Training Log Archive: jroach

Left knee still hurts. I don't feel it at the start until after a couple minutes, then it is sharp pain. It also hurts if I try to twist my leg at the knee when my foot is planted.

Took off on the faster side. First mile = 7:35. Felt good during the first half. Then I had to make a pit-stop. Around that time, my left knee (inner side) started hurting. It gradually got worse and turned into a sharp pain. I was almost limping the rest of the way. The pain was only maybe a half inch in diameter.

First mile = 8:05. Ran as light on my feet as possible. My quads and adductors felt the most sore. Felt good to get out and run, although I would have rather done so off the road.

Jogged ~0.9mi warm-up. Jogged ~0.35mi "cool-down" to keep my hamstrings from cramping up (especially since I ran a little fast on the downhill finish). Felt pretty good today. I think I did everything right. I cut back a lot on my running this week. Tried to eat lots of good carbs (Oatmeal Square cereal) this week. The last 2 nights I hardly slept much though. On Saturday I ate the following: oatmeal/bagel for breakfast, 1 bowl of cereal at 2:30, a banana and slimfast shake after my 4.1mi run at 3pm, and a little bit of spaghetti (w/chicken & spinach mixed in) at 5:30pm. However, I got hungry at ~9pm. Some kids woke me up at 11:30pm because they were going to pee on my car. I yelled at them and then took off after them down the hill. Had to pee every half an hour throughout the night it seemed. We got to the course with plenty of time to spare (6:10am). I planned on going out easy during the marathon (perhaps 6:45 would be the fastest). However, I went out a bit faster than that and got mad. But I was in about 10th place and so I didn't panic. At first I wanted to run 2:36 (6 minute pace) earlier in the year; but after a few "test runs" (the 21 mile run on March 20th), I thought breaking 3 hours would be a little hard to do. I ran with some guy for ~5mi and he told me to go easy on the hills. Running with him helped me relax. Then he slowed down at one of the water stops and I kept going. At mile 6, my left hamstring started getting tight; but it never got any worse. I did press on it every so often though. At the half-way point, I thought that I was going to run about 7-8 minutes slower during the second half because I feared my hamstring getting worse or my legs turning to lead. I took 2 sips of water from the water stations every 2 miles (I skipped the last station). Sometimes I grabbed a sports drink (I never knew which I was getting). At mile 12 I took a sip of energy gel. At mile 18 I grabbed a gel but they handed it out after the water so I carried it to mile 20 and took it in there (and choked). I only had problems with 1 water station, where I had to turn around and stop for a second to grab the water (people in the way). Other than that, I ran all the tangents and passed a bunch of half-marathon runners/walkers from mile 18 on. I think one of the keys to me staying strong was that I kept a good attitude the whole time. I responded to a few people cheering on the side of the streets and that was fun. I didn't even feel like my pace was ever hard; although, some of the hills did slow me down a bit. A few of my mile splits may be off a little due to my error in reading the signs on the road. They are: 6:09.0, 6:18.8, 6:35.0, 6:31.2, 6:15.2, 6:22.3, 6:22.3, 12:24.2, 6:25.1, 6:08.0, 12:06.9, 6:02.7, 6:12.7, 6:07.4, 6:12.3, 6:08.5, 7:01.3, 5:19.9, 6:04.4, 5:53.2, 6:35.5, 6:31.9, 5:57.5, 6:18.1, 1:10. Total time = 2:43:06 - 3rd Place. First half = ~1:22:08, Second half = ~1:20:58