The Running Thread -- 2022

[dobball23]

I'm doing the Buffalo Half Marathon on Sunday. Hopefully I'll have a good report to share. Anyone else doing the half or the full this weekend?

Forecast T&D is 107 (6 a.m.), 110 (7 a.m.) and 113 (8 a.m.). Race start is 6:30 a.m.

Race report
Buffalo Half Marathon - 5/29/22

Background
This was my first time doing this race. My wife has a college friend who lives in the Buffalo area, so we decided to combine the half marathon with a brief visit to see her and her family. I followed a @DopeyBadger training plan I initially used last spring that helped me run a 1:34.XX time trial half on my own.

My official race PR was 1:36.02 from a half in the fall of 2020. I entered this half marathon hoping to beat that time. In 2021, I had done two half marathons on my own that bettered that time. Additionally, I want to be prepared should they shorten the POT window again to have this race provide me a S1 position for Dopey 2024.

Pre-Race
The race began at 6:30 and I awoke at 3:45. We had ~30 minute drive to the race and I needed to eat something, do a little stretching and get prepared. We arrived in downtown Buffalo about 5:30. The vast majority of my race experiences have come at Disney World, so it was surprising when I arrived at the corrals at 5:40 and they were empty save for a few people running back and forth warming up. I sat on some nearby steps and tied my shoes and short, used the port-o-potties and began to get prepared. Even at 6:15 the corrals were fairly empty.

Former Disney race announcer Rudy Novotny was one of the race announcers. I know many people were disappointed when he stopped doing Disney races.

There were fireworks at the beginning, which were nice. Being in Buffalo, they also recognized the victims of the shooting at the Tops grocery store pre-race. The race began promptly at 6:30. At Disney, I don't mind being up at the front of a corral as I am one of the faster runners, especially since I don't stop for characters. In this race, I knew there would be many faster runners than me, so I was back in the crowd a bit. There was both a half (~2,300 runners) and a full (~1,000+ runners) running.

We had decent running conditions with the temperature 56 degrees with a dewpoint of 51 at 6 a.m., 56 + 51 at 7 a.m. and 60 + 51 at 8 a.m. It was mostly-to-partly cloudy with a little breeze throughout the race.

The Race
The race starts and ends in downtown Buffalo and is run on city streets throughout. It is a scenic course that is mostly flat. @DopeyBadger had researched some previous Buffalo Half Marathons on Strava and noted that the first mile was a little uphill and cautioned me to go slower out of the gate and aim for a 7:26 first mile. I tried to do that, but clocked in at 7:17. But I was feeling good.

The first six miles or so is an out-and-back. I crossed the 6-mile mark at 42:55 and was still feeling strong. My wife waved and cheered me on just after mile 6. The next time I saw her was at the finish line.

Between mile 6 and mile 7 seemed a little uphill, but I was in with a group of 3-4 other runners, just running along with them and I clocked my fastest mile of the race (6:56). I was able to go 7:05, 7:05 and 6:59 for miles 8-9-10. But about mile 9.5 I felt like I was needing to put forth a little more effort to keep my pace up. Someone I had been running near for about 6 miles had a gel from her pocket, so I decided to have a gel I brought just in case I needed some extra energy. I took that as I approached the water stop at the 10-mile mark.

Around mile 11 I wanted to slow down, but I told myself that I had done my training so I could finish the race strong. I felt like my pace dropped off a lot in the last couple of miles, but I still clocked 7:09 and 7:16 the last two miles. I wanted to sprint (slight uphill) to the finish, but didn't have it in me. My final .16 was at a 7:00 pace.

I finished in 1:33.44, eclipsing my previous PR by more than 2 minutes. I finished 65th out of more than 2,300 runners. I was ecstatic with my performance!

Overall, I enjoyed the race and would recommend it to others. It was a little pricey, but seemed well organized.

 

[flav]

May 2022 totals
Distance: 163.6km (102mi)
Average pace: 6m24s/km (10:17/mi)
YTD: 803km on 2022km

My May and June races have been postponed. So instead of continuing on a now purposeless training plan, I started on a new shinny one I am feeling better since that page has been turned.

What happened though is that I was « but why haven’t I registered to Ottawa ?» I could have run with friends last weekend. Which then lead to « but why haven’t I registered for Dopey 2023 ?» I could have run with friends then!

 

[dis_or_dat]

May
Total Miles: 128
Avg pace: 7:50

Chaperoned my son's class 5k (ended up just being one student, even my son ditched me to run the 2k ). Somehow got major blisters trying to keep up with the walk/sprints. Silver lining is that my son wants to do the 5k with me next year!

 

[huskies90]

May Miles = 146

January Miles = 139
February Miles = 108
March Miles = 145
April Miles = 115

2022 total miles = 653

 

[Guidman]

May Totals
229.41 miles
7:18 avg/mile

Had a real good/fun race this month. Now onto the grind through the summer heat.

