My Achilles is Mad at Me

This past weekend the Hobbit and I thought it would be a good idea to run part of the marathon course. We were to start at the Liberty Lake trail head and run to Mission Park. We thought it we be ~17 miles, turned out to be 16.2. At any rate it was not a very nice morning. The temp wasn't that bad, but when you add rain and wind and shorts.....no gloves and a ball cap. Not the best planning. The run itself went OK though we were chugging along at a pretty good pace ~8:00/mi. until about mile 14. It was at this point I started feeling my Achilles of my left leg. Not a sharp pain like a tear but more of dull constant pain of a strain/generally inflamed tissue. It did help, at first, if I really focused on foot position at the time of foot strike. But towards the end of the run it just plain hurt no matter what I did. Since then I have only been able to run once, 5 miler, and it was uncomfortable from about 2.5 miles. So I've been on the vitamin I and rest and elevation. I have been able to ride my bike some, outside once, which was great. I plan on a short 3 miler in the am when I get off work. If it feels OK I will go a little longer on Sunday. If it is still sore in the am, I'm screwed. It's to close to the race to have a long rest period, I'll begin to lose fitness. The bike and pool will help but I need to run. Keep your fingers crossed.

St. Paddy's 5 Miler

Sunday was not only the St.Paddy's 5 mile race,my 2nd race of the year. But also the last day of my biggest training week so far this year. The race was hard...cold and raining the whole race. To compound the conditions, as I mentioned in an earlier post, the Hobbit met me at the hospital when I got off at 0800. We ran from the hospital to the race ~ 5 miles, ok 4.6 miles, in the cold rain. Then we stood around and waited for the race to start, in the rain. Then we ran the race, in the rain. If that wasn't enough I ran back to the hospital, and yes it was still raining. Total for the day just under 15 miles. As for the race I was a little dissappointed. I was 2 minutes slower than last year. My time was 36:21 on my garmin. This year I had a few more mile on my legs leading up to the race. This past week I ran 49 miles and 12 miles on the bike. This same week last year 27 miles, but about 100 miles on the bike as well. All in all I think my progress is ok eventhough my 2 races so far have not had the results I would like. The next big race is Bloomsday I really want to break 50 mins this year. Last year I ran 51:36.
This week is rather ominus in that I have my 1st 20 miler scheduled for Sun. I don't care who you are or how fast you run. 20 miles is a long way and it is always hard!!!
I'll let you know how it goes.

MORE Pictures from Snake River

If only I was in front of everyone. Cool backdrop though.





Here comes the Hobbit, he is #129.





I want you to take a good look at the Hobbit's hands......hmmmm Gloves????, Mittens???? Socks aha! clean socks??? let me just say.... it was his ONLY choice :)

Training is in Full Swing

Now that I have the 1st race of the year out of the way, and have a pretty good feel for were my fitness really is right now. It's now time to pick up the volume. So this week has gone like this. m-8 miles,tu-8 miles(3x1mile@7:05),w-9 miles,th-brick 45 min bike,5 mile run. If all goes well,and so far it is, I will get another 1 hr on the bike and 5 mile run on friday, sat rest. Sunday is the 2nd race of the year, The St Paddy's 5. The beauty here is that I work this weekend so I will work all night then run from the hospital to the race, about 5 miles, then run the race, then run back to the hospital. This will give me a 15 mile run with a fast tempo session in the middle. It will also give me about 50 miles for the week. For me this is a good week. I hope to be able to continue to maintain this volume and increase the bike time and oh yea I may even swim a little too. 9 weeks until the marathon!Shit

Snake River Half Marathon

Well as expected I did not set the world on fire at this years race. I did however do a little better than I expected. First let me set the scene a little. The Hobbit an I left Spokane at 0730, because he was late,again. Then we had to stop because his bowels make most of his decisions. So we get there with 15-20 min. to kill. This time is needed to go through the gym bag and find just the right combination of warmth/wind protection. I had a few options and if you ever run this race you'll want to make sure you have a few options too. It was a about 24 degrees with a biting wind. As it turned out this year we started the race running into the wind. The wind speed was between 10-15 mph with some gusts a little higher. This is just a guess by I've read that for there to be white caps on a body of water you have to have at least 15 mph winds, and I saw white caps. I did run this race caveman style. Which was kind of a pain not really knowing what your splits were. I did asked this guy what time we were at a few times during the race. And they had someone calling out the time at the 1st mile, kind of dumb really, half way would have made sense but 1 mile into a 13 mile race???? at any rate my 1st mile was 7:23. The guy said at 4 miles we were right at 32 at 9 miles ~1:08. From that point on I just ran. The wind was helping now but it had died down quite a bit. But I could feel it pushing me. I was really focusing on my cadence and my breathing. I only got passed by 1 guy on the way back, more about him later. I was trying to constantly reel people in that were out in front of me. With 1 mile left I really started to pick up the pace. If I had to guess I would say the last mile was run at about 6:50 pace. So with about 100 yds to go I passed that guy back that had passed me. However with about 50 ft to go he sprinted back in front of me. I tried to answer but I was to little to late. The clock at the finish shows me crossing at 1:40:22, but they have me listed at 1:40:20, whatever.











oh yea and the Hobbit did beat me, bastard. And we had to stop on the way home too.

13.1 miles fast hmmm

Well with just a few days left until the race. Yesterday I threw in a little speed work on the treadmill. After a mile to warm up @ 8:30 pace I sped up to 7:30 pace and held that for 2 miles. Then I sped up again to 7 min pace for 0.5 miles then 0.5 miles at 6:30 pace. At this point I can say with some certainty that breaking 1:30 for this 1/2 marathon aint happening. Last year I ran 1:37 at this race. This year I'll be happy with 1:45. Well maybe not happy but Since my real goal is the marathon in May I don't want to risk an injury and I think I will be better served by running again maybe 7-8 miles the day after the race. This I won't be able to do if I go balls out. The Hobbit is running pretty good right now so it will suck to get beat AGAIN by the little furry bastard but oh well, eye on the prize.

caveman run

Saturdays long run was nearly a complete caveman run. My garmin was dead, battery does not hold charge as good as it used to. My watch has had a dead battery for about 1 month now, so I never know what day or time it is. The only piece of gagetry I had for 10 miles of running was my Blackberry Storm, ie music. I had worked all night so I was a little tired. Definitely affected my ability to think clearly, otherwise I would have used the GPS in the phone to track the run. Or maybe at least I would have look at the clock to know what time I started. It didn't matter though it was a beutiful morning about 30 degrees and clear skies. I tried to keep my effort comfortably difficult. It felt pretty good but I did miss the pace and time info.