On April 19th, 2009
Since I am planning to return to Bangladesh in July, and will have few race opportunities (except for DTC races, or course!), before I had even completed my first marathon in March, I wanted to have another race on the calendar.
The Granite Grinder is a trail run that meanders through miles of trails at the Centennial Olympic Horse Park (the location for all of the 1996 Olympic equestrian events) in Conyers, Georgia. The fun of the race was the diversity of the course. We ran across large open fields and many different kinds of wooded trails. Since the paths where narrow, I really had to surge forward in open areas and make quick passed in the wood. The steep dirt hills, stream crossing, and mud patches where added hazards that kept things interesting. Perhaps most unique, and the reason for the races name, were the vast patches of granite moonscape we traversed several times during the race.
Being so soon after the marathon, my goal was to attempt my marathon pace (10 minute), not whip out, and enjoy the outdoors. As an added treat, my daughter Katie (11) decided to come along to cheer dad on. She jumped right in as a volunteer at a water table, made new friends and had a great time.
Before the race, I was reading Jeff Galloway’s marathon training book and was fascinated by his advice about walk breaks. There are all different kinds of walk/run ratios for different levels of training, but the idea is that by giving your muscles a break early and regularly during a race, one can avoid leg soreness and run faster longer, more than compensating for lost time in the later part of a race or long run. This certainly made sense, especially after my marathon experience, so I decided to give it a try.
I probably didn’t rest as often as Jeff would recommend, but from the beginning I would run 10 minutes and walk 1 minute. As I pulled to the side to walk, I actually got comments from people like, “hey, don’t give up!” and one lady said, “Hey, don’t walk. I’ve been trying to catch up with you.” But when my one minute walk break was over I would take off and almost always pass whoever passed me during a walk break. Sometimes they would pass me later, during my next walk break, but I would usually pass them again and eventually not see them later in the race. This is probably because I was able to maintain a faster pace for more of the race than most other folks could with continuous running. At least that is what Galloway would say and that sure seemed to be what was happening. This walk/run method helped me keep a comfortable marathon pace and complete in 2:08:00 over some challenging terrain, so I will probably us it in the future to help me go further on long training runs and future races.
Joyfully in Christ,
Will
Since I am planning to return to Bangladesh in July, and will have few race opportunities (except for DTC races, or course!), before I had even completed my first marathon in March, I wanted to have another race on the calendar.
The Granite Grinder is a trail run that meanders through miles of trails at the Centennial Olympic Horse Park (the location for all of the 1996 Olympic equestrian events) in Conyers, Georgia. The fun of the race was the diversity of the course. We ran across large open fields and many different kinds of wooded trails. Since the paths where narrow, I really had to surge forward in open areas and make quick passed in the wood. The steep dirt hills, stream crossing, and mud patches where added hazards that kept things interesting. Perhaps most unique, and the reason for the races name, were the vast patches of granite moonscape we traversed several times during the race.
Being so soon after the marathon, my goal was to attempt my marathon pace (10 minute), not whip out, and enjoy the outdoors. As an added treat, my daughter Katie (11) decided to come along to cheer dad on. She jumped right in as a volunteer at a water table, made new friends and had a great time.
Before the race, I was reading Jeff Galloway’s marathon training book and was fascinated by his advice about walk breaks. There are all different kinds of walk/run ratios for different levels of training, but the idea is that by giving your muscles a break early and regularly during a race, one can avoid leg soreness and run faster longer, more than compensating for lost time in the later part of a race or long run. This certainly made sense, especially after my marathon experience, so I decided to give it a try.
I probably didn’t rest as often as Jeff would recommend, but from the beginning I would run 10 minutes and walk 1 minute. As I pulled to the side to walk, I actually got comments from people like, “hey, don’t give up!” and one lady said, “Hey, don’t walk. I’ve been trying to catch up with you.” But when my one minute walk break was over I would take off and almost always pass whoever passed me during a walk break. Sometimes they would pass me later, during my next walk break, but I would usually pass them again and eventually not see them later in the race. This is probably because I was able to maintain a faster pace for more of the race than most other folks could with continuous running. At least that is what Galloway would say and that sure seemed to be what was happening. This walk/run method helped me keep a comfortable marathon pace and complete in 2:08:00 over some challenging terrain, so I will probably us it in the future to help me go further on long training runs and future races.
Joyfully in Christ,
Will
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