No post for a while?

I have not posted anything in my blog for quite sometime. I really have nothing much to say, but thought I would make an attempt to update things for the year. Last time I wrote I was getting ready for Myrtle Beach Marathon. My goal was to improve my Ironman run and running overall by training for a marathon.In addition, I wanted to qualify for Boston. Some eight months later, I know the marathon training helped me a lot, but it did not help much on marathon day. During the last few weeks of training for the marathon I was putting in some good weekly miles, roughly 50 to 55 per week as well as hitting the bike on the weekends with about 100-150 miles. In addition, speed work on the track to build my ability to hold a faster per mile split. During this time, I developed some problems with my achilles (Both feet) that still bother me some today, but is very manageable after a lot of icing, stretching and backing off some millage after the marathon. During my Myrtle beach marathon, I started on goal pace to run a 3:15 or so marathon, but about half way through I felt my achilles start to hurt, so I decided today would not be the day for Boston and ended up running about 3:32. My first marathon completed, at least outside of Ironman that is. I was just hoping the effort I had put in focusing on my run would pay off down the road in my other Tri races. Marathon is definitely different from Ironman and in some respects harder and other respects much easier. Now we are about mid-way through the local Tri season and after 3 races in NCTS I can see it having some payoff. I was close my first two races to a podium in NCTS and last week got a second place at Trilatta with a nice 20.02 5k run on a moderately hilly trail run. This weekend we did an 80 mile ride mostly on the Duke 1/2 course and averaged 20mph, where I did a lot of pulling, afterwards I ran a nice 5 miler at a decent pace of about 7:50, maybe faster (Just ran as I felt) and felt pretty comfortable. So I think the marathon training is starting to show some payoff. The true test will be my upcoming Timberman 70.3 in August and my Florida Ironman in November. I have a few more local Tris as well but there are all either Sprints or International distance, so it is a little hard to judge longer runs with exception of a training run. I probably enjoy running more than the other disciplines and it is probably what I do best, so all that helps motivate me to get better. However, I think my approach to my marathon training might have some good payoff in long course racing as well. At least most things I read says that training for a marathon in the winter can really help out the Ironman run down the road. I guess we will see my results soon enough. One interesting note, at least to me, was how I did most of my marathon training. I could of easily just got a marathon training session off the web and followed it for 16 or so weeks but I instead decided to modify it based on my knowledge of coaching myself over the past 4 years and my stronger desire to be a better Ironman runner than marathoner. The key element that I changed was I focused entirely on running multiple days straight, this is a LOT harder than it sounds. Day after day running really wears on the legs but I believe it "might" actually be more beneficial for Ironman running since the key to a good Ironman Marathon is not speed but being able to run on tired legs "pretty fast". For my first 8 weeks of training, I would run 5 consecutive days a week Monday through Friday and bike Saturday and Sunday. I started with 10 miles for 3-4 days and 5 miles for 1-2 days. Essentially I tried to build where I could do 10 miles for 5 days straight week after week. The reality is the continued day in day out running builds some pretty deep fatigue into the legs and periodically I had no choice but to run 5 instead. Everything I did was at my AET pace which a the time was about an 8:05 pace with my HR average at 144 or less. By the end of this training I had gotten more efficient and now my AET is 7:50 on the same course with the same 144 average HR. Very good stuff to see happen for Ironman and overall endurance capability. So bottom line, and the lesson learned, not rocket science! Go run, run often, run easy, equals payoff in many ways down the road. Fingers crossed ;)