4 mile run!

11 Friday Jan 2013

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Yesterday was a pretty significant milestone. I went running with my usual Thursday night friends – the Turtle Thursdays group. It was the first time I have run over 4 miles since July 22nd which is an incredibly long, long time ago. Although I had run part of last nights route before, we had turned around at the 1.5 mile point so there were a couple of points on the trail last night when I realised just how long ago it has been since I last saw that piece of scenery. July 19th is actually when I last saw the 2.5 mile turn around point and had done the entire route.

It was also the first time I had been there since Brandi (another runner from the group) and I started dating so naturally there was a little bit of teasing which was fun, although it was a good job it was dark out so the blushes weren’t *too* obvious. It was really nice to see the rest of the group happy for us both.

My knee seems to be healing up nicely now – I’m nervous about overdoing it and doing damage so I’m being very cautious in increasing the distance. It didn’t hurt at all yesterday and I felt like I could have carried on at that pace for several miles further but I had to keep the distance in check as I’m only increasing about 1 mile a week. Currently I’m not bothered about speed as I’m more focused on slowly bringing the distance up to double digits and also I want to ensure I run with Brandi where possible. However my solo runs will be faster than last night – I’ll just consider them my speed workouts for now 😉

We do have a goal of a 10 mile race in March and will be signing up for the Scioto Miles training plan (This year you get “free shoes” instead of last years jacket) as this was a real confidence booster in preparing for the half marathon and if the first run and the 10 mile race goes well, I’ll be signing up for my second half marathon – the 2013 Capital City Half Marathon that will be held in May.

Have you signed up for any 2013 races yet or should I say do you have the budget for any more races in 2013?

1 Year running anniversary

30 Monday Jul 2012

Posted by Andy in Runcap

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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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View Larger Map

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.

Columbus 10k Road race and another PR

11 Monday Jun 2012

Posted by Andy in Race, Runcap

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10k, cbus pacers, pr, race, Recap, runcap

[wprunkeeper activity=”94178590″]A week ago I gave into peer pressure from other Thursday Turtlers, and registered for the oldest road race in Columbus – the 35th Columbus 10k run that also included pancakes ad sausage afterwards (which may or may not have had some bearing in the decision to take part.
After getting up at 6am I was trying to work out whether to have coffee or not as the hot coffee would not help to cool me down. However I decided to grab some coffee before leaving the house – As it turn out, I really did *need* coffee as I poured cold water out from the kettle. Next time I’ll have to be awake enough to turn it on. Thankfully I did realise before taking a sip of coffee.

I arrived early at the site and enjoyed people watching and chatting with the various runners from the CRC pacers groups and slathered on the sunscreen ready for the race as it was going to be hot.

Before we started they had the kids race – it was really neat and impressive to see the kids run this race.

Even funnier to see some of the dads carrying the kids over the finishing line whilst the kids bawled their eyes out.

Standing in the crowd as we waited to start, I could feel the heat beating down. I was lined up between the 9 and 10min pace groups as there wasn’t a 9.30 pacer and wasn’t sure what pace I was going to actually run. I had checked a pace calculator and knew that to beat my previous 10k run on 59.11 I needed to do a 9.30pace so decided I’d start out with the 9 min pace.

We started off running south which meant that the run *up* Broad Street was longer than I thought and had done in the past and I was really pleased when we headed on down Front Street and were able to take advantage of the shade offered by the buildings. Looking at the Runkeeper Map its quite funny to see it has no idea where we were running – looks like a drunk ghost wobbling through the downtown buildings.

I was able to keep up with the 9pacer until the water stop at 2miles but as he was currently running under the 9min pace I decided to just let them go, dumped more water on my head and then turned left to head down the shadeless 1st Ave.This pattern continued along the race – taking water at the water stop, drinking about half and then dumping the rest on my head to cool down.

After mile 3 we ran the rest of the way back on the Olentangy trail, a route that has far too may ups and downs and stretches without shade so my pace dropped a bit as I tried to keep cool – I was glad I had taken my own water with me. It was quite suprising to see a Cop car come driving down the trail towards us – normally you just have to look out for bikes on the path – first time I’ve had to look out for a car.

Mile 5 onwards was the standard Scioto Miles run so I knew where I was going and what to look forward to. However at mile 6 the marker was missing so I wasn’t really sure when to start the sprint towards the end. Probably just as well as I was thinking the run was 6.1 miles and not the 6.2 and would have started early. As it was I got a good sprint in at the end – I could hear Jamie and her cowbell ringing away but didn’t have the time to look around to see where she was.

I hit the finish line in 58 *something and it was cool to have a kid come running up to me with some water to cool down and hear several people shouting congrats to me. I had no idea who they were but it felt really good. Thanks to Jamie for taking a photo after the race.

After taking some time to cool down in a malfunctioning hose that acted as a sprinkler (good find Melanie and Mike) I went up and got my sausage and pancakes and a banana. Tasted *really* good – a definite bonus to running this race.

Hanging out with the other runners was fun to congratulate people as they came in, with Chris getting a 2nd place in her age group – so congrats to her. Then it was time to line up with other cbus runners for a group photo – I have a strong suspicion I’ll be in the cbus pacers newsletter again 😉

The other weird thing is that although I felt fine during the run and didn’t notice anything – I’ve had my first case of wishing I had Bodyglide when walking around the house this afternoon. I guess it’s better to have it now rather than mile 6 on a marathon, but it’s weird that I’ve never needed it before.

Official Times
58:25.1
329/589 (Top 50% now!)
31/41 M40-44
Pace: 9.28/mile
Splits