A day of rest

Tomorrow is the first weekday that I will have had off since I started my training 3 1/2 weeks ago. I'm looking forward to it. When I was training for the half marathon I always had two rest days each week. With the marathon training schedule it's only one rest day most weeks with an extra rest day thrown in every 3 weeks or so. You really start to miss that extra day off. Or at least I do! My weekly mileage is around 22 miles now. My longest run has been 7 miles. It sounds impressive but realize that neither of those numbers is as much as I will have to run during the actual race. 16 1/2 more weeks to go.

An early morning

I had to run first thing this morning. My day got a bit messed up and it was either run as soon as I got up or wait until very late at night. I opted for early morning, despite the fact that I hate running first thing after waking up. I'm just not a morning person. I felt so slow as I ran around the neighborhood. I think my legs finally woke up around mile 4. Ah well, at least I got my run in.

Things I have learned (Part V)

1. Don't run on garbage day on a hot, humid morning before the garbage truck comes around.
2. It's possible to lose a significant number of pounds through sweat.
3. A cold shower can feel great.

The heat is on

I just finished a 40-minute run around campus. It's 90 degrees and 50% humidity. ICK! I'm trying not to drip sweat on the keyboard as I type this. It was a decent run, despite the heat. Things are supposed to cool down later this week. That would be nice. I did my long run on Saturday without much ado, even though I was forced to take some days off earlier in the week. Hopefully I'm back on track now.

Running again

I managed to go for a run today. So far my lip doesn't seem to be swelling as a result. Let's hope it stays that way as I have an important meeting tomorrow and I'd rather not look like Mick Jager. It definitely felt good to be running after 4 days off.

Here's a picture of me running on the beach in Oregon. I'm that little reddish speck in the middle of the picture. Kinda cool. Running on the beach was definitely a nice change of pace even if it was freakin' cold.

Whoope-dee-freakin'-doo

When I woke up this morning and my lip was still just as fat as yesterday (possibly even a little worse!) I started wondering if I shouldn't put more stock in the dentist's warning about holding off on the exercise. When the swelling finally started to go down this afternoon I chickened out of going for a run as I had originally planned. However, I decided that an easy ride on the stationary bike would be OK. I went slow and for only 30 minutes. It was one of the most boring workouts (if I can even call it that) of my life. But at least I did something. I'll see how my lip looks tomorrow and might go for a run in the afternoon. I hate all of this inactivity. Especially when I'm supposed to be training, damn it!

Have I mentioned that I hate the dentist?

This not running thing has got me totally bummed out. Add to that the fact that I can't eat any of the foods I really like and you've got one depressed person. Why is it that you always crave foods when you know you can't have them? I've been dying to have chips since lunch yesterday. I'm reduced to soup, yogurt, cottage cheese, jello and the like. Of course, last night I had ice cream so that wasn't so bad. Still, this sucks. Stupid dentist. I'm thinking about going for a run tomorrow. My upper lip is currently the size of a bus. It would be hard to imagine it getting worse so I don't think a run is going to hurt any. We'll see.

Stupid dentist

I went to the dentist this morning. Technically, I went to the periodontist. I had some minor work done on my gums... Disgusting? Yes, but really no big deal. As I'm sitting there with a big block of ice on my mouth the guy hands me my "post op" instructions and right at the top it says "Wait several days before undertaking any strenuous exercise." Excuse me??? Several days??? You've got to be kidding. This "surgery" involved a few slices and stitches in my mouth, forcryingoutloud. How could exercising affect that? The guy goes over the instructions with me and says "You're a fitness person, aren't you". Um, yeah, just a bit. So he explains that he doesn't want me doing any cardio for the next 5 days. !!! He goes on about increased heart rate, blood flow and swelling, blah, blah, blah, but all I heard was that I can't do ANY cardio - no running, no cycling, no nothing - for 5 days! He said it was OK for me to walk. Thanks, dude. What the hell? If I knew this would be the case I would have had this stupid procedure done before my training started. This just sucks.

Hills and sand

I'm in Portland, OR visiting family. This means running in whatever environment is available. For this trip that has meant hills and sand. My folks live at the top of a hill in the suburbs of Portland. All roads from their house lead down. This, of course, means that eventually you have to come back up. All of my running courses in PA are relatively flat so this has been a bit of a challenge for me. We also spent a couple of days at the Oregon coast which meant running in the sand. Granted it was the wet, packed sand (with some dodging of waves) but still... it's a little different than running on pavement. It's good to change things up now and then but all the same I'm looking forward to running my usual flat loops around the WCU campus next week.

Sluggish

My run wasn't very good today. I felt very slow. My pedometer showed that I wasn't any slower or faster than usual, but for some reason it took a lot more effort than usual to keep putting one foot in front of the other. As I dragged myself around campus I wondered what could be to blame for the sluggish feeling. I came up with two culprits. First, I had a very large lunch today (at a wonderful Mexican restaurant, by the way). I'm not used to eating so much in the middle of the day and a couple of hours later when I hit the pavement I was still quite stuffed. Second, I hadn't had any caffeine before my run. Now I'm not a coffee drinker in the least and I'm not really addicted to caffeine but I like my soda so I usually have one with lunch. However, today I had a non-caffeinated drink with lunch and the lack of this insidious chemical could have been partly to blame for my less-than-energetic state. Whatever the cause, my run was marginal at best. Hopefully tomorrow's will be better.

Feeling good

Yesterday I ran 5.5 miles around campus. It was raining a bit which meant it wasn't too hot. It was a good run. In fact, I sort of wished it was raining a little more by the end of the run. I was glad to see that I could still run over 5 miles in one shot without feeling completely wiped. Next week I start my training program and my first "long" run is 5 miles. I hadn't run over 4 in a long time. I think I should be good to start up. Of course, the long runs quickly get longer until I'm up to 10 miles by the end of August. We'll see how I'm holding up by then. But for now I'm feeling pretty good about it.