Week 9 - We're Halfway There!

I guess must have missed a week somewhere in there. I don't really know how that happened because I thought I was current with all of these running posts.

Last week was a drop-back week, and I missed a run. I felt kind of mad at myself because I didn't have any real excuse other than I just was really tired last week and didn't really feel like going. That's the second run I've missed during the first nine weeks of training. And it was only a short run anyway.

This week was supposed to be 4-7-4 with the long run being 11 miles.

I ran the first 4 last Monday with my buddy Aaron. We kept up a pretty good pace. It actually felt faster than my normal pace, and he isn't really a runner so I tried to hang back a little and let him set the pace. I think the first run of the week, especially after the long Saturday run, I usually and try and hold back a little bit. I guess with another dude there is a heightened sense of competition. I don't know if that was coming more from me or from him. In any case we covered the 4.1 miles in about 33 minutes, which turned out to be right around my normal pace. I felt fine afterwards, so that was pretty nice.

The medium-runs are starting to get a little more taxing and time consuming. It's kind of crazy that these runs still feel short in spite of the fact that just 2 months ago I had never run more than 6 miles at one time. Ever. I ran a 7.7 mile route (the same one I ran on a Saturday a couple of weeks ago) and I covered this one in 59:25. Someday I'd love to get up to 8-8.5 miles in under an hour. Probably not by the time the marathon starts though. I didn't even feel like I was pushing the pace all that much either, so that was kind of nice. It's weird to me how much it feels like my energy can fluctuate on these runs, and how I can feel totally slow during a run, but then be right on pace, or faster for part or all of the run.

Soccer was the next night. I was totally worn out from being in the sun for several hours during the Angel game, and then the batting cages right after. I even missed my usual pre-soccer strength routine. And then I missed the final short run for the week. I've got to be better about that.

The 11 mile route was the same one that I ran for week 5. I was a little bit slower this time around, coming in at 1:35. I like that I always seem to be off on how far the distances I run are. I thought this one was almost exactly 11 miles, but it's 11.5. So the other Saturday when I ran it, I was going at a 7:50 minutes/mile pace. This time around I was going at a 8:16 pace. I can't believe that I was almost 30 seconds off that first pace. I felt especially slow the first couple of miles, but I think miles 5-9 were particularly strong. I finished feeling alright. My legs were pretty tired, but I wasn't exhausted or dying like I was last week. And this time around, while I might not have been moving as quickly, I definitely felt stronger at the end of the run overall as compared to the first time I ran the 11 miles.

Up until this point I have been really fortunate that I haven't had any real kind of pain in joints or muscles. There have been some aches here and there, but nothing to be too concerned about. The last couple of days I have been feeling it a lot more behind my knee. While running last night I was starting to feel a little anxious that this was a joint injury and that it would interrupt my training. It wasn't so much that I couldn't run with the pain, but just that I was afraid it might develop into something worse. I began thinking that it might be a ligament problem and was really starting to worry, but then I decided that there was no way I wasn't going to miss out on this race, even if I have to walk the whole stupid thing. I'll figure it out.

So...up to this point I have run about 177 miles. That is around 1450 minutes, or about 24 hours of running over the past ten weeks. Including this week I still have another 9 weeks of training. So that means 258 more miles, or about 2100 more minutes, or about 35 more hours of running to go. Oi.

I'm a little worried about my knee. The most annoying part is that I think it's directly related to the MCL strain I did in soccer, coupled with overworking it a couple of Saturdays ago when I ran 17 instead of 14 miles. It was during that run when I really first started to feel it. I'm not as concerned about it being a joint injury, just maybe an overworking of that muscle along with the additional strain of the knee.

I'm planning on doing the 17 mile run this week Friday night so that I won't want to do after running it Saturday morning and trying to run around Wild Rivers all day. I'm just worried that I may not have enough recovery time between now and then to make sure I'm all set to go. I guess I'll see how it feels at soccer and if it's bothering me too much, I'll cut out the other 4 mile run, or cut it down, or split it between Thursday and Saturday to lower the amount of strain I'll be placing on it before Friday. It's crazy how much I have to think about these things to make sure I'm ready to go. And then again, I'm not sure how much pain I should be feeling at all, like should I just ignore everything altogether because I've just been spoiled and haven't experienced any real setbacks up to this point? Am I blowing it out of proportion? I don't know. I guess I'll just keep going until something pops.