I was coaching Jenny for her debut at the Foot Traffic Flat, and I’d think about her<\/a> frequently on my runs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We drove back from Oklahoma to attend my wife’s uncle’s funeral. I had my first long run slated for that day. I stuck to the plan, and I used that time on that first long run to think about and mourn Ben<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I ran into some local wildlife<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I was able to catch up with Iram<\/a> who offered to go on some of the early long runs with me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The family and I traveled to Charleston for our daughter’s college orientation and lacrosse camp. I found the local run club and they invited me to join<\/a> their weekly group run. And I was also able to do my own solo tour<\/a> of the city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was around late July that I’d read Coogan’s book and adjusted my own training programming and coaching philosophies and approach. I started grading workouts<\/a>, and started giving athletes distance and intensity options in workouts, runs, and long runs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I had some really bad pain in my shoulder<\/a> that I thought would require medical intervention. Thankfully it turned out to be nothing. I think it was just a minor injury from white water rafting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I started adding warm-ups and cool-downs to tempo<\/a> and pace runs, which allowed me to safely and conservatively introduce more volume to a microcycle. I also started prescribing workouts using RPE<\/a> instead of strict pacing or splits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I continued to coach the Striders<\/a>, and used our 60 second run, 30 second walk plan and methodology to supplement my training by safely and conservatively increasing weekly mileage volume.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The run club I started celebrated its 10th birthday<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I took looped routes for longer runs. One morning<\/a> there was bird that had been trapped in our garage. I freed it and was inspired to listen to Lynyrd Skynyrd for 13 miles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Life happened<\/a>. And sometimes it’s best to let life happen, control what you can, and still get out there for a run. Very often a run will solve most of life’s problems. Or at least change your perspective and how you react to the hand that life deals you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I adhered to specificity in my long runs. I made sure there were a good mix of hills<\/a> so I’d be prepared for the bridges of the NYC Marathon course. And I made a detour to see Austin’s troll, Malin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I had a tough week in mid-August when it was time to move our daughter to college. I ran by her old elementary school<\/a> where I’d drop her off in the mornings and we’d have many conversations about anything and nothing. I kept to the plan and did hill repeats<\/a> the morning that we were leaving to take her 1,300 miles away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That same week I thought about my dad<\/a> on his 88th birthday while we were in Charleston. I had solemn and bittersweet run<\/a> in the morning in South Hills as kids were outside of their houses, waiting for the bus on the first week of school. I thought about how blazingly fast a childhood goes by for a parent. I had a pace run where I stopped<\/a> and looked at the college campus where our daughter would now live. This was the morning after she’d decided she’d try spending the night in her new dorm room.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And then there was arguably my most difficult long run<\/a>, even only at 15 miles. We had to catch a plane to come back home without our oldest. I was dead tired, it was 103\u00ba outside, I was listening to the playlist that Elise had created for our child, I’m sure I cried during that run, and I completely bonked at mile 10. I had to run\/walk it most of the way home, and I was thankful that had that year+ of coaching the Striders and adapting to the run\/walk methodology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I was admittedly a wreck for the next couple weeks. I missed our daughter. I went on little sentimental runs<\/a>. I found a spot on my usual route where I’d stop, have a moment, and say a little prayer for my daughter. It was a rough few weeks. But, again, running and training gave me some semblance of normalcy. I stuck to the plan, and it helped to have friends to talk to<\/a> and remind me that life goes on. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I signed on to be a pacer for the Austin Marathon. So I decided to run the half marathon course<\/a> for one of my Sunday long runs. Austin is known to be hilly, and I maintained my goal to get stronger on the hills.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I threw in the Zilker Relays<\/a> after getting recruited to run the anchor leg the day before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I had one of those runs were I only very vaguely remember<\/a> it, if at all. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I made a political statement<\/a> after one of the presidential candidates claimed that illegal immigrants were eating domesticated pets in Ohio.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I made my first 20-miler<\/a> intentionally very hilly and hard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Two thirds of my total rattlesnake sightings<\/a> while on a run happened on one run.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I made my down week long runs<\/a> hilly and hard. I pushed my allocated time and effort on tempo runs<\/a>. And I admittedly had a hard to committing to and focusing on maintaining pace<\/a> on my prescribed MGP runs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Our daughter came home for a long weekend for the first time since moving to college. I went for my long run after taking her to the airport at 4:00 a.m. True to form, I chose a hilly route in west Austin<\/a>. It was somewhere out there in Tarrytown that I did something<\/em> to my left hip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I deliberately let my hip rest for a few days, and then tested it on a(nother) poorly<\/s> stubbornly executed<\/a> run at pace. We were out of town at my mom’s house the weekend of my last peak week, so I ran my last long run in two mile loops<\/a> with a fast 5 mile pickup at mile 12.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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