As the day gets nearer the mind gets loopier

I have a knot in my stomach that I'm pretty sure will not go away until I either cross the marathon finish line or die trying. I guess that's ok, except for the fact that I still have 11 days to deal with the excitement, stress, dread, hope, fear, expectations, doubts, unknown, known, etc. That seems like a really long time to me. I might be in the nut house before I get to the start line.

It doesn't help that with the taper and the reduced training schedule I don't know if what I'm doing and/or not doing now is right, wrong, too much, too little, or just right. It's getting to the point where I just want to get it over with.

And an issue has come up with my shoes. The pair I've decided to run in are about shot, and I think I've waited too long to get a new pair. I don't know if they'll be too broken in, not broken in enough, or just right on race day.

I have made one definite decision: I am going to run with the 4:30 pace group. I've been training to run slightly longer than a 4:00 marathon, but I've been slowing the long runs down to what would project to about a 4:20 finish, and I think if I slow it down even further and let others guide me -- mostly because there's a series of hills from 16-22 miles on the route that will make or break me -- I'll be less concerned with speed and pacing and will be more able to just relax and run. And if I'm feeling really great, there'll be nothing stopping me from taking off the last few miles and finishing strong. We'll see how that turns out.

And now for my greatest worry, which I have absolutely no control over whatsoever: the weather. If it's warm and humid I'm toast. Not only will it hurt me physically since I'm just a weak what I call "summer runner," but it'll hurt me from the time I walk out the door to leave for the race because my mind will be a mess. It's too hard to predict what the weather will be like on October 11, and I just hope it's at least cool if not cloudy that day.

Wow, I am a babbling fool. This is what it's like when I don't have any training to whine about, I guess.

Just because a run isn't as long doesn't mean it's not long

Being that I'm tapering toward marathon day I've been assuming the runs during these weeks would be no big deal. So when I saw on the schedule the other day that I had a 12 miler today it didn't strike me as anything more than a jog down the street.

Yesterday it hit me. Yikes! I have to run 12 miles tomorrow. It might not be 20, and it might not be a terribly intimidating distance for me these days, but it is still a major run.

It's been really, really rainy here this weekend, and when I was about to hit it for 12 I looked at the "weather station" in the kitchen and saw it was already pushing 70 degrees. Uh oh. Then I stepped out the door and it felt like breathing soup. D'oh!

Usually when I go for runs by the time I get to 4 or 5 miles I'm feeling so good I have to be careful to maintain my pace and fight the urge to speed up. I never got to that point today. It just wasn't in the cards.

In fact, by the time I got to 8 miles I was spent. I don't know what it was -- the weather, my lack of preparation for the distance, my mental state -- but even though I was running on roads I'm used to smoking (relatively speaking) I just had no oomph. So I proceeded to walk for a while, hoping a little rest would liven things up for me some.

It sort of did, and I eventually did finish my run, but by the time I got to my last mile it was raining a little again, my shoes and socks were drenched and feeling like bricks on my feet, and I was staring at the "distance" window on my Garmin and watching tick to 12.00 so... very... slowly.

Considering we are within two weeks of marathon day, I'm a little concerned about how the weather is going to be. If it's warm and humid it could be a very long day for me.

Oh, well... guess I just have to prepare for the worst and hope for the best.

Rock on.

Trying to run over here, people... please leave me alone

I'm a loner. I readily admit that. But it really comes in to play when I'm trying to get something done and don't want to be bothered. Things like finishing a speed workout on the treadmill at the gym.

And when I have my ear buds in my ears and I'm struggling through the third of four 1600M speed intervals I really like being a loner.

So why the casual acquaintances I have at the gym want to stop by and say hi while I think I'm obviously in the zone is beyond me. Nothing can be more of a nuisance.

It's funny because I hardly ever say anything more than hi to anyone in the gym -- even the hot women. I'm not and have never been one who turns workout time into a social event, but it seems that I'm most approachable when I'm working out the hardest. Go figure.

As for my last really difficult speed workout before my marathon, it was ok. The last half of the last interval was tough, but I gutted it out. It also didn't hurt that 800M at a 7:13 pace only takes a little over 3 1/2 minutes.

However, I did forget to put my SportShield in my gym bag and I paid for it dearly by suffering terribly chafed nipples while on the treadmill. I basically ran my 1.5 mile cooldown holding my shirt away from my chest because it hurt so badly.

