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The most popular question that I get about Tiffany these days is…Is she still running? Though most people say it more like…”She’s not still running, is she?” My answer is a most definitely yes, and swimming too. For those not in the know, Tiffany is now 9 months pregnant, so far along is she that she could really go into labor at any time. The due date is April 1st. I joked around with some people in our saturday running group that if she hasn’t given birth by this coming saturday, we would have a “Run with Tiffany mere days or even hours before giving birth” jog. I think we’ll do it if possible, maybe it could be an annual thing too…who knows. Anyway, here’s some pics of a jog we did last night (mar. 23).

If you have ever followed Hal Higdon’s marathon training plans, you’ve probably come across the inevitable hill workouts. For most thisis just a regular part of any training…However, for us in Northwest Ohio…specifically Bowling Green (former swamp land) it is near impossible to find any place to do this workout. Normally I believe the plan has a 3 minute hill surge followed by a recovery period. There is absolutely nothing within a good radius of our lovely hometown that would take anybody 3 minutes to run up. Our sledding hill is approximately 30-40 feet tall (30-40 seconds if done very slowly) and the hill at the university golf course is only a few yards taller. What’s the answer, well, highway overpasses, and yes you read correctly. We have one in particular that we use for our “Hill Repeats” that is almost exactly 1/2 mile from a street sign at the bottom of one end to the stop sign on the other. I routinely get made fun of for actually touching the signs at each end, but hey, I want my workout. The hill itself takes around 1 to 1 1/2 minutes to climb and then we recover on the downhill. It has proven to be a fairly effective workout when done at the proper effort levels. If you’re in a flat location, you should certainly give this modified “hill” workout a go. Cheers!

See below the breathtaking vista atop our chosen “hill workout” location.

If you’re anything like me, I like knowing where I stand with my training. I am always looking for ways to gauge my overall fitness level and determine what to expect from a given race. Bart Yasso has his “Yasso 800s“, a company called Quantitative has a running calculator (and even one for triathlons…but that’s for another day). There is one that is consistently regarded as the best in class…You may have even heard of it…The McMillan Running Calculator. This particular system was developed by a man named Greg McMillan. He is a scientist, coach, and runner who has all the grooming to be an elite level running trainer. In his own words he says,

“I haven’t found one[running predictor] that is specific enough, is laid out in an easy-to-read format or that is based on what runners in the real world are capable of doing. So, I created my own and I’ll share it with you.”

Before we dive in to McMillan’s world of race predicting, let’s first briefly discuss some other major players in this arena. First up:

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For the last few weeks, I have been doing a workout that can best be described as a combination 1hr Bike Trainer Tempo Ride & 40min Tempo Run. This workout has taken place on Monday nights and I have grown a weird affinity for the special kind of pain that this workout seems to inflict on my legs…

A quick glance at this combination and you would say that this is an ordinary Brick workout ala your standard triathlon training, and yes that is what this is…But it is much, much more…The run is, in fact, a workout that would fit all of the characteristics of a Marathon training plan tempo workout. I keep my pace steady and fast…10K pace. By the end of the run, my legs start screaming for it to end.

Now the Bike ride…I started this as a typical winter trainer ride where the pace hovered well within the “easy” category, but recently I’ve felt that this is just about useless to me given my desire to time-trial this spring in some official races…So basically, I have turned this bike workout into another tempo workout where I constantly keep my cadence in the 95-100 range. When you put that bike ride up against the tempo run, it makes for a cardiovascular festival of oxygen deprivation and muscle fatigue [read: pain]. I am really hoping that this serve to increase my overall fitness and endurance as I train for the Glass City Marathon, the Maumee Valley Wheelmen Time Trial races, and several Olympic Triathlons and the big race of 2009 for us…SteelHead 1/2 Ironman…

So take an icy cold leg bath in a mountain fed spring on me…As a good friend is fond of saying…“Get into it!”

One nice thing about training for this year’s Glass City Marathon (Toledo, OH) is that the 18 week training program started the last week of 2008. This is nice because it helps to think of 2009 as a fresh start with a new training cycle. I’m pretty excited as it looks like there will be others training for the same race (or the Half) all together! So far we’ve had 3 people confirm that they’d like to do the training, which brings me to the reason for this particular post…

SPEEDWORK!!!

