Building confidence

I had a good run today. I needed it. After having to cut my 9-mile run short a couple of weeks ago I was a little worried. While I did run in the morning today (not my best time of day) the weather was rather nice and my performance was much improved. I managed the 10 miles pretty easily and I'm feeling good about my training again. I'm hopeful that the weather will continue to to get better. Today it was humid (97%) but cooler and overcast which made it far more comfortable than it has been in a long time.

Getting serious

I've now got 7 weeks of training behind me. There are still 13 more ahead of me but it's already starting to get serious. Last weekend my long run was up to 9 miles. Unfortunately due to a crazy schedule I had to run in the afternoon on a very hot and humid day. I ended up cutting it short by a mile because it was just too much. I was certainly disappointed in myself but I know these things happen and it's not the end of the world. This week I had my first tempo run. This is where you run at a significantly higher intensity level for short periods of time. Speed work. It was fun just to shake things up and I managed to get out early enough in the morning that the heat wasn't so bad. Yesterday my long run was only 6 miles (a fall back week) and it actually felt easy. That was very nice. But next weekend I will be doing 10 miles and the weekend after that it will be 12. The numbers are going up at a rapid pace now and I feel like I'm not ready. Especially after the defeat of last weekend. Of course, I won't be so stupid as to run in the afternoon heat again. Hopefully the summer temps will be easing up (I was actually thinking about how great it would be run in the snow last weekend!) and the training will do what it's supposed to do. In the meantime I'm trying not to think about the 10 miles looming in the not-too-distant future.

Hills and flying squirrels

I've now finished 5 weeks of my training, with 15 more to go. I spent the past week in Portland, OR visiting family. It's always nice to run some place different for a bit. The change in scenery is usually a good distraction while running. That is, except when I'm at my folks' house. You see, they live at the top of a pretty good-sized hill. No matter which way you go from their house you're going to be running hills. And it's not just a simple downhill stretch to more level road... the roads snake around all over this hillside so the slope is always changing and there are just as many uphills as down. It's pretty harsh. I also did some running at the beach during my trip. I was mostly on the wet, packed sand but it's still different than running on the pavement. What this all meant was that my calves were a bit tight by the time I came home. It's OK, though. It's good to mix things up.

Yesterday I ran 8 miles around campus. I was looking forward to being on level pavement again. Of course, Pennsylvania isn't without its excitement. As I ran past a trash can I startled a squirrel that was foraging and he took a flying leap to the ground right in front of me. Had our timing been just a few seconds different I might have been wearing the rodent. That would have been one for the record books.

Tomorrow we're supposed to have record heat. Depending on how the day plays out I might be running on the treadmill. I'm not sure I could take the heat + humidity outside. I'll be glad when the summer weather starts easing up. My runs have seemed especially hard lately. I don't recall them being so hard last summer. Some folks would blame my age but I'm sticking to the weather.

I am not a morning runner

I've been juggling my schedule all around to stick to my training program. If I had my choice I would run in the late afternoon all of the time. However, between ghastly weather (hot, humid, and thunderstorms), picking up kids from summer camp, travel, birthday parties and various other random things, I've had to take my workouts when I can get them. Yesterday I did my 7 mile run at 8:30am. On the plus side it was still relatively cool outside, much of the run was in the shade, and I was done with my exercise for the day before 10am. The bad part is that I am not a morning runner. To be more accurate, I'm not a morning person period. It was a very slow run - far slower than it should have been, even for being a long run. And to top it all off, there was major construction being done on one of the roads I use. It's part of a loop so when I realized that the "road closed" sign was serious (the entire road plus both sidewalks were being dug up by no less than 3 large bulldozers) I thought "No problem, I'll just reverse my loop and do as much as I can before I'm forced to turn around". Well, being that my brain wasn't working so well since a) I wasn't awake yet and b) most of the oxygen was being shuttled to my muscles rather than my brain there was a flaw in this plan that I didn't realize until too late. You see, this loop includes a rather sizable hill, a hill that I have no particular love for. With my adjusted route I ended up doing the stupid hill twice. {insert image of Karen pounding head on desk here} Unfortunately I don't see how I can avoid running in the morning, especially for the long ones. I guess the best I can hope for is that the construction finishes up soon.

I haven't got time for the pain (an ode to Carly Simon)

Sometime last week I woke up with what appeared to be a horribly pinched nerve in my right shoulder. It was pretty bad. It hurt to move my arm, shoulder, even my head to some degree. I tried stretching, rubbing, ibuprofen with little result. I figured I would just wait it out and it did get a little better each day. Sometimes it would feel a bit better after my run; I guess it loosened up due to all the bouncing up and down. Then yesterday morning I was awakened at 5am with the pain back in full force. I went and got a massage and went to bed not optimistic for today. I was pleasantly surprised when I slept quite well (something that's proven difficult these past few days) and woke up with the pain knocked down by several orders of magnitude. Unfortunately, as the day has worn on the pain is once again ramping up. I'll be heading out for my run soon so perhaps that will help. At the very least the pain in my shoulder should distract me from any twinges I might feel in my legs, right? I don't have time for this crap.

Day 1

Today was my first official day of training for the 2009 Philadelphia marathon.  I'd been feeling a bit nervous as I had slacked off on my mileage these past few months.  I spent some extra time on the pavement this past week just to prove to myself that 5-6 miles runs weren't going to be a serious problem so that helped.  Today it was a simple 40 minute run and, despite the fact that I had eaten too much pizza too late in the day, it went just fine.  I'm hopeful that these first few weeks won't be too taxing and that the familiarity of the routine will be there before too long.  It's 20 weeks until the race but I know that time will go by all to quickly and before you know it my long runs will be 16-18 miles.

A longer run

Today I had the luxury of having nothing on my schedule so after sleeping in until the very late hour of 7am (I know, try not to be jealous) and eating a small breakfast I decided that today was the day for a longer run.  I've been trying to increase my mileage for the past few weeks when I do my campus runs, only to be slammed with the heat and humidity.  Today it wasn't so hot, it wasn't so humid, and I was out there before 9am.  Plus there was a bit of a breeze.  All in all an excellent day for a longer run.  I set my goal for 5 miles.  Nothing huge but certainly more than I'd done in awhile.  I also did my hilly route which I hadn't done in months.  In the end I did 6 miles at a reasonable pace.  I was very happy with that if for no other reason than to prove to myself that I can still run more than 3-4 miles at a shot.  My official training starts in a little over a week and then my long runs are going to be increasing rather quickly so I needed this bit of confidence.

The other very cool thing about today is that my big sis ran her first half marathon!  Yea Sis!  :)  I wish I could have been at the finish line in person but I was watching her progress on the web and cheering for her virtually.  I haven't gotten the full report from her yet but she finished standing up (always a plus in my book) and is talking about doing it again next year so it couldn't have been too bad.  I think insanity must run in the family.