It's been a while...

I haven't posted in a while because it's a bit depressing to keep posting: "yup, my right Achilles is still swollen and my left calf still has a big old knot in the middle of it and both hurt a bunch when I run."

I shut it all down on Sunday (3/10) and switched from doing workouts to get fitter to just doing a little easy running to try to work the nicks out and try to get healthy for the race. It worked a little. The Achilles wasn't as swollen on race day as it had been a week before but the calf wasn't much better. Anyhow, the legs didn't get any worse which I'll take as a positive after two weeks of accumulating injuries.

Here was my running:

3/11/13 - 3/17/13:

• Monday: 7.45 miles in 0:57:27 running easy on Mass Ave.
• Tuesday: 7.89 miles in 0:59:00 running at lunchtime at work.
• Wednesday: 10.17 miles in 1:14:58. Laps around Fresh Pond.
• Thursday: 8.52 miles in 1:06:26. Couple easy hill repeats on Park Street.
• Friday: rest.
• Saturday: 5.00 miles in 0:38:26. City Sports Run Club in Porter Square. First 4 were easy, last mile was easy with strides.
• Sunday: 1 mile warm up in 0:07:58. PR at the New Bedford Half Marathon in 1:20:50.

New Bedford Half Marathon race report:

What better beer to toast PRs all around with?

Sarah and I went down to Plymouth on Saturday to have dinner at Cafe Strega (http://www.cafestrega.com/). We had the rehearsal dinner for our wedding here six months ago and it was still as good as we remembered. Then we spent the night on the south shore.

On Sunday morning we kept tracking Julie's progress at the NY Half Marathon while drove the rest of the way down to New Bedford. We kept cheering her on to the finish of her first race! When we got to New Bedford we circled the YMCA a couple times before finding parking. I jogged over to the Y to get my number then back to the car to get myself sorted. That was all the warm up I got. Sarah and I walked back to the Y were I got in line for the restroom. I must have chosen the wrong line because at 10:53 I was still in line, gave up and jogged over to the start.

I found EJ, Mike and Cody in the starting queue and a moment later the race started. The first mile was too fast: 6:03. I realized that I was still with Mike and EJ at this point and thought I could follow them to a PR but by the end of the next mile I knew I needed to back it off a tick. I went though mile 3 in a little under 19 and decided that it was time to pick it back up. My Achilles and my calf were both muttering their complaints but the miles clicked by fairly easily until I went through the 10 mile mark in 1:00:39, just a few seconds behind my 10 mile PR from Jones a few weeks earlier.

That was when it started to hurt. Ten years of running and I still haven't figured out how to drink a cup of water while running. Apparently, 10 miles is about the upper limit that I can race without taking liquids because it just got harder and harder with each step until I finally turned until onto the final stretch. I didn't hear the footsteps approaching as a SRR runner passed me like I was standing still in that final straight. I thought that it was too late for me to react to get back ahead of him but his passing alerted me to the sound of another runner coming up so I dug in and sprinted it out staying just ahead of someone from CMS just barely catching up with the SRR guy at the line.

I came across the finish line and almost threw up. My left calf didn't want any weight on that leg and my right Achilles just wanted a bag of ice. Instead I congratulated the GLRR team that was already in: Sully, Cody, Andrew, Justin, EJ and Mike...all under 1:20:00.

Sully, EJ and Mike post-race. Stole this photo from the New Bedford Half Marathon  forum at runningahead...quite the race shorts.

Mark finished with a big time PR of 1:36:28 and a little while later Jeff came in with a PR of his own in 1:43:39. Sarah, Jeff, Mark and I went out for some lunch to celebrate the many great performances.

Here's a better NBHM race report: the hobbyjogger chronicles

Here are the NBHM race results: coolrunning

Here are the NBHM team results: like you couldn't have gotten here from the coolrunning link above

Here are Julie's results from NY: NYHM

This coming week is about continuing to get healthy and starting to build the distance for the marathon.

9 week down and 8 weeks left until the Maine Coast Marathon!

May your training miles be ever hilly and may all your races have free beer!

Time to get healthy!

Ouch! Could I have had a worse week? Maybe, but this one wasn't good. I need to work on getting healthy for New Bedford nest weekend.

03/04/13 – 03/10/13: 5 Runs, 2 Aborted Runs, 1 Missed Run, 1 Injury, 28.09 Miles, 3:22:20.