I know, I know, speedwork is a necessary part of the training that increases overall running speed and endurance, thereby decreasing the risk of bonking mid-race (see columbus marathon 2008 for jeremy), and I didn’t make it any easier on myself by not looking at what the program calls for and making my own workout up (read: went overboard). So the workout we were supposed to do was like 4×800s, what we actually ended up doing…(notice the decreasing pace times as the distance decreases…for the most part)

Interval Workout # 1 (2009)

Luckily, I felt good during the workout so it wasn’t as bad as some other workouts I’ve participated in. Here’s to a new year, new training cycle & hopefully a good racing season…

Tiff and I joke about how our Thanksgivings have pretty much the same pattern every year. We call it the “Tour of rt.75″. It usually starts with us going to Grandma Z’s in Tipp City, OH on wednesday night. We wake up in the morning and go south to Miamisburg for the Turkey Trot 5mi race on Thanksgiving morning. From there we go to My Aunt and Uncle’s in Tipp City for the First meal of the day. Then its north on 75 to Troy (one exit up) for the second meal, and from there continuing north and then a bit west to somewhere around Celina/ New Knoxville area. We usually end up either back in Bowling Green or stay over with Grandma Brown till friday. See the Map to get a general idea of the path…

It may seem like a lot, and it is, and usually we are completely stuffed and wore out by the end of the day, but in the end we are happy to able to see that much family in one day. I know a lot of people who have to alternate which side of the family they go to for each holiday, so we feel incredibly blessed.

Now to the racing…Thursday morning…Thanksgiving day…5 miles…

There was a pretty large group of family this year for the race…Tiff and I, my dad, my uncle, two cousins and tiff’s brother all went. I’ll go ahead and answer an obvious question…yes tiff beat me in this one (5mos pregnant). Our times respectively were…Tiff: 36:42 and Me: 36:49. This is a fairly competitive race so none of us won any age group awards or anything…

On to the next race…our first year competing in the Holiday Hustle 5K in Maumee, OH. This race takes place at 5:00 in the evening on the saturday after Thanksgiving…We had my family meal at noon that day (the steaks were great, mom), so I wasn’t really planning to race this one too hard…Our friend/training partner, Mark and his wife went with us to the race as well. When the race started I stayed back a bit from the start to allow people to get moving (1000+ runners), and when I started it felt like a quick, but not real fast pace…just comfortable enough. Wearing the Garmin I decided not to look at all and just wait for the mile indicator noise (which was pretty close to accurate…thanks race organizers). After about a mile I caught up to Mark, which surprised me a bit because he normally runs faster than I do. I ran with him for a while and fell back a bit, but still within 10 feet or so. All this time I was feeling really good, not straining too much to hold my pace, so I thought I was around a 7:10-7:20 pace. I still didn’t look at the Garmin for any confirmation and my math skills decrease dramatically when presented with a clock at each mile marker. I just kept running my race until I hit the 3 mile mark, and i decided to go for a fast finish. Turning the corner onto Conant st. I picked it up around 3 other people and held a pretty fast pace and when within 100 feet of finishing I picked it up more and crossed pretty quickly…Only then did I look at my time… 21:29, which I thought was a PR but didn’t know for sure until later…It Was!!! And without even trying to race real hard…I actually mentioned to Tiff that I felt like the race was downhill the whole time.

Update: Because we went straight home after the race I just found out that I won my age group!!! (25-29) This is the first AG win…ever… It gets better too! Tiff got 3rd in her AG. Now she is 5 months + pregnant right now and still beating lots of girls her age, which I know I’m excited about…

So that was our holiday weekend…busy, but fun, and that’s not all we did, but that would take a lot longer to write, so that’s it for now…

Very few things in life can really teach you the importance of training. A marathon is definitely one of them. This past weekend (Sunday) I ran the Columbus Marathon. This racing season has been winding down, and with it the training has begun to taper off. This is in direct contradiction with marathon training. I did manage to get 2 20milers in, but really not many other long runs. I did almost no speed work (unless you count triathlons in August & September). So going in I knew I was at a bit of a disadvantage. Even still I wanted to run a good race. About mile 14 I prematurely hit the “Wall” and the pain set in. I tried to take a goo pack and my stomach protested. I then tried to choke down some gatorade (which rarely works anyway for me…i get belchy), and that didn’t really help. I decided about mile 16 that my new goal was to “run” the whole race whatever that meant. I just didn’t want to walk, so I would slow my pace down as much as possible to make sure I could achieve this goal. At mile 21 my uncle Jay hopped in and ran with me for 2-3 miles and that really helped lift my spirits and then at mile 24, tiff ran with me almost to the finish. In the end, i realized two very important things…

