OK, I did it. I learned a thing or two. First of all, I should always double check my computations! A few miles into the run I realized that the route I decided to run is actually a mile longer! Also, I didn't realize that I could cut a mile easily, but maybe because I was distracted by the fact, that all the landmarks that I wrote to me wristband are wrong. So I ended up running 13.5 miles and then walked home (1/2 mile).

Speaking of wristbands. Mine was on a printed piece of paper. It doesn't matter that I put a Scotch tape to the outside of it, once it got soaked with sweat, the tape came of, like it had no sticky material on it. After about the 6 mile mark, I ran with the dissolving wristband in my left hand (and not on my left wrist).

Otherwise things were OK. It was brutally hot this weekend. I ran from 5 AM to 7 AM, and it was 80 F. That was lowest temperature I could find. I felt fine until mile 12, then the last 1.5 miles was hard, but even that wasn't extremely bad. And my time was fine (1:56:13). The projected half marathon time is 1:52:34.

I still don't know how it is possible to run double of this distance...

I've just arrived from my pre-run bike ride. I rode the long route I plan to ride tomorrow morning. It is going to be 21.1 kilometers, which is exactly half of a marathon distance. This is going to be a big jump for me, as my longest run so far was only 16.5 kilometers, it it should be OK: I haven't run this week that much (sort of like a taper), and I haven't run in the last two days. I will try to run it relatively fast, so that I would do it in 1 hour and 55 minutes. The idea is that this should be the next stepping stone to the 4 hour marathon.

Why the change of plans? I want to race, that's why. So instead of spending two more weeks training for a half marathon time trial (that is, I run as fast as I can, but it is not an official race), I will just run my minimum goal on the half marathon distance tomorrow. I won't try to run faster than that, and after I'll have done it, I will spend three weeks to prepare for a 5K where I will try to break 21 minutes.

My goal for tomorrow is 1:55, but I will tolerate time up to 2 hours. If I can't do the run in two hours, then I'll cancel the 5K plans, and go back to work on my endurance.

BTW, I met a nice guy on the road today. He stopped to check on me when I was collecting tree branches to mark a spot by the road (the spot that is 6.5 miles from my home), asking me if I was OK. Then we rode back to the city together, talking. He is a mechanic and works in one of the bicycle shops in town, which I visited many times. After he told me who he was, I realized that I even talked to him, when I shopped for my bicycle. We stopped by his house in town, and he invited me to taste his home made beer. So talked like a half an hour in his house, sipping his beer. His house was a dump (I almost felt uncomfortable), but his beer was very delicious. He is a very nice guy.

I'll write tomorrow about how my run went. If I won't post, I may have died. :)

My training wasn't exactly going as planned. Hectic schedule made me postpone (alright: skip) some of my runs, so I decided to go slowly and repeat some of my training weeks. Therefore I'm two weeks behind now. I repeated the feast of running 10 miles on Sunday. I was easier than last time, even considering the terrible diarrhea that caught me after 5 miles (lucky that Riverfront Park has nice restrooms). I was somewhat slower than last time, even if I subtract the 4 minutes spent on the toilet, but that's fine. I was still well above the minimum pace.

I'm up to some crazy (to me at least) weekly mileage. Last week I ran 28.2 miles (45.4 km). Considering that I ran 5 times, this means an average of about 9 kilometers per day!

I went to group run last week, and it was a lot of fun! I'll go again today.

Also, I bought a new pair of running shoes on-line, it arrives today. It was very cheap, so they might be crappy, but I decided to risk it.

New distance PR on Sunday: 10 miles. It is not getting any easier. I have had aches in body, especially my left calf, which almost made me stop. It got a little better (paradoxically) by the end of the run.

To top the pleasure, there was a thunderstorm and pouring rain from mile 6 to mile 8, and light rain to mile 9. It didn't matter too much. My only worry was the lightning, because I ran along trees by the river, but the thunderstorm actually wasn't that close, only the rain.

I spent yesterday recovering, and today a 5 miler "easy" run is waiting for me. Some speed training on Wednesday on the high school track, another short maintenance run, and then a replay of this brutal weekend (5 miles fast on Saturday, 10 miles slowly on Sunday).

An alligator in Columbia!