So not only am I a loner, but I'm pretty well able to make myself look like an idiot dork too.

You think it's getting easier, but then there's the reality

I'm in the taper period of the lead up to my first marathon on October 11. It's time to let off the gas a little, let my body heal and rest from the toughest weeks of my 16 week training program, and let myself finish getting mentally prepared for the task ahead.

So why I have the most intense speed work session on the schedule today is beyond me. Yeesh. I'm looking at 4X1600 intervals at a 7:17/mile pace. Good lord. With warm up, cool down and jogs between intervals I'm in it for 8 miles this afternoon. Again, good lord.

It really does get easier after today, so I'm thankful for that, but for a last hurrah today's workout is going to be a doozy.

The run after the 20 mile run

I have to admit that I was pretty surprised about how good I felt after my 20 miler on Sunday, and I'm not talking just about the sense of accomplishment. I didn't have so much as a hot spot on my foot.

That all changed yesterday when I woke up feeling pretty sore, mostly in the quads and calves. Stairs hurt.

This morning I had the alarm set early for an easy 7 miles. I was supposed to run it at a 9:11 pace, but I wound up finishing with an average pace of 8:33 because my legs were a little stiff and heavy. So it was a decent run, and I felt ok during and after it, but it wasn't my fastest 7 miler on record or anything.

It kind of hit me during the run that maybe my running these 7, 8, 9 milers a minute per mile or so faster than I'm supposed to is going to hurt me on marathon day. Maybe if I'd been running slower all this time I wouldn't be as sore as I am.

Sheesh, I'm only 2 days into my 3 week-long taper and I'm already getting a little crazy in the head...

Reflecting on (finally) accomplishing 20 miles

Here are some facts and anecdotes from my (first successful) 20 miler:

• Time for the 20 miles was 3:16:56. My average heart rate was 139.
  
  
• I actually had a negative split over the second 10 miles. The first 10 were completed in 1:40:16 for a 10:02/mile pace. The second 10 were done in 1:36:40 for a 9:40 pace. There was a 3:36 difference in the 10 mile splits.
  
  
• My slowest mile was 10:18 (mile 6); my fastest mile was 9:25 (mile 17). Obviously, I was being extra cautious with my speed on the way out and feeling pretty darn good on the way in.
  
  
• I'm not sure why I purposely shot for a 10:00 pace, especially since I run most 10 miles and shorter runs well under a 9:00 pace. It just seems that slower pace gives me the best chance for success to finish my first marathon, and translates to about a 4:20 marathon finish, which would make me very, very happy.
  
  
• Having said that, I think I'm going to run with the 4:30 pace group at the Baltimore marathon. If I go for 4:30 and beat it I'll feel like superman. If I shoot for the moon by going for a 4:20 or 4:10 finish and miss it I'll feel like a total loser. It's a fine line between success and failure for me.
  
  
• I'm not kidding when I say my hands were freezing for the first couple hours of my run. I couldn't tear off the top of my gel packets (had to use my teeth) and my right hand is still a little numb today.
  
  
• I caught up to a group from a local running shop's 20 miler on the trail. I found out about them being out there last week and was told they were going to start at 4:30. I started running at 5:14 and thought I'd see them on their way back some time between 8 miles and my own turnaround. When I got to my turnaround they were about 20 feet ahead of me and looking back to see who was running up on them. Turns out they were doing a run/walk thing and doing it really slowly.
  
  
• This was my third or fourth long run on "the trail." Each other time I was the only one in the parking lot and didn't see a soul for 9-10 miles. This time the lot was about 1/4 full and I saw people on the trail almost from the start. I guess it was last long run day for a lot of people.
  
  
• I inadvertantly took an extra rest day on Saturday. I'm not sure if that hurt or helped me.
  
  
• I made it through the 20 miler without any blisters, chafing, soreness (other than muscular), G.I. problems, or anything else negative. It seems like the stars aligned for this run. I hope that happens again on October 11.
  
  
• For the first time I actually think I might possibly be able to run 26.2. The positive mental aspect of completing a 20 miler is HUGE.
  
  
• Could this post be any longer?

Finally

Who kicked a 20 mile run square in the raisins this morning?


THIS Guy!

