Jemez

The Marathon

2009-05-24T15:42:00.007-04:00

Background:

Back in my 20’s (and early 30’s) I frequently said I’d run a marathon someday, but not until I felt like I could do it in under 4 hours. Then, seven years ago I ruptured my left Achilles tendon, had a horrible rehab, and said it was clear that I would never manage a marathon. A couple of years after the rupture, I tried running a few times, and developed tendonitis in my right Achilles. My doctor told me not to run anymore, and for a couple more years I didn’t. Then I went to see a sports Dr, who told me she thought I could try running lightly, get PT, orthotics and start gradually. I did start slowly, and last year I ran my first half marathon in 1:51. I’ve continued to have some pain in my right Achilles, but not as bad as when I saw the sports Dr, and my feeling was that if I was ever going to run a marathon, this was the year.

Training:

I’ve been training since January, using a modified Hidgon Novice 1 program, modified to add another 20 miler, and one very low mileage recovery week after the first 20 miler.

I set my goal to 4:10, and was planning to run at 5:55/km (9:32/mile). This seemed like a conservative goal, but in the last weeks I’ve wondered if I could hit it, some of the runs have been tough (but the weather has been brutal this spring too).

The Race:

I couldn’t believe how nervous I was yesterday. My wife said I looked green – and I thought I was hiding it well! I was worried about everything, and just wanted to get started. I did sleep some, but not much, and got up at 3:45 to have breakfast 3 hours before the 7AM start. Last minute panic, I realized I was on the wrong side of the barricades from the bag check, and had to jump the barricade, and run to the bag check as the national anthem was being sung. When I got back in (jumping the barricade again), I realized I was lined up too far forward. I did move back some, but wound up around the 4 hour crew.

The start was ok, and as expected a lot of people were passing me. Just before 10:00 in, I heard what sounded like a heard of elephants coming behind me. Turned out is was a 4 hr pace bunny, doing a 10 min run, 1 min walk, and just after passing me they started to walk. I moved left, and saw another 4 hr pace bunny, doing a continuous run. As the 4 hr bunnies & crowds moved in front, I decided to see how their pace would feel, so I started to run about 30 meters behind the big mob of 4 hr runners. It was nice there, lots of space since most people around that time seemed to be flocking to the bunnies, and I stayed there for a while. I hit the 10k mark at 56:22, about 3 min too fast, but feeling great. So I kept following the pace bunnies, wondering what the average pace should be for that goal, and held that position until the 20 km mark. Around 13 km my right Achilles started to hurt, but it never really got much worse than it was at that point. The second 10 k took 56:54, I was hit the halfway mark with an average pace of 5:35/km(9:01/mile).

Just after the 20 km mark, I realized I had slowed, and picked it back up to a comfortable pace. This is when it got strange. I passed both 4 hr pace bunnies and their crowds. Now I was worried, but feeling good, and there was lots of space in front of the 4 hr crowd too. The third 10 km took 55:44, and I started to pass lots of runners. At this point I was waiting for something bad to happen, I didn’t really think I could hold that pace. The next 10 km took 56:11. I was dog tired at this point, but knew I could make it. My average pace in the second half was 5:25/km (8:44/mile) – a negative split!!! My finish time (chip) was 3:56:51. I had a smile on my face from about the 10km mark till the finish, and kept hearing people yell at me to keep smiling. It was a great day.

My legs are very sore now, and my right Achilles isn’t happy with me, and is swollen and a bit red. So, I have no idea if this will be my only marathon (hope not), but if it is, I can live with it.

Five Days Left

2009-05-19T11:29:00.000-04:00

Five days till race day and I'm feeling pretty good. Nervous sure, but physically pretty good. I've had heaps of energy on my last couple runs, 12 km Sunday, 5 km this morning. There's still a bit of a twinge in my right Achilles, but it isn't bothering me during my runs. I'll plan to keep icing it every evening, and doing some stretches during the day. It doesn’t really feel any different than it did when I started training, so I'm hopeful that it won't be an issue.

