Team Stonyfield-Shift trip to Mecca

On Sunday, Feltslave led a ride of five Shift-BOB team members, three of whom rode fixed gears, and special guest KL around the snow melt-covered roads of southern New Hampshire. The constantly undulating route took us past the place where Shift happens, the Stonyfield Farms plant next to Manchester Airport. Since only three of us had the brains to wear the new kit, here you go, me, Feltslave, and Whitey. I couldn't really tell how well I was going, as those guys were on fixies and obviously at somewhat of a handicap, but I was nonetheless pleased to be able to stay near or ahead of them on all the little hills. This was a good first group ride of the year for me.

Saturday was my last tuneup tempo run for the New Bedford Half Marathon next week. I wore my Saucony ProGrid4's and tried to produce a 7:10-7:20 pace (20-30 seconds slower than my hoped-for race pace, at least according to my training plan) without going over LT. I started out ok, but in the last few miles small hills and headwinds had my HR creeping over 163 and I had to back off to hold it down. Ending the 8 miles at 59:04 (7:23) I was satisfied, but not thrilled. At least I wasn't wasted afterwards, and even went out for nice hour road ride before heading up to the KL North Training Center for the evening.

So my running training has had both positives and negatives. On the downside, I've been falling apart at around 11 miles on most of my training runs, despite consistently being well behind the 6:50 target HM pace my training plan predicts from my 10K best. I rarely trained faster than 8:00 on my long runs, against plan goals for the long stuff in the mid sevens. My lack of a running base explains this, as my 5 mile and 10K times are clearly aided by the years of aerobic training on the bike. My lungs are just way ahead of my running legs.



On the up side are my race times from the Raynham 15K and the Foxboro 10 miler. Hitting my target pace in both of these was surely a good sign. The first few years that I raced bikes I often left my best efforts out on the road during training rides, stinking it up in more than a few races. If nothing else the years have made me wiser in this regard, and now I'm much better at corking it up until race day. At Foxboro I felt awesome and ran the 10 miles at 6:37 pace, so I know my half-mary goal pace is possible. That would take me across the 13.1 tape with a chip time of 1:30. I'm not being too hopeful for that though, as I will be trying to start a bit more conservatively. Anything slower than a 6:59 pace of 1:31:40 will be a bit of a disappointment, but I won't get too wigged over it. I won't be really bummed unless 1:36 goes by and I still can't see the finish... There it is for you in black and white. Thanks for reading, hope you had a great weekend of training too.