Jan-April 2017

The year started off with me in a boot rather than hitting the roads like I'd hoped. I spent about 3 weeks wearing the boot recovering from a calcaneus injury. Because of this, Kimi and I opted out of the Phoenix Marathon to focus on building mileage and strength towards the spring so we could have a solid spring racing season. We wanted this to propel us right into our Chicago Marathon training cycle which will really get rolling the last week of June.

I managed to get in shape enough to race mostly off of fresh legs and experience during the month of April. My highest mileage week was about 62 miles and the majority of my mileage was near 55-58 for about 4 weeks prior to Rock the Parkway. The key was to make sure that I was putting in quality miles in the process. There wasn't much fluff in those miles. Kimi and I ran pretty well at Rock the Parkway considering how windy it was that day. She took home the 1st place overall women's spot and I think I finished about 8th place overall on the men's side. This was my 2nd race of the spring season and right in the middle of a 5 races in 6 weeks stretch. Which we are still in the middle of right now. We have one more race to crush this Saturday so long as the flood waters don't prevent the race from taking place (I'm so glad the rain is finally letting up).

Last weekend was a crazy adventure. We went to the USATF half marathon championships in Columbus, OH which was hosted by the Ohio Health Capital City half marathon. They did a great job with the race and it was a wonderful experience. Unfortunately, they were unable to keep the weather from rolling in and crushing the finish line festivities. The lightning and rain just got crazy in a hurry. It really didn't rain during the race for those of us that were able to run fast enough to get done in the 90 minute window from when the race started. I felt bad for all the others that were either pulled off the course due to the storm or were stuck in it for the last few miles trying to finish up.

Kimi and I both had great races though. The wind was pretty calm and conditions were nearly ideal other than some higher humidity. They started the championship runners about 4 minutes and 30 seconds ahead of the first corral. I was shocked when I actually started catching some of the championship women around mile 5. The women that I was caught definitely were having some cramping or injury issues as they didn't look good at all. Later in the race, I started reeling in some other championship women that were still not having great days. I just kept hoping that none of them would be Kimi because that would mean that she was having a horrible day.  Fortunately, I made the final turn to the finish line and she wasn't in sight so I knew that she had at least finished already. I was a little bit disappointed as my goal was to go sub 1:15:00 but all things considered, I was still pleased as I ran a 1:15:10. That's the fastest half marathon I've run in several years (mostly due to me not targeting a half and focusing on the full marathon).

The trip back was an adventure. We decided to make a 40 minute detour to go to an outlet mall in Cincinnati on the way back. It was worth it as we found some good running gear at the Saucony outlet.  Then we started the long trip the rest of the way home. It was going pretty smoothly until we got to Effingham, IL (approximately 5 hours away from home or about the half way point in the trip). That's when the national weather service came across the radio and reported that there were tornado warnings and quarter size hail coming straight towards us. We decided the best thing to do was to find somewhere to pull over and ride out the first wave of storm. We waited it out for 30-40 minutes allowing the worst part to pass over. Then it was back on the highway home. Another delay happened after we made it past Rolla. There was an accident that made I-44 come to a stand still for 30 minutes. The final 7 or so hours were all in the rain and darkness. We finally made it home by midnight. I think I'm still recovering from the trip.

As for my yearly mileage, I'm way behind. Kimi has about a 300 mile lead on me for the year since I got off to such a slow start. I'm still hoping that we can have such a solid summer of training that I have a chance to reach 3,000 miles for the year. We will see how the rest of the year goes though.

Oh, and on other news. My chiropractic practice will be changing locations for the second time in a little over a year. Hopefully, this will be the last move for quite some time. We're really excited about the future as our new facility is going to allow us to do some incredible stuff.



As the excitement in training continues to build and our new office gets rolling, I'll be sure to write more frequently to let everyone know how things are progressing. Until then, keep on running everyone!