In awe

Category: running

  • past few days

    Day 179

    I got over my little depression (post marathon blue) the other day. I don’t know what might cause it or helped it go away. Thursday, though was not feeling great, I went out and did 5 miles. I found out I was not totally recovered from my last week marathon. Muscles were still sore. The run was great because we had couple younger guys showed up and they ran fast, at least faster than me. There was a lady too. She was also quite fast. It had been a long time since I found someone who could keep up and out run me. I had a good time to go an all out sprint at the end.

    Friday, emotionally I was much better than Wednesday or Thursday. The blue totally went away. I went for a supposingly 20 miles long run but ended up doing 13. The funny thing was about couple miles into the run, I met a guy (Jack) who used to come to our Tuesday and Thursday run. So we greeted each other and continued on. He is a bit faster than me. We were apparently going down the same way on Rock Creek Park, in DC. This trail is long. We continued down same way and he was leading and I was just pacing from behind. I told him no need to wait for me because I will be running slow (to put in the mileage for the long run). After couple more miles we went our separate way. I continued down toward Lincoln Memorial, while he took a right (he said to East Potomac). Long story short, he was out of my mind as I continue to put in the next six/seven miles. I missed having him for company. Well in hour later, he sent me a text with the image of map of his run. He did 21 km (I thought was miles), and I said I only did 13.1 (miles). We then realized both of us have done a half marathon. I did not expect him to run this much.

    If I knew he was going to run 13 miles, I would have joined him. However, it seemed he is not a social runner (run and chat with someone).

    This post is long enough. Today, Saturday I was supposed to run another marathon, but I didn’t run it. I think I could have, but I am really over with running marathons. I went up on a mountain (called the Peak) instead and hiked 18 miles with a friend. I will write in a separate post some days.

  • Looking ahead

    Day 178

    Summer is over and Fall is here. I want to say it is good time for running. I have stacked every weekend with races from here on out until November.

    My body is in good shape, but I am feeling the post marathon blue today. I did a small run of 5 miles. I could have done another 4 or 5, yet I don’t have the motivation to do it.

    In fact, I went ahead to cancel this weekend race and the next weekend race. I tried to canceled the fourth weekend race too but I missed the deadline for doing that, so I probably will run it.

    I probably will still run them on my own but without supports and race timed.

    Suddenly, I am no longer interested chasing the bling bling of marathons.

    Looking ahead, I have two ultras in November. The biggest one, the 50 Miler, is still to come.

  • race, recovery, repeat

    Day 177

    I felt the weariness on the second day after my marathon as I was riding to work. I did not feel that bad on Monday but on Tuesday I did not feel well at all and wanted to faint while riding the train into work. I was low in energy. I closed my eyes and couldn’t focus. Luckily, I got a window seat and was leaning against the window.

    The rest of the day I got better. I took some vitamins and fish oil. I still couldn’t eat much and did not finish my lunch and skipped my dinner.

    By evening, I recovered and went for the group run. It felt great. I started out slow but later on after warming up a bit, I could run full speed. I love running fast. I got a bit tired after halfway. I walked the last quarter mile when I found a companion who was walking.

    I could still run some more after getting back to the starting line but decided to join the rest of the gang for the happy hour. I didn’t eat there though.

    My next race is supposed to be this coming Saturday but I submitted a deferral till next next year (put it in right before my evening run). I might still go out to run, since the course will be on public park (the same C&O Canal Towpath I just did last weekend).

  • week 8

    Day 176

    My best friend is back from her trip and we had a little of catching up of what happened for the last two weeks. I couldn’t remember at all what happened except I said I have been running a lot. At least that what I thought until I reviewed my blog and noted that I have been under-trained the last few weeks. She kept asking what happened to me, like sonething major had happened because she said I don’t look too well, I just couldn’t think of anything. It might have been I just finished two back-to-back marathons and was really deficient in calories (hungry but couldn’t eat – lack of appetite).

    I told her that running a marathon is not that big a deal any more. I guess that is major. Maybe more on this later.

    One thought came to mind while I was on the trail yesterday doing my run was, the scenery changes every couple steps I took. I found that was really cool. I know it before. It is not something to be surprised about, but still as I ran, I was anticipating the next view, the next turn or bend. I was totally enjoying it.

    Running a marathon or anything takes patience. I try not to think how much more it will be to the end during my run. I set much shorter goal, like trying to make it to the next aid station.

    I did not run that often last week. I did one run during the week – a short 4 miles, but I did a lot of miles over the weekend.

    Total miles ran for week 8: 65 miles

    oh, my left foot was fine by the weekend. It did not give me any trouble during any of the races.

  • C&O Canal Towpath Marathon

    Day 175 Race Report

    If yesterday was a fluke, today was not. I again started the race late. All I got to blame is myself. I got to race of what I thought was an hour early and took my time eating my breakfast. I had a lot of fried rice. Somehow, as other people gathered up, I was staying confidently at my car. I saw other cars were still pulling in and thought I had plenty of time. Somehow, I took today starting time to be the same as yesterday. However, in fact the marathon started half an hour before the half.