• Monday: 0.48 Miles in 3:42. Just planned on an easy run but had to abort it early becasue of ankle issues.
• Tuesday: Track Work at Reggie Lewis with Coach Toomey. 2 mile warm-up in 15:01, 2x200m strides: 41, 41. 8x1000m: 3:28, 3:23, 3:24, 3:22, 3:23, 3:17, 3:19, 3:16 with 2:30sec rest. 2 mile cool-down in 15:06.
• Wednesday: 0.30 Miles in 2:06. Aborted early due to ankle pain. It felt like it was worst at the back of the heel so I was worried that I might be getting PF.
• Thursday: Skipped my run to try to get healthy.
• Friday: Rest.
• Saturday: 10.26 Miles in 1:18:11. Ran nice and easy and felt good most of the day but by the evening my right achilles felt like a rubber band that was too dried out and lost its elasticity. I alternated heat and ice and got it kind of okay by Sunday morning.
• Sunday: 7.83 Miles in 1:00:00. Ran easy for an hour. I decided that doing my long run wasn't as important as getting myself healthy to race next weekend.

Remember when I said I wanted to run 60 miles this week? Yeah, that feels like a long time ago now. I'll take the fitness I have today for New Bedford if I can just get healthy. A lot of easy runs this coming week instead of workouts.

Hopefully this week will just be a bump in the road to Maine Coast.

8 week down and 9 weeks left until the Maine Coast Marathon!

May your training miles be ever hilly and may all your races have free beer!

Week 7

This week started out tough while I was recovering from Jones but I finally started rolling again towards the end of the week.

02/25/13 – 03/03/13: 5 Runs, 0 Injuries, 53.15 Miles, 6:33:38.

• Monday: Rest. I probably should have got in a recovery run. Even three miles would have helped but I was lazy instead.
• Tuesday: Track Work at Reggie Lewis with Coach Toomey. 2 mile warm-up in 15:23, 2x200m strides: 41, 42. 8x400m: 1:21, 1:18, 1:18, 1:18, 1:18, 1:17, 1:17, 1:13 with 90sec rest. 4:00min rest. 8x400m: 1:18, 1:18, 1:17, 1:17, 1:17, 1:17, 1:18, 1:12 with 90sec rest. 2 mile cool-down in 15:18.
• Wednesday: 8.90 in 1:10:44 at the Danvers 15k. I don’t actually know what the distance is on this one but they call it the Danvers 15k so I logged it as such. Ran with Suzanne and Mike and Erin? This one was most definitely a “well at least I did a run” sort of day. It was just warm enough that the rain wasn’t snow so it was totally miserable. Suzanne rolled an ankle in a pothole hidden by a puddle and the continued to lead the way back in and Mike was just a few days out from destroying the Black Cat 20 Miler in 2:11:04 so he was cruising along easily. I would have dropped back much earlier, but I was totally lost so I needed to stay close to get back to my car. I was just happy to get this one over with and go home to shower and warm up.
• Thanks Aaron for the corrected distance of the d15k.
• Come run the Danvers5k: www.danvers5k.com
• Thursday: I swapped my Thursday run with my Friday rest day because I was having GI issues since lunch and was still hurting from Wednesday night.
• Friday: 9.52 miles in 1:16:10. I needed a nice slow run with some hills like this.
• Saturday: 9.05 miles in 1:00:01. My new tempo pace since dropping my marathon goal from 2:55:00 to 2:50:00 is now 6:10. This was my first tempo at the new pace and it was hard, but thanks to the unforgiving nature of the treadmill I got dragged along for 5 miles at 6:10 in the middle of this run.
• Sunday: 17:45 miles in 2:14:05. It felt good to complete my first legit long run since January and my longest run YTD. I ate snickers the whole way and that helped. I did this as laps of Fresh Pond in Cambridge.

It was nice to get back up over 50 for my weekly mileage, but it’s time to start pushing that up into the 60s. Hopefully, I’ll make all 6 planned runs this week and get that first 60+ mile week of the year.

 

In non-running related news, Sarah and I are now shopping for a new apartment! We haven’t found our new place yet but it is super exciting to think that later this year we will have new-ish appliances, a working fan in our bathroom and lighting fixtures that were installed after disco went out of style!

Cheers and happy running!

7 week down and 10 weeks left until the Maine Coast Marathon!

May your training miles be ever hilly and may all your races have free beer!