Ran 10 miles again this week for my long run; ended up improving my time by 1 minute / mile without really trying. I think it was because this week I not only used the Jeff Galloway run-walk-run method (except I ran for 3 miles and walked for 1 minute instead of running for 3 minutes and walking for 1 minute, since I felt that running for 3 minutes and walking for 1 minute was too much starting and stopping for my taste), but it was also nowhere near as windy as it was last week. And no hip pain like I had last week around mile 8!
Mile 4 and the last .25 miles were courtesy of Andrew W.K. and his song “Party Hard” -- I had it on repeat for mile 4, and it was conveniently automatically chosen by my iPod during my last quarter-mile push:
I’m not quite sure where I placed, but by looking at the video and counting the people that were ahead of me, and the people that I appeared to pass, it seems that I might have placed 10th overall? There were several dozen participants, so I guess that’s not too shabby to place in the top ten. I had to run a little less than top speed after seeing someone take a spill in front of me on the bridge, but otherwise it was a good run. Don’t get me started on the grouch working in the running store that was where the signup/finish line was… after the race, someone said that there was water in the store, and after I went in and got a small cup of water from the watercooler, this employee came over:
Employee: “Can I help you?” Me: “No, thanks, I’m just looking.” Employee: “The water is for customers only.” Me: “…Oh. I’m sorry, someone outside said that there was water in here.” Employee: “No, that’s incorrect.” *scowl* Me: “Oh. Sorry.” *leaves store*
I mean, WHO DOES THAT? It’s a RUNNING STORE! You’re located at the FINISH LINE of an (admittedly small) event! People are going to be walking into your store because you have something they want, and you’re just going to be unfriendly? I need to get new shoes soon, but now I know where I’m not going to be going, especially since there are at least two or three other running stores nearby that I can think of off the top of my head, too. No need to mention the store’s name since I’m not going to promote them any time soon, but you can see it in the background of the video if you’re that curious. Blech.
Sunday was my first real long run for my marathon training. Even though I had two or three previously-scheduled since deciding to run the marathon, I wasn’t able to do those runs since I came down with bronchitis a few weeks ago and only just recovered last week. So, Sunday I ran 10 miles in 1:53:56. It felt really good except my left hip really started yelling at me around mile 8, but it felt better yesterday after I did my cooldown and took some Advil, and it’s feeling much better today.
I need to see about getting some new running shoes soon. I’m going to pass 200 miles on these shoes this week (which is also 200 miles since I originally started running back in February of last year), and with my running schedule I’m going to exceed 400 miles by July 4. I can’t believe that in about a month and 3 weeks I’ll have run about as much as I have in almost a year and a half, but I guess that training for a marathon will do that.
I’m really enjoying listening to Two Gomers Run a Marathon while I prepare for this marathon. Since my last post I’ve been listening to a lot of their early season 2 episodes while I wait for each week’s regularly-scheduled episode to be posted, and I really have to be careful so that I don’t start laughing out loud at my cubicle at work, but it really is that funny. Definitely recommended!
One of our coaches in our office gym asked me recently if I planned to run the Marine Corps Marathon this year; since our company sponsors the marathon, he said that if I wanted to run, I’d be able to get in for free. I hadn’t thought much about it, but I figured that it would be kind of tough to go from running a 10K like I did a few months ago to running a full-fledged marathon at the end of this coming October. I thought about it for a few weeks, looked yesterday at the training schedule that Nike+ would recommend, and figured that maybe I’ll give it a shot.
Well, today I turned in my application. 200 days until the race! (Which reminds me, I need to re-subscribe to the podcast “Two Gomers Run A Half-Marathon”… and now that I looked, it seems they’ve now moved from half-marathons to full marathons as well.)
May 16, 2010 · No Comments