored by 6 servings of Maurten 320.



As Saturday dawned, it became clear why the race was canceled: thunderstorms lasted from early morning until mid-day, with non-thunderous rain continuing until after I went to bed. Between the cancelled race, the crummy weather, some other personal/family issues, and the truly hideous volume of sugar/carbohydrates running through my body, I don't think I was a very pleasant husband or father on Saturday. But I made a plan to run my HM on Sunday morning before Church -- a chance to redeem my training plan, before going to seek redemption from my selfish crabbiness.

I got out pretty early in the morning with a stroopwaffle and a caffeine bullet in my belly, a full water pack, 3 e-gels, another caffeine bullet, and a few candies (cow tales / sour patch kids) just for fun.

I ran the first two miles at a 10:00/mile pace, which was my safe/conservative target for this HM, but felt like I kept having to slow down a bit to stay at that rate. My HR was only in the high 150s!

So I decided to run the next two miles at the more aggressive 9:40/mile pace (potentially a sub-2:08, depending on tangential mileage), and had no problem keeping that pace. My HR climbed to the mid-160s, but based on past HM and M efforts, that's a reasonable place for me to be on a race of this distance. So I decided, screw it, let's stay there.

Overall, I kept my pacing pretty consistent, with most miles landing in the 9:35-9:42 range. (The weird dip-and-spike around the 6-mile mark was a GPS fluke the dip in mile 9 was genuine, an I'm-so-glad-I'm-a-guy pee break in a secluded part of the trail.)



Around mile 11, my HR started to climb noticeably, into the mid-170s. To be fair, that corresponded with a few uphill stretches. But I decided I was close enough to the end, I didn't need to let off the gas. In fact, I accelerated a bit, finishing that last full mile with a 9:21 pace (9:16 GAP) and a HR in the low 180s.

I ended up running 13.35 miles, because I wanted to have a 'race-equivalent' time as well as an ideal 13.1 mark.

----

I'm really really proud of myself. After letting myself get completely out of shape for a year, a lot of work went into this in the past 5 months. And it paid off big time! While it's an unofficial PR, it smashes my previous times (2:44 and 2:23), and represents the best-case, most-aggressive pace target I imagined for this training cycle.

It also implies a marathon time of 4:23-4:28, which compared to my marathon PR of 4:55 is a major improvement. I'm still aiming for a sub-4 marathon in December, and this closes about half of that gap. (Sub-4 is still very aggressive, but I've got 4-5 months to focus on weight loss and speed work before that training plan starts, so I'm not giving up hope.)

I'm tired, and my feet hurt, but my heart is happy.

----

Tomorrow, I'm boarding a flight to Seattle (really, Redmond) for work, which is fine because I'll take a week completely off before easing back into some easy running.

I am signed up for another Half Marathon on May 18th to try for a sub-2:15 POT. It'll likely be a good bit warmer, but I don't intend to push nearly as hard. A 2:14 POT will suit me just fine; I've proven my point.

I'll have to figure out what training looks like in the 2-3 weeks between recovering from this run and embarking on the next one. Probably just a lot of maintenance mileage? But I've got time to figure that out.

Thanks everybody for following along, for your words of encouragement, and for the accountability that comes from knowing that if I decide to sleep in, I have to fess up about it here. It's been a great run! (ba-dum-tss)

 

[NYC_MW]

Congrats! Great to see your hard work paying off. Sorry that the race was canceled though.

 

[GollyGadget]

Congrats on a great training cycle! Such a bummer your race was cancelled but I’m happy to hear you’ve got another one lined up in a month.

 

[WillRunForPizza]

Nice job! That's a fantastic improvement!

 

[nancipants]

Great work getting in the run even though your race was canceled!

 

[RuntheMouse]

Amazing improvement! Unofficial or not, you smashed it, way to go!

 

[jmasgat]

Congrats on your PR! IMO, it is much more difficult to get an unofficial PR than one from a race. There just isn't the same feel/external support/motivation as what you'd have in a race, so it's all on you. And you came through!

 

[avondale]

Great job on the self-HM! I agree with what @jmasgat said above - I think it's harder to be motivated to run hard/fast on your own. Fortunately you also had a course where you didn't have to stop for anything out of your control (i.e., traffic lights).

 

[DopeyBadger]