Training for 2/28/13

February is done!

(Which means it’s Kara’s birthday, so happy birthday, Kara!)

I finished it off this morning with my next-to-last tempo run before Shamrock. Yesterday’s shorts weather was long gone. It was chilly, windy and raining (even though I clearly remember yesterday the weatherman saying there was no rain in the forecast for the next seven days.)

Clark was home, so I didn’t have to feel bad about leaving Pepper while I ran. He looked anxious while I was getting dressed, but I think that’s because he was worried I was going to make him run with me anyway, haha.

I did an easy warm up mile, and then I hit the start button to time 30 minutes at tempo pace.

The wind was at my back for the first two tempo miles, until I got to the ferry, and they both clocked in around 7:17/mile. The third mile was through the swamp and had a bit of an uphill, and I think it was more like 7:20. Less than halfway through the fourth mile, I made a turn and had to run head-on into the wind. I guess I sped up anyway, since I knew I was almost done, because I wound up running about 4.2 miles by the time the watch hit 30 minutes, an average pace of 7:09/mile.

I slowed down and ran the last two miles home at an easier pace. I finished the whole 7.2-mile loop in about 55:07, overall average pace of 7:40/mile.

That put a fork in February, so here is my monthly summary:

Mileage:

• Week 1 (Feb. 1-2): 2.5 miles
• Week 2 (Feb. 3-9): 14.9
• Week 3 (Feb. 10-16): 32.7
• Week 4 (Feb. 17-23): 46.7
• Week 5 (Feb. 24-28): 43.8

Total: 140.6 miles

Kind of a slow start, to say the least, thanks to the cold I got while on vacation. I figured out I missed about 64 training miles altogether. At least 13.1 of the 14.9 miles in the second week were a surprise half marathon PR. That was cool.

I got things going again finally during the third week, and I finished the month with a couple of strong training weeks (except for that 20-miler that turned out to only be 5.) The seven-day stretch between Monday, Feb. 18, and Sunday, Feb. 24, I ran 62 miles. (I track my miles in my log Sunday to Saturday.)

Looking ahead to March, I’m feeling really good about the Whale Challenge in a couple of weeks. Today, they posted online our bib numbers for all the races. I’m 16088 in the 8K and 73 in the marathon, so I should be starting in the first corral for both races.

All 10,000 half marathon entries are sold out, as are the 9,000 entries in the 8K. The marathon, which has 4,000 spots, typically doesn’t sell out.

They’ve also posted online the medals and race shirts we’ll be getting:

Short-sleeved on the top is for the half, long-sleeved on the bottom is for the full.

I’ll get the marathon medal in the middle, and the 8K medal to the right of it.

Half and full finishers will also get a hat and another shirt at the finish line, but they never release pictures of those beforehand. You have to finish to find out what they look like.

And then, of course, there’s all the Yuengling at the finish line, but I know what a keg looks like, so they don’t have to post pictures of that.

The weekend after Shamrock, there’s a local 15K I’m considering, based on how I’m feeling after the marathon, of course. I haven’t run an official 15K (9.3 miles) since Jan. 2010, and I’m pretty sure I could blast my PR. This is the only 15K I’ve ever seen in this area, but until this year, it was always held the same weekend as Shamrock, so I couldn’t do it.