Man, I should have been running 20 milers at the NCR trail the whole time. I knew I was golden when I got to 15 miles and thought to myself, "hey, there's only 5 miles left" rather than, "Oh, dear god help me... there's still 5 miles left."

The only problem I had was that I ran a half mile further out, meaning I ran 10.5 miles out and 9.5 miles in. That caused me to have to walk about a mile when the 20 was up. I thought it'd be a nice cool-down, but a mile was too far and I was getting pretty sore walking. But then I stretched out and chilled out and now I feel great. Also, my hands were freezing for the first couple of hours. If I would have known how cold it was going to be I would have brought gloves.

And then I came home to discover my TV's projector bulb blew up and melted the insides of my 50" HDTV, but that's a whole nother can of worms that I shouldn't let affect my running success from this morning.

It still does though.

Anyway, let the tapering begin!

Scouring for the source of the stink

I've been having a problem in my basement. If you open the door to go down into it a moldy, mildewy smell smacks you right in the nose. It's been really terrible, as well as confusing. There's been no water coming in from the doors or windows. There are no water pipes that go through the walls in that part of the basement, aside from one that goes through the ceiling. There was no evidence of any water leakage in the drywall, and the smell didn't seem to be coming from within the area the one pipe runs through.

I took some time to try to figure out where the smell was coming from. As I said, there wasn't any water leaking in around the sliding glass door, but the smell was coming from around that area.

So I kept sniffing around, pretty literally. And I found my culprit:


The smelly culprit, pictured when new.

These are the "speed" shoes I currently have in circulation, and which I keep near the basement door on my running shoe "podium." They only have about 130 miles on them. And, to me, they're now worthless. I sprayed them with Lysol and loaded them down with baking soda and have neutralized the odor, but after I tried to run in them again the smell came right back and even infected the socks I was wearing.

While it's relieving to find out there's no major issue going on with moisture in my basement I don't really want to retire these shoes yet and I hate not being able to get my money's worth out of them.

But then, I've decided to run my marathon in my Asics Gel Cumulus 10s, and I've been wanting to buy another pair since I still have about 100 miles left of training runs, which will put my current pair close to 300 miles if I train in them exclusively (too many to run a marathon in), so I guess I have reason to buy another pair to break them in for about 50 miles before running a marathon in them.

Who said running was an inexpensive endeavor again?

The 20 mile completion strategy

I've been trying to put it out of my mind, but I have my third and final 20 mile marathon training run coming up on Sunday. To recap, on my first shot I bonked at about 17.5 miles and had to drag my sorry butt home the rest of the way. On the second attempt I was having knee and achilles tendon issues and gave up after 12.5 miles, requiring me to limp home over 4 miles.

Needless to say, I'm a little bit freaked with the realization that if I can't do 20 then attempting 26.2 is probably a disaster just waiting to happen. I'm concerned enough that I'm trying to think of ways to survive, like by taking walk breaks every couple or few miles, although that's not how I trained and with only 22 days until the Baltimore marathon I'm not sure it's a great move to start training that way now. More realistically, I think I'm going to try to hang with a pace group. A slow pace group.

Anyway, the first couple of shots at 20 I ran the same route. The elevation map for it looks like this:


There are some hills, although none more than about 200 ft. of elevation. The problem, as I see it, is that the last 5 miles is one long hill, regardless of how steep it is. After 15 miles, any hill is a mountain. For me, at least.

So, to maximize the chances of my actually finishing 20 miles and getting a big monkey off my back, I'm going to once again hit up the NCR trail. (How tired are non-locals getting of me referencing that?) The elevation chart for 10 miles out and 10 back on it looks like this:


While it might look a little more ominous than the 20 mile route around my zip code because of the sizes of the charts (click on them both to see larger versions), there's only about 100 ft. of elevation and no finishing up with a 5 mile long hill. In fact, the last few miles are reasonably level.

Maybe it's cheating that I'm going a less challenging route to complete a 20 miler than I should, but at this point I just want to finish and I'm not too concerned about the moral victory of tackling a route that's been trouble for me. This run is to only give me the confidence that finishing such a long run can give me.

And right now I need all the confidence I can get to believe I can actually finish a marathon without crawling across the finish line hours after everyone else.

