Monthly Archives: November 2012
Farewell 26.2 (sort of)
I can’t quite pinpoint the moment it happened, but somewhere between the Runner’s World Half Marathon and the Richmond Marathon, I became so intent on cutting back on running that the whole aspect of having fun went away.
In the past 3 weeks, I’ve run less, I’ve refrained from blogging much, I haven’t read many blogs and besides leading #RunChat over the weekend, I haven’t had much to say on Twitter.
And it’s been refreshing.
Not having to focus on a big goal for a few weeks has helped me reset my mind and has allowed me to enjoy my runs more. Aside from the knee pain I mentioned, I am feeling much more calm about running these days.
I’ll post more soon about my opportunity to run Disney, but I’m already approaching that with a “just have fun” approach. I’m not going to pile on a lot of miles to get to that race day.
I’m instead focusing on more cross training and strength training, as well as getting off a few post-marathon and Thanksgiving pounds. I don’t want, or need, a goal for that race.
In these past few weeks I’ve thought a lot about 2013 and really not setting goals. These past couple of years have had some great moments, but I think I’m ready to just step back and bit and not have “A” goals that eat up so much of my focus on every run.
This doesn’t mean I won’t train for races – of course I will – but I’m done consuming months of my time for the shot at an “A” goal in a fall marathon.
This is kind of my long-winded way of saying that no matter what happens in January at Disney, I’m done with “26.2″ for a while. It was my intent all along. But that was supposed to be after a strong Richmond Marathon and running 3:40 something and having a celebratory good-bye to the distance.
What happened that day doesn’t matter anymore, and I think I’m better because of that. I’m really looking forward to closing out an otherwise great year by just having fun.
Solo turkey trot
The “Do-I-have-an-injury-or-not” question has been running through my head like crazy this week. After a visit to my chiropractor and a couple of more days off, I headed out for a run today to see how I felt.
I thought about doing a turkey trot at my in-laws in Ohio, but would spending $20 make sense if my knee hurt? No need to risk a DNF and the possibility of further being mad at myself.
My wife and I headed to a nearby paved trail so she could also do a run/walk and I could just see how I felt. My general plan was to run easy for a half mile, then push it for a couple of miles.
I ended up pushing it for a 5k. My time was 25:08; had I been paying closer attention to my watch, I probably would have pushed it to under 25 minutes.
I felt sluggish and slow, which if that’s the case two weeks after the marathon following minor knee issues and still get in a good pace, then you won’t hear me complain.
I felt a little discomfort in my knee, but it wasn’t like before. There’s some work to be done, but I’m not as paranoid or as scared about it as a few days ago.
Forced patience
After my other 3 marathons, I’ve been generally content to sit back and not do much. Each of those marathons have all had different stories, but all have left me with the desire for a break.
This time around though, with yet another different story to tell, I have a desire to keep running. Maybe the lackluster day has a lot to do with that — despite a bad day, I still came away feeling good.
After taking 5 days off last week — my longest break since being injured 2 years ago — I went out for a very easy few miles. Things felt pretty good, but ended with some soreness in my left knee.
Not bad … just sore. Kind of nagging.
I went ahead and took the weekend off from running. I hit the bike in my apartment’s gym on Saturday for about 20 minutes and felt fine. I really just wanted to run though.
Today I headed out for another easy run, was feeling good and then near the end, that nagging feeling came back again.
While some of it may be my body still recovering from the Richmond Marathon, there’s no doubt that I’m concerned. Immediately following my run, I made an appointment with my chiropractor to talk about this discomfort.
My chiropractor does ART - active release technique. Simply put, it’s a manipulation that hurts to make things feel better. Got it?
He pulled and stretched and pushed … and basically told me that there doesn’t seem to be anything that should cause long-term problems. If things continue to bother me after a few days, we’ll do it all again.
I know I’ve been harboring a secret here on the blog about another marathon, but I can’t avoid talking about it any longer.
I have an opportunity to run the Disney Marathon through a Richmond-based nonprofit. I’ll provide more details on that later, but my chiropractor told me that he didn’t see any reason I shouldn’t be able to run it.
Simply put, I’ve banked a lot of fitness, a couple of down weeks won’t impact me all that much and I can train hard in December and still get to that start line healthy.