Seriously: last Sunday, on my long run, I saw a gator swimming in the Columbia Canal. It wasn't huge, but it wasn't tiny either. And no, I wasn't hallucinating. I've been only 1/2 mile into the run, and other people saw it, too. It was absolutely definitely an alligator! Wow!

Get in the Pink 10K Race Report

I got up early in the morning, so that body would have enough time to completely wake up by the start of the race. I'm not a morning person, and I have to be especially careful with morning races (and most are morning races indeed).

We arrived a few minutes before 8am. The race was scheduled to start at 8:30. I warmed up nicely, and I even found a port-a-potty at a construction site nearby, so I didn't have to wait in line at the race. I met a colleague, Mark, and his fiance before the race. They were planning to run at her pace together, so we agreed that I would move up closer to the start line. I wanted to run the race in 45 minutes.

The elevation profile was not favorable to me. We started with a 3 mile descent and then we had to climb back up. Knowing this, I tried to start strong, and I almost kept up with the leaders for the first half mile or so. By that time, I found my own pace and the leaders started to pull away. I was pushing the pace, fully understanding that I had to do well on the first half to perform well overall.

Very soon, I was completely alone. Most of the 230 participant were behind me, some ahead of me, and I was running my own race. To my disappointment, there were no mile markers, so I could only guess how fast I was. Then finally at mile 3, they put out one mile marker (that was all for the whole course). I was below 20 minutes there and I was quite happy with my time. More exactly I was slightly worried that I was too fast, but I felt fine, and I just had passed a big guy in a "US Army" T-shirt, which gave me some confidence.

Then the uphill section started, and I tried to run by effort level, sometimes slowing down significantly. I think I slowed down too much here, I over worried my pace/endurance. I wanted to ride the course on the previous day on my bicycle, but I sort of ran out of time, and I also didn't want to ride too much on the day before the race (the distance of the course from my place is at least 10-15 miles). So I didn't really know how much was left.

The finish line was long straight street, and the finish was at least 1/2 mile ahead. I was still completely alone, in fact before tuning into the long finish line, I had lost sight of every other runner. Then, when I knew how far I was, I started to push, but it was too late: my stopwatch turned 44 minutes and I had no hope of getting in within 45 minutes, or even any close to that. I pushed very hard at the end. Seeing my time and feeling the pains in my body, I almost stopped 200 yards before the finish line, and I had to remind myself that quote by Lance Armstrong: "Pain is temporary, quitting lasts forever."

My family was cheering for me at the finish line! They were very nice, and my kids were very touching as they yelled: "Go Daddy!" This was the first race of mine that they visited. (Well technically the second, but they missed my finish on the first one.) Unfortunately I got in with a disappointing 46:40, way behind my original time goal. This was 14th place overall and 4th in my age group (30-39). Only age group winners and overall winners received awards, so there was nothing for me on Saturday.

Even though the placements don't seem to be too bad, the time speaks for itself. The only reason the placements are OK is that this was a small race, at least not too many serious runners came. I have to figure out the reasons. I really think I didn't leave everything on the course, I should have run up those hills faster. A guy passed me at around mile 4 (already at the uphill section). I talked to him at the finish line, and he had a time 44: something. He wasn't running that fast, I could have easily followed him, but I was afraid I would blew out before the finish line. The fact that I was able to push that hard just before the finish probably shows that I didn't push hard enough before that.

It was also the heat. I am still not acclimatized to the newly arrived summer. It was only maybe 75 degrees, an even in the sun on the pavement, it couldn't have been more than 80. I endured much hotter temperatures in my cycling days. Maybe running is different, more intensive, and there is less air cooling effect.

I've been bugged with Achilles tendon sensitivity, too little sleep (finals' week at work), and hectic schedule recently, and I had to skip some of my training runs, and I had to move other around the day.

Or maybe I should just stop whining and accept that you can't run perfectly every time. So just shut up and go back to train.

Tomorrow is my 10K. I'm quite excited, almost unexpectedly excited. This race is only part of a half marathon training program, but it is in Columbia, so for the first time, my family is going to cheer for me!

An unfortunately timed Achilles tendon sensitivity early this week made me train much less since Monday, which is probably not good for performance, but we will see tomorrow. Also, I had to grade a ton of final exams, so I haven't had enough sleep. But I think I should in good form tomorrow. I feel strong and healthy!