An open letter to motor vehicles

Dear Cars-

While you are 3,000 lbs. of steel and I am a mere 180 (or so) lb. bag of crunchy bones and soft skin, you do not get to set all the rules. But while I am just as entitled to run on local surface roads as you are to drive on them, it is my belief that I go out of my way to accomodate you. In fact, here is a short list of the things I do to ensure you have to concern yourself with me as little as possible:

• I wake up well before dawn in order to run and be off the road before the vast majority of you and your brethren are on the road.



• I wear a reflective vest to make sure you can see me from as far away as possible, as embarrassing as that is.



• I run as close to the side of the road as I can to take up as little space as I can.



• I observe all crosswalk signals and traffic lights, if there are any.

Knowing what I do to ensure you can co-exist with me on the road, I would greatly appreciate your doing something to at least try to acknowledge I have a right to co-exist with you. Like turning down your high beams when you see me. Just because I'm not in a car doesn't mean that I'm not blinded by your light, and my shielding my eyes from your beams should be an indication of that.

But if you choose to not turn off your high beams even after seeing my reflective vest from hundreds of yards away, and after seeing me shield my eyes from their glare as you get near, do not act like I am unjustified in flipping you the bird as you go past. You wouldn't appreciate someone shining bright lights in your eyes, would you?

Additionally, if you do get flipped off for not being a "share the road" kind of car, do not make a fool of yourself by slowing to a stop after you pass me and sit there deciding whether to come back and give me the what-for for sending you the only message I'm capable of to indicate my displeasure with your unfriendly actions or to let it go and keep driving. Just let it go and keep driving. It's your fault you got the bird anyway.

I want to be your friend, Car, I really do. I'm willing to accept your size and your speed and your propensity to (seemingly purposely) drive too close to me when you go past and your exhaust and everything else in order to run on paved roads. It would be nice if you would do something, anything, to acknowledge my right to run.

But if you simply refuse I guess I'll always have my middle finger.

See you on the road!

Your pal-

The Running Moron

Maxing out a treadmill and waking up early to run yet again

Yesterday at the gym I found a treadmill program I'd never really noticed. It was a "fitness test" that supposedly measured your VO2 Max. I've been dying to get one of these tests done so I was pretty excited.

What happens is you punch in your age, weight and gender and it sets you off on a walk at 3.4 MPH. Every minute the incline increases one percent and maxes out at a 12 percent incline. You hold on to the heart rate monitor hand grips and if your heart rate goes above 150 for a minute the test automatically stops.

I strolled along and finished the test without getting my heart rate above 150. My heart rate barely rose above 100, and when it did I just took a deep breath and it fell back into the 90s. When it was over, the treadmill said my negative max, whatever that is, was 0.0 and some other indicator thing was "low." I guess, in other words, I am in fact the most fit person in the world. How about that?

Anyway, after that I ran a 5K program to make up some for the 6 miles I missed running Sunday. It went fine.

This morning I got up at 4:00am to run 8 miles. After running a 5K race on Sunday and another 5K on the treadmill yesterday I figured I would take it really easy because my calves were a little sore. I was supposed to run at a 9:11 pace, but I thought I'd be ok to keep it around a 9:00 pace. Not even below, just around.

Of course, I wound up feeling great and finished in 1:06:52 for an 8:21 pace. So much for taking it easy.

Most encouraging is that there was a hill about half way through that I knew would be tough. It was about a mile long or so and rose from an elevation of 627 feet to 891 feet. I made note of my average pace at the bottom of the hill. It was 8:20. When I got to the top my average pace was 8:21, which I kept until the end of the run and which featured another even steeper, more intense hill than the mile long one; it was just a lot shorter. I thought I'd be up around an 8:30 average pace at the end, so to only lose 1 second on my average pace even up mile long hills is a nice little ego booster.

The weather was also pretty great this morning. Low humidity and about 60 degrees. It's amazing how affected I am by the weather. I wonder if that's a function of age or if it's primarily physiology.

This post is really long, so I'll end it. But I already know what I'm going to post about next. I just don't know when...

Leaving miles out there with a race report

For the first time since I started training for a marathon I blew off miles I was supposed to run. As per my plan, to cover my 9 miles for the day on Sunday I was going to run a 5K race in the morning and then 6 miles in the evening.

