Monday, February 8, 2010

Less than 4 months to go

I figured this past weekend was as good a time as any to get serious about training for my next marathon. I've breezed through many a training season in the past but that was when I was running several marathons each year. A little slacking and I still made it to the finish lines by the cut-off times. Since I only ran one marathon last year and none the year before I thought maybe I should make the effort to improve my running performance. Better late than never, right?

I scheduled a 10 miler for Saturday and got rained out. Yeah, I'm a wimp. I'll run a race in windy cold downpours but I have no intention of resuming training in that weather. So I sucked it up and hopped on my treadmill. With only a couple of short breaks (whoops, forgot my inhaler; whoops, forgot to eat beforehand) I ran for over 2 hours, getting in 9 miles. I moved the elevation from "dead easy" to "at least pretend you're outside" when I remembered that anything over a couple of miles on a level treadmill hurts my knees. When I finished I felt good. Not great, but good. I hadn't run that much for a couple of months and mentally at least I was glad I did it.

Sunday was supposed to be drier so Bree and I ran 5 miles on the Lafayette-Moraga Trail. We were very slow but it was good to be outside in the fresh air - or mostly fresh air. There were 2 spots along the trail where homeowners were burning wood and the smoke threatened to clog my lungs. Luckily the air was still so we ran right past those spots.

Today my legs are fatigued and sore, but in a good way. I have the tingling feeling in my toes that says I ran for a long time. My knees feel great, my back feels fine. I have a long road ahead of me (pun not intentional) but this was a good start. Lo0king forward to calling myself a runner again!

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