6 miler today. flat out at the river. i was running good. a nice solid pace for me which i always seem to do at the river owing to several miles of the run being on flat, easy trail.
we headed out on columns drive, hit the turnaround and right before the water stop at the start of the trail i met up with the “fast girls,” who were absolutely blowing the run away. so i hung with them for the remainder of the dirt trail. i have no idea what the pace was we were making but it was much faster than anything i typically run so it had to be above 10:00/mile.
i kept up with them until the big hill and then i dropped off their pace by maybe a minute. i am sore from running flat out like that, but it’s the good sore form a solid, well-executed long run.
no problems with the feet either. they continue to improve. i replaced a bunch of my shoes yesterday with larger shoes too, so being in the right sizes with new soles is going to be huge too.
i am really feeling great. i definitely am starting to truly believe another 26.2 is in the cards for me. i will admit to some doubt early on, but at this point i really feel it. this was the highest mileage week so far, 18 miles, with a 6 miler and a 5 miler and i am feeling very good about it.
i am very glad i hooked up with team in training too. a run like today just crystallizes for me how much fun it is. i had multiple people to run with, which meant i was chatting the whole run and it is just great to be part of a community. and of course, having water stops set out for you is pretty damn nice too, especially as the mileage goes up.
please consider supporting tnt. you can donate toward my goal here.
unload the car, carrying tons of suitcases, dog cages and other assorted heavy stuff into the house.
do not pass go, do not collect $200, immediately run five miles.
in fairness i could have taken a bit of a break but we needed to head toward naveed’s new year’s eve party (a blast but the subject of another post.)
this was a tough run. i was tired and it was quite cold and windy. i also picked what amounted to a very hilly route, with some brutal hills in the last one mile loop that i ran. but that’s the thing about marathon training. it motivates me to get out and do these runs even when everything says stay in and rest.
and that, besides the feeling of finishing the marathon is why i love to do this
the team in training group run this saturday is six miles which will make for a very fun week of running.
sekou smith has a message for all of use hawks fans and i couldn’t agree more:
We’re going to have plenty of time to roast those who need to be roasted. And there will be loads of opportunities for second-guessing and all that other fun stuff.
Just not tonight. I’m giving it a rest until 2009.
Your team is 21-10 for Baby New Year’s sake (43-42 in the calendar year for 2008, just fyi), show ‘em a little love for once.
HAH!
for sure. it must be symptomatic of watching so much losing basketball that hawks fans will completely dissect a team that enters the new year ELEVEN games above .500!
the blogging has been slow of late, as has the twittering and the gratitude lists and the other things i do as part of my online universe. mainly all of our at&t 3g cards work like crap up here at my grandmother’s and it just is a pain.
i have been a running fool though. i did 6 miler on saturday, running the above route twice, which combined with the other runs for the week made for a 16 mile week. i am feeling good although at the end of the 6 miler i felt spent for the week - a clear sign i am not at the shape i was when i ran three marathons in a row.
i did four today and this week will be even more aggressive with five tomorrow, and a 6 miler for the long run on saturday.
i am feeling good though, really hitting all the runs in stride and my foot feels almost completely new. the larger shoes (thanks big peach) and the strassburg sock have really made a difference.
okay, it’s starting to be crunch time for the fundraising so, please, please consider supporting with a few dollars. i promise the cause is good and i will love you forever.
i forget sometimes that the area around my grandmother’s house is pretty hilly. i did three miles today, tough because it was humid and i have not been eating right and hydrating. but i did it.
this route is similar to the 5 mile loop i did three times for a 15 miler before my cousin’s wedding while training for vegas. i thought a lot about that run and the way my life has changed between now and then.
one of the great things about running on my own and with no music is that there is plenty of time for reflection. and urging the stoopid puppeh to keep up (did you like the loldog speak jamsmooth?).
it’s also weird to me to run around this town that i didn’t grow up in but feels like a second home and a place where half of my roots are planted. it’s also only christmas #2 without my grandmother here and that feels a little strange.
