Only Race of the Year!

It has been a minimal racing year for me, but with a 5k cross country race held literally a half mile from my house, I could not resist.

Check out the results here!

Overall, I was pleased with my time and place, considering my relative lack of training (15 to 20 miles per week the last 3 months or so), and almost no speed workout, with the exception of a few fartleks.

Mark

Update on Spring Training

Did three 5-mile runs in a row this past Friday, Saturday, Sunday, about 8:28 to 8:30 pace.  Did not feel great, but not bad for this time of year.  How is everyone else's spring training coming along?  I would really like to hear from our numerous listeners in Latvia, Russia, and other parts of the world.

Blog "Facelift"

Well, I tried to give the blog a facelift, by rearranging it into two columns instead of three and "tinkering" with the text and background colors.  In the end, I'm not sure it's an improvement, but at least it's different!

Our Blog All-time Audience Stats

I thought this was interesting.  Here are our all time statistics in no. of Page Views since the formation of our blog several years ago.  I don't know if all the foreigners viewing our blog are real people, or just internet "robots", but Russia and Eastern Europe seem quite interested in Mark and Eric's Running and Dave's Wisdom!

Preparing for Spring Racing?

Frozen Upper Falls, Letchworth State Park, NY

I have been able to do more cross country skiing this year than I have in a long time, due to the prolonged, cold, snowy winter.  It has actually been very enjoyable.  Winter photos are shown below!!

Young Buck and L.T. Raybuck XC Skiing in Houghton, NY

"Ice Volcano" in Letchworth Park, 50 feet high, formed simply by a pond fountain left on all winter!

Chris Lennon, working out.

This is peripherally about exercise, because we are thinking about doing a back-country canoe trip next fall.  I had some fun satisfying my camping stove fetish by testing out a "pop can" alcohol stove in the back yard.  Of course I made a video: Pop Can Stove Experiment.

Too Cold!

With temps in the single digits here, I have been relegated to indoor biking the last two nights.  Maybe Speedo will care to comment here?

A long absence, but still running!

Wow, due to "real life" commitments (like going to work every day), and family commitments, I have been lax in blogging, and thus, thousands of follower have been disappointed.  But, to alleviate concerns, I am still running.  However, I have only raced twice this year:  a 5k road race in April, and a one mile "alumni" race with my old high school (I ran against the current high school kids) in May.

Except for training runs on trails, I essentially skipped cross country season this year, very unusual for me.  In the 5k race in April, I managed just over 20 minutes, and finished second overall out of about 130.  I know, likely the slowest second place finish ever, nothing to boast about.  I was gaining on the winner right up until the end, and was only two seconds behind, but ran out of real estate.  My wife was disappointed, as for this particular race, there was an unusually large winner's trophy, and with a winning time of over 20 minutes, seems like it was in reach.  Results are here.

In the mile run, which included about a dozen high schoolers, and a couple oldsters like me, I managed a 5:45 last May.  Nothing too swift, but it was about 85 degrees that day.

I'm not going to predict when my next race or time trial will be...too many variables in my life right now.  However, training has been going well, getting in 25 to 30 miles per week the last few weeks, including some tempo and fartlek runs.  A few 4 to 5 milers have been under an 8 minute pace, and today's 5 mile run with a 1.5 mile tempo run was encouraging, running the tempo portion at about 7:04/mile pace.

That's it for now!!!

Mark