But it was brutally hot and humid in the Baltimore area yesterday. In fact, my son had to play a pee-wee football game rescheduled from Saturday (which shouldn't have been postponed) on a field where it was 104 degrees (and I was down there too, manning the video camera and getting a nasty sunburn on the back of my neck). At 8:00pm, when it was already dark, it was still 80 degrees outside. Seeing that and knowing how humid it was, I said screw the 6 miles and watched TV.

So now I have 6 miles floating out there waiting to be run. I'll make a few of them up today on the treadmill at the gym, but I don't want to do too much because I have to run 8 miles at oh-dark-thirty tomorrow morning. Then again, at this point, after having run hundreds of miles in preparation for a marathon, will finishing a few miles short really kill me?

As for the 5K race, it was ok. It was already 75 degrees with 80% humidity at race time, and I have problems running in the heat and humidity, so my time wasn't anywhere near a personal record. But I finished in the top fifth of all finishers and top third in my age group (98/547 overall and 15/44 in my age group), so I can't complain too much.

I did have a few problems with the race that I believe lengthened my time by at least 30 seconds.

• Since it was a chip-timed race I didn't worry about where I started. But the race started on a little two lane driveway with over 500 people on it. Starting somewhere in the middleish to back, I was still walking when I crossed the start line.



• When I finally did start to run it took me the better part of a half mile to wind my way through and around all the people who were running slower than I was.



• The thing I hate about running races in this particular area (Towson, MD) is that when you get out to a main road, such as Charles St., they only give you half of one lane of the road to run in. Essentially, you're running in the gutter. So you have to slow down, run around people, hop up on the sidewalk, or otherwise compensate for lack of running room.



• According to my Garmin Forerunner, the race course was 3.14 miles and not 3.11.



• I made the mistake of starting behind the lacrosse teams of two local colleges who were running. I thought that since they were big bad athletes they'd be able to run, but I forgot that they're college kids and were probably hung over and only there because their coaches made them participate. I think I finished ahead of all lacrosse players except for one or two, but it was a pain getting through them before trying to get through the slow regular people when the race started.

Even with all that, if it was 10-15 degrees cooler and/or a lot less humid I would have had a much better showing, by up to a minute or so, I think. The course itself was nice. It was basically three hills, and the downhills easily made up for the uphills. Here's what the elevation chart looked like:


Also, they had a great set-up and it was a well-organized event (except for the starting line mash-up). The congressman for the area, Dutch Ruppersberger, was there ("I can't run with you all today... gotta get to church."), as was the Ravens and Orioles mascots, a couple Ravens cheerleaders (rawr!), Olde tyme Baltimore Colts, a moon bounce for the kids, lots of food, drinks, goodies, a car show (thanks Baltimore Corvette Club!), free prostate exams for those who qualified (fortunately, I'm not old enough to qualify), and more.

In all, it was nice to get back to racing. If I live through my marathon I'm really looking forward to getting back into the 5K-10K-half marathon scene.

I'm also looking forward to cooler weather.

Not so fast with the running plans there, fella

I had my plan all set: Rather than run yet still another 9 mile run on Sunday, I registered for a 5K race that starts at 8am tomorrow. After that I planned to mosey on over to the NCR trail and get another 6 miles in to cover my 9 miler for the day. Of course, monkey wrenches had to be thrown.

Since it was raining pretty hard yesterday, my son's pee-wee football game was postponed from Saturday morning to Sunday. Of course, by the time Saturday morning rolled around the sun was out and things were drying out nicely. But the county, which owns the field they're playing on this year, is insanely anal about keeping the condition of it pristine. I guess they don't want kids to fall on the grass and bend it or something.

I can still run the 5K, but I won't have time to get the last 6 miles in before my son has to be at football. So I'm going to have to run the 6 tomorrow evening. That'd be ok, I guess, but maybe I forgot to mention that there's a "code red" heat advisory for tomorrow. They're forecasting mid-90s temps with high humidity.

The guess is my 5K is going to be hot, and not in the good way. My poor kid is going to be in full football gear playing in 90 degree heat. And I'm going to have to hope it cools down enough for me to get a decent run in tomorrow evening. Great.

The worst part is that Monday is supposed to be in the 80s and after Monday is supposed to be perfectly seasonal for the foreseeable future.

Just my Sunday running plans have to messed with. Thanks, God.

Is it the shoes?