Computational skills come handy when you train. Last week I had a run that I was supposed to run at my half marathon pace at 7:35 minutes/mile. When I reached the 1/2 mile mark, I though I was pretty fast, especially because the first half mile of this course is downhill. I saw my stopwatch showing 3:18, and I got terrified: 3:18 times 2 is 7:36, so I'm already slower than I should be, and this was only the downhill part! I better run fast!

I didn't realize my computational error until I reached the 1 mile mark, and I saw I did the first mile in 6:35. Meanwhile, I kept asking myself "Why is it so hard to run at this pace?". Needless to say, I couldn't keep this pace for 13.1 miles! But it did give me some confidence, that 7:35 could be feasible 6 weeks from now.

I paid the price on the following day: my longest run up till now with 8 miles. I ran early afternoon, the hottest part of the day, and it just got really hot here in Columbia. Temperatures in the high 80s, and I there was no shadow. I was really suffering, and I was badly dehydrated when I got home. I know this because I lost 6 pounds during that run. This is dangerous, I should be more careful. From now on, I'll do my long runs with a fuel belt (which I just ordered).

I'll start a mini-taper, because I run a 10K race on Saturday. I will try to run 45 minutes. At 7:14 per mile, it will be a challenge, but according to coach-math-magic, it is about the best time I should be capable of.

I ran 7 miles early in the morning on Sunday. Then, in the afternoon, we went to see real alligators in the wild in Santee National Wildlife Refuge (an we did!). We hiked a 2 mile loop trail in the swamp. There was barely any shadow, mostly in the sun, with the temperature is in the 80s, and I carried Flora (my 2 year old daughter) in the backpack style child carrier for most of the hike. I was OK. My legs are still a bit heavy today, but I don't mind it.

I started to run to cross the marathon off my bucket list, but I'm glad I did, because running keeps me sane in my very stressful everyday life.

Speaking about having easy runs... I guess I'm back to the good old "increase of mileage" days. I'd been looking forward my rest day yesterday. I'm better today, but I'm supposed to run a 5K race test (not an actual race, but I'll run it like I would race). It won't be easy.

BTW it tuns out that the friend's son will run that charity 5K I had considered - because his other program fell through, and he though I would run it (he didn't know I changed my schedule). What a mess. I feel sort of bad, but now I have registered for my 10K and it would be just too much racing to do both. Unless I run it as training. But paying $20 for a training doesn't seem like a good deal. However it's a charity run. Still, I'm not made of money... We'll see.

I signed up for a 10K charity race on May 9. I will skip the 5K. The 5K was originally suggested by friend, and I thought he would run it, too, so I thought it would be fun. It turns out he didn't even consider running it - it is beyond my understand why he asked me "Will you come to that race?"

As you know, I never raced on 10K before, and it sounds a little intimidating. You can't run a 10K with power, like a 5K. I have a feeling that it is a completely different kind of a race. We will see. Nice thing, that it is in Columbia (our fair city).

I do see some improvement in my running. 3 miles is truly easy for me now and even the 6 miles on Sunday was fairly easy to run. I never really have soreness any more, either. The day after the long run felt like any regular day.

In the weekend we attended an Easter party, and we started to talk about running. It turned out, that the host and her family have been devoted runners for some 30 years.

"So how long are your long runs?" she asked.
"I'll run 6 miles today" I replied.
"What is your pace?"
"I do my long runs at 9 minutes per mile."
After a short pause she said: "Come on, you can run faster, can't you?"

Well, I certainly can, but this is supposed to be my long run pace, and I can't really run too much faster if I need to complete 6 miles.

I guess it is good to be reminded occasionally that I'm not a great runner, before my ego grows too large.

I've silently started training for a half marathon, and things are going OK. I changed the way I run tempo according to Hal Higdon's advice. I start at 8:55 min/mile for a mile, then start to accelerate for 1.5 miles, so that the last half mile of that portion is covered in 3:42 or so. Then I decelerate for 1 mile, and at the end of that I am supposed to slow down to my comfy 8:55 m/m speed. Then I coast home (half mile). This is 4 miles and I cover it in 32-34 minutes.