The forecast for Race day is currently around 5 degrees C at 7AM, with a high around 20 degrees. I'm trying to figure out how to dress for the start. I tried doing my run this morning in shorts and a singlet, with the temperature at 4 degrees C (wind chill of zero). Short summary: I need more clothes than that at the start Sunday, my arms and hands were frozen.

Again with the Shinsplints

2009-04-24T14:35:00.002-04:00

I went out for a tempo run Wednesday evening. The plan was to go 15 km, 4 km easy up to the trans-Canada trail, 7 km tempo on the trail, 4 km easy. The tempo pace should have been at 5:25-5:30/km. We had some rain Tues & Wed, so the path was a bit soft. Being my usual bone-headed self, once I got into the tempo portion I picked up the pace, and was running around 5:10/km, then 5:05/km, finally was running around 4:50/km. At the turn around point I was heading into a fairly stiff headwind.

Somewhere around 9 km, my left shin got very painful. The rest of the run wasn't much fun. I'm sure this was a result of going too hard.

I'm kicking myself for not writing down what I did to rehab my other shin in March, but I'm going to try to write it all down now. I found that it took about 3-4 weeks until I was completely comfortable on it again.

1st, icing:

I used a dixie cup frozen, and rubbed it over the painful area for about 10 minutes. I did this daily for about a week.

2nd, stretching:

I found some articles mostly in the forum post linked below, the ones I used were:

Lie down on back, extend 1 leg up in air, wrap towel around ball of foot holding onto both ends of towel. Pull one side of towel and it will turn your foot that direction, hold for 30 sec. Pull on other end of towel turning foot opposite direction, hold for 30 sec. Do several times a day. Your ankle is staying at about a 90 degree as you turn the foot inward or outward and your leg is extended straight up. (3x/day)
Calf stretches against a wall (2x/day)
Eccentric calf stretches on the stairs (2x/day)
Sitting stretches: While sitting lift legs onto toes, hold 2 sec, drop feet down then raise toes off ground, hold 2 sec. Do this for about 30 seconds (many times/day).

3rd, Slow Down:

I did my 1st run 2 days after the pain started, but only 5 km on the treadmill and very slowly (6:15/km). I didn't do any runs faster than easy pace for the next 2 weeks.

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Runners World Shin Pain Forum Post

32 km

2009-04-21T12:00:00.000-04:00

I did my first 32 km (20 mile) run last Sunday. I kept the pace down, and it took me almost exactly 3:15. I was quite surprised by how tired I got around the 14 km point, but this gave me a good chance to try out a Roctane. The Roctane gave me exactly the kick I needed. All in all the run was pretty uneventful, yes I was more tired than I wanted to be, especially in the last 10 km, but I never felt like I was going to need to stop.

I had Gu's at 6, 15, and 24 km, and think that's about the right spacing.

27 times two

2009-03-29T10:39:00.003-04:00

I spent last week in San Diego. I did 3 runs there, heading from the convention center north along the harbor. All of my runs started by 5:30 AM (ouch), and I did 6 km, 13 km, and 8 km. The views on the 1st two just before sunrise were amazing. When I had a view to the south, I could see downtown across the harbor, surrounded by the glow of sunrise. There was a crescent moon just over downtown as well, it was absolutely remarkable.

Then I did a 27 km run yesterday. I felt really sluggish the whole time, which seems consistent with the 6:12/km pace I put in.

The 54 km I did last week is a new record for me.

Shinsplints

2009-03-17T17:22:00.001-04:00

On Sunday I did a 24 km run, my longest run ever. Almost everything went well, with the exception of my right shin. My shin was a bit sore for the 1st couple of km, then stopped bothering me. Everything seemed fine until around 16 km, then my shin started to hurt a couple of inches lower than the initial pain. The second time around it was much more uncomfortable. From that point until the end, my shin continued to hurt - not badly enough to slow me down, but it was pretty uncomfortable. The run took me 2:25, and the second half was a bit faster than the 1st. My shin was sore for the rest of the day, I did ice it, wrap it, and take some Vitamin I.

