The Running Thread - 2020

Showing my face here after another long absence! Fall and winter 2019 was not a good time for me running-wise. My anxiety/depression is being treated, though, so I'm finally back to feeling like I'm actual a human being capable of Doing Things. I sort of wrenched things back on track in November, but then with holiday season coming up and everything I decided to delay jumping back in.

Big goal is to run the 2021 WDW marathon, and today I went through my calendar and built an 11 month plan around all the big life events I know will cause delays, accepting that sometimes I'll have to take breaks and I can't do everything all the time--I didn't do that last year and it was one of the reasons my plans went right down the toilet. I'm starting out slow and easy for the rest of this month since I've pretty much lost my base and also because I'm on the tail end of a cold/sinus infection/whatever I caught during my big solo WDW trip at the end of January. Going to slowly ramp up to the 10K distance before I have to take a 3 week break at the end of May/beginning of June. Then I've got my first half marathon planned for mid-August followed by 19 weeks or so to get from there to marathon. It's going to be tough and I'm hecking nervous about it, but I've got to try or I'm never going to make it happen.

Answer to a previous question of the day: I'm very fortunate that I live in a small city with large suburban neighborhoods and a beautiful (paved) riverside trail. I used to drive out to one of the trailheads or to the park (which has a loop that connects to the trail) and run from there, but I realized that a.) that was a waste of time and b.) I'm a bit slow in the brain right after a run and probably shouldn't drive immediately afterward. So I switched to running right from the front door. Figured out that the two closest entrances to the river trail from my house make about a 6.5 mile loop, that the park I used to drive to is just over 2 miles away, and I started getting the hang of adding additional trail portions, etc., to add distance. I've done a few walks and runs that were longer than intended, but it's kind of fun to figure it all out as I go. I've gotten to see parts of this city and the surrounding area that I never would have visited otherwise.
 
Mini Race Report: Suwanee Half Marathon

Bottom Line Up Front:
02/09 - @OldSlowGoofyGuy - Suwanee Half Marathon (Goal: 2:15 / Results: 2:11:53)

Details:
I signed up for this race on an impulse. I've been feeling mentally and physically burned out from too many races. My plan was to 'fun run' it, something I never do. I haven't been training at half marathon level, but I figured if I took it easy, I'd be OK.

Pre-race: Suwanee is about 45 minutes away. I planned on driving down around 11:30 Saturday. That morning, we got hit with an unexpected (at least by me) snow storm. We had 5 inches up here. I delayed my departure till 2:30 to give the DOT time to clear/salt the roads. We live on a private road with a steep hill. Needless to say, no one cleared that. I wouldn't have made it out without 4 wheel drive. The drive was nerve-wracking, but uneventful.

Packet pickup was painless and took about 1 minute. After that, I met my brother and SIL at Stillfire Brewing. I had one of the best IPAs (Glory Haze) I've ever had and a grapefruit sour. The first sip was shocking, but after that it was great. It'd be better on a 90 degree summer day instead of a cold snowy 30 degree day. After Stillfire, we walked to Mellow Mushroom. Pretzels, salad, and a coupe of slices of pizza for me. After dinner, back to the hotel to lay out flat OSGG and off to sleep.

Race Day: It was 29 degrees at the start. Not much wind, roads were dry, but still lots of snow on the grass (and wooden structures, but I didn't know that yet). I went with a short-sleeve shirt, compression shorts and socks plus throw-away hat, earband, gloves, sock arm warmers, and a long sleeve pullover. I ditched all of the throw-aways by mile 3, except the gloves. I held on to them a little longer, but as it turns out, not long enough. I hadn't fully decided on a pace when I saw the 2:15 pacer and decided that seemed about right. The race started on time and our pace group started with about 6 people. Attrition whittled that down until at around 7 miles, it was just me and the pacer. I hung with her until around 12, when she slowed way down because we were ahead of pace. I said goodbye and pulled ahead. I felt pretty good the whole way.

The course is a loop, then an out-an-back with most of the second half being in a city/county park, largely on the greenway. The park portion alternated between sections of paved trails and boardwalks. It was maybe 1-2 miles of boardwalk. All of the boardwalks had 2 inches of ice/slush/snow. They'd been salted but it was pretty treacherous. One section was zig-zag cutbacks on a slope. We had to walk the turns on that one. The first boardwalk was pretty scary since it was completely unexpected and I've never run on snow, but I got the hang of it after that.

The course was hillier than I expected with 870 feet of elevation gain. The race website had the elevation listed. I did not pickup on that it was in meters and not feet. Oops!

