Kickin' It Old School

Distance: 10 miles
Time: 1:19:27
Pace: 7:57

Fair warning, this may be a longish post. Well, longish for me. And I promise the title will make sense later.

I finished the week out with 38 miles. I've got another seven weeks of base building (up to 52mpw) before I start Pfitz 18/55 for the Portland Marathon. I've been debating tweaking the plan to start higher and go up to 60 or so. As is, it starts at 33mpw. Given how I've been running lately, I think that might be a bit low to start. Looking back at my training for the Seattle RNR last year, its kind of funny that I think 33mpw is too low. I peaked at 42 mpw for that race!

Sometime since my last post, I officially signed up for Portland. They print a name on the bib for you if you want it. I decided to have "Kaatman" printed on mine. It is my grandpa's last name. He passed away almost two years ago.  I had debated about running a marathon before but somehow his passing pushed me to sign up for Seattle. Odd, since he never ran. He was a golfing man. Naturally, I became one...sort of. I'm not good but I've been playing for 15 years! The pic below was taken before my first game on a par-3 course (9 holes). 

I know its super early to be doing this but these are my goals (as of now) for the race. Its 6 months away so the may change but...

A-goal: Sub-3:25
B-goal: Sub-3:45
C-goal: PR
Perfect-day-goal: Sub 3:20

Now, I've only ran one marathon and did so in 3:54:08. But, given the level of training I put in for that and my recent 1:31 half plus my current training level...I should be capable of sub 3:20. But I've been running since 7th grade so I know how much factors into performance. So I'll shoot for 3:25 and if everything is perfect, I'll chase down 3:20.

In my last post I mentioned getting some new kicks. Well, I did. And I retired my Waveriders. I wanted to push them out to the end of April but they were starting to hurt my shins. My new shoes (white ones below) are Nike Lunar Mariah's. They weren't designed specifically for running (I know its bad to train in 'nonrunning' shoes). From what I can tell, they are a modernized upper of the old Air Mariah (circa early/mid 90's) with the midsole of the LunaRacer 1(or Lunar trainer?). I wore them for a 7 miler yesterday and they felt ok. The only downside is breathability. They don't breathe too well. That being said, I think they'll be for short runs, 8-9 miles max. The pic below is my current line up: LunarGlides (blue), the Mariah's (white) and LunaRacer 2's (green midsole).

School has been crazy! I mentioned in my last post that I failed my algebra comp :( But...I did pass my Ordinary Differential Equations comp! I laugh at this a little. I studied for the algebra comp for weeks and failed it. The diff eq comp....3 days! My research is going ok. Some days I feel like I get what's going on others (like today) I feel like I'm in way over my head. My classes are (somewhat) on cruise control. Algebra is cake right now because I've covered this material before. Number theory is time consuming but not difficult. I spent 6 hours on an assignment this weekend. I've got 9 pages ready for him to grade :)

Big-ups to Marathonmaiden who is running Boston in the morning. You're gonna rock it K!