Better Safe than Sorry

From running in shoes that were not quite right, I had done a little damage to my knee. It was hurt but not injured. I could tell some rest was in order so for the past week and a half I have not been running. I have been running for a couple of years now and I have found out when I need rest. This was one of those times.

My right knee was giving me some trouble even when I was walking. I felt like it was time to just let it rest a bit. Well now I am running again, well as of tonight. I have to say I think I did the right thing. My right knee didn't give me a peep. I am not sure if that would have been the case if I had tried to run through this one. I have to admit knees make me paranoid. I will try to run through almost anything but knee problems, no way. That is my wimp reflex. Knee tweak ... hold on lets rest a bit. That is my baby factor. I like to think I am pretty tough when it comes to pain, but there is my soft spot. Anything else and I will grit it out.

How did it go tonight, well I did 4.6 miles and everything felt fine. I have to kick it up now to get ready for the half marathon at the end of November.

The Shoes

I have been dealing with a little tweak in my right knee over the past couple of weeks. I thought it was just a turn toward colder weather. I have been a bit battered in my life and I thought it was just old injuries letting me know about the change in weather. Not so.

Last night as I was helping my daughter with her homework, I took my running shoe out of the rack and tested the spring in the mid sole. It was dead. I hadn't thought about the miles I put on these shoes for some time and when I looked back I was over 400 miles. No wonder I was getting runners tweak. My ankles and knee had been complaining and this was why. I had a new pair upstairs and switched them out for my night run.

I ended up going 3.75 miles at a faster pace than I had been for the past month or so. I have been somewhere near 10:40 to 10:45 but last night I was at 10:20. I am not where I want to be but I think the new shoes will help me along. Plus, they are green so they must be faster.

Bruised and Battered

Today, I went out for my long run. I would say this ... sometimes bad runs happen to good people. It started out fine for the first 2.5 miles when I felt the urge for a pit stop back at home. Upon taking care of business, I went out to finish the run but I could never get back into a groove. I did run 9.5 miles but the pace was a bit slower than I am used to running. I think that this had much to do with the amount of hills on this course. I will take the small victory of having put in some good miles. When it was done I was more tired than I usually am after a long run and really needed a rest. So there is good and bad, much like the rest of life.

In other news, I was back at my martial arts class again. I had been out for a good amount of time, due to some personal conflict. I am taking private lessons until things calm down in my personal life. I do like that better to be truthful. It is nice to have the one on one time. I was happy to get back into the swing of things. Additionally, I was pleased that I still had abot 90% of my speed and power, so that was nice.

In news more related to paragraph 1, I ran more than 20 miles this week. Huzzah.

Run Log

I woke up this morning, thankfully. A step in the right direction.

Get up, get up. I have to run. There is a work party tonight and I can't run after, I might be able to walk but there will be alcohol. I have to run.

OK, OK, I am getting myself together. Shirt, shorts, socks ... where are my socks. I have to wear my bridgedales. I need the little extra cushion for the runs. Where, this would be easier in the daylight. The laundry basket, a novel idea, I would have come on this sooner if I had been awake. Put on the clothes, grab the garmin, water bottle (stainless steel - new and very nice) and .... umm what else do I need ah shoes.

OK grab them and out the door. Maybe I should have put them on first. The steps will work and OK they are on. Run ... wait set the garmin, ah mp3 I forgot. Back in grab and out. Set the garmin and walk to the end of the street. Am I awake yet, not sure. But lets go.

I take off and try to shake the sleep off and manage to only go a half mile at about an 11:30 pace but manage a 10:55 for the mile. Not bad. One mile ... awake now. Am I breathing hard, I don't think so but Fuel is reminding me that everything that shimmers is sure to fade away. So that is an uplifting thought.

Mile two, up the hill. Chop it up, short step, short step. Will it end I feel like I have been looking up at it forever. Come on, just keep going can see the top , not far now. Just up, hell its only a quarter mile now. Cresting the hill, not breathing hard, garmin beep, 10:38 for the mile. Whew down the hill, pick it up. Red light, stop. Water, mmm best stuff on Earth. Green means go, run how am I going 11:15. Give me a break. Pick it up, pick it up. Flat and straight is not big deal, flat and straight is no big deal.