One thing that is still weird for me that I find it quite hard to run the fastest part. Even though I should only maintain the 7:25 m/m speed for 1/2 mile, which should be easy, as I ran significantly faster my whole 5 miler race less then 2 weeks ago. But somehow there is a big difference between training and race. I am a little worried about my half marathon in June: it won't be a race: I will run it alone, against the clock. Will it feel like a race, or training?

My time goal for the HM should be around 1:40, according to the scientific training time projections, but those are based on my race times, not on my training times. So if it will be like training, I will be probably closer to 1:50. So my goal is now just set loosely to 1:40-1:50. Even 1:50 should be generously sufficient partial result for a 4-hour marathon goal.

I must have screwed up something badly yesterday. My first post race run was an "easy" 3-miler, and boy, it did *not* feel easy. These are the potentially bad things I did:

- I ate too much for dinner. (I went to run at around 10pm.)
- I had a coffee just before my run. (BTW, I hate coffee with sugar, but since I've taken up running I got into the habit of eating two teaspoons of brown sugar before drinking my afternoon/evening coffee.)
- I skipped too much training because of the race. I didn't run the two days before the race and I skipped two days after that for recovery.
- I skipped too little training before I got back to it.
- I rode my bicycle too hard on Monday and Tuesday. On Monday, I rode hard, because I thought I would use my commute as cross training. After all I didn't do any physical activity on Sunday, except for some easy hiking with my family. On Tuesday, I was sort of late from work in the morning, and I felt like pushing a little bit in the afternoon.
- I ran too fast. I covered the 3 miles in 26:07. I was supposed to do in 27 minutes.

I also used my new Asics shoes but that is very unlikely to have caused any problem. This is not my first run in these: I run 5 miles before yesterday in these shoes and that went absolutely fine. I really do like these shoes except for two minor things. The first is that it has a little arch support, even though it is advertised as a neutral shoe. This wouldn't be a problem by itself, but I'm not used to supporting shoes, and so running in one makes me feel like I overpronate. I know I don't, and I have to consciously watch myself so that don't try to compensate it. The second problem is the sizing: number 8 is too small, 8.5 is slightly too large for me. I settled with the 8.5, but it is not a perfect fit. But otherwise, these are good shoes.

Let me tell the story of the race on Saturday.

I left home early in the afternoon; we had to juggle a little bit with our schedules with my wife, and at the end we asked a friend to watch the kids for a few hours while we were both gone, but it was OK.

The rain was pouring all the way to Laurens. It is about a 75-minute drive. It was raining so hard that I had to slow down on the interstate to about 60 mph. I was a bit worried that the race would be canceled, but the organizer said they would only cancel in case of thunderstorms.

I got to the park at 3:45. The start was supposed to be from that park at 5:00 pm. So I picked up my package (still raining hard), and I got back to my car to dress up for the race, to pin on my bib number and to attach the electronic timing strip to my shoe. Then I was just sitting there, listening to Bach's Brandenburg Concertos on the car stereo until 4:35. I ate my carb snack, drank some water, then I got out of the car. After going to the bathroom, I started to warm-up at 4:45, and I was at the start line at 4:55. It was still raining quite hard, so by this time, I was almost soaked.

The organizers had some technical issues with the timing equipment in the rain, so they had to delay the start. First they said they would start at 5:10. I tried to keep myself warmed-up, but it is sort of hard to do that without getting tired. I felt I was still ready at 5:10, but then it turned out that we wouldn't start until 5:20. I started to get upset, and I basically let myself cool down. So this part wasn't quite great.

They did start the race at 5:20. It started on an uphill, and many people just shot out from the start line. I took it somewhat easier, running more conservatively. After the top of the hill, I passed a few (obviously unexperienced) runners, and I arrived to the the first mile at 7:12. By this time it was hardly raining any more, but the pavement was full of puddles. I did the second mile at about the same pace, passing quite a few people. I felt good, and it wasn't raining any more. Still, I knew I had to be careful, so I tried not to push too hard.

The next mile was mostly uphill, and I got to the 3 mile point at 22:02. I didn't quite realized how much we had climbed, and I was disappointed with that time. I knew I needed about 7:15 min/mile to get my goal time. In fact, during the whole time, there was just one thing in my head: 36 minutes. So it looked like I had lost 17 seconds (and all of that in the 3rd mile), and that I had to get the last two miles is less than 7 min/mile pace. At that point, feeling a bit tired already, and knowing my current pace, it didn't seem feasible.