My last three 9 mile runs -- this morning, this past Tuesday morning, and the Tuesday previously -- were good, ok and good. On the good runs I wore one pair of shoes. On the ok one I wore a different pair. I've already determined that of my two pairs of running shoes one is good for speed and the other is good for distance. Guess which pair were the ones that enabled me to have good runs.

Anyway, when I went to bed last night the temp outside was 60. I got pretty excited hoping it would drop into the lower 50s by the time I got up at 4:00am. But when I checked while getting ready to run this morning it was... still 60.

It was much more comfortable running weather than Tuesday though, and my time showed. While I didn't run the same exact route as my last two 9 milers, it was pretty close and the total ascent on both routes were pretty similar, within 50 feet. This morning I ran 9.01 miles in 1:16:03. On 9/2 I ran 9.0 miles in 1:16:53. I shaved 50 seconds off what I considered a really nice run, so I'm pretty happy (by contrast, my 9/9 9 miler took me 1:19:05).

On this run, most of the last 3.5 miles were uphill and when I glanced down at my Garmin when I was just about to hit it I saw that I had an average pace of 8:17/mile to that point, about 5.5 miles in, which was a big surprise since I was feeling pretty fresh. The hills hurt though, and I finished with an average pace over the course of the run of 8:26.

I even actually ran one mile in sub 8:00 time. 7:52 to be exact.

This run reminded me of when I used to swim to stay in shape. There are times in the pool when your arms strokes, kicking, breathing and flip turning manage to work in perfect tandem and it honestly feels like you can breathe underwater. The truth is that you're probably going about as slowly as you usually go (if you're me), but it's a great feeling while you've got it. It seemed like I was doing pretty much everything right today, and while the hills toward the end were hard and slowed me down I still felt pretty strong running them.

Now I'm more convinced than ever that I am built far more for shorter distances than I am for marathons. Even though I've felt pretty good running this week I don't know how I'm going to overcome that confirmation.

Obviously, I have more brain work to do than body work in the run-up to October 11.

You too can run with the best

The thing I like best about participating in half marathons and marathons is that many of them attract top names in the sport. For instance, Runner's World's daily news digest for today mentions that the women's 2008 olympic marathon gold medalist Constantina Tomescu-Dita will participate in the Chicago Marathon on October 12. She's run -- and won -- that race before, but never as an olympic champion. And any ol' schmo is free to run the same race she is at the same time she's running it. Sure, she might finish 2 or 3 or 5 hours ahead of you, but if you're running the 2008 Chicago marathon you can say you competed with/against an olympic champion.

I don't think you can do that in any other sport. You can't just get into a lane in a pool next to Michael Phelps, for instance. You can't take the court against LeBron James, or step up to bat against Jake Peavy in regular season basketball or baseball games. You can never expect to be on the receiving end of a Peyton Manning pass in an NFL game. But you're welcome and free to take a shot against the best in the world if you're a marathon runner, whether you're elite or a slowpoke. How great is that?

The digest also had this to say about the Baltimore Running Festival, of which my marathon is a part:

It's the first time over the 15,000 mark for the Festival, which is on October 11. The day's CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield Half-Marathon is sold out for the sixth straight year, with 7,500 people registered and over 350 runners signed up for the waiting list. The Under Armour Baltimore Marathon has less than 100 spots left [out of 4,000], while the Legg Mason Team Relay has room for only 25 more teams. The Festival also includes the United Way 5K and Kids’ Fun Run. The event, now in its eighth year, has generated over $75 million in revenue for the city and over $4 million for local charities. Register at www.thebaltimoremarathon.com.

Although faith in myself and my ability to complete the marathon is pretty shaky right now, I find it very exciting to be a part of this day. And I guess no matter what happens I'll always have some kind of good memories of my first time running 26.2 miles.

Or so I hope.

Same time of the day, same day of the week, same route, different result

It's really funny/curious how little things add up to affect great change, even when it comes to running. Last Monday night I had a decent dinner, got to bed early, woke up before the 4:00am alarm Tuesday morning to run 9 miles, ran it in a pretty swift (for me) 1:16 under good conditions -- cool-ish and low humidity, and felt great.

