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Why Outrun The Bear?

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Why Outrun The Bear?

Monthly Archives: July 2012

1 Year running anniversary

30 Monday Jul 2012

Posted by Andy in Runcap

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Tags

anniversary, Recap, running

Today marks 1 year from the date I started running. Back in July 2011 I helped some friends move and they were looking at selling their treadmill rather than move it.  I was interested in purchasing it but not sure if I would actually use it. At the time I wasn’t really doing any exercise but had been thinking about doing something to get fit. I was still undetermined about buying it until they mentioned it hooked up to the internet and at that point I was sold. (As it turns out it doesn’t hook up to the internet as the company have moved on their fitness program to ifitplus instead of ifit.

After getting it home, I put it together and on July 30, 2011 I had my inaugural run.  This was probably the first run I had done since the dreaded cross country run at school which I hated – about 23 years previously. My notes on the first run read – “Inaugural run on the treadmill at 4.5mph. Felt good after it. Could have gone on for longer but I didn’t have water bottle or towel with me. ” I ran a total of 1mile at an average  pace of 13.5 minute mile.  Surprisingly I felt good about this run and looked into the Couch to 5k program as a means of getting myself a training plan that I could follow. August 8th I started on Week3 of the plan. It was tough – some days were really hard to complete although I think my treadmill’s 10min per mile pace is way faster than it is when running outside and although the c25k plan is really based on time spent running rather than the distance, they do include distances which averages out to a 10min pace (which I later discovered is pretty fast for a newbie runner)

Half way through the c25k I made plans to run a 5k in aid of a charity for a friend from work. The timing was perfect as it came about 2 weeks after the end of the plan. The race was pretty small and I came in 3rd in my age group which was a tremendous boost to my confidence.

September 29th I made my first appearance at the Turtle Thursdays group run – an awesome group of friends that meets at Whetstone Park of Roses. It was a very memorable event as I locked my keys in the car and everyone waited for me to be rescued which is a great icebreaker and a show of friendship. It was also my first 5mile run.

Unfortunately shortly afterwards, 11 days before Thanksgiving I was running with a friend  and felt good but my knees started to hurt after the run and I ended up going to see a specialist and found out I had torn my meniscus. Surgery was scheduled for 29th December and it wasn’t until Jan 15th 2012 that I did my first run – this time 50% longer than my first run and at a 10.5min pace.

The spring was spent training for the CapCity half marathon on May 5th that I finished in 2hrs, 18 minutes that I was really pleased with. It felt easier than I expected (although still tough) and made me wonder if I was able to run a marathon.

Now – 1 year later I’m now in week 5 of training for the Columbus Marathon in Oct. I’ve ran a training run of over 15 miles a couple of weeks ago, run several races and am looking forward to the “big one”. The number of miles that I have run this year varies depending on which application is used to look at the data but according to Runkeeper I’ve run 513 miles, my furthest distance is 15.4 miles, my best week was 32.1 miles and my best month was 82.6miles. All those miles took me 87 days, 12 hours and 5 minutes and I burnt 64,829 calories. For those of you in the States, thats the equivalent of running from Columbus to St Louis or for the UK, Lands End to Dumfries in Scotland – now quite up to John O’ Groats

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Unfortunately at this moment I’m having to rest as my left leg is hurting that makes running painful – I actually had to cut short my run and go back to crutches for the evening last Thursday which is obviously not good. However I’m hoping to complete 732 miles this year – 2 for each day. At the time of writing I’m exactly 400 miles in.

 

Longest distance (for now) of 15 miles run

14 Saturday Jul 2012

Posted by Andy in Runcap

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Tags

15m, cbus pacers, Dublin, runcap, SaturdayRun, training

[wprunkeeper activity=”101923704″]Yep – thats not a misprint! Had a great time this morning. Got up early and joined the 7am group for the first run this morning and we did a 9min pace, 5.5mile run and got to the store about 10 minutes before round 2. Looked around the shop to see if there were any shoes to buy, got excited when there was a pair for $8.88 that were allegedly my size but too small once I tried them on 🙁
New Balance were at the store this morning with loaner shoes to try, so I swapped out the Glycerin’s for 890’s (I think) and then we headed out with the large group for the second part of the run.  Stupidly I forgot to check the distance for the first run but was told around 5.5 so my next goal was to beat the 13.2 mile run from the half marathon. To round it up to the next mile and have a decent milestone, I figured I’d run 10 miles to hit that 15.  The first 3 miles or so were running in the rain – really nice as it cooled you down and it wasn’t really raining hard enough that you could feel the rain coming down. Continued on a good run out to the half way point with someone from the group at a decent pace and I kept going until the garmin bleeped 10 miles – slightly more than the distance marked on the ground but I wanted to make sure I hit the 10 on the watch. At this point I was questioning the wisdom of wearing new shoes for a 10 mile run – they were hurting the top and sides of my toes so it was a bit painful to run back – I think part of the problem was that I was wearing cotton socks and they were soaking wet from the sweat and rain.  Also the way back was a solo effort and a lot harder. At this point I had run 10 miles already so there were a few walking breaks including up Emerald Parkway – there was just no way I was ready to run up that one.  Somewhere towards the top of Emerald Parkway I hit 13.2 miles – the rest of the run from here on was just a bonus. It was good to stop for a minute at the last/first water stop to refill the bottles, dump some water on my head and then continue back towards the store.  These last two miles were tough – but that is the point of running long distances. I kept going wishing I had brought more swedish fish to eat but I had eaten the last one about 3 miles previous. Soon I rounded the corner and finished at the store 2:42:20 less the 11:25 between the two runs meant I had run 15.45 miles in 2:31 – an awesome feeling….for about 10 minutes and then the back of the legs started to hurt.
I hung around the store stretching, got a free towel and a well earned doughnut with thanks to New Balance and then headed to Kroger for some food and a large bag of ice for an ice bath. I wasn’t sure how long to sit in the bath so did a quick search and found anything from 15-30 minutes but also found out that it was going to hurt. I didn’t find it hurt that much but my toes were complaining about the cold at the end and I found it hard to pour the ice into the bath (after I had got in) as it was in one big chunk in the bag AND then sit back to relax, drink some coffee, eat some chocolate cake and read a book. At which point I realised I had left the phone/timer the other side of the bathroom so had no idea how long I was in the bath so I read “until the end of the chapter” a couple of times and then got out and enjoyed a hot shower before a nap 😉

A couple of hours later (and not *entirely* due to the nap) my legs dont feel sore – they do feel stiff and I won’t be climbing many flights of stairs today and I’m super hungry and a bit tired but on the whole feeling great for achieving a new distance record and knowing that a full marathon is not that much further (Think positive right?)
Funny thing is, this is actually the end of week 2 of my Marathon rookie training plan. Somehow I don’t think I stuck to the plan  😉

PS: Did the half marathon distance 10 seconds faster than my actual half marathon in May, over 10 minutes faster if you don’t count the 10 mins waiting between the runs.

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