Another Running Blog

That's right.  It's here.  The 1,264,563rd blog about running by a mid-pack amateur runner .  Truth is, I haven't really read any of the other blogs thoroughly enough for inspiration.  I just like talking about this weird obsession of mine, and can always feel the eye rolls of the non-runners that I'm surrounded by when I mention how long I ran over the weekend or my total miles for the week.  At least with the blogging I won't be able to see the eye rolls.

So here I am.  I've been running for just under a year and a half, and I've learned many, many things over that period of time.  About running and about my body.  When I first started, it was on a treadmill at the gym; two miles at a time at over a 13 minute pace.  I weighed 240 pounds, and I had been spurred into action by a couple of friends who had convinced me to participate in a triathlon "relay" that never actually took place.  Strangely, that's what it took to shake off 26 years of inactivity.

Currently, I'm running between 35-40 miles a week.  I average, more or less, an 8:15 pace.  But you know how it is; some weeks are better than others.  

This week has been a little weird.  I've committed to running a 5k which is tomorrow night (Saturday the 9th), and next weekend I'm going to be running in my very first Half Marathon.  With those two events on the immediate horizon, I've been trying to balance easy runs and rest, but don't know that I've been all that successful.    I've only managed to squeak out 19 miles up to this point this week.  I've still got tomorrow and Sunday, but tomorrow's weird because of the race.  I anticipate that I'll run at least a couple of miles to warm up for the 5k tomorrow, but still haven't decided on how much to run on Sunday.  I need to taper before the Half, but how do you taper off of a week where you didn't really run that many miles to begin with.  I think I'll just have to settle for my weekly miles to be funky until after the Half Marathon.  That's fine.  

Today I ran a trail that I haven't run in what seems like a month.  I like the trail, but it's kind of a drag because there are no mile markers, and I don't have a Garmin (....yet.  I want one so bad my hair hurts), so it's not my trail of choice.  At any rate, I ran it and felt terrible for some reason.  About 12 minutes in I was having crazy side pains which rarely happens.  I stopped for a couple of seconds and they subsided, for the most part, after I resumed my run.  But it still didn't feel quite right.  I ended up running for just under 38 minutes which, ultimately, had to have been under 5 miles, when 6 is pretty generally my standard.  That's fine though.  I'm shooting for a personal record tomorrow, so I didn't want to push it too hard today.  Truth is I probably shouldn't have run the day before a race, but I missed yesterday.  And the race tomorrow isn't until 8 P.M.  Yuck.

Can't wait to post my latest 5k time tomorrow.  Until then...