This Monday I had a blah dinner that aggravated a knot I've had in my stomach for a while. I got to bed late-ish, had to drag myself out of bed to turn off the alarm I didn't hear for a minute and then ran the same 9 mile route as last week, but it was 10 or so degrees warmer than last week with high humidity and, I don't know, barometric pressure or something. I don't know if you can even feel that, but the air was just different this morning. It's supposed to rain today so maybe that had something to do with it.

I ran an identical route 3 minutes slower this week. My only goal was to keep it under a 9:00/mile pace (even though I was supposed to run it at a 9:17), and I was at about 8:47 so it was all good. But still, 3 minutes is a lot I think.

It turns out this is yet another step back week for me. I "only" have three 9 mile easy runs to complete. Nothing long and nothing fast. Next week is my last tough week before I begin my taper to marathon day. Although if I can't complete a 20 miler a week from Sunday I'm going to be a total wreck about trying to complete 26.2 on October 11. I seem to be putting an awful lot of pressure on myself over a dumb run. That I'm paying to participate in, even.

Anyway, to break it up some, and since I feel pretty good that I have the 9 mile distance aced well enough, I signed up to run a 5K race on Sunday morning. It's for a good cause (prostate cancer) and it'll be nice to be part of a race again; it'll be my first one since June. Plus, I could use a new t-shirt.

It's also reasonably close to the NCR trail, so once I finish the 5K I'll head over to the trail and run another 6 miles to get my 9 in for the day.

I'm really looking forward to running for fun again after my marathon.

Observing early morning action in the area while on a harmless run

I live in a pretty diverse area. So diverse that within a three mile radius we have everything from 5,000 sq. ft. million dollar (probably more like $800k these days) McMansions to Section 8 subsidized rental apartments. Where I live is closer to the subsidized rentals than the huge mansions, but we are all homeowners in my neighborhood and it's mostly quiet and peaceful.

So when I was running through the lesser area yesterday morning before 5:30am, about 2.5 miles into my 16 miler, it was kind of surprising to see the five police cars stop up the street and a foot pursuit start with the cops trying to catch two guys who were walking on the sidewalk and then took off when the police pulled up near them.

But even before I got to that spot I saw police cars prowling around, and for once I was glad to be wearing my reflective vest and being as visible as possible at that time of day. But then I got to thinking. If you're doing whatever, say breaking into houses, what would be a better cover than acting like you're a runner when you're making your getaway? You could stash the stolen goods, pick up a vest and a hydration belt you stuck at the stash spot beforehand, run home, not worry about anything and pick up your stuff when things cool down. Even though the police were shining their spotlights all over looking for the people they were looking for, they never once trained one on me or slowed down passing me to get a closer look at me.

But then maybe I just didn't fit the general description of the suspects. Still, I think I have plan if I ever enter a life of crime.

And hey, if I wasn't out running I'd have had no idea stuff like that goes on in my area.

As for the run, it went ok. There was a point where I was going up a hill and my knee just started to kill me. The thought that went through my head was "jeebus, what is it this time?" Then I looked at my Garmin and saw I was at 12.2 miles. I had visions of having to walk home 4 miles again and cursed the fact that I seem to always have problems around 12-12.5 miles. It's like the devil mile for me.

I walked up the hill and when I crested it started running again and felt fine. So I don't know what that was all about.

I also took another short walk break at about 14 miles for a minute or two and then ran strong the rest of the way home.

So it wasn't a great, flawless run, and I was a little slower than I'd have liked, but it was ok and it was hilly, so for what it was I can't complain too much.

It also says something that I can run (with a couple short walk breaks) 16 miles now and not be sore the next day. How did that happen?

Running with issues

I had a tempo run yesterday similar to the one from a couple weeks ago where I ran the fast part about 30 seconds/mile faster than I was supposed to. I ran it just slightly faster than I was supposed to yesterday and had to run an extra half mile on the front and back ends of the run for a total of 8 miles. 5 of the miles were at about 7:50/mile and the other 3 went at about 9:13. It all went fine. Except for the fact that I had the wrong shoes with me. And that I've been fighting annoying aches and pains in the ankle and groinal area of my right leg. And that I've been trying to deal with personal problems lately that have taken my focus off of just about everything else.