Yesterday I did a lot of stretching, and iced it again. That seems to have helped some. I ran 6 km on the treadmill this morning, and my shin wasn't too bad. I'm planning to take tomorrow off from running, and then run again Thursday. Hopefully Thursday will be around 12 km.

Brutal

2009-03-11T22:30:00.002-04:00

Tonight was one of the toughest training runs I've ever done. I should have paid more attention to the Weather Network's "Wind Warning," that was in big bold red letters on their website. The temp was just below freezing when I started, with the wind coming down from the N-W. I headed north to start off into the wind, and almost gave up after 2 km when the lid of a trashcan flew past me in the opposite direction, at waist level. Signs were blown down all over the place. My left quad and right ankle were quite sore. It dawned on me near the end that the reason I was getting so sore was that I was constantly off balance. At one point with the wind at my back, I was actually slowing myself down, rather than pushing myself forward. I did the full 11 km that I was planning on, but it was just brutal.

Checked when I got home. Wind was at 50 kph, with gusts up to 90.

Schedule

2009-03-10T11:47:00.006-04:00

I've been following one of Hal Hidgon's Novice marathon schedules for the last couple of months. I've modified it a bit by adding an extra 2 weeks to give me one more 28 km run, and one really easy recovery week. I've also modified it a bit to account for the fact that I'll be out of town for a week, and don't think a 26k run is possible while traveling.

Here's my current plan (distances in km):

Back to Training

2009-01-29T16:01:00.000-05:00

I've circled the 2009 National Capital Marathon on my calendar.

I'm training now, using a slightly modified version of Hal Hidgon's Novice marathon plan. I'm changing one run per week into a tempo or race pace run, and instead of running 3 days in a row mid week I'm going to put an extra rest day in.

It's too early to say whether this is a realistic goal, but I should know more in a couple weeks - I have a 15 km run this weekend, 16 km next.

Assuming I manage to complete the training, I'm going to use a conservative time goal, probably around 4:15.

1000 km+

2008-11-18T13:10:00.003-05:00

Not much time to write recently, but I feel the need to pat myself on the back. I passed the 1000 km mark for 2008 with a 15 k run on Nov 8. This is a pretty big jump from the 500 km that I ran in 2007.

I've had a hard time getting back into a 3x/wk routine, partly because of time & partly because of a bit of lingering pain from my July ankle sprain. I did run 3x last week, and plan to maintain that for the rest of 08. I've also started some daily ankle exercises.

This week I've also been doing a bit of reading on marathon training plans. If my ankles are feeling good at the start of January, I'll probably start training for a May marathon and see how it goes.

1 month since sprain

2008-08-06T10:52:00.002-04:00

I sprained an ankle one month ago today. Not a horrible sprain, but I did feel some tearing, and had a 2" long bruise on the outside of my heel a few days later. I've been meaning to post an update since then but.....

I tried to do a couple of easy 5k runs around 2 weeks after the sprain. The 1st was ok, but after the 2nd my ankle was quite sore. At that point I abandoned thoughts of a September half marathon.

I got my bicycle out of the basement, and figured I'd need to use this to maintain some level of conditioning. My commute to work is 21 km each way, so between my 1st route finding ride and twice to work last week I cycled close to 120 km last week. Not bad, since I hadn't ridden in about 2 years!

I also did an 8.5 km run on Sunday, at around a steady state pace. My ankle was a bit sore towards the end, but was ok the next day. So, there seems to be a bit of improvement there, and hopefully in about a month I can be back to a normal schedule.

