Scot Mente

Scot Mente

Slogging Through

Some crap runs since my last blog post. I did 5 slow (44) last Friday - giving me 15 for the week. I followed that with a camp trip - the Judson camp-a-thon this weekend at Brialee near Ashford, CT. The camping wiped me out for Monday's run - another slow (44 minute) 5 miler. Having said that, the camping was great fun. The campground had a crap-load of things for the kids to do: fishing, swimming, moon bounce, inflatable water slide, splash-pad, a recreated Fenway wiffle ball field, and the list goes on from there.

Back to working out. I did a 5am Bob Harper strength thing Tuesday and another slow run today - only 4.5 miles. Although the runs have been slow, I've managed 4 strength workouts in the 11days - and I'll do another tomorrow. So - at least I'm getting into that habit. I'm still eyeing Philly in November - gotta get strong!

Lets Go Camping!

Ahhh - camping with the kids. A little rain in the forecast, but oh well. Anyway - I had to squeeze in all workout in 5 days this week: runs Monday, Wednesday and Friday - all simple 5 milers and strength dvds on Tuesday and Thursday. Mondays run was very difficult - 44 minutes, Wednesdays was better - 39 minutes. We'll see about today - it's raining pretty good. Hopefully it won't damper the weekend too much.

Change of Pace.

So I skipped the Niantic Bay 10k. Just wasn't feeling great last Friday, or really, most of this spring. Although I have lots of excuses (allergies/sick, work) - I still felt like I need to change things up. I'm a little conflicted. On one hand I feel like I need to get back to strength and flexibility, on the other hand I'd like to run a marathon. I didn't feel fit after the last marathon - so the goal hear would be to trim the running and do more strength training. I'm considering adding a swim/week as well - since I thought this really helped me last year. So the plan would include 3 runs, a swim and 2 strength workouts. In the short term (next 2 months) - I'll ramp of the speed and maybe start some swimming. I'll have to build in some flexibility as well. If I decide not to run a marathon (probably Philly) - I can just ramp down the long runs and run my normal group of Fall races - remembering that the ultimate goal is to feel stronger.

The plan itself is a derivative of the FIRST plans that are floating about. It peaks at only 30 miles/week - which seems insane - but after having done a marathon, I'm convinced that running 6 days/week with no focus on other workouts did nothing for my overall fitness. We'll see!

Twilight Trail Run 2011.

This last weekend kicked off with the Twilight Trail Run out at Bluff Point. This is usually one of my favorite runs of the year and this year did not disappoint. This marks the 6th time I've run this race and the second time that I've been bothered by allergies. My pace for the previous five years are: 7:42, 7:31, 7:15, 7:39 and 7:16. This year I ran the race in 55:22 - good for a 7:28 pace. I started the first 2 miles with a friend who said, after 2 miles that we were doing 7:35s. Since I was feeling crappy all week - I didn't want to push it too hard early and then struggle for the last half our - but in retrospect we were probably going a little slow at the start. I picked it up a little at that point and had the enjoyable experience of picking off people for the next 5 miles. In the end, my pace was about 10-15 seconds/miles slower than normal - but I think that was pretty good considering the allergies.

After the race I had a great time catching up with an old friend, drinking beer and then heading to Ortega's for a kick-butt chili relleno. Bascially just a perfect night for racing, drinking and hanging out - I need more of those in life.