To blog or not to blog

It has been another 5 months or so since my last blog. I have long considered shutting down the blog, because an unmaintained blog is worse than no blog, in my opinion. However, I have never given up hope that I will actually return to consistently blogging, but it seems I just never make it a priority.

A quick summary of the races in the past 5 months.

Broad Street - 1:10:31 - I was pretty happy with this race, even though i was 2 minutes off my PR. I was nowhere near the shape I was in when I PR'ed so I was pleasantly surprised by my performance.

Run for your life 5k (september 9, 2008) - 20:54 - This 5k is run through Great Valley Corporate Center and is one of the hilliest races I have run (other than the pretzel city sports races). I was pretty pleased with my time for this race and I think it will set me up for a sub-20:00 5k on a flat course. I don't think I will be running any 5k's for at least a couple months, but maybe the reindeer romp in december.

PDR - 1:51:who cares - This race was probably the worst race I have ever run ... including my 4:45 marathon. The race fell in the middle of a week long bathroom remodel, so I wasn't very well rested for the race. I had been training fairly consistently and had peaked in the low 30's for mileage/week (which is pretty good for me), so I figured I would be able to get a reasonable time for race, regardless of how well I was rested. I was definitely wrong. After the first mile or two (near my goal pace of 7:15-7:30ish), my legs were burning and I considered dropping out of the race near the art museum. I decided at the 5 mile mark that I would treat the race as a training run and finish no matter what the time. The last 8 miles of the race were pretty much me stumbling towards the finish. I am not sure if it was the lack of rest or the lack of significant speedwork that doomed the race, but after a week of sparse running, I think I have finally progressed to the acceptance part of my grieving.

I am running the philly marathon in a little under 8 weeks and my training is going pretty close to plan. Before the PDR, my training peaked with a 16.4 mile run and I hope to return to long runs this weekend with an 18 miler. If everything goes perfectly, my goal for the race is anything under 3:40, but I would be pretty happy with under 4 hours. Based on my long training run paces, I think the 3:40 is reasonable... but who knows what my body will do when I hit the 20 mile mark.