 

[avondale]

Race report
Buffalo Half Marathon - 5/29/22

Background
This was my first time doing this race. My wife has a college friend who lives in the Buffalo area, so we decided to combine the half marathon with a brief visit to see her and her family. I followed a @DopeyBadger training plan I initially used last spring that helped me run a 1:34.XX time trial half on my own.

My official race PR was 1:36.02 from a half in the fall of 2020. I entered this half marathon hoping to beat that time. In 2021, I had done two half marathons on my own that bettered that time. Additionally, I want to be prepared should they shorten the POT window again to have this race provide me a S1 position for Dopey 2024.

Pre-Race
The race began at 6:30 and I awoke at 3:45. We had ~30 minute drive to the race and I needed to eat something, do a little stretching and get prepared. We arrived in downtown Buffalo about 5:30. The vast majority of my race experiences have come at Disney World, so it was surprising when I arrived at the corrals at 5:40 and they were empty save for a few people running back and forth warming up. I sat on some nearby steps and tied my shoes and short, used the port-o-potties and began to get prepared. Even at 6:15 the corrals were fairly empty.

Former Disney race announcer Rudy Novotny was one of the race announcers. I know many people were disappointed when he stopped doing Disney races.

There were fireworks at the beginning, which were nice. Being in Buffalo, they also recognized the victims of the shooting at the Tops grocery store pre-race. The race began promptly at 6:30. At Disney, I don't mind being up at the front of a corral as I am one of the faster runners, especially since I don't stop for characters. In this race, I knew there would be many faster runners than me, so I was back in the crowd a bit. There was both a half (~2,300 runners) and a full (~1,000+ runners) running.

We had decent running conditions with the temperature 56 degrees with a dewpoint of 51 at 6 a.m., 56 + 51 at 7 a.m. and 60 + 51 at 8 a.m. It was mostly-to-partly cloudy with a little breeze throughout the race.

The Race
The race starts and ends in downtown Buffalo and is run on city streets throughout. It is a scenic course that is mostly flat. @DopeyBadger had researched some previous Buffalo Half Marathons on Strava and noted that the first mile was a little uphill and cautioned me to go slower out of the gate and aim for a 7:26 first mile. I tried to do that, but clocked in at 7:17. But I was feeling good.

The first six miles or so is an out-and-back. I crossed the 6-mile mark at 42:55 and was still feeling strong. My wife waved and cheered me on just after mile 6. The next time I saw her was at the finish line.

Between mile 6 and mile 7 seemed a little uphill, but I was in with a group of 3-4 other runners, just running along with them and I clocked my fastest mile of the race (6:56). I was able to go 7:05, 7:05 and 6:59 for miles 8-9-10. But about mile 9.5 I felt like I was needing to put forth a little more effort to keep my pace up. Someone I had been running near for about 6 miles had a gel from her pocket, so I decided to have a gel I brought just in case I needed some extra energy. I took that as I approached the water stop at the 10-mile mark.

Around mile 11 I wanted to slow down, but I told myself that I had done my training so I could finish the race strong. I felt like my pace dropped off a lot in the last couple of miles, but I still clocked 7:09 and 7:16 the last two miles. I wanted to sprint (slight uphill) to the finish, but didn't have it in me. My final .16 was at a 7:00 pace.

I finished in 1:33.44, eclipsing my previous PR by more than 2 minutes. I finished 65th out of more than 2,300 runners. I was ecstatic with my performance!

Overall, I enjoyed the race and would recommend it to others. It was a little pricey, but seemed well organized.

Congratulations! That's an amazing finish time and new PR!

 

[Bree]

May 2022
120.58 miles
average pace 10:07

First 100+ mile month since September 2021!!! I've been strength training and doing yoga, but just started tracking that mid May. This past month was hard fitting it all in, but I'm getting it done and seeing results. I start training for the Chicago Marathon on June 6th I can't believe that it came up so quick. I swear the time passes quicker the older I get!!!

 

[gjramsey]

May Totals

Total Miles - 104.09 mi
Total Time - 15:10:18 h:m:s
Average Pace - 8:45
Avg HR - 142 bpm

Summer maintenence mode has commenced. Spent a couple of weeks in the RTP area of NC and pretty much decided that we are moving there later in the summer. Going back later in June to find a place to move to and plan to move in early August (if everything works out).

 

[azrivest]

May 2022 totals
Distance: 108.79 miles
YTD: 488.87

On track to do 1000 miles again this year, especially since I'll be starting my first marathon training plan this summer

 

[lookingforsunshine]

In May I ran 5.1 miles
I also biked almost 400 lol.

Looking forward to starting to run more consistently again now that it’s triathlon season!

 

[Naomeri]

May 2022

Running
Time: 13h 49m 49s
Miles: 63.9

Walking
Time: 51m 30s
Miles: 2.76

Cycling
Time: 3h 38m 2s
Miles: 59.74

Cross Training
Time: 5h 13m 36s
Calories: 2,770

 

[FFigawi]

May totals:
Swim - 3.2 miles
Bike - 407 miles
Run - 15 miles

Not bad results considering I was on vacation for half the month. Now it’s time to rebuild the base as IM training slowly ramps up.