Hot 10 Miler

2008-06-16T17:08:00.002-04:00

I did my first 'long' long run since my half - 16 km on a hot afternoon. The temperature was only 27 degrees C, but it felt much hotter on the roads. The 1st couple of kms felt great, and hence I was running too fast - around 5:30/km. I then kept a pretty steady pace around 5:45/km until I turned around at the 8 km mark. Up till 8 km I could tell I was working, but it was ok. When I turned around it suddenly felt astonishingly hot, and I just felt the energy drain away. The run back felt really long. Plus my water was way too warm to be enjoyable.

Looking at my time/km from that point on its like a slow ramp up, with every single km a bit slower than the one before. Looking at the data after the run, the other fun thing is that as I was slowing down, my heart rate was increasing steadily, until it hit my max rate about 200 m from home.

All in all not a fun run after the midpoint, but nothing was too sore either during the run or today.

Half Marathon Race Day

2008-05-25T18:20:00.003-04:00

We got downtown early, and even though it was still quite cool out it felt like it was likely to be a warm day. I made a last minute change from a tech shirt into a singlet. I found out last week that a friend was running, and aiming for the same pace, so we decided to start together. We made it really clear though that if either of us wanted to go faster, we’d just take off. My goal for the half marathon was to do it in under 2 hours, and I was hoping that hitting a 5:30/km pace would be a good pace. I was pretty nervous yesterday and today about whether I could hold that pace for the whole race though. I wanted to do the 1st 2 km at a 5:40 pace, for a bit of time to warm up, and since I knew that the crowds would make it hard to set my own pace. Before the race they announced that there were 10,000 runners starting the half marathon today.

We got a pretty good start, and didn’t really have to do any weaving through traffic at all. We saw someone fall just a bit behind us after about 500m, and I slowed almost to a stop, but people seemed to be doing a good job of getting her back up. Yesterday someone almost got trampled in the 5k, and I was pretty upset to see nobody slowing at all to help. It only took us about 3 minutes to settle into a good pace. I knew we were going a bit fast, and sure enough the first km took 5:18. OK I said, we’re going too fast, we should ease up a bit. The second km took 4:56. At that point I decided that I was feeling really good, and would see what I could manage, but that I absolutely needed to ease up a bit and focus on effort level. So we kept knocking off km’s, running at around a 5:15/km pace.

The run through Gatineau went pretty well. There was almost no crowd support there, just the occasional curious looking onlooker. But as we came back over the bridge to Ottawa around the 9km mark the crowds picked up. Our gun time at the 9 km mark was 49:00. From that point on there were people cheering all the way in. There’s a long stretch along the canal from around km 10-15, and we saw several people down getting medical help along here. It was really feeling hot, the sun was just blazing. Then we finally went up to a bridge to cross the canal, and I was sure I was going to make it. I kept feeling good, and we kept up the pace, and were even going a few seconds per km faster from kms 10-16.

Across the canal we picked up the 1:50 pace bunny, and were around her and her group a lot at that point. At km 17 I picked up the pace a bit more, almost losing my friend in the process. Km 17 took 4:53, but after that I slowed back to about a 5:05/km pace and there was my friend at my elbow again. Someone in the crowd gave me a freezie here, it looked so inviting but when I tried to eat it I thought it was coming back up. Someone else gave me an ice cold water bottle – much better. With 3 km left to go, I started to feel worn down. My legs really wanted to stop. The 1:50 pace bunny was telling her people they were right on target, and to go ahead, but looked to be seriously hurting. My Garmin told me that the 1:50 pace bunny had little chance of finishing in 1:50. At the 19 km mark, we left the 1:50 bunny behind, but I was starting to seriously hurt. I tried reminding myself of the 2 km last stretch of one of my runs, but that didn’t help at ALL. But I was hanging in and holding the pace, km 19-20 took 5:09. The rest is a blur, I was dead on my feet, but wasn’t willing to stop. The last km seemed to take forever, but I was convinced that slowing down would only prolong it at this point, and I was NOT willing to slow down. With 500 meters to go I was having a hard time imagining running that far! The crowd was great here though, the bleachers were packed with people. My friend gave a burst of speed in the last 50 m, and finished 2 seconds in front of me. My final chip time was 1:51:11. I honestly feel like that is as fast as I could possibly have run it, there was barely enough left in the tank to get me to the recovery area.

