My 2nd 50 Miler

I ran my second 50 Miler last weekend (March 22nd) and I felt much stronger than I did the year before. I also cut about 25 minutes off of my time! Click here for the race report.

2 Races, 1 Weekend

Saturday-

I ran the special 50K event for the 30th Anniversary of the Fort Worth Cowtown Marathon. 4:59 finish. Here's the race report and some pictures.

Sunday-

The 2nd Annual Armadillo Dash Half Marathon in College Station, Tx. 1:59 finish. Here's the race report and some pictures.

Much to my surprise, I didn't really injure myself this weekend, aside from a little tenderness. Hopefully I'll just be able to train right into my 50 Miler at LBJ Grasslands now in March.

First long run since Bandera

So it's been almost a month since the Bandera debacle and I finally felt good enough to get back into my longer weekend runs. After going to bed at midnight and not falling asleep until 4am, I decided to snooze from 7am to 8:30am. When I headed out it was pretty foggy, but just the right temperature (like mid 40s) with no wind. I was concerned about a little pain I had in my shin last night, but once I got moving I didn't feel anything the whole run. I kept a comfortable pace most of the way with a few quicker segments when I felt strong.
I have to admit, I felt pretty tough when I saw people driving by with shocked expressions on their faces. They all had the heat on in their cars while I was out making my own. I could see my breathe the whole time. I still felt great when I finished (13mi. at 8:50 pace). I soaked my legs in the apartment hot tub (substitute for an ice bath since they won't turn the damn thing on), then made some hot soup.

If I still feel good next weekend I think I'll go for 16. I need to get ready for the Cowtown 50K in late February.

My First DNF

Well I didn't finish the Bandera 100K (race report here). I got about 40 miles into it before my legs said they had had enough. I had other things to contend with, like not training the month before the race to recover from a foot injury, but I really just didn't train hard enough for the distance or the hills. I learned the hard way that I can't get through a race like that on determination alone. But I really wanted that buckle!

I'm going to take my time before I sign up for another 100K and for now just focus on building my mileage base up to something more suitable for that distance. So I'm sticking to 50K and 50 milers for a while, with my next 50K on February 23rd in Ft. Worth.

Ok, I'm back...kind of

Well it's been about a month since my last post, but I haven't had anything terribly exciting to post. Plus, I've been at the peak of my training for Bandera in January. I hit a little snag about three weeks ago when I somehow bruised the ball of my foot right behind my second to biggest toe going around White Rock Lake. It didn't really hurt too bad to do my weekday runs so two weeks ago I ran one day that week (5 miles) and 30 miles that Saturday. Over that much distance the pain increased just a little and stayed constant. I ended up compensating by rolling my foot more to the outside and just strained the outside of my foot to the point that I couldn't even walk normally for a few days after. I didn't run at all last week and didn't do any kind of long run. I'm going to try to pick back up this week and hope that it's had enough time to heal. I needed to do at least 30 this weekend at home. I planned to do it all on a track too, if you can imagine how hellish that's going to be. I decided I didn't want to hassle with setting out drinks over 30 miles, plus the track is an ideal surface to keep the strain down on my joints, tendons, etc. After this week, I'll just have two taper weeks to stay fresh and healthy. Training hasn't gone quite as well as I'd hoped and I felt a little more confident than this before my first 50mi, but this may be due to the fact that it's just a longer distance.

My best friends dad/occassional running partner just completed the Dallas White Rock Marathon. I was running with him and my friend that day I bruised my foot at the lake! He finished in 4:36:06...not bad for a M55-59 who didn't run his first marathon until he was in his 50's!

My semester is coming to a painful end. I stayed up all night studying for a stupid botany class that I probably did horrible in. I have one more final on Wednesday that I'm really not worried about, so for all intensive purposes, I'm done. I'm going out with a few friends tonight who had their last big finals today so we can drink our stress away before fully enjoying out Christmas breaks! Of course, I don't know how great it'll be when I have to take a winter-mester math class. One semester of material I'm weak at, all in 10 days, woohoo!