One positive sign was the slight downhill that started almost immediately at the 3rd mile marker. I also started to push, a bit carefully, but soon, I stopped doing my rhythmic 2-2 breathing pattern. (That means I breath in for two steps and breath out for two steps.) I needed more oxygen. At 3.5 mile, I started to push quite hard. I wanted to arrive to the finish line with zero energy left. I passed another few people. I got to mile 4 at 28:55 or so.

Soon after the mile marker I started to worry a bit. I felt like I started my final push ("the kick") to soon, and I was running out of energy. Especially, because another longish climb followed. I tried not to slow down, but when I got to the top, I was hurting at so many body parts, I couldn't even enumerate them. Hurting badly, I tuned to the finish straight. Just like in Folly Beach, the magical powers of the finish kicked in, and my pains disappeared, leaving just the pleasure of seeing the finish clock showing 35:30 or something like that. I crossed the line at 35:48.

The organizers cut my magnetic strip from the shoe. I wanted to tell them that I was so happy to beat my best expectation on a hilly course in rainy weather and delayed start, but only babble came out of my mouth, so I gave up. I grabbed a banana and a drink, and in 5 minutes I looked like a human once again.

I grabbed dry clothes from my car and changed into them. I walked back to the finish line. The end of the pack was still arriving. After 65 minutes race time they swept the course, closed the timing, and soon they printed out and hung out the results. I got 3rd in my age group! I got a nice pencil holder and a patch. Another pleasant surprise was that it turned out that the organizers actually measured out 5 miles instead of 8 kilometers. The difference is only 47 meters, but it means another 10 seconds or so.

My next step was not that clear after the race, but by now, I more or less decided what to do. I will probably run a charity 5K in a month, but I should train for longer distances. I must remember that the final goal is a marathon. So I'm going to follow a half marathon training for 12 weeks. There won't be any half-marathons in 12 weeks around here, so unless I win the lottery (without buying a lottery ticket), I won't actually run a half-marathon race, I will just run the distance myself in race pace to see where I'll have gotten.

I can't say how much I enjoy the tapering period before my 8K on Saturday. It's great to have energy before my runs, it's great to feel that doing my 5 mile tempo run is no problem. Training did work after all. I think I'm in a pretty good shape. I'm going to rip the pavement on Saturday.

Too bad, it will almost surely rain. My age group is 30-39, so I don't think I have a chance to win anything. 36 minutes would be terrific time - I'm not sure I'm able to do it. 40 minutes is my minimum requirement.

This blog must really boring. You can read about how much I ran, how tires I am and that's it. I can't imagine why anyone would read it! Training IS boring after all, except maybe for the person who trains. Maybe that's why they only show the sports event on TV.

Saturday I ran a PR distance again: 7 miles. I'm not saying it was easy, but it wasn't too hard at all. It is still a mystery to me how it is possible to run almost four times this much. Also, on Sunday, my 4-miler felt quite easy. I have a rest day today, but I feel like I don't need it. I feel fresh, my legs feel great, no soreness, no sluggishness. Maybe training does work after all.

Last night I couldn't run the last mile of my tempo run in my time goal. I was almost OK until the last (slow) mile, but I worked so hard before that, that I couldn't do the last mile in 9 minutes. Not a tragedy. I just don't understand how could I run almost 7 minute miles on my 5K, when I am barely able to do 7:30 on my training.

Yesterday I did my longest interval training to date. 8 x 400 meters + jogging in between + warmup and cooldown: 7600 meters = 4.72 miles. Of course it's not the mileage that makes it difficult, but the 8 times 400 meters of sprints. This is my week of peak mileage. Today I'll run 4.5 miles, and this shouldn't be considered long, as on Saturday a 7-miler is on the plate. That's going to be another record breaker in distance.

I ordered a new pair of shoes yesterday. I went to THE local running store first. I'm saying "the", because this *village* I live in (the capitol of South Carolina) only has one running store. They had maybe 20 pairs of shoes altogether, and they had zero pairs of my size (8). At least the clerk in the store told me that I do have neutral feet and that my self-diagnosis about the style of running shoes I supposed to use was correct. So I went on-line and ordered a last year model Asics. I got a deal on it. I hope it will work fine.