Category: Running

I met my running goals for the month! This is not the first time I have met a monthly running goal, but it was the most ambitious month I have had so far. It is also the first month that I have really set out with a firm goal in mind. Then I got waylayed with some scheduling conflicts and illness.

The goal was 82 miles in the calendar month. My log says:

82.3 miles
Time: 15h 07m 26s
Avg. Pace: 11:02/mile

This makes 448 miles for the year. My new shoes have 148.5 miles on them. I guess they are not so new. At best, they are 1/4 of the way through their life expectancy, at worst, they are half way there.

I lost a few miles one week due to having to cut a few runs short. I made up for some of it by running more days in a row, but lower mileage. Then due to an infection, I had a horrificaly high fever that knocked me out almost a week. When I did get back, it was a few days of working slow and easy just to make sure the infection was really gone. Plus I did not feel 100% yet.

I ended the month with 2 great weeks. Both high mileage weeks. One was almost 30 miles and the other 23. The 23 mile week would have been my longest 7 days to date except it was eclipsed by the 29 mile week the week before. I know these are not big numbers for many runners, but they are for me and I am very excited to be at this stage. I am still a new runner and do not want to be overly ambitious too soon. I am trying to get excited about these little advances so that I will not crank the mileage up too much and get injured.

Get out and run or walk. Move! Achieve that goal!

With almost 2 weeks lost to scheduling and illness, I might still make my monthly mileage goal. One week was not really lost, I just did not get a chance for a long run that week. That resulted in a need to run more days in a row. Then I got horribly sick two days later when I was getting ready to go for the new week. I was wiped out for 5 days. The illness was due to an infection I got in a benign cyst on my back. That will be coming out as soon as I can schedule it after the Phedippidations World Wide Half.

I have been able to make up some of the mileage with an unexpected 7.5 mile run one Sunday morning and then a 10K race the next Sunday. I lost 2 miles last Saturday in my long run because I ran out of time and had appointments to keep.

According to my training log I am at 70.3 miles so far this month. Tomorrow is a 4 mile run which may be put off till Friday due to just being tired from work. Then an 8 miler on Saturday will put me right at 82 miles. That is where I should have been this month anyway.

Then taper week getting ready for the half marathon.

I am amazed at what I have been able to make up. After the half marathon I am going to take a couple of weeks off of running and get back into my cross training which has been totally neglected for about 2 months. Then I will merge the two back together and get my strength back. I feel like I have really worked my legs well, but I am losing some of my strength in other areas.

I set out to do a 5K run this morning. Went well. But, I just did not feel into it. At the 3 Km. mark I walked a bit not because I could not run more, I just didn’t want to push it this morning. I moved my rest days around so that I rested yesterday after the 10K race. Then ran today instead of the normal rest. I have Wednesday and Thursday as running days. Friday will be a rest and then a long run Saturday. It will only be an 8 miler this weekend.

Run today, even with the walking figured in, was at a 10:44 per mile pace. I did not do poorly, I just needed a lighter day. After all, I ran on Saturday and Sunday what would normally be a week’s worth of running for me.

My brother. No, the other one. The skinny one.

He is 13 months older than me. Mom says that I have probably outweighed him since I was 18 months old. Yesterday the scale read 184. That is down from a high of 274.

I wanted to taunt my brother a bit and see if I could get some good excuses out of him to make some good blog posting material. This is what I sent to him.

Abe, Here is an un-doctored photo (well, I cropped it a bit) of my weight this morning.

Have I undercut you? Is today the first day since I was like 3 weeks old that I weigh less than you?

David

And his reply:

By 1 pound as of Tuesday the 19th…last time I weighed myself. Congratulations. Keep it up.

ME

Kind of a boring response. He actually seems happy for me. Aren’t brothers supposed to be in competition?

This is my brother who got me into running. He was training for his first half marathon and mentioned it to me. I decided to join him in the training plan. Though I was not a runner, I had already been doing quite a bit of aerobic exercises for over a year. I was in pretty good shape. I would not recommend someone going from a non-runner to a half marathon in 5 months.

Now the whole story. I really did weigh 184 yesterday, but that was after my 10 mile run and before I had completely re-hydrated. I weighed 189 before the run and 184 after the run. Today I was back up to 187 before my race. But down to 184 afterwards. So, I don’t really think it is justifiable to say that I weigh 184, but the scale did say that for a few minutes. I will get there soon though. I am currently not even trying to lose weight. It is just a result of my running. After my half marathon in 2 weeks, I will start with my weight loss program again. It really is not good to try and lose weight when training for a long race. You need the extra fuel. Unless you are way overweight at the start of your training.

According to the numbers I need to be around 170 to 175. I used to not believe that I could get that low without looking sick. Now I know that 15 pounds of fat coming off will be just about right.

Congrats to me!

This was a “10 Km.” race I ran this morning. The actual distance was 9.1 Km. I knew it seemed short when running since it took forever to get from one Km. sign to the next until we got to 8. Then 9 was just around the corner. Something seemed fishy.

It was fairly well organized. I grabbed a bag of water before starting and then got water at all the water stations that still had water when I came through. There were water stations near kilometers 2, 4 and 5. Then nothing for a long time. I was just thinking how much I would really like some water between 7 and 8. A fellow runner ahead of me turned and offered a half drunk bottle of water to me and the fellow I was running with. The other guy did not take it, so I snatched it up with great joy. I drank a bit of it and then sat it down at the 8 Km. marker. I figured the guy that gave it to me was still close enough behind me to see me put it there. If he wanted more, it was available. Then as we turned the corner just after 8 I could see evidence of where there had been a water station. Apparently the walkers wiped them out of water.

I came into the finish strong. I had tried to push at different times during the race, but have never wanted to be the guy that starts out too strong and can’t finish, so I have learned to pace myself well. I don’t think I could have done much better than what I did today. My time was 1:00:54 which is a pace of 10:46 per mile (based on 9.1 Km.). I should be able to run a bit faster than that, but with my big running week this week, I understood going into this that I could not give it my best effort. Today was not a goal race, rather an opportunity to run with a few friends. Come to find out, I was running with over 600 friends today.

The race was to start at 8:00. We started a few minutes late. I am not sure the actual time but something like 8:07. Mintutes were precious to me since I had to be cleaned up and at church before 10:00. I knew it would take me right at an hour to make the run. Then wait in line for the goodies and hopefully a t-shirt. After finishing the race, I realized I just did not have time to wait for my fruit and t-shirt. Besides, they had already said they would have t-shirts for the first 300 finishers. With over 600 in the race, there was little chance that I was getting one. There were probably 500 or more who finished in front of me. When I hit the turn around spot, there were not that many people behind me and a few passed me on the return trip. This was the innaugural event, therefore I am not sure they had a good idea of how many people would be there.

So, I stretched a bit, walked slowly back to the car, jumped in to come home and then get cleaned up to run out to church.

I did not even take the time to see how I placed in my age group. When I registered, there were only 19 in my group. I am certain there were many more than that when the race started. I will try to get to the Nissan dealership who sponsored the race this week and see what my finishing place was.