sorry it's been a while. it's not that i've been busy. i've just been lazy. my bad. i am training more and more, but i also hit a rough patch at work. that's another story that i won't talk about because at this point it's a lot of "he said, she said". let's just say i'm putting all that crap to the side, and i'm focusing on me and annie. some day, i'll leave here and hope it's soon.
anyways, i'm more that half way through training now. in the time i haven't been blogging, i would say that not much has happened, but i would be lying. i am racking up a lot of mileage and staying relatively injury free. my right knee did start to bother me a bit last weekend on my long run and then, the run after that. i wasn't until late in the run on saturday. then it went away. it was very slight. the following run after that i was a bit weird, but i was also wearing in my new sneakers that i bought back in august. breaking in new shoes can be a little uncomfortable. by the way, that long run was the longest i have ever ran. 15 miles. i was really excited about that. i think i was really fine physically most of the way until about the last 2-3 miles. that's when i really started to feel sore. afterwards, i recovered rather well. i was not as sore as i thought i'd be. i didn't expect it in the first place because it was a long slow run. if i had ran harder, i know i would have been suffering. well, this weekend i will top that distance by a mile. that's when i know, in the actual race, soon i'll be about to count down the miles by single digits. that'll be going on about 24 hours from the writing of this post. the workout not the race.
what else has happened, in the past month? oh, i ran a half-marathon. two weeks ago. that was fun. it was my second one. it also happened a year after running my first. it wasn't as fast as my time last year. i came in 4 minutes slower this time. however, i think i ran a whole lot better this year. my pace was steady. i never felt like i was going shut down like last year. so, i think the overall effort was a lot better. i think if i had ran last years race again i could have ran under 2 hours. the course was very flat. this course i was on here, was mostly flat, but there was this bridge that took a lot out of me. i had to cross over it and then back. coming back over the bridge was a test. i really slowed down at that point. i think if i had been able to cross the bridge the opposite way it would have been easier. my legs would have been fresher. coming back over the bridge was steeper than first crossing it. does that make sense? so, basically i went from taipa>macau>taipa. if crossing the bridge macau>taipa>macau, it would have been easier. the macau side was steeper. i also had planned on running slower than last year because i wasn't exactly training for that distance. i had i been a bit smarter i would have trained for that distance and then adjusted to train for the full. however, this being my first full, i wanted it to only about the full. i actually used the race as a training day and a measuring stick to see where i was at in my training and i was very happy with the result. i wanted to run around 2:15. i did 2:10. i had i good idea of what time i would finish at near the end of the race. so, about a half-hour to the finish, i knew i was going to come in faster that the 2:15 time. so, to conserve myself the the following week of training i slow down a little and cruised to the finish. i had a 15 mile run to do the following saturday morning, and i was surprised that my legs were as fresh as they were that morning. plus, i had to work a evening shift doing maintenance the night before. unfortunately, i have more of those night sessions to do the night before a training run.
if, i had been diligent i could have written a play by play of the race but now it's been almost 2 weeks i can't remember much. give me few days. i might have something. don't hold me to it though.
i'm also starting to think about what i'm going to do next after this race in february. i definitely need to have my right shoulder looked at. good thing is it doesn't inhibit my running. i'm going to try to do some strength exercises to see if it helps.
