32 km

I did my first 32 km (20 mile) run last Sunday. I kept the pace down, and it took me almost exactly 3:15. I was quite surprised by how tired I got around the 14 km point, but this gave me a good chance to try out a Roctane. The Roctane gave me exactly the kick I needed. All in all the run was pretty uneventful, yes I was more tired than I wanted to be, especially in the last 10 km, but I never felt like I was going to need to stop.

I had Gu's at 6, 15, and 24 km, and think that's about the right spacing.

27 times two

I spent last week in San Diego. I did 3 runs there, heading from the convention center north along the harbor. All of my runs started by 5:30 AM (ouch), and I did 6 km, 13 km, and 8 km. The views on the 1st two just before sunrise were amazing. When I had a view to the south, I could see downtown across the harbor, surrounded by the glow of sunrise. There was a crescent moon just over downtown as well, it was absolutely remarkable.

Then I did a 27 km run yesterday. I felt really sluggish the whole time, which seems consistent with the 6:12/km pace I put in.

The 54 km I did last week is a new record for me.

Shinsplints

On Sunday I did a 24 km run, my longest run ever. Almost everything went well, with the exception of my right shin. My shin was a bit sore for the 1st couple of km, then stopped bothering me. Everything seemed fine until around 16 km, then my shin started to hurt a couple of inches lower than the initial pain. The second time around it was much more uncomfortable. From that point until the end, my shin continued to hurt - not badly enough to slow me down, but it was pretty uncomfortable. The run took me 2:25, and the second half was a bit faster than the 1st. My shin was sore for the rest of the day, I did ice it, wrap it, and take some Vitamin I.

Yesterday I did a lot of stretching, and iced it again. That seems to have helped some. I ran 6 km on the treadmill this morning, and my shin wasn't too bad. I'm planning to take tomorrow off from running, and then run again Thursday. Hopefully Thursday will be around 12 km.

Brutal

Tonight was one of the toughest training runs I've ever done. I should have paid more attention to the Weather Network's "Wind Warning," that was in big bold red letters on their website. The temp was just below freezing when I started, with the wind coming down from the N-W. I headed north to start off into the wind, and almost gave up after 2 km when the lid of a trashcan flew past me in the opposite direction, at waist level. Signs were blown down all over the place. My left quad and right ankle were quite sore. It dawned on me near the end that the reason I was getting so sore was that I was constantly off balance. At one point with the wind at my back, I was actually slowing myself down, rather than pushing myself forward. I did the full 11 km that I was planning on, but it was just brutal.

Checked when I got home. Wind was at 50 kph, with gusts up to 90.

Schedule

I've been following one of Hal Hidgon's Novice marathon schedules for the last couple of months. I've modified it a bit by adding an extra 2 weeks to give me one more 28 km run, and one really easy recovery week. I've also modified it a bit to account for the fact that I'll be out of town for a week, and don't think a 26k run is possible while traveling.

Here's my current plan (distances in km):

Back to Training

I've circled the 2009 National Capital Marathon on my calendar.

I'm training now, using a slightly modified version of Hal Hidgon's Novice marathon plan. I'm changing one run per week into a tempo or race pace run, and instead of running 3 days in a row mid week I'm going to put an extra rest day in.

It's too early to say whether this is a realistic goal, but I should know more in a couple weeks - I have a 15 km run this weekend, 16 km next.

Assuming I manage to complete the training, I'm going to use a conservative time goal, probably around 4:15.

1000 km+

Not much time to write recently, but I feel the need to pat myself on the back. I passed the 1000 km mark for 2008 with a 15 k run on Nov 8. This is a pretty big jump from the 500 km that I ran in 2007.

I've had a hard time getting back into a 3x/wk routine, partly because of time & partly because of a bit of lingering pain from my July ankle sprain. I did run 3x last week, and plan to maintain that for the rest of 08. I've also started some daily ankle exercises.

This week I've also been doing a bit of reading on marathon training plans. If my ankles are feeling good at the start of January, I'll probably start training for a May marathon and see how it goes.