As a surprise, my brother and SIL came out to see me finish.

Post-race: They had the usual bagels, bars, muffins, coffee, etc., plus pancakes hot off the griddle! It seemed like a bad idea to eat syrup-covered pancakes off of a Styrofoam plate with a flimsy fork and frozen hands, so of course I had a plateful! It was too early for a celebratory meal so I headed home soon after the race.

The bling was a short-sleeve performance shirt, nice medal, and a fleece blanket.

Thoughts: This was my first attempt to fun run a race. Normally, even if a race isn't a PR effort, I try to finish in the fastest time I can, given the parameters of the day.

Today was 24 minutes off my half PR, set in early December, so I really took it easy. It was the most enjoyable race I've had in a long time. I only had 2 moments of regret. The first was on the out-and-back. As we were headed out, we met the 1:50 and 2:00 groups coming back. Knowing I can hang with them but wasn't was tough. The second moment was when I looked at the results and saw I was 7 out of 10 in my age group. That stung a little. I may have taken it too easy; maybe 2:00 or 2:05 would have been better. I also see that racing or taking it easy is not an either/or decision. I need to plan my race calendar better and intersperse the racing with the fun-running.

My experiment was a success. It opened my mind to a different way of doing things and I had a good time while doing it. I would run this race again because it's so convenient and very scenic in the park, especially with snow on the ground. February weather can make this race iffy, so I wouldn't sign up too far ahead of time.

Pictures:

Nice job of coordinating the shirt and medal. The bibs also had the same design. I haven't opened the blanket yet, but I'm sure it does too.

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I said my stretch goal was to get a good race picture. Let's just say I got one that was better than usual. This is at the finish. It's not quite a smile, but it's not the usual death mask. And no, I don't have a Mohawk haircut, the gray on the sides isn't as visible.

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Thanks for reading.
 


Trying to play catch up as always.

Never done a resort run but they look fun if I happened to be there during a non race weekend.

I don’t have any dogs. When I’m at my parents I’ll run with their dog. They live in the middle of nowhere and he does good without a leash. He runs ahead of me and then plays or explores until I go past and then he runs ahead again.

For the most part I drive to run. I do have one route I can go from the house but it’s not my preferred route. There is a trail about a half mile away. One direction I can get 4 miles in, it’s packed dirt so a muddy mess most of the winter. The other direction I can go miles and miles. It’s some packed dirt and some paved. A little hilly when the trail goes under the roadways or flat and cross the roads. My preferred place is about a five minute drive, one direction I can go about 4 miles or it connects to the highway trail and becomes hilly to follow the off ramps and on ramps and cross the roads. The other direction I can go for miles and miles and then it connects to another path I can go even more miles and miles. This trail has both packed dirt and concrete which is plowed so when it snows I run on the concrete and the dirt all other times. There are bathrooms along here as well. And the path goes under the roads so I never have to cross any streets. It follows the river and I see animals all the time and there’s usually a lot of people and park rangers so I always feel safe. The other place I go is about a 15 minute drive, I only do this one on non workday weekdays otherwise because it gets crowded on the weekends. It’s packed dirt in a canyon following the river so slight uphill for the out and then slight downhill for the back. I love this one because there is a herd of big horn sheep I see most of the time and deer and I’ve seen great horned owls and bald eagles too.

For stress I usually go for a run but won’t pass on a glass or two of wine.
 


Catching up from the weekend and like many others my choice if I’m stressed is both, a long relaxed run and a couple of beers usually in the hot tub (even better if snow is falling). Actually, this is my usual when I’m not stressed as well.
 
Mini Race Report: Suwanee Half Marathon

Bottom Line Up Front:
02/09 - @OldSlowGoofyGuy - Suwanee Half Marathon (Goal: 2:15 / Results: 2:11:53)

Great job! I almost signed up last minute too. The snow coverage was so weird. In town got ZERO (which I was totally fine with). But some ofthe northern burbs got smacked. Way to get it done.
 
If anyone is visiting West Virginia, the Greenbrier River Trail is really nice for running. I ran 3.5 mi out and then back from the southern end. It's a former railroad bed, so it's very flat. It runs along the river and nestles alongside the mountains. The surface is packed dirt. While it was cold today, there would be a lot of shade in the summer, so it would probably be pretty cool then, too. There was even a pit toilet about 1.5 mi from the southern trailhead! It is quite a long trail, so I'm not going to get to see much more of it since I'm leaving tomorrow.

@jennamfeo , would you please add West Virginia to my list? Thank you very much!

