Looking Back and Pondering a Big Goal

Before I get to the new content, you know what's coming first!

I have a friend who's writing his first blog and chronicling his 2014 adventures including the London and Berlin marathons and Ironman Kalmar.  You can find his blog here.

I wanted to bring some attention to the charity I'm supporting as I ramp up to Ironman Coeur d'Alene in June 2014.  Yes, I'm going to keep asking until I reach my goal of $2500 :)

I’m competing in 2014 as a “Blazeman Warrior.” In 2005, Jon "The Blazeman" Blais raced the big Ironman, in Hawaii, and completed it even while suffering from ALS/Lou Gehrig’s Disease. His family started the Blazeman Foundation for ALS. I’m raising money for them and in honor of Jon, I plan on rolling across the finish line in Coeur d’Alene just as Jon did when he finished. A famous quote from Jon is, "Even if I have to be rolled across the finish line, I'm finishing," so you often see Blazeman Warriors rolling across Ironman finish lines.

I also lost an Aunt to ALS so this charity is very personal to me. Any help would be appreciated.

An Ironman is 140.6 miles so even if you donated just 10 cents per mile, that would be $14.06. You can donate at the following link:

http://www.active.com/donate/teamblazeman/blazemanJJohnso

Recently, a friend asked me to look for something in my Training Peaks account that I really don't use much.  For those that don't use a website like Training Peaks, Garmin Connect, Strava, etc., they essentially do a lot of the same things.  They store the data gathered by your GPS, like my watch, and give you all kinds of metrics to go with it, such as heart rate data, pace, calories burned, and so on.  Before I got my Garmin watch I was using a Timex and Training Peaks was the place the watch data went.  So for all of my first Ironman training, the data was stored there.

So on a lark, I decided to take a look and boy was I pleasantly surprised and a bit shocked at the numbers.  A "good" run pace for me was probably 11:30/mile even over a relatively short distance but it wasn't uncommon to find runs at 12 or even 13 minute pace.  In July, 2011, I ran a half marathon, albeit in scorching temperatures, in 3:28.  This was only 6 (!!) weeks before my first Ironman.  I recently did a 2 hour half was upset at the time. My oh my, how times have changed. 

From a prior blog post, I recently did a 5 mile run with a seriously hilly first half in 7:59 pace so it got me thinking.  If I focused solely on running for a season, could I achieve a Boston Marathon qualifying time? For my age, that would require a 7:49 pace.  My pal Ryan, who is a phenomenal runner, even offered to coach me and said if I gave him 6 months and it was running only, we could do it.  I'm not so convinced but my gains this year have me at least contemplating it.

Something to ponder....

Until next time.