After a three year hiatus

Embarrassingly enough, it's been over three years since I last logged in and wrote a single word on my blog. Time to get cracking and hopefully it won't be so pitiful in the future. As time goes on I'll look at modifying the look and make it is a little more readable.

Since the last post I've run a bunch of races but most notably a number of faster half and full marathons. As a masters runner I've managed to bring my time for the half down to 1:17:34 but the marathon arena has been more interesting. After my 2:47 (high) at the 2008 Chicago marathon I followed that up with another 2:47 (low) at the 2010 Arizona Rock n Roll marathon and then my best of 2:46 at the 2010 Boston marathon.

After that time I kept having a number of minor but irritating injuries that just kept pushing my training back to the point that I could never really get anything solid going. Just after Boston I stupidly entered the Steamboat marathon feeling stronger than ever but unfortunately I ended up pulling out of the race with a left calf strain. After that, in February 2011 I had another DNF at the El Paso marathon after developing a nasty blister covering a large portion of my right foot. That was the absolute worst blister I'd ever had in my entire life. I wanted to run the 2012 Boston marathon so I needed a qualifying time. At my age I needed something like 3:15 which was a pretty easy task but I wanted to at least get a good starting position. In 2010 I was in Wave 1, Corral 2, so basically right after the elite runners. I signed up for the Deseret News marathon outside Salt Lake (late July) that features 3200' elevation loss and almost 1000' elevation gain throughout the course, so a tough quad killer to say the least. Fortunately I got the DNF monkey off my back with a 2:52, which should get me at least in Corral 3.

Then last fall after a busy fall with everything but running I ran in the NYC marathon and ran a pretty sad 2:55. Although I say sad, it was a decent run considering the shape I was in. The bright news is that I maintained a sub- 3:00 marathon career thus far. Hopefully Boston will be better, and hopefully I can get back under the 2:50 mark.

After falling on the ice during a training run in mid December I've only just got back into heavy training. If all goes according to plan I can still eek out six 20+ milers before the taper. I want to go back to what has work best for me and use the three week taper instead of the two I used for Deseret and New York. In a later post I will detail what I think I need most of (pretty much everything) to have a decent shot a good time at Boston.

This year I represent the Runners Roost team so I really need to buckle down and get back on track to having a successful year. Being responsible for helping a team look better by turning out good times in most races is a great motivator for pushing it back up the next level. There is no reason I shouldn't still be able to run faster this year than ever before as a masters runner.

I'm looking forward to seeing how the year transpires.