Harcey's Identity: Derrick Harcey's Weblog

Here is proof of my run to exit the Bradley Airport terminal Tuesday by way of the ditches (courtesy of my Garmin Forerunner).



Airport hotels are something I will try to avoid in the future (especially when I need to get a run in).

Sticking to a marathon training schedule can be intense at times. But this week it felt more insane than intense. The problem was I have been traveling this week and I had to stay at the airport hotel since all the hotels in Hartford were booked. Following my marathon training program required that I do 3 miles on Monday, 7 miles on Tuesday and 3 miles on Wed.

Monday was no problem. I got up early before I left for the airport and knocked out 3. Tuesday was a different story. I quickly figured out the the airport hotel was not catering to pedestrians (and runners), but I was determined to stick to my program even though I did not have a rental car. I had to run in the ditch arround the terminals and out of the airport following the route to the rental car facilities. Finally, I found a subdivision and could exit the ditch after 1 1/2 miles to run on sidewalks in a nearby neigborhood. At times running through the ditch, I was wondering if I'm the only one crazy enough to try this. In any event I got in a good workout, and even have the run route recorded in my Garmin Forerunner 301 GPS device as proof that I ran through this silly route.

Tags: running, marathon, forerunner

I decided to set my goal for distance rather than speed. I wanted to accomplish a goal that I had never done before and I have accomplished my speed goal more times than I can count (even if the last one was 19 years ago). I can always come back to that goal after the marathon. So it is 3 hours 45 minutes that I will be shooting for in the Dallas White Rock marathon in Dec. I did 25 miles a week for the last 2 weeks and now that I have a training program, I will do 35 miles this week, following the Intermediate II training program.

I just purchased a Garmin Forerunner 301 as a training aide. I had a Nike Speed Distance Monitor watch / foot sensor which I used during my last marathon training. It is no longer functional after I ran in the rain one day. The Forerunner should not have that problem since it is rated at 1 meter waterproof. So unless I plan on running with an oxygen tank, I should be good. This also has a heart rate monitor which I am interested in using since I want to monitor this to see where I am at during training. The device should arrive soon....

A fork in the road clearly lines in front of me. I just started running again about 1 month ago and things are going well. I have always trained best when I had a goal and I have 2 goals which are on my “To Do” list. I should pick one in the next few days and start training seriously. Here are the goals:

1. Distance: Finish a marathon in less than 4 hours. I have run several marathons, the best of which was 4hours and 29 seconds, 5 years ago. This feels like unfinished business to me and I would like personally to break the 4 hour barrier. The race I could run is The Dallas White Rock Marathon. I will need to go into heavy training mode now to be ready. I am looking at following the Hal Higdon training plan. I have also learned of the Yasso 800 training method and that sounds interesting. In any event, If I want to do Dallas, I need to get serious. In any event, this goal needs to be a stretch goal, so I want to finish a marathon in less than 3 hours and 45 minutes.

2. Speed: I was a cross country runner in high school and we ran 5k races. In my mid 30's I don't expect to run as fast as I did then now, but I do have a goal I would like to accomplish: I would like to run a 5k faster than President Bush did in 2002 (actually he did a 3 mile race with a time of 20 minutes 29 seconds). Rather than worry over the extra .1 mile, I will shoot for a 5k in under 20 minutes.

Now the task at hand is to pick one of these goals and “run” with it.

Tags: running , marathon