Monday, September 21, 2009

Finally Some Success

It has been too long since I posted here and I finally have something positive to post from a running perspective again so I thought I would give a quick update. For the last five weeks since an ugly 1:29:50 at the NYC Half, I have held off the racing. I started off with hitting some high mileage weeks in the upper 70s to mid 80s and have curtailed my mileage a bit lately. Didn't taper or anything this week before the Queens Half Marathon, which I ran in 1:24:30 on a hilly and extremely turny course. I felt very good about it because I have had some really sub-par races in the last few months and this at least allows me to keep the dream alive of breaking 3 hours in NYC this fall. I really went into the race with the mindset of keeping things relaxed throughout the entire race, not really pushing as hard as I could, but also trying to avoid side stitches which have been my foible in longer distances as of late. I definitely accomplished that and managed to have enough left for a 6:05 final mile while only averaging 6:27 for the day, so there was definitely something left there and I passed a lot of people in the last 4 miles to move up near 50th place. I may go for a slightly faster time in the Staten Island Half marathon three weeks from now when I wrap up the NYRR 5 borough series, but I do hope that maybe all this mileage I've been putting in is coming together for me. Sorry, don't have time to say much more for now as I have been quite busy, just wanted to give an update.