Most miles since my injuries in July 2013. #injuryfree

-Brian B.

The Pittsburgh Wild Half, 10k and 5k was held at Boyce Park on a cool and sunny Saturday morning. The trail conditions were mostly firm except several very deep muddy swap crossings and one creek crossing.

I wanted to thank Mac McCluskey for putting on a great race. He gave a bid to my son at a ‘Run Greensburg’ meeting but Mark was unable to run due to the number of track meets he had in two weeks (5). Mac is the owner of www.yesendurancesports.com and is a race director of a trail half marathon race circuit.
Above is Mac giving the pre-race instructions. The only real news Mac had is that he decided to stagger start the half marathon from the two shorter races by 10 minutes. Dang. That means to me, I will have to pass a lot of half marathon walkers/runners.

Below are two (Chris and Natalie) Greensburg runners discussing our pre-race butterflies.

The course record was 46 minutes and that was my goal for this race was to break the course record. We will see… I was also using this race as a training run.

From the start of the race I was in the lead and never saw another 10k runner until later in the race. I’ll discuss that later. I pushed my pace the first mile and lost visual contact of the other 10k and 5k runners.
Nearbmile 1, the photographer** took these cool photos of me on the trail and at the finish.

At mile 1.2, I ran into the Half Marathon runners and passed them for the next 2 miles.
During this time we traversed through some muddy swamps, a two step creek crossing and two steep hills which one was non runnable. I really don’t remember much of the details since this course was so technical with many switch back turns and narrow uneven trails. Mile four had the two hills, creek crossing and one swamp and was my slowest mile. By mile 4.5 at 36 minutes my average pace was under 7:46 and my projected finish time was under 46 minutes. I had less than a mile and a half remaining.

But this is where everything went wrong. The was a sign pointing the wrong way and I just followed other half marathoners. Up the hill and which was part of the 5 k course so there was marking tape indicating the path. I stopped twice noticing that something wasn’t right but I kept going. I reached a water station, which I passed earlier and I asked if I was going in the correct direction. The kind woman pointed me in the direction of 2 mile loop that I just previously ran 🙁

About 3/4 mile into the loop I don’t realized my error and my race was over. I finish my 10k race in 1:13 and 8.27 miles (2.07 miles too much).

Note the elevation of 935 ft was wicked and made this one of my toughest races. The actual 10k would of been ~600ft which is still a tough race.
My cadence was rocking until 35 minutes when I got lost…

Below is the last 200 meters of the race I finish as the 17th male. Note my knees on the second picture they were bloodied from the thorn bushes. I came to this race to run hard and I think I did the first 3/4 of the actual race.

Equipment used:
Shoes Brooks Mach 15 cross country shoes with 1/4″ ceramic spikes. Could of use 3/8″. Brooks ID singlet and Infinity tight shorts
Brooks Infinity 1/4 crew socks
Tifosi Slip glasses with amber lens.
Garmin 920XT and a Garmin footpod attached to my RoadID anklet.

**All photos are courtesy of JL Photography and Jared Lashinski (https://m.facebook.com/JLPhotoandDesign)

-Brian B.

I’m surprised I received this & now I just have to run.

-Brian B.

Begin forwarded message:

From: “Pittsburgh Three Rivers Marathon, Inc.” <info>
Date: April 23, 2015 at 12:31:39 PM EDT
To: fbbbrown
Subject: Congratulations on Your Seeded Runner Position
Reply-To: info

Greetings Brian Brown , Congratulations! This email is to confirm that you have received a seeded position for the DICK’S Sporting Goods Pittsburgh Marathon or UPMC Health Plan Pittsburgh Half Marathon. You will be positioned in Corral A at the start and your race number will have CORRAL SEEDED on it. We ask that you adhere to the minute per mile pace times posted within the corral. Your race number is: 10017 If you have any questions please email info or call our office at 412-586-7785. Thank you, DICK’S Sporting Goods Pittsburgh Marathon

Forward this email This email was sent to fbbbrown by info | Update Profile/Email Address | Rapid removal with SafeUnsubscribe™ | Privacy Policy. Pittsburgh Three Rivers Marathon, Inc. | 810 River Avenue | Suite 120 | Pittsburgh | PA | 15212

Subject: Weekly Training Report 04/13/2015 – 04/19/2015

Hey Brian, Awesome training last week! During the week of April 13th – April 19th… You also commented on 4 people’s entries. Share your report Week Stats All Total Distance (mi) 60.95 Total Calories 5521 Total Time 08:41 Workouts 13 Friend Leaderboard n/a Comments Sent 4 Friend’s Racing Chris B. 04/25 – RockNRoll 2012 Country Music Marathon & 1/2 Marathon Friend Leaderboard Leslie M. 138 mi Kelly O. 130 mi Taryn Lynn G. 66 mi Lou P. 61 mi Brian B. 61 mi From the community New Feature: Privacy Settings Tuesday, May 21 at 12:00AM We’re super excited to announce a new feature that I know many of you have been waiting a long time for: privacy settings! Starting today, you can now mark your dailymile profile as private and viewable only by dailymilers with who… read more » dailymiler of the week: Martin P. Friday, April 05 at 12:00AM Every few weeks we pick one inspiring dailymiler to be featured on the blog. This gives us a chance to learn the stories of members of the dailymile community. Check out past dailymiler’s of the week or nominate a dailymiler for a … read more » dailymiler of the week: Tony B. Friday, March 29 at 12:00AM Every few weeks we pick one inspiring dailymiler to be featured on the blog. This gives us a chance to learn the stories of members of the dailymile community. Check out past dailymiler’s of the week or nominate a dailymiler for a … read more » About Blog API Store Contact Mobile

I raced today and place third overall with a 18:45. 24 second improvement from my St. Patrick’s 5k. Next race April 18th at Boyce Park its a trail 10k. Less than thirty days to the Pittsburgh Half Marathon.
I’m almost ready!

-Brian B.

Good race for me today & was my first race since October 11th. In the that time I was recovering from bone edema in both of my femurs. A recurring issue that seems to be getting better but takes several year to overcome the problem.

Mark and I wearing our festive St Patricks day green.
The course was easy and was the outer drive of the Uniontown Mall, a short section in a neighboring neighborhood and the finish was in front of the Boston Beanery.

Elevation

So I ran a 19:12 which earns a 6th overall 2nd age. The last 3/4 mile I was drafting a much younger runner and anticipated to out kick him the last 1/10th miIe did what I set on doing. But gave up the sub 19 effort for sixth place. Looking back I should of ran a 18:59 and been 7th vs being 6th with a low 19. Oh well I ran hard and felt good.

Splits
Other than being faster I think I ran this race well. How about the 4:57 pace kick!

The Winner ran a 17:00.

I have much more work to do but I’m happy with the outcome. For this race, I ran 42 seconds slower than my PR on this course.
Given my bone issues and lack of running in December and January, I’ll take it

Thanks for another special year. Brooks Inspire Daily program really has made a difference for our team! Our team grew 20% last year and we expect another big gain in runners.
Over 130 youth athletes will be running happy!

-Brian B.

Subject: Brooks I.D. 2015 – You’re in

I finally got a chance to recreate my site.  Thanks to www,e-rice.net, my previous web host, who shutdown with no warning and I lost over 7 years of website work and blog entries.

I will be adding the weather information soon.

www.fbbbrown.com/cell.htm and www.fbbbrown.com/weather.htm are working

I also added www.fbbbrown.org, www.fbbbrown.net and www.fbbbrown.info.

Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!