My final pace (Garmin) was 5:11/km or 8:20/mile.

53 Commandments

2008-05-22T09:16:00.002-04:00

I really like the following, from this link:

The 53 Runner’s Commandments
by Joe Kelly

1. Don’t be a whiner. Nobody likes a whiner, not even other whiners.
2. Walking out the door is often the toughest part of a run.
3. Don’t make running your life. Make it part of your life.
4. During group training runs, don’t let anyone run alone.
5. Keep promises, especially ones made to yourself.
6. When doing group runs, start on time no matter who’s missing.
7. The faster you are the less you should talk about your times.
8. Keep a quarter in your pocket. One day you’ll need to call for a ride.
9. Don’t compare yourself to other runners.
10. All runners are equal, some are just faster than others.
11. Keep in mind that the later in the day it gets, the more likely it is that you won’t run.
12. For a change of pace, get driven out and then run back.
13. If it was easy, everybody would be a runner.
14. When standing in starting lines, remind yourself how fortunate you are to be there.
15. Getting out of shape is much easier than getting into shape.
16. A bad day of running still beats a good day at work.
17. Talk like a runner. “Singlets” are worn on warm days. “Tank tops” are worn to the beach.
18. Don’t talk about your running injuries. People don’t want to hear about your sore knee or black toe.
19. Don’t always run alone.
20. Don’t always run with people.
21. Approach running as if the quality of your life depended on it.
22. No matter how slow you run it is still faster than someone sitting on a couch.
23. Keep in mind that the harder you run during training, the luckier you’ll get during racing.
24. Races aren’t just for those who can run fast.
25. There are no shortcuts to running excellence.
26. The best runs sometimes come on days when you didn’t feel like running.
27. Be modest after a race, especially if you have reason to brag.
28. If you say, “Let’s run this race together,” then you must stay with that person no matter how slow.
29. Think twice before agreeing to run with someone during a race.
30. There is nothing boring about running. There are, however, boring people who run.
31. Look at hills as opportunities to pass people.
32. Distance running is like cod liver oil. At first it makes you feel awful, then it makes you feel better.
33. Never throw away the instructions to your running watch.
34. Don’t try to outrun dogs.
35. Don’t trust runners who show up at races claiming to be tired, out of shape, or not feeling well.
36. Don’t wait for perfect weather. If you do, you won’t run very often.
37. When tempted to stop being a runner, make a list of the reasons you started.
38. Never run alongside very old or very young racers. They get all of the applause.
39. Without goals, training has no purpose.
40. During training runs, let the slowest runner in the group set the pace.
41. The first year in a new age group offers the best opportunity for trophies.
42. Go for broke, but be prepared to be broken.
43. Spend more time running on the roads than sitting on the couch.
44. Make progress in your training, but progress at your own rate.
45. “Winning” means different things to different people.
46. Unless you make your living as a runner, don’t take running too seriously.
47. Runners who never fail are runners who never try anything great.
48. Never tell a runner that he or she doesn’t look good in tights.
49. Never confuse the Ben-Gay tube with the toothpaste tube.
50. Never apologize for doing the best you can.
51. Preventing running injuries is easier than curing them.
52. Running is simple. Don’t make it complicated.
53. Running is always enjoyable. Sometimes, though, the joy doesn’t come until the end of the run.

Tuesday Run

2008-05-21T09:22:00.003-04:00

I ran 6 km yesterday, 3 km at an 8 year old pace, 3 km at around 6:00/km. It was a pretty easy run, but I did feel like I was working a bit harder than I expected to. I'll be doing a 4 km run tomorrow, as my last run before race day.