Going home, take the turn toward my house, mile 3, 10:30. Turn the corner and sprint down my street and walk for a .1 to cool off. 3.30 miles. OK, time to go to work, what did I just do?

Time to down a protein drink, chomp a banana and grab a shower. The day is just starting.

Looking ahead to ... Runtober

I know, I know, everyone does this sort of thing. But I was in a mood what can I say. So I am dubbing October, Runtober well for this year anyway. October will be the most important month of this training schedule for getting prepared for my half marathon at the end of November. September ended fine with 70 miles logged but I would like to build on that for this coming month. I want to say 100 but perhaps that is too ambitious so I will say 90. Here is the plan:

This week:
M: 4 (done)
T: 5.5 (done)
W:
Th: 4
F:
Sa: 3 (intervals)
Su: 10

Next Week:
M:
T: 4
W: 6
Th:
F: 4
Sa: 3 (intervals)
Su: 6

This will be 26 for this week and 23 for next week. The following two weeks of the month will be basically similar except that for the long run I will be at 12 miles. This will leave a 14 miler for the 1st of November and then a taper. I think that should about do it. The miles I am planning do add up to over 100 but I know that my plans don't always go exactly ... well to plan. So 90 is realistic in case something unexpected occurs.

70 miles, not bad. And yes I did plan the distance of my run last night around getting to 70 miles for the month.

Update

Here it is the end of the month and I have to admit that I have not been as diligent as I could have been at keeping content up on my blog. It has been a here and there endeavor this month. I hope to do better for October. I will have to increase my output to get ready for the half marathon in November so it will be better for all concerned (read me) if I keep up with it.

Running for the Week
I was only able to run for 3 days over the last week. There was a major rain storm on Sunday and I wasn't able to run. I suppose I could have run at about 10:00 pm or so but I was a bit tired from a day of cleaning. Over all not too bad it was over 12 miles for 3 days. Saturday I was great run. I did a two and half mile warm up with two miles of intervals. I felt quite fast averaging 9:00 miles for the half mile up ticks. It was a good feeling.

Martial Arts
I have been out of martial arts for a couple of months due to some home life stress related issues. I spoke to my instructor this last weekend and I will be taking private lessons starting next Saturday. I think that this will fit into my schedule nicely. The good thing about this is that I have been practicing again so that adds a few workouts a week and that makes me feel better. It is remarkable how things stick with you, I went through about 60 distinct techniques and only had to refer to video on two occasions to refresh my recollection. That is not a bad place to be. My form and speed need some ... special attention, nurturing really.

Upcoming Races
I registered for the Philadelphia Marathon, well not the whole thing but the half marathon. I was able to save 15% on the price from a coupon I received at the expo of the Philadelphia Distance Run, so that was nice. I am looking forward to this one and I know I could run the thing now but 6 more weeks of training should make it a good race for me. As of now I am at 8 miles for my long and my endurance is good. This coming weekend I have a 9.5 mile run scheduled so I should be just fine to set a PR. So far for me every race has been a PR but that is the joy of being a beginner.

One foot in front of the other

Sickness ... looks like its over

I have a tendency to get a little sick with the first weather snap of fall. I look at as part of the changing of the season. The bad news is that is usually hits me up for a week. With just turning 40 this year, I thought it was going to be bad. I was pleasantly surprised that it only took about a day and a half to get better. Nice. Sure, I had the sweats and fever and so forth but it was only 36 hours so ... I can deal.

This morning to celebrate my new found health I went out for a morning run. I woke up at 5:00 am. That is pretty early in most part of the world. I wanted to just get in about 3 miles but I felt good so I kept going (I ended at 4.65 miles). I will admit that I was still half asleep when I hit the road and my first half mile was well ... slow. I managed to pick it up and salvage a pretty good time for the first mile. Although, I did have to really kick it up to get to a 10:30 average by the end. It was nice to be out there but I am always surprised that there are not more people with the same idea. I think I saw one other runner the entire time I was out there.