BANDERA IN LESS THAN A MONTH!!!

Runnin' Buddy

I stayed out until 4:30am Friday night with some friends of mine who came in from out of town for a wedding. I then got up at 8am to run a local 5K benefitting the American Cancer Society. I took a nap around 12 and didn't get back up until 4pm when my friends were making fajitas. We ate and watched some TV before all looking at our watches in disgust. We finally all had to get ready for our friend Seth's wedding. It was a really nice ceremony with bagpipes and the reception was great too. All our friends who graduated had come back into town so we all got to catch up.

After we finally left at 11pm, my roommates decided we should invite people back to our place for more drinks. I swung by the store to pick up gatorade for my run in the morning while my roommate Israel grabbed drink mix. When we got back I hung out for about an hour and ended up in bed at 1:30am. No sooner had I closed my eyes than I heard my damnable alarm clock going off at 4:45am. I snoozed it until I was late, of course. I got up and raced down the route in my brothers fast red sports car throwing drinks out along the way! I got home, grabbed my Ipod and water bottle and took off. I ran about a 7:45 pace over to Cassandra's house.

Cassandra is the Team Development Director for the Relay Committee and she's training for the Houston Marathon. I tossed her an invitation to do part of this run with me earlier in the week...and she actually took me up on it! It's rare for people who tell me they run to actually agree to run with me sometime. She was planning to do 10-13 miles originally but went with me to mile 8 before turning around to make 16. She definitely held her own and set a very comfotable pace the whole way. Too often I go out and settle into too fast of a pace on my long run, which causes my pain-to-pleasure ratio to flip flop. For example, two weeks ago I ran the first 15 miles of a 20 mile run at a 5 mile pace. My knees were sore for a while after that.

After Cass turned around I got a few more miles down the road before two things happened that really pissed me off. First, the sun started burning the clouds off as it rose into the sky, making me uncomfortably hot. Secondly, my nipples started chaffing under my shirt. I've never had that problem with this shirt!!! It was on and off, but by the end of the run they were freaking tender. After that I ate Taco Bell and watched Reign Over Me with Israel, then took another nap.

Good weekend, except that I had a Botony test this morning that I didn't study for all weekend. Rob always leaves a quote on his posts and I saw a good one that's relevant to this weekends activities.

"Marriage is a great institution, but I'm not ready for an institution yet!" - Mae West

Good Race, Crummy Weekend

So here's how it happened. I left A&M at 2:30pm, got home in Dallas at 5:30pm on Friday. On Saturday I woke up at 7am and drove to Uuniv. of Texas at Tyler for Regional Relay for Life training. The training was as fun as it could be for being...well, Relay training. I left there at 4pm and got home at 5:30pm again. I then woke up at 5:15am, and drove over to White Rock Lake for my DRC Half Marathon (here's the report). I finished a little under 2hrs, but with an 8am start, the heat didn't make things any easier. I went home, showered, packed up and headed back to A&M. I got back to the apartment, changed into "business casual" and headed to campus for a Relay meeting until about 8:30pm and now I'm at my student worker job from 9-12. WHERE DID MY WEEKEND GO!

At the Relay meeting, my other Publicity Director Brandy was really worried something was wrong with me. Apparently, I looked really tired/upset. Speaking of which, Publicity stuff for our first Team Informational is under way and it seems to be going really good so far. The Informational is Thursday, so I'm going to be busy until then. I'll be so relieved when it's done!

As far as training goes, I think I'm going to keep the running down to just 2-5mi runs on Tuesday and Thursday, since I'm doing 22mi on Saturday. I miss the marathon training days when I could stop my long runs at 20mi. I'm also trying to get my parents and brother to sign up for the Dallas YMCA Turkey Trot. I want to go traditional this year with an indian costume, unlike the super hero costume I wore last year.