The shoe thing worried me most yesterday since my leg was feeling good enough. They were a pair of Nike Air Zoom Vomero+ 2s that I was using only for crosstraining and such because they were lousy running shoes for me. But I took Wednesday off of the gym to give my leg a rest and forgot to switch out the shoes in my gym bag with the ones I meant to do yesterday's run in, my Mizuno Wave Rider 11s. Aside from the fact that it felt like the front half of one of my feet felt numb for about half the run I didn't have any problems, thankfully. So the Nikes can go on the treadmill in a pinch, I guess.

I'm getting extremely anxious about the marathon. It's getting close and I am endlessly worrying about my ability to complete it. I've never been a DNF in a race and I don't plan to start now, but I also need the confidence to believe I can run 26.2 and right now I'm not so sure I have it.

When I started I had no idea how much of a mindf**k just training to run a marathon could be. I thought as long as my body was in shape everything else would fall in place. That's not true at all, and I have even more respect now for marathon runners than I had before I decided to attempt one. Especially those who do it more than once a year.

Nice guys finish 10th

I meant to mention this last week when I saw it, but it might be even more appropriate for me now since I'm so down on my ability to run 20 miles and, ultimately, 26.2 because of my last long run. Ryan Hall, arguably the USA's best hope to medal in the marathon at the 2008 Olympics, keeps a blog on The Final Sprint. He wrote a post-olympics entry where he discussed how the race went for him. He prepared for this one race for years and finished in 10th place rather than on the medal stand like he expected. Even more, he discovered that what he thought he would have to do to win, run a 3:00/km pace, would "only" have been good enough for a silver medal based on how the race turned out. Even more even more, he's second guessing his strategy and training and doing a lot of what if-ing in his post. Ryan Hall is just like me, only like four hours faster.

There's no way I'd say it's comforting to me to know that even the best runners have bad runs, bad days and battle their brains trying to deconstruct their disappointments, but it does help to know that it's not just me and that even those who have all of the best in everything when preparing for their marathons can have lousy days and bad runs just like the rest of us, and that they can happen on the worst days for it and during the most important runs.

Ryan Hall's post-olympic entry -- and his entire blog in general -- is a really fascinating look into the mind of one of the most elite marathon runners in the world, and I'm grateful he keeps a blog to give us old, slow guys a peek into the minds of people like him.

Now, hopefully, I will overcome whatever doubts I have and rock my next and last hope to complete a 20 miler in 2 1/2 weeks. Wish me luck!

Recovering from a fall and getting back on the horse to ride again

After having a miserable attempt at a 20 mile run Sunday I took it pretty easy on Monday. I went to the gym and hit the weights. No real cardio at all as I wanted to rest my ankle and I was looking at 9 more miles for today (Tuesday). I also spent the day doing stuff around the house to take my mind off running. Because of my not wanting to obsess over how crappy of a long distance runner I am, I have a nicely mowed lawn, a sparkling clean car, clean siding on my house, the overgrowth of weeds just behind my property treated with weed killer and a gigantic watermelon chopped down to bits and slices.

But the 9 miler was lurking over me all day. And since I don't have time to run that far in the afternoon I set the alarm for good ol' 4:00 am this morning.

When I woke up before the alarm at 3:45 I started to go through the motions to prep for my run and thought about why I was doing this. I couldn't really come up with an answer. It crossed my mind to just say forget it and crawl back into bed, but I know the times you least want to work out are the times you most need to, so off I went.

Truth is, I had a great run. 9 miles in 1:16:53 for an 8:33 pace, and I think I was that slow because it was a pretty hilly route. My achilles was a little achy but not quite enough to be continuously noticeable and I don't believe it hindered me except for when I was going up the steepest parts of a couple hills.

So here I am primed to run a fast (for me) half marathon yet lined up to run the whole enchilada. D'oh. I can only hope to still be alive on the evening of October 11, I guess.

You can tell it's fall endurance sports season around here because even at the pre-rooster time I was out running there were others out there too. I ran past 4 or 5 other runners and 2 or 3 cyclists. All of us prepping for some ridiculous thing or another in the coming months, I'm sure.

And let me say this now: I have lowered myself to wearing a reflective vest when I run in the dark, but I promise here and now that no one will ever see me running with a flashlight on my head like THREE of the people I saw with them on this morning. I'm running. I'm not mining for coal.

Today was the second time I started and ended a run in complete darkness. But the weather was fantastic. Mid 50s and low humidity. Also, darkness hides the hills until you get to them. I kind of like that.

Still, I really am a moron for doing this whole thing.