Vacation from running

I need my legs in top shape for my wilderness trip, so no running until July. I'll be living at the gym.

4 a day

I've been doing 4 miles a day, and I seem to be handling it ok. I'm going to try to bump a couple to 6. Maybe I'll do 6-4-6-4-6-4 for 30 miles.

Legs... poor sore legs.

Three days in a row and my legs are SORE. We'll see if I can handle tonight; I'm shooting for another 4-miler. I really want to get to this schedule:
Mon - 4 miles
Tues - 6 miles
Wed - 4 miles
Thurs - 6 miles
Fri - off
Sat - 10 miles
Sun - x-train (probably bike)

That'd be a nice 30 mile week.

Camping trip is done, back to weight loss

Ok... so I'm coming out of the camping trip with a large number of my upper body muscles all screwed up. I can't move me head much.... my arm still hurts... you know how it goes.

The worst news... I'm WAY up in weight. I weighed in at 198.6 this morning. OMG! I'm sure that's not true weight gain, but still, being that I have no weights for the weekend, my 10-day average is now 195.5! Time to run... no weight lifting. RUN! I need to burn this butt off quick-like. I have 14 weeks until the reunion, and now 25.5 pounds to go.

Racers... start your engines! Don't expect to see many blank days in my log for the next few months.

First run done

Not too bad. 4-miler. All's well.

Back to running

Today starts my return to running. I took a full week off, and just did walking on anywhere from 0 to 9 incline on the treadmill. The legs feel good and strong, so I'm hitting it tonight. I'll let you know how it goes :)

Race Picture

Here's a shot of me at the race

Half Marathon Complete!

Here's the race report:

Well, I completed the Great Western Half Marathon yesterday, and I'm contemplating sawing my legs off today First, a little background. I ran 3 5k's last year, and those were my first 3 races. I decided to jump right to a half marathon this year. My longest run to date was 10 miles, and I did that once. I was shooting for a 2:25:00 finish, with walk breaks every mile.

So race day morning. I got up and enjoyed a special treat of two blueberry muffins with the struessel stuff on top. Awesome. I got to the race about 45 mins before gun and did some walking/stretching. I picked up my race packet and was happy to see a very nice technical shirt instead of cotton.

5 mins to gun: I lined up towards the back to avoid the rush as much as possible.

Gun: And we're off! With 800 runners, it was more of a brisk walk for the first 1/4 mile or so. No complaints here!

Miles 1-3: I felt wonderful. I skipped all my planned walk breaks. I skipped the first water station. I found a nice group of runners that were cruising at around a 10:30 pace, so I nestled in behind them.

Mile 4-5: I was getting a little thirsty here so I walked through the water station at 4.5.

Mile 6-7: I had a pack of beans and walked through the water station at the turn around at 6.55. I had a slight twinge in the left knee around mile 6, but the walk helped that go away nicely. Time at the halfway point was 1:15:00

Mile 7-8: The music dies... I forgot to charge my mp3 player, and all went silent just after mile 7. I've never run without music, so it was interesting to go the last 6 miles with no tunes. Listening to other runners ended up being FAR more entertaining than music. I passed one lady wearing head phones who was trying to sing along between frantic exhaustion breaths. So I got to listen to "It's just....huff...huff.... You and me.....huff...huff...huff.... You're.... hufff...huff... All I need" Absolutely Hilarious! Good for her for staying in the zone though. Who cares what others think. One more water stop here.

Miles 8-9: Another water stop, another pack of beans. Magic beans baby, let me tell you I love those little things. I felt really good here, so I picked the pace up to around 9:00 or so.

Miles 10-11: Last water stop, I've walked through 5 in total. Much better than my planned 13 walk breaks (one every mile). Last pack of beans, and time for the push to the finish.

Mile 12: Still feeling ok. I slowed up to run with a guy who was noticably hobbling and needed some encouragement. Used my carried amphipod water for the first time. I could have made it without it, but since it was there, why not?

Mile 13: The wall. It wasn't an endurance wall, but right around mile 13 both of my arches exploded. I attribute it to the fact that mile 13 was concrete and uphill, where the majority of the race was crushed limestone trail, and much softer. Of course my family was waiting around the end of the race to take tons of pictures of me. I was like "why couldn't ya'll have been at mile 12 when I was still kicking ***?" They caught me looking the worst I looked the entire race! It's all good though.

End of the race: My finishing time was 2:14:50. Just over 10 minutes faster than my goal time. I also only walked 5 times, instead of 13. I carried a water bottle in my amphipod, but only needed it once at mile 12. I actually could have done the whole race on just the provided water stations. That's good to know, but I wasn't going to take chances on my first long race.

All in all it was a good race. Today I have, on a scale of 1-10, 3 pain in the arches, 5 pain in the knees, and 7 pain in the quads. The quads are just sore and need to be stretched. Same for the arches. I'm not too sure about the knees, but I'll know more in a couple days. I'm hoping they're just sore as well.

I think the rest of this year will be increasing my weekend long runs, and speeding up my 5k time. Then I'll shoot for a marathon next year!