baldwyn's blog

My tally for the past 7 days:
Sat: 31 miles (Skyline Ridge 50k)
Tues: 4.65 miles (lunch run)
Thurs: 4.65 miles (lunch run)
Fri: 23 miles
-----
Total: 63 miles

I've not been very disciplined since finishing my last 2007 race, which was the North Face Endurance Challenge in San Francisco. That was my first ultra, at a distance of 50k. I didn't bother with my usual semi-attention to calories over the holidays, and packed on a few pounds. Come January, my long runs involved stretches of walking, and were sporadically sprinkled in my "training schedule."
Weird. You wouldn't think I was trying to work up to 50 miles in April, as an attempt to qualify for the Western States 100, huh?

Dec 1st, my racing season finally ENDED! Originally, I set out to do a race per month, and ended up missing two months (April and August, grrrr hate the "A" months), but made it up to finish fifteen races. This year saw my first marathon in July.

And now, I'm an ULTRAMARATHONMAN. Dec 1st, I ran in the North Face Endurance Challenge, electing to do the 50k. The race took us over trails in the Marin Headlands, sometimes along the Dipsea trail, also along the Mi-wok trail.

Nov 4th marked marathon number 2 for me. My previous race, Rock and Roll Half San Jose was just three weeks prior, and a PR smashing performance. I remember feeling hyped, eager to run, curious to see if my newly gained speed would translate through 13.1 miles.

So my half-marathon was the second round of the San Jose Hat Trick (Almaden 10k, R&R Half Marathon, Silicon Valley Marathon). They sent out an email announcing the top 5 after this round, and guess what? I'm not on it! But it appears that I'm am _sixth_. I'm behind the #5 guy by 3 minutes and 9 seconds.

Checking his recent results, it looks like his marathon PR is 3:45, which was on the same upcoming course. He averages around 4.

I ran the second running of the Rock and Roll San Jose half-marathon. So far I've run 'em all, but I guess that won't be semi-impressive for another 8 years or so. I met up with a friend of mine, who was going to be "just glad to finish before the walkers." He finished with a 1:54 last year on his first attempt, so I knew better. Somewhere in the same corral was a former running partner of mine (we used to run during work, until I quit that place), who was thinking last week about getting bumped back in a couple of corrals, because he was discouraged by recent training runs.

Last week, the Silicon Valley Marathon sent out an email announcing a "Hat Trick" prize for completing the Almaden Classic 10k (Sept 23), the San Jose R&R Half Marathon (Oct 14), and the Silicon Valley Full Marathon (Nov 4). Since I was already signed up for the half, and was planning on the full, it was a no brainer to run the 10k.

At the end of May, after completing the Bay to Breakers, I realized I only had two months left to train for my first marathon; San Francisco Marathon, on July 29th, 2007. I don't really race Bay to Breakers because of that initial push of humanity for the first few miles, and with a distance of 12k, it's not really an exercise in endurance. I had been running with coworkers leading up to it, training mostly around the 6 mile mark, and needed to push that up to 26.2.