1. DO THE TRAINING, or else be prepared for a race like that

2. RUNNING WITH PEOPLE HELPS…A LOT

Anyway, I’m still glad I did it, and now the racing season can continue to taper off. Below is a photo from Diana Beck’s Facebook that she tagged of me at the finish line…And yes it was just a little weird having Tiff not run the marathon as she is pregnant…

As a training race, the Minster Oktoberfest has traditionally been timed perfectly for finishing up a marathon program for Columbus. A 10K two weeks out…stretch out the legs, run fast, you know.  This annual celebration of the harvest has become a staple in our racing schedule partly because of the timing but also since my wife is from that area and we get to spend the weekend with her family…Oh yeah, and they serve beer (It is Oktoberfest, Duh). I’m not sure, but I have this suspicion that the water in beer doesn’t count as part of a post race hydration program (I’m not a nutritionist or even a scientist, so who am I to make broad statements that could lead to no beer).

Anyhoo, the best/funniest thing was that Tiff came in 2nd in her age group, and only 10-15 seconds behind the age group winner.  She is, you’ll remember, currently 15 weeks pregnant, and yes she beat me as well. Now, I’m used to getting beat by Tiffany and her being pregnant hasn’t yet proven detrimental to her overall racing capacity, but I wonder what the girls who finished behind her in the race might think if they knew that they were beat by a pregnant lady. My consolation…Tiff couldn’t have the traditional/celebratory beer (not much I know, but I have to hang on to something).

On the HFP website there was an article posted noting how the Vermilion community was excited to have a race in its community. While I would normally just brush these words off as a PR attempt, it turns out that this was actually true. There was no lack for enthusiastic volunteers both in the park and out on the courses who were not only helping out but also cheering as we passed by. GO VERMILION!!!

Overall/Age Group Results are here…and photos from the day are here…

To the race report:

The Swim: this was officially our first large lake swim (Lake Erie). Even though it got a bit choppy and the waves picked up during the swim, I had fun with this one. Riding the crests and troughs of the water as it surged underneath made for an interesting/challenging swim split.

The Bike: We were told before this race that the bike course was supposedly one of the more difficult ones in the HFP Weelie Fun Triathlon/Duathlon Series…and they were right. The rolling hills were nice, but as we approached the first of 3 bigger decents and resulting climbs, it became apparent that the course designers were not on our side. Going from 45mph on a nice downhill stretch to 4mph is quite the swing and difficult at best. This isn’t to say that the course wasn’t enjoyable, just that it was tough.

The Run: The only part of this race that I would want to change a bit. An out and back course through downtown vermilion and a couple miles to the west of town. It was a bit exposed on the outer portions with traffic still going both ways, so we were relegated to the road’s shoulder which was a little cracked and uneven. There was no lack for aid stations though, and they were ready to hand out whatever you asked for…(Water on my head, then water in my mouth is my motto).

The Results:

Tiff: She won her age group…again…with a time of 2hrs 35mins 39secs

Jeremy: I did not win my age group…again…with a time of 2hrs 32mins

OF NOTE: There is a racing series that we have been partly participating in that consists of 6 races(here and here) and currently Tiffany is winning this series for her age bracket (F25-29). For me…I am actually 5th in my age group out of 44 people, which is the top 11%, so I’m excited about that.

One day less than 2 weeks after Ironman USA, Tiff and I traveled to Benton Harbor, MI for the Whirlpool Steelhead 70.3 Triathlon (Half-Iron Distance).  The weather was shaping up to be pretty nice, if maybe a little hot. The course has been described as fast and includes a 1.2mi swim in Lake Michigan, a 56mi bike over rolling hills & a 13.1mi run over slightly less rolling hills. Now normally the part I am looking forward to least is the swim (it is my weakest event), so when we walked down to the swim start (a 1mi walk north of the transition area) and were told that because of the choppy waters they would be cancelling the swim, one would think I would be happy about this…I wasn’t. Why? It is no longer a Triathlon…what ended up happening is a Duathlon with a 2mi run instead of the swim. There was a part of me that was looking forward to my first large Lake swim in a race.

Enough of that…on to the results.

Tiffany and I both finished strong and near where we wanted to be (time-wise). My legs were still a bit soft from Ironman, so my performance suffered a little. My one main goal was to not walk except through water stops (I absolutely cannot drink/eat anything while running), and I was successful there.

Tiffany Overall Time: 4:41:41

Jeremy Overall Time: 4:57:16

Click here to view all results

All said and done, this was a pretty good race, and I would certainly do it again. Next up…Vermillion, OH