Dustin Pearce
Age: 30 something
Race: Marathon
Goal: 6 minute pace, sub 2:40
Blog 1: Hills and Valleys
Blog 2: Back in the Saddle Again
Blog 3: Seeing the Light
Blog 4: Mind Games
Dustin is one of those guys who is made to be a coach. He is super nice and always seems more concerned with how everyone else is doing than how he's doing. Good thing too, because he is a coach! He coaches the cross country and track teams for Mehlville high school. We're excited to see him do something for himself though when he runs this marathon. We just don't know what all the girls will do without him there at the start and finish to take care of them like he did at Twin Cities last year.
Mind Games
11.10.09 (1 week out)
I wouldn't say that I'm in full freak-out mode yet, but I'm close. I've had moments over the last week or so where the marathon pops in my head and I start getting that uneasy feeling in my stomach. I've had so many thoughts about the race in the last week or so.
I feel like I'm playing mind games with myself. I have a negative thought creep up, like … “you don't have the mileage base to pull off a sub 2:40” or “the injuries will get the best of you” but then I proceed to mentally smack those thoughts down with positive affirmations such as “I've been more consistent in my training over the last twelve weeks than I have in a few years” or “all my workouts have been right on” or “the McMillan Pace Calculator says I can”. What side will win out?
I could take the pressure away by just saying, “it's my first marathon, go have fun, just finish respectably,” but where would the challenge be? Isn't that just a pre-made excuse to slow down when it starts to hurt? I know that I can run 26.2 miles, but I want to push my own envelope and see how fast I can go. I want to prove something to myself and my teammates.
I would pray if I thought it would help. Instead, I'm just going to take the race in chunks. Break it apart into more manageable pieces. Then I'm going to attack each piece as if it were its own race. I'm going to find that 6minute-a-mile rhythm and keep rollin' until I can't no more. I've never been good at having faith in things unseen or unproven, so I'm going to have to go out on a limb and believe that I can nail this distance that I've never raced.
Aside from all the personal thoughts I'm really looking forward to getting away for a few days, seeing my teammates compete (except for one L ), and watching my wife come in under 3:00 !! I was also wondering if they sell coon skin hats at the Alamo . Isn't that where Davey Crockett died? Didn't he wear one of those? Was he from Missouri ? Anyway … here's to Rockin' it hard down in San Antonio !
Seeing the Light...
10.27.09 (3 weeks out)
Last year Kris and I signed up for the Twin Cities marathon. Kris ran the marathon, I ran the 5K on the Saturday before and then the first half of the marathon with her. Afterwards I played team manager/ towel boy. I look back at last year when I can't even really say that I started marathon training. I ran maybe a week or two of the training and then the busyness of teaching and coaching got the best of me. This year I have made it to week 10 of 12 and I am starting to see some light at the end of the training tunnel.
Last week was my first week that I felt like I could go again after a week or two of issues. However, my body is still not close to 100%. I continue to have knee pain in my right knee. I am having issues with my right achilles tendon too. I'm assuming because I still have a tight ass. I had the thought on my Sunday long run, if my body was cooperating with me how completely great I would feel. Because, outside of my knee pain and other related issues, I really feel like I'm starting to get pretty fit.
Wednesday night's workout went well. I was happy to have company (Brian Whitehead and Matt), even if it wasn't for all of it. The workout was 4 x 3 miles or 3 x 3 miles for lower mileage runners. The later definitely applies to me, but I attempted a little more anyway (3x3 and 1x1.5). Probably stupid, but you know there is always that desire to go a little faster or a little longer than we should. I'm old enough to know better, but tend to ignore the inner voice of reason all too often. The pace was 5 seconds faster per mile than marathon pace. So, goal time for me was 17:45 per 3 mile repeat. I rattled off 17:40, 17:38, 17:40, and 8:50 for 1.5 miles. A solid workout, but I was pretty torn up in the days following.
Saturday was my high school team's district meet. The top 30 runners and top 4 teams qualify to the next round. Mehlville had one boy (Shawn Kinmartin) and one girl (Hannah Sebold) get out to Sectionals. Both are really great kids. I had to two other boys that finished 32nd and 35th . That was hard to seem them get so close and not make it. The boy's team finished 8th of 11 and the girls were 10th of 11.
I was disappointed, but when I look at the progress we've made I know we are moving in the right direction. Last year (my first coaching) the boys finished dead last as a team and Mehlville had five of the last seven runners to cross the line. The girls didn't even have enough runners to field a scoring team. Two years ago neither squad had a full team and I think only one or two runners ran in the district meet. This year the boys beat three teams and our seventh runner was a good 20 spots ahead of the last runner. To most this may not sound like progress, but you have to know the hole that Mehlville running is climbing out from. It's fun building a program from the ground up, but also a lot of hard work when the program had been neglected for so long. I look forward to seeing if Hannah can make it back to State this Saturday and if Shawn, the 3 year football player turned cross country runner, can run just the right race to make a run at getting to the State meet too.
Sunday was a really important run for me since I had missed the long run two weeks ago and the Sundays on either side of that were a 12 mile tempo run and a 10k race. I really felt I needed a solid long run. Getting at least 2:30 of running was my goal. I made it for 2:32 and it went well. I was thankful for Noah Moos's company for 2 hours of the run. He has really helped get me through several workouts too! Thanks Noah, I owe you a couple beers after this marathon is over. You too, Brian W.! I caught a mile mark in the middle of the long run and we were moving along in the low 6:40's. I hit 60 miles for the week of 5 days of running. This is the most mileage I've done since college. 3 more weeks baby!!