Such a pretty area out there! Very quiet.
Your post also reminded me: @jennamfeo can I please have Massachusetts and Hawai’i added? Georgia too if I forgot to do that. Thanks!

attqotd: why can’t it be both? Good run in the morning to set the tone and a frosty beer after dinner and kiddo’s bed time to decompress?
 
Today's accomplishments:

1. I hauled the rower out of the basement so I can use it in the morning--our finished basement is not a healthy place to hang out right now thanks to a leak/mold issue and it's icy outside right now, so rowing in the living room it is! Glad I got it done now since I think it would have been enough to make me give up in the morning.

2. Rewrote my 11 month training plan using Galloway's marathon plan from the WDW website. Starting in June I'll be following that plan faithfully apart from the fact that I'm starting it three weeks early so I can go off-plan for three weeks after Week 9 to run a half marathon and do two recovery weeks, and then start the plan back up again where I left off. I'm thinking more and more that I probably won't be running a fast enough pace for a proof of time to make any difference in corral placement at WDW, so I'm not planning to run the half for speed--it's just for experience. Suppose I'll see when I get there. I looked at other road races being offered this year and decided to do a handful of 5K's that coincided with weeks that were meant to be 3 mile runs--though I'll have to be careful not to run them for speed in order to avoid needing downtime afterward. I'm only doing in-town races this year (even the half marathon) to save money and stress since the focus needs to be on getting ready for the marathon.
 
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QOTD: Is it your belief that running as a whole is either trending up, down, or staying the same?

ATTQOTD: I was having a conversation with a coworker who ran a 5k that I used to run every summer. She told me that last year it was a small race with less than 50 runners. I was shocked, because when I ran the race, it was large with at least 750-1000 runners. I consider that big for a local 5k. I also noticed fewer runners and even fewer people I knew. It could be just my age group of friends have moved onto the next thing or like me life just got much busier with more children or their activities. But even if that was the case, the next generation should fill in those spots. So what I think is not backed up by anything, just a thought... I think the bombing of the 2013 Boston Marathon caused a running boom and we are now trending down.
 
ATTQOTD:
I think running as a whole is at least as popular as it’s always been. But the problem is there are so many more races/events to choose from, causing individual events to be less popular. But I say that mostly as an observer, not participant, so what do I know?! :confused3
 
QOTD: Where I live, what I've noticed is that the longer distances (half & up) seem to be growing more popular every year. And 10K's are popular in this area too because there are only three that come to mind - it's just not a distance that's offered much here. With the 5k's, there are just too many, like @C.beara said, there are so many to choose from, it seems like participation is down.
 
There have been several local races near me that have ended in the past couple years. So it does seem like the market had gotten over saturated and things are going down now. In addition to the choice of races, there are a lot more fitness options in general for people to choose. I know a lot of people that prefer group fitness classes like spinning, orange theory fitness, etc.
 
QOTD: Is it your belief that running as a whole is either trending up, down, or staying the same?

I'm really not sure. I know some of the statistics are showing less people racing overall but I'm not sure that means less people are running. I think the overall trend is that fitness activities in general are trending up as more and more options like online group classes and platforms like Peloton become viable options.
 
QOTD: In Dallas, at least, it seems to be going up. There are a lot of new 5k and 10k races springing up and the attendance at the Dallas Marathon weekend has been going up. I know there's a lot of other fitness options also doing well. Camp Gladiator and other boot camps are very popular too.
 
I got my PR this morning at the Hilton Head Island Marathon—4:18!
Congrats! I was really thinking about doing the half, but we ended up deciding to go to HHI this weekend for the President's day long weekend so I didn't do it. Maybe next year! HHI is my favorite place to be (even more than WDW - gasp!)

@OldSlowGoofyGuy - way to get that half done! I actually live in Suwanee, and the snow on Saturday morning was nuts! Sounds like the bit on the greenway wasn't very safe - good thing you were taking it easy!

ATTQOTD: hard to say - running certainly isn't the "trendy" fitness thing to do these days (like Peloton and Cross Fit) but there are certainly plenty of races out there all year round!
 
ATTQOTD: According to Strava’s 2018 vs 2019 year in review postings:

- In 2018, runners covered 944.8 million miles with an average distance of 5.1 miles per run.
- In 2019, runners covered 1.3 billion miles with an average distance of 4.1 miles per run.

My guess is that the increase in miles with the decrease in average mileage is because more users are coming online, especially folks who are just starting to “get serious” about running, and care to track stats but aren’t racking up big mile runs yet.

I haven’t raced in a bit, but it seems like every race I do run is bigger than the year before. I think it’s probably still a growing sport.
 

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