I know from my previous experiences that running through pain will be me nowhere. In each of these two runs since the marathon I’ve stopped as soon as it hit.
But unlike 2 years ago, or previous injuries, I’m being much more proactive. In addition to today’s treatment and likely future treatments, I know that I have to do more strength work and core work in these last several weeks of the year.
I admittedly slacked off in the final month of marathon training with that and that’s all on my shoulders. Not only will it be helpful to get to Disney healthy, it will also help me get to other goals in 2013.
For now, I just have to be patient, which is something I haven’t had to do with running in a while.
3 things: Lessons learned
This is not a dwelling-on-Richmond post. In fact, I feel like it’s the opposite.
In my lack of really doing a race report (not sure what else I’d really say) and following it up with a list of random things), this is my first serious post about what I’ve realized this week and why I may actually will run another marathon sooner rather than a few years from now. Much more on that later.
1. What are you doing after the marathon?
Such a common question others would ask me. My answer was taking a break. I don’t want to run for a while. I think I said that so much that I started shutting things down way too early.
It’s not that I had too many bad training runs at the end, but I got too complacent. I was too comfortable with my training, thinking that they hay was in the barn and all that was left was 26.2 miles. I really screwed that up, more mentally than anything else.
2. Go to bed, go to bed, go to bed.
Olympics. Debates. Election night. I’m a sports junkie and a news junkie. These events are why I loved working in a newsroom for 7 years. And this year on too many occasions I stayed up until 11 or later, getting just 6-7 hours of sleep. Some people can do that. I really can’t.
At the end of all this, I ran too many miles tired; I didn’t sleep well the week of the marathon; I’m pretty sure I only had about a half tank of gas in my system, thus the falling apart in the second half of this race.
3. Have fun.
It’s the ultimate end goal for me. Most of those 4+ hours were not fun Saturday. Neither was much of my experience in the Cleveland Half earlier this year.
I know how to have fun in a race whether I’m on pace to hit my goal or not. Of anything that went wrong, I’m more mad at myself for that and more determined to not let that mind frame slip back again.
Now, about this other marathon …
12 things: Final thoughts
When I posted my dailymile workout for Saturday’s Richmond Marathon (my “recap” is here), I said I’d let hindsight tell the story about the race. I’m pretty sure, though, that I’ll never have a story for how things unfolded.
So for this month’s 12 things, I thought it would be good to recap parts of the race and weekend with a list. I’m not going to dwell on the race too much, so this is sort of my way to put closure on that day.
1. Before the race, I mentioned how great the support is in this race. The words of encouragement after 16 miles or so really kept me going. I can’t even begin to explain how close I was to a DNF when it was convenient to do so before mile 19.
2. I kept quiet last week about fighting off a cold. I never felt sick, but by Friday I started losing my voice. I’m sure the distraction of that didn’t help things last week, but it’s certainly not what made things completely fall apart.
3. This weekend was great for Scott and I to meet several #RunChat supporters and others who came down from New York.
4. I’ll probably never look at my mile splits.
5. The downhill finish that Richmond is known for is now even more downhill. It’s my only complaint about the course. It is not kind on the legs after 26 miles.
6. I saw my friend Jeremy just after 25 miles. He ran a quarter mile or so with me, and it was then that I just started spitting out words and finding myself happy with finishing marathon No. 4. Thank you, Jeremy.
7. It was great to see my sister Heather beaming after her first half marathon. She loved it so much she signed up for the Shamrock Half in March.
8. I’m about 95% sure that I’m going to take part in the Richmond Marathon weekend next year … in the half marathon.
9. Thanks to the guys handing out beer around mile 23. And to the lady from Curves handing out lemonade around mile 25.
10. The bag checkout was really bad. It was uphill, nearly two blocks from the finish, complete with a line that I heard was a 45-minute wait. I ended up waiting to get my bag until after hanging out on Browns Island for a couple of hours. I am confident Sportsbackers will handle that situation differently next year.
11. Whether it was something in training that led to my performance or if it just happened to be a really bad day, I’m not setting a time goal for a race so far ahead of time again.
12. As I stated in my race post, I’m a marathoner for the 4th time. I can dig for clues about what went wrong and I’ll probably never figure it out. I’ve already spent enough time talking and thinking about the Richmond Marathon, so it’s time to move along. As soon as my quads let me.
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