Week's mileage
M – 7 easy, a light drills and strides at DuBourg
T – OFF
W – 17 (2UP, 3x3mi, 1x1.5, 1 mi b/w repeats, 1.5DOWN)
R – OFF
F – 9 ½ started easy, but worked into a nice pace
S – 5 at moderate pace
S – 22-23 (6:40-7:00)
Total = low 60's
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Back in the saddle again …
10.18.09 (4 weeks out)
I've realized that I write longer than average blogs. Sorry! My students wouldn't be surprised.
A week ago I was pretty worried about my body holding up through the remainder of marathon training. After two weeks of getting some therapy and paying more attention to stretching and icing, things seem to be improving quite a bit. The prognosis was that I have a tight ass. Well, some tight glute muscles and hip flexors that are affecting the mechanics of how I was landing on my knee, hence the knee pain. It was not patellar tendonitis as I had thought.
I had a solid workout Wednesday night (12 x 800) in the dark and mist at DuBourg. It's sort of a fun feeling to work in conditions like that. I started off at 2:42-43 and worked down to my last set of 4 all between 2:34-39. The workout itself was smooth and I felt good. Knee was a little shaky afterwards but manageable. Thursday I ran with my wife, Kris, for about 50 minutes. (Nice to have a common goal to work towards together, even if we aren't always working at the same pace) I had several instances of pretty severe knee pain on the run. So, I just took Friday off. Saturday my high school team had its conference meet - pretty disappointing. Nothing like talking about a race plan all week and running nearly the exact opposite of what the plan was. After the meet I got a late run in and it was the best my knee had felt in quite a while. I also wore some new shoes for the run. My old shoes are not done yet, but I think it helps to have my feet at a little different angle, etc. Rotating shoes is one of those things I know is good to do, but I just forget to do it.
Today was the GO GO GO GO GO GO GO GO St. Louis 10K (in honor of the announcer who included at least a dozen GO's in every sentence). My goal was to break 34:00. I didn't quite make it. I ran 34:25. I went out a little fast. I was 5:15 at the mile and 16:32 through 5K. So, I think if I had gone out a little more conservatively I might have been able to run a better overall time. That said, I might be glad I did make up some time on the first half because the hill at mile 4 was a beast. On a course that didn't have that hill in the location it was I think sub 34 is realistic, … or if I had just managed to man up and stay with the group of 3-4 runners that crossed in 33:50's.
My wife and I both got home after the race and immediately plugged our 10K race times into the McMillan pace calculator to see where we are in relation to our marathon goals (sub 2:40, and sub 3:00). Both of us are close. My predictor calculates about 2:41:30, and hers spit out about 3:00:40. So, with four weeks to go, hopefully we can make up that time gap.
Looking at the big picture I am happy with where things are going. It's nice to be getting relatively fit again. I've dropped about 8-10 pounds from June at the end of last school year. Hopefully I stay healthy through the remainder of the marathon training. Already looking forward though - I just hope that after the marathon is over I can keep up my fitness. I would love to put together some consistent training for more than just a few months at a time. One of these days I would like to be able to take a shot at my 10K PR of 31:32. Consistency is key, and that is my struggle.
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Hills and Valleys:
10.9.09 (5.5 weeks out)
I started to get pretty excited for the marathon last week. I had two really good workouts. Last Wednesday the 24 x 400m workout went really well. The first set of twelve I averaged about 83s and the second set was a 79-80s average. Sunday was a 12 mile marathon pace run. My mileage has not been at the level I would like so I was a little nervous going in. After pressing to hard and running 5:35 on the first mile, I settled in and started ripping off 5:52-6:08 minute miles. I ended the run at 1:11:17, good for a 5:56 average per mile for 12. I could have definitely kept that pace for another 6 miles or so. I'm not confident enough to say I could pull it off for 26.2 yet.
Enter week #7 of training. Monday I missed the group run because I had an appointment at St. Louis Injury and Rehab. I was going in as a follow-up from some calf problems I had earlier. Following the SLIR appointment I had a haircut. It was 8:30 by the time I got home, and hadn't eaten much, so I just called it a rest day since it was on the schedule as a possible rest day anyway. Tuesday I had every intention of running and as I sit here I can't even remember why I didn't run. So, Tuesday was another goose egg.
Wednesday was the home meet at Jefferson Barracks for the Mehlville Cross Country team. So, I spent all day setting up, marking the course, and getting ready for that. As one of my runners said I did a “bootleg” of the Forest Park XC Festival because I got our Athletic Director to bring the wireless microphone and sound system out to the meet. I played some music and tried my best Ben Rosario impersonation of announcing the races. Everything at the meet went okay, but I was pretty upset that I missed out on the workout at Forest Park. After all was done and put up I got home at about 9:00. I wasn't willing to go another day without running, so I ended up starting a run at 9:45 PM. I ran for about 65 minutes in a light rain.
It was the first run since my appointment at SLIR. Before the appointment I had very slight amount of pain in my knee from some patellar tendonitis. The therapist at SLIR tried some active release on my quads to ease the patellar tendonitis. Based on how I felt on the run and now, we won't be trying that again!
Thursday was parent-teacher conferences at school from 5:30 to 8:30. So, by the time I was home it was 9:00 again. I only made it 5 miles through another rainy night. My knee was hurting quite a bit, especially when I stopped, and 6:30 pace felt as hard as 5:50's on Sunday. Not good.
Tonight I ran with my wife and stopped twice in the first 10 minutes with knee pain. I ran for a little longer but called it at just over 25 minutes. I'm feeling pretty frustrated right now after such a promising week last week. I'm hoping that I can do the workout I missed on Wednesday tomorrow and a long run Sunday, but it's not looking to promising right now.
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