Road To Indy Week 1: Nike Plus is dead to me.

 

After finishing the Columbus Marathon in October 2008 I was done with marathons. What does this have to do with Nike Plus? We'll get to that..It was the fourth in about a year and a half and Columbus kicked my butt and kicked me squarely in the quads. Soooo, here we are and I've started to train (in July) for that which I sworn off (because it always ends in pain). To quote Vizzini:

You fell victim to one of the classic blunders - The most famous of which is "never get involved in a land war in Asia" - but only slightly less well-known is this: "Never start marathon training in the summer!" Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha...

That's not exactly right, but whatever. So off we go on a 16 week training program that will culminate with the running of the 2010 Indianapolis Marathon on October 16th. Things are gonna change I can feel it. This time around I've decided to go with Hal Higdon's Advanced Marathon Training Plan. I'm a little late starting since it's an 18 week program, so I started on week 3. It's for those who want all the pain of the marathon and a big heaping plate of training runs. Each week I will give a little update and a rundown of the week's training. Don't worry I'm getting to why Nike Plus is dead to me.

Monday: Intervals on the track. This was my first time on the track in a long time, and it felt great. I warmed up with a mile of running then knocked out a 4 x 800 workout at about a 10K pace with a 400 jog break in between each interval. I finished up with a 400 all out and an 800 cool down. The total was 5 miles.

Tuesday: off

Wednesday:   8 x hill repeats. I wouldn't normally do hills and speed in the same week, but this is the day I started the program after fumbling around looking for the right one. Typically I pick a hill that's about a 1/4 mile long, but was stuck with a short hill, so I figured that 8 repeats would almost equal 4 x .25 mile hill repeats. Felt pretty good. Weather was great...about 73 and sunny.

Thursday: 3 mile run at a an easy pace. These runs will be on Monday and Wednesday from now on, and occasionally will be replaced with cycling or swimming as the summer goes on to mix things up.

Friday: Rest Day

Saturday: 6 mile race pace. Tempo runs and race pace runs are going to be key. I was missing these in previous training programs. I plan on doing these regularly to get comfortable with the pace and build endurance. For Indy I'm hoping to break 3 hours and 30 minutes which means I'll have to maintain a pace faster than 8 minute miles. I can do that easily over short distances, but the true test comes after about mile 18, and this is where things fall apart every time.  Today's run was brought you by the long boring loop that is Lunken Airport Trail.

Sunday: 8 mile long run. aka The Day Nike Plus died. I met up with the running group for our long run this morning bright and early at 7 am. I'm glad we did, because it was already hot out. Any later and it would have been unbearable. Everything was ready to go: music - check, sunglasses - check, Nike Plus - check. Off we go from Mt. Lookout Square.

Fast forward to about 20 minutes into the run. I start thinking it's kind of odd that I haven't heard the soft coo of the Nike Plus girl in my ear counting down the miles. Certainly I've covered a couple of miles so far. I pull my iPhone out of the iPouch and I was iPissed. I had a few choice iWords to say and they all started with f. On the screen I see what is pictured above. 20 minutes and 0 miles. I owe my iPhone an apology for all the harsh language it had to hear. I'm sure it's innocent in all this. I blame Nike Plus. You are dead to me Nike Plus. I'm over you. If this were an isolated incident that would be fine, but this is the final straw in a series of annoying incidents. The rest of the run to Eden Park and back went smoothly. I finished about 8.5 miles as I just figured out thanks to buckeyeoutdoors.com routes feature. The pace was about perfect as I wanted to keep it about a minute slower than race pace.

Post run was awesome. The perks of running with a group and one of them having a pool...and living close to excellent eats. Thanks Beth! I new we could do it!

It looked something like this....

Tomorrow morning begins week 2!