They've improved the forecast for Sunday, getting rid of the showers. The weather forecast now calls for a high of 23 and partly cloudy.

Carbo loading begins today.

I came across a couple of good links on nutrition & carbo loading:

Carbo-Loading

Endurance Secrets

10k + 2k

2008-05-19T18:38:00.002-04:00

I did another 10 km run yesterday at an easy pace, then another 2 km with Krash. Everything felt good. The combination of the Thorlo socks and the Mizuno's seems to have solved my fit problem, so I think I should be ready for race day now. I'm planning on a couple more short runs this week (5-8 km) just to keep my muscles moving.

The forecast for Sunday is looking pretty good: A high of 22 deg C, and occasional scattered showers.

Two More

2008-05-15T14:19:00.000-04:00

Two more done.

I did an easy 8 km run on Tuesday, and a 7.7 km fartlek run today. For today's run I did 4x 500 m intervals in around 2:20 each during the run. The schedule had me doing a short tempo section, but I decided to have some fun and put in just a little bit of speedwork. This seemed like a good time to put in a bit of fast paced running, since my next 3 runs will all be at a slow pace.

I'm down to 10 days till raceday, so I don't think any training I do now will really increase my conditioning. I'm mostly just trying to keep the rust off.

20 km !!!!!

2008-05-12T14:26:00.002-04:00

I did my 1st 20k+ run yesterday: 20.2 km in just under 1:59. Its two weeks to race day, so that was my last long run. This was the 4th run I've done over 10 miles, and by far the easiest. I was really tired at the end of all the others, this time I actually felt really good at the end. I'm really happy about that, I was waiting for the long runs to start feeling easier. I did have some tightness around my left heel, that was pretty constant up until the 13 km mark, then eased up. I went out the Trans-Canada trail, that was a really nice relaxed place to run. Very nice to have no streetsweepers to avoid. I kicked up the speed a bit after around the 15 km mark, but I did keep the speed under 5:40/km.

Thorlo socks combined with my Mizuno's seem to be giving me a pretty good fit plus I like the extra padding of the Thorlo's. I was kicking around whether to wear my Mizuno's on race day. I've pretty much settled on them now, since they are noticeably lighter than my other shoes.

My legs are a bit tired today, but nothing is out-of-the-ordinary painful. I'm a bit surprised that I didn't have any pain at all in my left quad, either yesterday or today.

I'm moving into a bit of a recovery mode now, dropping my mileage down a bit this week from last.

Race pace preview

2008-05-09T09:00:00.002-04:00

I ran 12 km at a 5:29/km (8:50/mile) pace after work yesterday. I've been wondering about whether doing the half marathon in under 2 hours was realistic, I figured that the best way to get a handle on it would be to run about half the distance at the pace I'd need to run and then see how I felt at the end.

I did my Mansfield route. I ran the 1st 2 km a bit slower (5:40) as I want to do in the race, then settled into my pace for the rest of it. The last 10 km was actually at a 5:25/km pace, so I could see my average pace coming down as I ran. It felt good, it was a hard workout but I wasn't destroyed at the end. I think I should be able to hold that pace through the race, but I guess I won't be feeling great at the end.

In hindsight, I should have put that run in on Tuesday, to have a bit more rest time before Sunday's long run.

Foggy Morning

2008-05-01T14:43:00.003-04:00

Interesting running conditions this morning. I was on the road by 6, and it was 1 degree C and foggy. There was a little dusting of snow, and everything was wet from last nights rain. I started off on the roads heading north. As I came around the first corner I saw that the sun was just up and was an amazing shade of orange. It was really spectacular, it actually made me (almost) happy to be outside rather than comfortably sleeping.

