Category: Running

When you set out to run 12 miles lots of interesting things can happen in those 2 hours.

No dog stories today. Well, except the cute puppy that followed me for about 1/4 of a block. The exciting stuff came from buses and motorcycles today. Earlier in the week I had two idiot bus drivers try to push me off the road. They were one after the other on a one way road. It was two lanes and no one was in the other lane. I was running on the left side of the road and the first one moved over to see how close he could get to me. The second one followed suit but got quite a bit closer.

Today when I went down that street I put the iPod in my left hand and was ready to beat on the side of the bus if it got to close. The driver today did not even challenge me. Later in the run, I had a bus that sat at a stop sign with plenty of time to go, there were no cars behind me. He waited until I got into the intersection and he started to move out. I put on a scowl at the driver and ran in front of him. I also freed up my hitting hand ready to beat on the front of the bus and maybe even jump on for a little ride and a talk with the driver. I hate stupidity. He backed down.

Of all things, today, I had a motorcycle that was being idiotic. Admittedly, he was not doing what he was doing out of meanness, worse he was doing it because he was so self absorbed to care that there was anyone around him. He pulled over right in front of me like he was going to make a turn at the corner. I had to stop running so that I would not run into the side of him, though I considered it. When he did not make the turn and instead parked just a few feet in front of me, I had to control myself enough to keep from just walking up beside him and pushing him and his bike over on their side.

Other than those incidences, which were fleeting seconds, I had a great run. I was supposed to run 12 today, but stopped by the house between miles 8 and 9 to tell my wife I was still alive. She informed me that I was running behind schedule to be ready for an appointment I had this morning. I decided then that I would have to cut the run short. I really felt good physically and mentally. The purpose of this 12 mile run was to evaluate to see if I was ready for the 13.1 mile race. I really feel that I am and that I could have easily done the last bit of the run if I were not out of time. So I cut the run down to 10 miles.

I also have a 10 Km. (6.2 miles) race tomorrow morning. By cutting the run short today, I am better able to run tomorrow.

I did a bit of an experiment. I have been trying different gels and such during the run. The last few weeks I have tried Coke instead. Today I did a Coke, but did not de-fizz it completely. I wanted to see what the ill effects might be. I ended up with a bit of belching at first, but that quickly faded and I forgot all about it. So de-fizzing is helpful when actually trying to drink it, but I don’t think it negatively affected me in any way.

All in all, a good run. It was 1:59:05 at an 11:54 pace. That is about the speed it should be. I would like for the half marathon to be around a 10:15 pace. Physically I can do it. Sometimes I zone out while running and slow down to a crawl because I am not paying attention.

Check out my running log. Currently you can get to the link at any time in the sidebar under the heading “Blogroll.” I am not sure it will stay there forever, but it will be in the sidebar somewhere.

I have been commenting my runs as much as I can so that it is not just a bunch of numbers. This should make reading the log a bit more interesting. If you want to scroll back through the weeks, click the blue runner forward or backwards. You can also use the charting to see how I am doing week by week, or month by month.

Please don’t look too carefully at the last couple of weeks and this week. I am breaking a basic running rule during those weeks. Because of some rough scheduling and sickness, my mileage was very low for two weeks. Then this week I have ramped up my mileage to an insane amount. When the week is over, I will have made up the last two weeks of lost mileage. I will have pushed over 30 miles this week. A normal week for me would be 15 to 20 miles.

I am sure that looking at someone else’s running log has to be one of the most boring things a person can do, but it is there for those of you who get into that kind of thing.

My training plan calls for an “easy” run tomorrow. It is to be a 4.5 mile run. What is supposed to be easy about that? Well, it is not the distance, but the effort put forth. I normally run between 10 and 11 minutes per mile. Tomorrow’s run should be somewhere between 11 and 12 minutes per mile. That will mean just short of an hour.

Today I had a 3 mile tempo run. It really never became that. I logged my splits at the kilometers. They were essentially 6:06 per Km. It was almost perfect splits.

I am just not sure what to do with this run in the morning though. I have never mapped a 4.5 mile run. I have 4 and 5 mile routes. Somehow I will have to figure out the new route. Maybe I will just stick with a 5 mile run instead and boost my weekly/monthly mileage by a half mile.

With just 3 weeks to go, I have gotten back on the training wagon again. I fell off out of necessity for about 8 days. Today marked my getting back on schedule with a 2 mile VO2 max run. I did a mile warm up and just a short cool down before jumping into the pool to cool off my legs.

All through the week of being sick I did not feel at all like running. I could not even imagine what it was like to want to run. I thought maybe the desire to run was just something I made up and it was not a real desire.

Well, that was not the case. Friday night I started getting the drive back. Saturday I put in 5 miles and wanted to do more. Today I woke up with great anticipation to get in some free miles. Sunday is a rest day in my schedule, so any running on Sunday is free mileage. I got 7 and 1/2 of them in. I feel like a the cat who got away with eating the bird. Quite satisfied with myself.

Tomorrow I start the training week like normal. I will take my rest days of Tuesday and Friday. I am planning on running a 10Km. race next Sunday morning. So there will be another 6.2 free miles next week.

With the free miles that I have gotten and will get, and if I am able to stay on schedule, I should get just about 84 miles this month. That puts me right back where I should have been before having the schedule difficulty and getting sick. The extra mileage may come at the cost of 1 extra rest day. That will lose 3 miles if I have to take that. But I will still go over my 80 mile goal.