Running Report by Alan Knox

I usually do my long runs on Saturday, and occasionally on Sunday. However, last weekend, I was not able to run on Saturday or Sunday. So, I rearranged my schedule and did my long run on Friday afternoon.

That means that I did two long runs in a seven day period: ~15 miles on Saturday, May 5, and ~13 miles on Friday, May 11. As far as I can remember, this is the first time I’ve done two long runs in a seven day period. This also means that I ran the most miles I’ve ever run in a seven day period between May 5 and May 11, 2012.

Total miles run between May5-11, 2012: 40.63 miles.

That won’t show up on my weekly running reports because I measure from Sunday to Saturday. But, still, it’s a record for me.

I’m preparing for the Midtown Race Series half marathon on June 3. For the last few weeks, I’ve been ramping up my log distance runs on Saturdays. When I started a few weeks ago, I decided that I want to try for a long run of 15 miles this past weekend.

I’ve never run over 13 miles (half marathon distance), and I’ve only run that far twice.

Also, I had never run the entire Neuse River Trail greenway from the dam on Falls of Neuse Road to the soccer complex on Perry Creek Road. The entire greenway trail is about 6.5 miles. I had run from the dam end to the 5.5 mile marker, but never the entire distance.

So, on Saturday, I decided to kill two birds with one stone.

I was not able to start until just after 8:00 a.m. The temperature was already in the low 70′s, and it warmed up to the low 80′s by the time I finished. While it was quite nice in the shade, it was getting pretty brutal in the sections with direct sunlight.

I started at the end of the greenway by the soccer complex on Perry Creek Road running at about 9:20 minutes/mile, and worked my way up the “start” of the greenway near the dam. Then, I turned around and headed back toward the soccer complex.

I knew that the out-and-back course on the greenway was only going to be about 13 miles, so I turned off onto one of the spurs – the Abbotts Creek Trail. I ran up Abbotts Creek Trail for about a mile, then turned back to the Falls River Trail.

When I got to the 13-13.5 mile mark, I was still averaging around 9:20 minutes/mile. My pace had remained steady. At that point, I slowed my pace for about a 1.5-2 miles cool down.

I ended my 15 mile run with an average pace of 9:35 minutes/mile.

Overall, I’m very happy with my run Saturday. I’m glad that I was able to maintain a pretty good pace (for me) through 13 miles. Still, I’m hoping for an even better pace when I run the half marathon in June.

Yesterday marked the end of April and the end of the fourth month in my goal of running 1000 miles in 2012. (See my post on the WFAR 1000/500 Miles Club.) How am I doing so far? Am I on pace to reach 1000 miles?

Well, to run 1000 miles, I need to run an average of about 83 miles per month, or about 333 miles in four months.

Here are my monthly mileage totals so far:

January: 107 miles
February: 91 miles
March: 106 miles
April: 108 miles

Total: 412 miles in 4 months

So, as you can see, I’m about 79 miles ahead of schedule. That’s good, because I’m sure there will be some days/weeks when I will not be able to run at all. In fact, I know there’s a week coming up in June when I will not be able to run much at all.