There is one thing that is always true, I always feel better after a run than before. I like to feel like I could have done a few more miles at the end. That was true today.

Her First Race

I was not up for the Philly Distance Run this year. My training fell off this summer and I am now gearing up for the Philadelphia Marathon (1/2 marathon variant) in November. My daughter, Emily made her racing debut at the kids' run. It was a half mile run.

She did a great job. She competed in the 5-6 year old division and lined up in the second row. When the start sounded she was off like a dart and was in the middle of the hunt. I took a couple of photos (they haven't been up loaded yet) and then crossed over to see her after the half way mark.

She was still in the middle of the pack and I cheered her on to the finish line. She said she really liked it a lot and was very proud of her finishers medal. That is the one she is showing off in my cell phone picture above. I wish I had been encouraged to get involved in these sorts of things when I was younger and I am glad she is having fun with running. Watch out Deena Kastor. :)

Not a bad run

I had planned to go 8 miles last week but it didn't really work out that way. The humidity was horrid. Today was another story. It was a great run. I managed 8.12 miles at really my normal pace, which was nice. It was a good tune up. I am going to do something a bit unusual in training for this next half marathon. Usually the way it works, stop me if you have heard this, you follow a schedule that usually prescribes 4 to 5 days of running a week. This schedule will have two runs that are short somewhere between 3 to 5 miles then a middle range run that will be a bit longer 6 to 8 and then a long run. I have found that for myself, I need a bit longer to recover from a long run.

I am taking a page, well in spirit, from Tom over at Runner's World. Tom mentioned a while back, I am not going to give you a pin point cite, that the twenty mile run was really not such a big deal to preparing for a marathon. I agree, I could feel my body start to break down once I crossed the 18 mile threshold. I think the logic of what Tom was trying to get at is what I am shooting for. Tom was getting at the point that conventional wisdom is not always what is right for you as an individual runner. Thanks Tom.

I know that after the long run I need more rest. So I will be doing a true long run every other week. There is no real need to do this more often in my mind. I want to preserve my conditioning as well, how to do both. I am going to run two week cycles. For week one, I will run my 4 runs as follows, 3 shorter runs (3-5) and one true long run (8-14) (there will be one speed workout in this week as well). Then for week two, I will run two shorter runs (3-5) and two mid range runs (6-9) (there will be one speed workout in this week as well). I am confident that this will help to preserve my conditioning. It might be a bit challenging to go up a bit faster on the long runs but the extra recover time will probably be what I need.

So there it is my unconventional running plan, self designed (self deluded - perhaps)

What happened to the train?

When I started running I was quite a bit heavier than I am today. I was in fact almost 300 pounds, that was not a good time. I also remember as a novice runner wondering a lot about my breathing. I think that this was mostly due to it being so labored. It is in fact tough to move that much weight at a quick pace. I could hear my breath and so I was concerned with contolling it. I thought about the way I should breathe. Should it be shallow or deep, should it be through the nose or the mouth. I was a mess, but I was a mess without the running so I was really just trying to control the mess. I eventually found a rhythm and just got used to the noise I made while I was running. For the record I breathe through the mouth and to the mid to lower chest area, it works for me.

As a runner I was a bit of a freight train. I was big, took a bit of time to get up to speed, and made a lot of noise. I think I got used to this image of myself as a runner and sort of got comfortable with it. Choo, Choo! That was me chugging through the parks on my self made rails, never going very fast but being a a pretty big object with a good head of steam I was fine. I made some strides in my weight loss and sort of lost that freight train look. I didn't realize that my breath noise has disappeared until recently. As I said I used to labor but I don't do that now. I am not sure when this changed but it has. When my mp3 ran out of juice the other day I ran without it and I noticed that I could not hear my breathing like I used to.

It was odd. I had sort of come to expect that part of my running included the heavy breathing. Like an obscene phone call but without the sleazy underpinnings. So I am not sure what to make of it. I guess I am happy to have made progress but I am no longer a freight train, I just don't have the sound effects. I guess I am an Electric Bus. :)