I headed west on the trans-Canada trail, and went a couple of km farther than I have before. This part was great, the trail goes through a swamp, with a pond that had about a dozen Canadian Geese in it. There was steam rising off the water, and it was totally calm with the trees & geese reflected in the water. Let the record show that this was very close to as nice as being in bed would have been.

The total distance was 12 km, including 5 km at a 5:18/km tempo pace. The total run took me 1:11.

Final note: Another of those pesky street sweepers passed me right near the end, I really think they might be after me.

Street Sweepers

2008-04-29T11:53:00.002-04:00

My legs felt dead all day yesterday, I wasn't sure how I was going to pull off an 8k run this morning. I had thoughts about pushing back to lunchtime or after work, but the schedule just wasn't going to work for either of those. The next two weeks are the last hard weeks I have before race day, and I don't want to mess them up.

So I dragged myself out of bed. The temperature was around 1 degree C, but the wind chill was lower, and on one section it was really blowing. I trudged down the road at about a 7 min/km pace. I felt very sluggish but I was moving. On the road heading north two street sweepers passed by in my lane about a minute apart - I usually trust cars to give me space (especially in the morning) but something about street sweepers gives me the creeps. Go figure.

I did settle into a decent pace after a couple km, but it was a slower pace than normal. No pain in either achilles during the run today - I'm hoping the difference isn't that I was wearing my old Nike's today. I'm planning to start Thursday's run with 6 km at the same pace, this should give me a good comparison between the shoes.

19 km

2008-04-27T20:56:00.002-04:00

I ran 19 km late this afternoon. It was supposed to be this morning, but the bug that I've been fighting off this week continues to be a bit disruptive. It was about 5:00 when I was finally able to hit the road.

I was supposed to run 18 today. This wasn't one of those 'I felt good so I went another km' deals. This was a mapmyrun.com sucks situation. Mapmyrun.com shows a road in Richmond that crosses from Huntley to Shea Road. So as I ran down Huntley I was looking, and looking, and looking, and the realized I'd definitely gone too far, and I turned onto the next street. I worked my way through a neighborhood and eventually found my way to Shea, after going about an extra km. Note that google maps does not make the same mistake as mapmyrun, so in the future I'll stick with the far superior gmaps pedometer for route planning.

I did the run at a 5:55 per km pace. My right achilles was a bit sore around 12-13 km, and again a bit later, but it did ease up again along the way. All in all it went pretty well, but I'm spectacularly tired now.

Cough

2008-04-24T22:30:00.002-04:00

Woke up with a cold this morning. I knew I was getting sick yesterday, so I decided not to do my morning 8k. But since today was scheduled to be the last run of an easy week I wanted to get it in, so I went out after work. The pace was ok, and I was glad to get the run in. I have a couple of days off now before going long on Sunday, I think I should be back at 100% by then.

49.1 km

2008-04-19T10:27:00.004-04:00

I ran 5 k easy yesterday, and 2 k really slow today. That put my weekly running total at 49.1 km (30.4 miles). I'm including the two 2k runs done with a 6 year old at about 8 min/km in that total.

Right now everything feels pretty good, and next week is my monthly easy week.

Tempo plus Pace

2008-04-18T08:32:00.003-04:00

Tempo day yesterday. As usual, the tempo run was a hard workout. I did 3 km easy, followed by 5 km at around a 5:10/km tempo pace. The tempo part was a real struggle, it was an out and back and the first half had a slight climb and headwind. The second half should have been easier, but I was thrashed from the earlier part. I did about 3 km on the way back at a 5:25/km pace to get a feeling for whether I could run that pace when I'm tired. I actually wanted to do 5:40 on the last 3, but just can't seem to get myself to that pace. The total run was a bit over 12 km.

It finally warmed up here, 21 degrees C yesterday! I was able to do my first run of the year in shorts and a t-shirt.

I'm scheduled for 5 km easy today, which I can hopefully do after work before big-time carbo-loading.