Snapshot: 145 miles in February, with 6 long runs (double digit miles), 8 easy runs, and one speed work out.
February has been the most productive training month I’ve had in the past 3 months and I’ve run almost everyday recently. I just hadn’t managed to run with much consistency in December and January, but it’s like something clicked when I ran the Groundhog Day 50K. Maybe sometimes you just need a spark to jump start your motivation and to remind you that you love to run. Before February 1st I had not gone over 20 miles since Tunnel Hill, so maybe breaking that barrier just served to show me that I still had it.
I won’t talk about all of my runs in February, but feel free to add me on Strava. So far this month I have had a healthy spate of 5 and 6 milers at around an 8:15 per mile pace on weekday mornings. Like I’ve mentioned earlier, I just try to cram in some runs before work and usually I am with other people running through local neighborhoods before rushing home and into the shower. On the second Saturday in February I went out with my running partners Brent and Joe Dan and we hit the 10 mile mark on a large loop around Bowling Green.
On Sunday, February 9th we put in a little over 9 miles with a run out to the Old Richardsville Road bridge. As a child when we’d drive over this bridge I felt like I had gone back in time a hundred years. There’s always been something beautiful and majestic about this finely designed Bowling Green landmark and it is truly a gem from an age gone by. In recent years the bridge has been shut off to cars and the road leading to it has been abandoned. The tree lined drive has started to be reclaimed by nature and it has a very spooky feel to it, which makes it all the more appealing.
Over the next week I had a few runs in the 6 mile range each under 9:00 min / mile. On the 13th Brent and I parked at a church near Basil Griffin Park because the gate to the park was still closed at 5:00 am. We ran down the large hill along the lake and took an access road behind it to emerge on the other side and continue our run through the neighborhoods beyond, which were all new for me. We ended with a big loop through the Catholic church parking lot.
On the 15th I ran with some friends from my local running group, all of whom are faster and more experienced runners than myself. It’s very good to run with people who are faster as they will push you to be faster just by being around them. Of course, I forgot to start my watch until over halfway through the run, so it looks like I just teleported across town. I don’t know my exact mileage, but it must have been about 13 or 14 miles and the course made a big loop completely around town.
The following day (Sunday) Brent and I ran together and ended up running out to Garvin lane and circling around and back towards downtown. We finished by going up and over the Main Street (Reservoir Hill), taking High Street all the way down to campus before turning back towards Fountain Square Park. We got right at 7 miles and were just under 9:00 min/mile.
The following week saw me running everyday except Wednesday and while the paces and distances were all pretty similar, we did throw in the Main Street Hill workout on Tuesday (2/18). This gut busting route was the only real workout I had done in a couple of months and was a combination of speed work and hills. It was very challenging but extremely satisfying. Read about it here!
The rest of the week saw relatively similar efforts in the 5 to 7 mile range. The theme of my weekday runs is “Work starts at 7:00 AM”. So I have to get as much done before then as possible, which usually gives me an hour to run.
With all the consistency that I’ve had recently, I felt pretty good going into Saturday’s run (2/22). One of the leaders of our local run group wanted to do a 20 mile progression run where the pace would be lowered by 5 seconds each mile. His pace was going to be aggressive for me, but I decided I would go for it. At the 11 mile mark I realized that I was on a PR pace for the half marathon so I decided to go for it (of course I didn’t count it as a PR, but it did show me that I can definitely beat my 2016 self)! I came in just at 1:38:30 moving time, and I really got a confidence boost due to the fact that I wasn’t even close to being completely physically spent and so there’s still some fat on the bones that I can trim off. We finished up that day by going another 6 miles on the Low Hollow Trail (Weldon Pete Park), which is really the only trail in Bowling Green (It’s actually a single track mountain biking route along the Barren River). We saw several white tail deer along the route, one even bursting through the forest and crossing the trail right in front of us.
The following morning (Sunday 2/23/20) we set out just before sunrise and ran out Scottsville Road to Boyce-Fairview road, then took this road to Woodburn Allen Springs road where the Boyce General Store is (unfortunately it was closed). We then circled back to Mt. Lebanon Church Road and looped back through the rolling hills and cow pastures back towards our cars. We had one pit stop at Romanza Johnson park where we debated wading across a flooded low-water ford on the Trammel Creek, but ultimately decided to circle back to the new bridge. This was an absolutely gorgeous run through the Kentucky countryside just outside of Bowling Green, and we saw many deer, ran through a forest, crossed a creek several times, saw old churches and even a very old cemetery. We don’t have a lot of options for trails in Bowling Green, but runs like today’s where we roam through the countryside are extremely enjoyable and are some of my favorite.
Downtown Boyce 
Boyce General Store 
Bridge on the Trammel 
Trammel Creek Crossing 
Old Abandoned Cemetery
All-in-all, this month has been a resounding success as far as training goes. I tend to run relatively short, easy runs through the week while I reserve the longer and more unique runs for the weekends. I don’t have a specific event that I’m training for (besides the ever looming HOTS) and I am not following a particular training schedule, but I am trying to keep my weekly mileage fairly high while I continue to finalize my race plans for the rest of the year. I do need to try to get a little more speed work, which is easy to ignore when you only think about getting miles. After this week, I feel confident that I can PR both the half and the full marathon and my first chance at the half will be on 3/14/20 in Owensboro, KY at the Wendell Foster Half Marathon. But even if I fail, I’m still going to keep running and exploring. I’m excited to see what this week’s runs will bring!
I really don’t feel I’m getting enough attention
That’s probably true…I’ve been sick this week!