random, hastily organized tweetups are rapidly becoming one of my favorite things. last night a tweet send mid-afternoon led to me showing up at holy taco in the east atlanta villiage with (just live with the twitter speak here) @jlweiss, @uknity, @atlnav and @architek1 (otherwise known as jessica, liz, naveed and dale.)
as you might expect quite a bit of hilarity ensued, including an attempt to take a “siamese cat stance” picture, but by far the thing that stole the night was “christmas shoes.” liz brought this song up in a discussion of bad christmas songs and i have to say that i had never, ever heard of it. however, given how she described it i could clearly tell it might be the worst christmas song ever. and after getting home and downloading it i discovered that yes indeed it was.
watch and see if you don’t disagree:
now this song raises many questions, such as what does a dying woman need shoes for, and who the hell is watching this kid anyway, if he can sneak away from the hospital to go shopping for shoes, but honestly, i am so distracted by the campy brilliance of how bad this is to even consider it.
the best part - as we were all tweeting about this after we got home, nav decided to whip up an impromptu remix, which we dubbed christmas shoes (holy taco remix).
incredible. especially when you consider naveed did this in about fifteen minutes.
this has to be about the laziest sunday i have had in ages. it’s 10:11 and the kiddo and i are both still i our pajamas. generally, i abhore this sort of thing. i am an early rise, early confront the world kind of guy these days, and while i did get up at 7:40 am (i am now incapable of sleeping past 8:00 even on weekends) not much else has been going down.
i guess i pretty much decided that after the marathon drive on friday, and getting up at 6:30ish to drop the kiddo off at my sisters and then run yesterday, we needed a lazy morning. i’ll probably motivate myself to get a shower and get dressed here shortly, but for now i am just enjoying it.
i did upgrade my wordpress install to 2.7 this morning, which is why the ugly blue box is back as my header. this happens everytime i upgrade and i just don’t feel like going through the hassle or replacing it. maybe in a little bit.
of course given the title of this post, i have to go ahead and throw this on up there:
i killed the five mile run today. i dunno why. maybe the new shoes, maybe the pent-up energy from being in the car all day yesterday, maybe it was the bad runs during the week. beats me, all i know is i nailed this run.
it was one of those runs where everything felt good. my body, my heart, my lungs - everything was responding perfectly. i had no watch, so i have no idea what i ran it in, but i am guessing it was sub 10:00 miles. i was the first among the group doing five miles to finish.
i suppose running on the dirt along the chattahoochee didn’t hurt either. there was certainly something comforting about being on the soft ground.
so that completes what was by far the longest week of training - 15 miles. still a mile shorter than what i would have done in week one of the other program, but i am glad. if i can hit runs consistently like i hit them today, i am going to be aokay.
PLEASE, don’t forget i am going this for an amazing cause too. the team in training program is incredible. we have an “honored hero,” a 5 year old boy wth leukemia named daniel, and his mom is running the ing georgia marathon with us. what an inspiration.
please help me reach my goal of $1800 if you can. even five bucks will help. you can easily donate online here.
i am on the #140 right now and this will be my last trip on marta for the year. i have now taken marta for an entire calendar year, having not driven my car to work once in 2008.
the atltweetup was a blast last night. if you are not on twitter get on and join us. super thanks to maigh and tessa for organizing it.
tough, tough loss for the hawks last night. horrible officiating for sure. drew agrees.
4 miles today, which as you can see from the map i ran at the office. a decent run, even though alpharetta conspires to kill pedestrians, both in lack of sidewalks and crazy drivers.
it was humid as hell out there though. just like yesterday it felt like a spring day, something i was entirely unprepared for, yet again. my shirt was so drenched in sweat when we got back that you would have been forgiven if you thought it had rained on us.
after days of feeling better the foot as widgy again, which leads me to the inescapable conclusion that my work shoes are going to need replacing too. probably get on that next week if some don’t show up under the tree.
don’t forget you can support this whole marathon training gig by making a donation here.