 

[jmasgat]

I stopped reporting miles last year, but this past month I considered what I ran and immediately thought of 3 Dog Night (yes, I am that old, and I loved them) and Harry Nilsson (again, Old).

"One is the loneliest number that you'll ever do..."

Do I get extra points or a demerit for running that one mile on a broken foot? (It was my tester run)

 

[camaker]

May has been a difficult month. I lost my balance and fell a couple of weeks ago. I fell backwards into the edge of a windowsill and caught it right under my rib cage, bruising the muscles there very deeply. It's hard doing most anything with deep bruising of those muscles. I only missed one run because of it, but the runs have ranged from agonizing to just really uncomfortable since then. The good news is that the worst seems to be past and things are getting closer to normal.

On the running side, I had really hoped to find a race in May (half or longer) to get the taste of the March DNF out of my mouth. Unfortunately, nothing worked out on that front, so with summer heat settling in here in central NC, I've been pushed out to the fall. I'm now registered for the Weymouth Woods 50k trail race on Labor Day Saturday to give me some motivation through the summer heat. I ran this one last year and it was one of those "everything that could go wrong, did" races, ranging from forgetting my Garmin, my Apple Watch dying in mile 26, and a mismarked course having to be adjusted on the fly. Here's hoping this year's edition goes more smoothly!

Anyway, on to the numbers for May:

May Summary
Running Miles: 130.75
Running Time: 22:52:41
Average Pace: 10:32/mi
Average HR: 146/min
YTD Running Miles: 780.50

Extras:
Walking Miles: 42.83
Rolling 12mo Running Miles: 1,961.09

 

[GreatLakes]

Garmin went and made my next watch decision a little more difficult with the 955 release today. It looks like the features that it comes with that aren't on the Fenix 7/EPIX will eventually gt back ported so I need to decide if the better screen is worth $500.

 

[DopeyBadger]

May 2022 Training Summary

Running duration = 26:20 hours
Running mileage = 177.0 miles
Average Pace = 8:55 min/mile (about 90 sec/mile slower than recent Marathon)
Average HR = 127 (18 bpm less than recent Marathon)
Strength Training = 10:04 hours
Total Training Time = 36:24 hours

G training = 10.1 miles (including her 2nd ever 5k)

May was another good month for me. I remain in a holding pattern until my real training begins. I've settled on following a new to me training style using Renato Canova inspired philosophy. I went over the plan in my training journal if you want to see the differences (link). So I've got another four weeks remaining in the Introductory phase, before I move on to some real meat and potatoes training in the General phase. But my fitness is in a really good place right now. Aerobically based on my HRvPace data, I'm in near peak shape. But that doesn't mean I'm in peak racing condition yet. That'll come with the hard bouts of training specific to the marathon distance hopefully aimed towards my November Marathon. My daughter and I did her 2nd 5k over the weekend (link), and we've got another lined up in about 2.5 weeks for Father's Day weekend. This is also the month we decided we'd settle on costumes for Princess 2023, and I suspect she'll end up being Ms. Marvel once it premieres later this month on Disney +. So it's almost time to put all those cosplay books, programming, and animated LED lessons to good use. All in all, the body feels good, and I'm itching to get into some pace work as soon as the calendar changes to July.

 

[The Expert]

I had a super busy May, with work and personal travel. I was home for all of 9 days. And it was busy travel, so I decided ahead of time to just do what I could and not worry about keeping up any kind of schedule. That resulted in very few miles, but I am proud that I kept up strength workouts with my trainer in the gaps when I was home between trips.

May Summary
Running/Walking Miles: 6
Strength Training Minutes: 285

 

[gosalyn_mallard]

May total: 78 miles

Solid mileage month for me in May. June will be much lower as we'll be traveling a bunch!

 

[jpeterson]

Garmin went and made my next watch decision a little more difficult with the 955 release today. It looks like the features that it comes with that aren't on the Fenix 7/EPIX will eventually gt back ported so I need to decide if the better screen is worth $500.

I have an Epix, and I hope the new software updates do make it to that watch in the next firmware release.

Coming from an Apple Watch I really wanted that nice screen. But I needed something that will make it through a marathon at my slow pace. My Apple Watch series 5 was not going to do that.

The 955 looks like a nice watch though!

 

[GreatLakes]

I have an Epix, and I hope the new software updates do make it to that watch in the next firmware release.

Coming from an Apple Watch I really wanted that nice screen. But I needed something that will make it through a marathon at my slow pace. My Apple Watch series 5 was not going to do that.

The 955 looks like a nice watch though!

DC Rainmaker said the features will be in a future beta. He explicitly stated the Fenix 7 in the review but somewhere, possibly the comments, he clarified that it will be both the Fenix 7 and Epix along with the 945 LTE.

Based on the change log for the current Alpha (8.31) it looks like it might be a few updates down the line. I suspect they want to have the 955 in the wild for a bit and address any fixes there before the back port. My educated guess is the August timeframe for most of it.