Georgetown to Idaho Springs Half Marathon - 1:17:44; 1st Masters, 2nd Overall

The first time I ran a half marathon was in middle school at the Georgetown to Idaho Springs Half Marathon. I think I ran 2:03 or so. 

When I was making a calendar for the year, and I wanted to put some faster but longer races on the calendar, this one came to mind. 

Results here.

I've had a great build up this summer. I've been knocking out 60-75 mile weeks with 2 threshold workouts a week plus a long run, which I've built up to as high as 21 miles. Most weeks I do 2 to 2.5 hour long runs on the dirt roads around here. Based on the metrics I'm seeing on my easy days and thresholds, I've felt confident for a while that I'm in the best shape of my life aerobically, and so it was just a matter of getting out there and showing it. 

With my training lately, I've developed a pretty good sense of what heart rate ranges I can maintain for different periods of time. And so I ran the first mile w/ my HR peaking out at 160, then let it drift into the high 160s the next five miles, and then watched it drift into the low 170s. 

I probably slightly overcooked the pacing, as I was struggling the last few miles. My relative pacing faded slightly. But not drastically so. 

It was a big field, with over 1100 runners, but not a ton of people around me. There was one woman who leapfrogged me a few times over the first few miles, but I passed her for good around mile six. The guy who won was over five minutes ahead of me. Other than that, I didn't see anyone after the first 200 meters. 

The course was net downhill, but with some serious rollers, particularly in the last mile. Checking with the people around me at the finish, it seems like the course runs slightly slower than a flat low-altitude half marathon, with the altitude and the rollers more or less canceling out the net downhill. Course was also about .1 short, so right around 13 miles. Honestly, it feels like correctly measured courses are the exception these days. 

Either way, I'm happy with the result. Very pleased that I'm still able to tick off a few personal bests in my advancing years.

454

That’s how many days in a row I’ve run, which is the longest streak I’ve ever had. My prior longest streak was 453, which I had going when I was in 8th and 9th grade. Yeah, I've been running for a while.

This wasn’t something I set out to do. But I got on a roll last year, and I’ve just kept it going. I had a couple of 12-minute mile treadmill jogs when sick last winter, and a couple of 4:30 am 20-minute runs before travel, but other than that, it’s been no big deal keeping it going. 

Not sure how long it’ll stay intact, but I’ll keep it going as long as I don’t have to make any unreasonable sacrifices. 

I find that keeping my easy days super easy allows me to run every day, with decent volume, and without getting injured (knock on wood). And I was not always so injury free. Unless I go down in altitude, I never run faster than 8-minute pace on my easy days. I just get out and shuffle for an hour on my easy days, and that keeps me reasonably fit and healthy. 

And of course there’s a luck component to this as well. I’d be naïve to think otherwise. Either way, fingers crossed this streak of luck continues for a while longer.  

Spiral Drive Race; 1st place, 25:17

Ran a race on Saturday. It was the Spiral Drive 4 mile in Salida (actually 4.08 by my watch). Race goes 540 ft. up to the top of the iconic Tenderfoot Mountain and then back down on a dirt road.

No track meet this weekend with high school prom in Salida, so I figured I’d give it a go. 

In terms of competition, the race was led out by Jaeson Murphy, who is a two-time top-ten Hardrock guy, Leadville top-20, and otherwise rock-solid mountain trail guy. He’s got some decent wheels and he went out super quick. I knew my fitness well, and so just let him go, but he came back to me pretty quickly. Passed him at about a mile and then led the rest of the way. 

The last time I ran this race, I led to the top and then got beaten on the way down, so I ran scared the whole way down. 

I got to the final turn in 23:3x, which is about a quarter mile from the finish. I figured it wasn’t crazy that I could close in under 5:20 pace and get the course record, which is Tom Sobal’s 24:57 from 2003. But there was a gusty east-west wind that put an end to that fantasy, and I let go of the rope the last 200. 

I finished in 25:17, which is nearly 40 seconds faster than I ran six years ago, in worse conditions. Won by about a minute over Jaeson. 6:40, 7:18 up then 5:26, 5:19 down, with a 30-second last .8 where I was toasted. 6:10 pace average for the distance.

