Every year I look forward to running the Fifth/Third Riverbank Run. When the new year rolls around and I'm in making my resolutions, I always include a finishing-time goal in the list. Training for the race is one thing that keeps me mentally and physically healthy in the dark winter months. I love to constantly tweak my training plan and track my miles (something that is easy with my Nike+).
I had a great race last year, setting a personal best and breaking 2:00:00 by 5:00 minutes, so I'm hoping to build on that this year and there are two reasons I've got a chance of doing this. The first is that all winter I've had a membership to a gym close to work. This has let me log more miles regardless of the weather conditions. I have also been able to include strength training into my workouts more easily.
The second reason is because I went to the doctor. Now, I had not been to the doctor since I was required to get a physical before going to college...14 years ago. So you could say that I was due for a check-up. Everything went fine and I continue to be mostly healthy. My LDL cholesterol was at 144 and he wanted it to be under 130. I also asked him what a healthy weight would be. He said, "What weight were you when you graduated college?" I thought, "Not the 194 lbs that the nurse wrote down a few minutes ago." He told me that if I lost a few pounds my cholesterol would probably drop 20 points. I figured my athletic build justified anything under 200 lbs. but here was a trained medical professional telling I may want to drop some weight. Plus I knew that common knowledge is that for every lbs lost my minute/mile time would drop by :04. That meant losing 10 lbs could reduce my 25K time by about 10 minutes. So I resolved to weigh 175 lbs. by race day (I currently am at 187 lbs.).
What does it mean for me to have a good race on May 14th, 2011? Well here are a list of my previous races.
2010, 1:55:04
2009, 2:10:06
2008, 2:20:46
2007 X
2006 X
2005, 2:00:56
2004 X
2003, 2:18:44
2002, 2:11:51
What I'm aiming for is to knock off another 5:00 minutes from last years time and run a sub-1:50:00. This is ambitious, but I believe that if I train hard, avoid injury, and weigh under 175 lbs. it will be attainable.
One last thing that I look forward to about the Riverbank Run is that I get to run it with/near my Dad. Last year was the first and only time I beat him in this or any race, but he beat me in the two trail races we did later in 2010, so I think it's going to be an interesting race this year. I usually spend the night before at my parents house so I don't have to drive in from Grand Haven in the morning and so we can talk strategy the night before. It's a lot of fun.
Let me know if you're going to run the race and we can try to meet before the race and high-five and get pumped up together!
Don't know that I can match 1:50. Hopefully I can get into the 1:55 range that you had last year. Still, one never knows... :)
ReplyDeleteWhat are you doing to lose weight? When i started training for this run in earnest, I would weigh in at 200 or 205. I am training ambitiously, I've cut out all sweets, I have stopped eating after dinner (or at least, no later than 8pm), and yet, I just weighed in at 203. Not losing any weight. Frustrating, because I agree with you, a couple pounds could yield me a couple minutes at the finish line.
ReplyDeleteI'm tracking my calories in and trying to limit it to around 1800 each day. I add up to half the calories I burn through exercise, so if I estimate using 500 calories through running, I'll eat an additional 250-300 calories. This way still eat enough to have energy to exercise and rebuild my muscles, but I'm still staying under 1800 calories. And my weight loss has slowed down after the first few weeks, so don't get the impression that I'm dropping lbs. like a pro.
ReplyDelete