Preparing for the Half

It's been hard to say the least preparing for this Texas Wine Half Marathon and 5K Series next Sunday. Hell, training in general has taken a nose dive, but I'm preserving. I think I'm ready...no, I AM ready. It won't be a fast half and I'm certainly not expecting to PR, but I'm confident I won't die on the course. Driving home from College Freaking Station might be the issue.

This will be me after a few glasses when I finish the half.

My goal these last two weeks were to get six miles in and then 9 miles a week before. Done and done. However, I didn't get a chance to run the six miles the week before due to the massive storm that hit on Sunday when I got back in from my trip to Detroit (and yes, Veronica Mars is a must see...and The Wind Rises...AMAZEBALLS). So, I had to push my six mile run to last week (same as my 9 mile run), which I admit isn't the smartest idea. But I just didn't want to go straight from three miles to 9 miles in a week or run 9 miles less than a week from my half.

Below is a list of what my last two weeks looked like in relation to training. Swimming weirdly took a nose dive, as well. Pun intended.

• 3/10:  Rest
• 3/11:  3 m run at Hermann Park
• 3/12:  25 min swim/25 min aqua jogging
• 3/13:  3 m run with the Karbach Running Club
• 3/14:  Rest
• 3/15:  Rest
• 3/16:  Home to storms and generally feeling blah about running...so Rest
• 3/17:  2-3 m run, but mostly walking on the St. Paddy's Day Pub Run (so much fun and met lots of new people)
• 3/18:  6.19 anger-fueled run at Hermann Park
• 3/19:  20 min swim/20 min aqua jogging (actually counted 15 laps)
• 3/20:  The I should have rest 3.22 m run at Hermann Park (worst one yet, because my body was done)...should have taken a rest day
• 3/21:  Massage and Rest
• 3/22: The Great Urban Race, which included at least three miles of walking (sore afterwards)
• 3/23:  9 m run at Hermann Park

So, now back to a synopsis of my 9 m run, because this is the longest I have ran since my first half marathon. Because I was sore from the Great Urban Race and looking at the wind outside, my motivation was seriously tanked on Sunday. I was not looking forward to it.

Note to self and to others training for their first marathon:  I read in Runner's World that a big mistake people do when running a vacation marathon is to walk around the day before looking at all the tourist sites. I now know why. I walked around at least three miles on Saturday (more to come in a later post) and I was so sore on Sunday. And it was probably more than three miles...almost guaranteed it was. You can easily do 10 miles in the UK walking around if you are not paying attention. So, I'm going to get all my tourist stuff done on the Friday before the Edinburg Marathon and just chill out on Saturday.

Anyways, I put on my big girl panties and headed to Herman Park regardless of the wind, the soreness, my lack of motivation, etc. I was running.

This is how I felt driving up to the park.

The good news is that I increased my overall speed by 10 seconds (11:20 a mile for the first mile); the bad news is that it didn't last too long. I kept up with the run 4 minutes, walk 1 minute after the first mile (all running) for most of the run. My overall time for three miles was around 36 minutes, which is much faster than what I have been doing. So, that's a positive.

 

When I got to six miles, things started to go south for me. I could feel my toe (surgery toed) pretty badly by this point. It was still sore from the previous day and this was the second day with my new Saucony running shoes. I hit the ground with the outside of my foot taking all the weight to relieve some pressure, but I felt myself rolling it during the step. This is not good. Then, my back started hurting around seven miles. I eventually went to 5 minute run, 2 minute walk to give me some back relief there, as well. I also noticed that when I run faster, my back doesn't hurt; however, I can't keep up the pace.

 

At eight miles, I was just done. I had hardly anything left in the tank when I completed the 9 miles. I will say that I did increase the speed so that I could get my time in under 2 hours. My Garmin time was 1:56:03, which is not bad considering I expected it to be 2 hours total. I burned 957 calories.

 

I was feeling pretty bad ass after the run, but then I felt another problem pop up. I got up from laying on the couch like a sack of potatoes all day and noticed how much the back of my knee hurt. It was weird. The only other time I felt my knee was after the aqua jogging the previous Wednesday. Eventually, it went away. Today, it's still very much hurting. So, now I have to keep an eye on this, as well as my back. Yay me! It's going to be easy week for me anyways since I don't want to push it before my half. I think I will be fine and if not, I will be at the doctor again.

 

So wish me luck everyone!