My First Marathon (x2)

Saturday was my first half marathon of 2011 - the Sam Costa half. It is one of (if not the) the oldest half marathons in Indiana and Indy Runners is the steward of the race so as a board member I was involved in the setup on Thursday and Friday and some of the tear down on Monday, but I got to run on Saturday. Even though I would not normally be concerned about a 3 hour time limit for a half anymore, I was for this race. I had an upper respiratory infection that I was (am) still recovering from and knew I wouldn't be able to run the whole way because I hadn't been able to run more than a few miles since it started. But I knew I could go the distance, it was just a question of how much walking. I decided I would run as far as I could to "buy" time to walk at the end. I started out at a great pace - my first mile was 11:50. At 7 miles I was at 1:24 and some change on the clock which was my fastest official 7 miles to date. But my lungs ran away after I crossed the...

So...I have a raging upper respiratory infection and ear infection. Causes absurd amounts of deep chest coughing and lots of "popped" ears. Also makes it really hard to breathe. And, you guessed it, you need to be able to breathe to run. So this is a setback, but I don't think it is major and it is still relatively early in training. I don't think it's a tragedy because I have perspective...it's not like I am out to WIN the marathon, or even place in my age group...I am out to finish. I may finish last and I don't care because I will have finished a marathon. I am going to be slow anyway. Also, the doc knows I am a runner and said I could run as long as I used an inhaler right before I ran and then carried it with me for the next several weeks. Didn't even flinch at my first half being in 1.5 weeks. This is good. The reality is that until some of it clears up I am going to be walking. I walked with the training program tonight and did the who...

So yesterday was a HORRIBLE run. A special kind of terrible. The kind of terrible where you wish you had run with your cell phone so you could call someone to come rescue you. It started out good enough. I had done a strong 6 with two particularly good miles on Thursday and this was a "step back" week so I was "only" running 9 miles...and I walk/run for my long runs since I think that is how I am going to do the full marathon...so I thought I was golden. Yes, it was windy...but it was sunny. First mile was slower of a walk than I wanted but I was "warming up." The first run mile wasn't too bad. Second walk mile was fine. Second run mile even felt fine. I had stopped to see if the drinking fountain at the Carmel trailhead was working and it wasn't but it isn't that much further to the Monon Center so I shrugged it off. Continued to the turn around at 116th Street and headed back to the Monon Center for a pit stop. Got a sip of water, u...

Approaching this weekend I knew I wanted, no "needed", to PR. I haven't run a 10K since this same race last year and I "had" to be faster. But I also knew that I would be coming off of a 12 mile day on Friday...and I wasn't sure how that would affect me. Also, the weather forecast was not great. After yesterday's 12 miles (inside because of the rain) I was pretty sure I could do "ok" for the race today, but wasn't sure and was letting doubts creep into my head. Woke up this morning and it was warm and drizzling (but not raining hard) and breezy (but not windy). I changed my clothing strategy and went downtown. Before the race I decided I was going to be too warm with my jacket since it wasn't "actually" raining...so I checked it. Good call as it turned out. It looked like a lot of other people wished they had made that decision. My sportband decided it wasn't going to cooperate with starting at the start time, so I...