I thought it was a fun, well-organized, low-key race. I’ve run with Jaeson before, but I had never raced him, so that was fun, too.

I probably won’t race again for a couple of months with the end of track season, and I will probably transition to some longer mountain stuff over the summer. We’ll see if the fitness I have developed over shorter distances will translate. 

End of Year Musings

• Last week, on December 30th, I snuck in one more time trial on the track. I had never run 10 miles in less than an hour before. And so I decided to give that a go as well. The plan was to do 5:59s through 8k, and then lower it down to 5:55s the last 8k plus a curve. All was going swimmingly through 9k, until two soccer teams showed up at the field for a scrimmage and commandeered lanes 1 and 2, literally putting their gear all throughout the first two lanes of the backstraight. Long story short, I think I had a 59:30 in my legs, but I finished 40 laps and a curve (16100 m, if I had been in lane one), in 59:58.8. Probably got an extra 150m or so with the interruptions. My watch tracks 1600s as miles when it's in track run mode, regardless of whether you're running in lane 1, lane 9, or on the infield. Regardless, I ran 10-plus miles in under an hour. 
• My legs were absolutely thrashed after the effort, which I did 4 days after the 10k. 4 days on, they are still thrashed.
• On December 29th, I hit 3,000 miles in the year, for the first time ever. I’d say this has a lot to do with the first bullet.
• Without question, 2023 was my best year of running in the last 25 years, and high in the running for my best ever. Ran 3 very good time trials and 3 good races. Should have run more races, but the ones I ran all worked out pretty well.
• Back in 2013, when I set the goal of running a sub-17 5k, my logic was simple. When I was a high school and DIII college runner, I had decent speed but wasn’t that great aerobically. At my peak, my shorter-distance times were much stronger than my long-distance times. Then I barely ran for ten years. Then I ran ultras for four years, which made me aerobically fit, but I had no wheels. I thought, if I could reclaim some semblance of my high school speed while maintaining aerobic fitness, then when I returned to running longer distance races, I would be a much more competitive runner. At the time, I thought I’d be there in a year. Instead, it took me 11 years to get back to sub-17 shape. 
• A lot has happened in the last 11 years. I started a business, got married, moved to Salida, had a nasty leg injury, had a kid, and became a track coach. All that stuff changes you, in subtle and not-so-subtle ways. 
• So, what now? I am officially burnt out on time trials. There’s a decreasing marginal return on chasing times in time trials as a master’s runner, and now that I’ve been doing it for a while, the big returns are almost certainly done. I’ve been chasing times every time I’ve gone down from low altitude just about every time I’ve gone down since 2018. The appeal has waned. I could chase 5-minute miles every year, but the only reasonable time to do that here is in the summer, and that’s the best time to get out in the mountains. I enjoy the track more than most, but I still prefer the latter to the former. 
• I think the next step for me is to keep doing the same stuff with the training, and then to run more random races, from 5k to marathon, whenever I’m in the mood. It’s time for me to de-emphasize time goals and emphasize life and running experiences. I still want to run sub-80 for a half and sub-2:50 for a marathon, but the impediment to that isn’t lack of speed anymore. It’s aerobic volume.
• My “bucket list” of races is perhaps atypical. Hardrock doesn’t really appeal to me, but I want to run all the big road races, from Bix 7 to Lilac Bloomsday to the 5th Avenue Mile. I’d like to do all the marathon majors. I’ll throw some mountain races in there, too. At some point I’ll need to get revenge at Pikes for the stinker I ran there in 2021, but it won’t happen next year. 
• I love running, even the mundane and boring workouts. And I finally feel like I’ve figured out a training program that works for me and enables me to race to my potential while staying healthy. I have no illusions about being some national-class athlete. Heck, I might only be the 4th or 5th best master’s runner in Salida right now. But regardless, I do genuinely feel that I am maximizing my limited talent given the time and life constraints I’m under. I think that’s all you can ask for.
• My training is very simple, for those who are curious. I run 6-9 hours a week. 75% of it is very easy mileage, at 70% of Max HR (120s, for me). About 23% of my mileage is at “sub-threshold” intensity, broken up into intervals of 1 to 10 minutes. I do about 2% in high intensity work, between races, time trials, hills, and more specific stuff. I think what is unusual about my training is that: 1) the volume of sub-threshold is much higher than what most people do. I’m usually doing over 100 minutes of it a week. And 2) the easy running is much easier than what most people do. 
• The question I have now is whether I’ll be able to apply what I’ve learned to longer distances and different surfaces. Look forward to figuring that out. The 10-mile PR is a good sign that this training will do well at longer distances, but the proof is in the doing.

