Seaside Half Marathon 2015

With limited speed training and a decent amount of marathon training from December through February, I finished in 1:28:22!! Only 12 seconds off my goal PR!! Took almost 3 minutes off my old best time!!

Conditions were perfect. Tailwind on the way out. Light head and crosswinds for the way back. Rolling sand dune-style road. Low to mid 50s and overcast. 

I had no idea what to pace at without any race-pace tempo runs. So I tracked my heartrate and pacing for the first two miles to see how I felt---if I needed to slow down. But I didn't. Felt great at two miles. Comfortable. So I quit looking at my heart rate and resisted (as much as possible) checking my half mile splits. 

By starting slower, I picked off runners one by one. At 5k I was at 32nd place, at halfway 25th, at mile 10 19th, and finished at 16th overall. The second half was almost a minute faster than the first. And I kicked the last mile in 6:10. 

What happened??? I still can't figure it out. Seaside was March 1st. Looking at my workouts since Denember, I only did 5 runs that had a sub-7:10 mile split: 12/23, 1/19, 1/23, 2/10, and 2/15. But those were nowhere close to a 6:44 pace for a considerable distance. However it happened, I had the mileage base from training for the 5points marathon a couple weeks before (2/15---where I'd accidentally ran a 6:57 split for mile 12...). 

Next year will be one second per mile faster!!!

The PR Bucket List

As I've restarted this journey, I have revised the old list into a new one. It's a more realistic expectation of times. I was crazy before. Well, a 100 mile run is crazy.

At least I took out the golf. If I randomly make a whole in one, I'll let you know. 

I also took off the names of races I want to complete. I'll probably compose a separate list for that---"Bucket Races." 

Mission Statement

A year ago, my younger brother, Jeff, and I decided to make a PR Bucket List.  We emailed back and forth our own lists, adding or taking off events and commenting on how ridiculous some of the times were, until we both had our completed lists. 

First, "PR" means "personal record."  It's a common expression for runners: "What's your PR for the marathon?" "What's your 5K PR?" "How was the race last weekend? Did you break your PR?"

So, the list is comprised of all the PRs I want to reach before my speed has completely departed and I'm only racing to try to win my age group...

This blog will be a chronicle of my fitness lifestyle as I attempt to beat the goal PR and include posts about workouts, races, gear, strategies, nutrition, what's working well, what's not, how lazy I am, how many rabbits and armadillos my dog chased on our last run, etc. 

              _______________________________________________________________

And all of that was 2.5 years ago. It's time to start this thing over. It's time to do this right. I have two daughters: 3 and 1... I've been busy. We'll talk about that later.