35:54 10k Time Trial

Knocked out another goal time. This one isn’t just a masters PR. It’s a lifetime PR.

Family went down to Georgetown, TX, for the holidays, which is just outside of Austin and where my wife’s family lives. 

Since I’m not getting any younger and I’m in as good of shape as I’m likely to ever be in, I’m trying not to let any low altitude trips go to waste. Wanted to try to run a few good times while I was here. 

Doing a time trial the day after Xmas isn't ideal in terms of diet, sleep, etc., but this was the day that lined up best with weather and schedule. 

I went down to the local track to give a 10k a go. I think the last time I had pushed a fast 10k was the Bolder Boulder my freshman year of high school, so whatever I produced for this effort was likely to be a PR. Decided to try to go out in 5:44 miles and see where that led me. It was a struggle from the beginning. I ran the first mile in 5:47, then 5:42, 5:44, 5:45. 5:47, 5:47, then 81 to close. 25 laps. Woof. Felt like I was redlining the last 10 laps. I wasn’t sure if I was going to get there until 200 to go. HR was higher than I would have thought possible for a 10k. This one hurt.

Judging by recent times, altitude converters, and Jack Daniels pace equivalents, I thought sub-36 was going to be relatively easy. It was not. I was hanging on for dear life the last few laps, and I feel like garbage now. Either way, sub-36 had been on my radar for a while, and I got there, even though the effort was way harder than I thought it might be. 

Broomfield Turkey Trot

Ran 17:02 yesterday at the Broomfield Turkey Trot. 6th overall, 1st master. Results here. Their "clock time/chip time" distinction is wonky. I had 17:01 clock time on my watch.

Brother lives in Arvada, and we were in town for the holiday. Sister-in-law suggested the Turkey Trot, so three of us ran it. 

Thought I was in sub-17 shape at altitude, but I couldn’t quite get there. Course started downhill and then worked its way back up. Started in 5:20 and then just couldn’t quite sustain the pace on the gradual uphill back to the start. Course was a smidge short, too. 3.07 by my watch. 

I keyed my race off a guy that passed me just short of the mile. He had some gray hair, so I figured (correctly) that he was in my age group. So I just sat on him with the intention of trying to outkick him at the end. Everything went perfectly when I passed him on the last straightway--and then he went to the left to run his second loop of the 10k.

My wife ran 25:20, which is a PR for her. That was the result of 7 weeks of 4-days a week training (including one threshold session per week). She could totally be in the 22s or maybe faster if she cared, but she’s more into yoga than running. 

Fun to get out and race with family. I’m 46 now, but I still feel like I’m improving, albeit marginally. 

September Summary

 259 miles with 12000 gain in September.

A slight downtick in volume compared to the last few months but a slight uptick in quality/intensity. I did a few track sessions without injuring myself, so that’s a positive.

I also started playing around with this guy recently. 

Not sure it’s led to any radical changes in my training, as I was already doing "Norwegian-style" training before I got it. But it has caused me to make some subtle tweaks and adjust workouts in ways that I think might be beneficial. There was a learning curve associated with it, but now that I’ve gotten the hang of it, it’s nice to have bio-feedback that reinforces that I’m at the right intensity for what I’m trying to achieve. Discovered a few counterintuitive things I’ll be able to use going forward. And it appeals to my wonky nature. 

Bit of a bloody mess sometimes, though. Not in the British sense of "bloody mess," but in a literal way. You definitely get some weird looks!