    By the time I walked up to the starting line, only the half marathon runners were still there. I don’t know why I did not check the race website for the start time beforehand. I made another rookie mistake.

    The race director kindly informed me the race has started and I should start running. He told me the course and which direction to go.

    Luckily, being half an hour behind was not as bad as yesterday of being an hour and half behind. I tried to catch up to the runners. I know they were about three miles out. The course was out and back four times and so I saw them usually running in the opposite direction but I never caught up to them. The closest I got was within two miles.

    I was not able to catch up to any runners but I did catch up to those who walked. Officially I finished at 6 hours but unofficially my garmin time was 5:34 about the same as yesterday.

    The weather was hot. I did not lube up myself today because I woke up late but surprisingly I did not get chaffed. Halfway through I felt a bister was developing on my left foot but I readjusted how I planted my foot and in the end no bister. I did not know you could do that.

    If you think how could someone can run two marathons within two days, the answer is simple, you run very slowly. I tried to run fast but I was unable to do it. My time was 45 minutes slower than usual.

    Was it hard for me? A marathon is a marathon. It seemed when I was running, the course seemed unending. Eventually, it did end. It was hard in that sense. However it was not extremely hard. I am at a point now in my training, where doing 20+ miles for a long run and the next day going out and do it again is typically what the plan calls for. I am supposed to be doing that much miles during the weekend.

    I ended up using the races for my long runs.

  • double marathon coming up

    Day 174

    I just finished a marathon today. I will do another tomorrow. I will write more on this in another post of how people do or more marathons without rest. Back-to-back marathon is not too hard a thing to do. I found a secret.

    I did Altis Cross County Marathon. It is a small ultra like race. There were 80 ish people running the full and about the same number running the half. Unlike other big names, this one was really low key but it has everything about a good race. I like the food and candies they offered. It had some trails to run on. The ground had everything: we had sand, asphalt, concrete, and dirt and might have some gravels. Luckily no water crossings.

    Any way, this race was one I learned an important lesson about life. Not everyone running in a race have the same purpose.

    I got to the race about an hour before the start time. I got out of the truck and saw a group 15-20 people was doing some warm up or at least I presumed they were warming up. They were heading out around the lake and I thought I would just follow them. Who would have known they were the advance starting group (first wave). The race director didn’t mention anything about this. I am not blaming the RD. Usually for small race RD is very flexible to different runner’s need.

    However, I was blindly follow them to the point of missing the start. I did not time myself but when I came to my sense that these people were not going around the lake but instead was going farther out than I was comfortable. I could have turned around. I could have asked them where they were going, but a guy was being rude to me. He said he couldn’t help me and that the starting line was the other direction. We were like an hour out and probably have gone 3-4 miles already. I started being anxious. I guess my vibed was infecting the whole group I was with. More on this later.

    I saw the race has now started. The real runners were catching up.

    The race had two laps of out and back. I continued to walk with them. I would not want to splint back to the starting line. Actually, I was still curious where they were heading and was tailing them. Part of me did not want to believe that they were runners and I had goofed. At the turn around point, one of the guys told me to stop tailing them because I was making them nervous. The guy was mean and I sensed if I kept on, he might do physical/bodily harm to me.

    This has never happened to me in a race and if it was really a race I wouldn’t tail them either.

    Any way, I was quite disturbed. I calmed myself down, got away from them, by following them from far away. By this time other runners caught up and the trail was full of people. I fet a bit safer. I walked back to the starting line with them.

    After passing ‘go’, I started running and started my garmin watch. I figured the race gave a generous time of seven hours and with about 5 and half hours remaining, I could still finish if I started then. If anything I just used it as a long run. I glad I was not disqualified from the race. The race was not bib timed, so it didn’t matter when I start (The RD was really generous). Actually he didn’t know I started that late. We all used the race clock. I started about an hour and half late but that was ok. Official time, I finished at 7:10, and my garmin time was 5:30. I ran 28 miles based on garmin measurement. If I added in the extra 9 miles walk before my start, that means I did a total of 37 miles. I was going to add two more miles but figured I didn’t want the race timing person to wait another half hour for me. I already finished after 7 hours (the supposed total time allowed for the race). I accidenally did an ultra and got an official finishing time (for the marathon). For that I was glad.

    Any way, I was angry at myself for making such a rookie mistake. I did not check where I was going and followed the wrong crowd. I did not keep track of the ‘warm up’ time. However, in the end, it was no harm no foul. I could have been DQ for late start or failed to finish within the allowed time.

    I was angry/frustrated also because I always thought myself a nice guy but there were people telling me to go away during the race. They said I made them nervous – how was it my fault? I should not let a random stranger bothered me. I always thought everyone in the runner community are welcoming. I shouldn’t let one person ruin the whole. I was bothered at the time because it was totally not within my expectation.

    There were others who encouraged me during the race, such as saying keep it up, good job, you can do it, keep going. Or they simply smiled at me. Not everyone are mean. However, I was quite shaken. This was one of emotional races and left a salty taste.

  • week7

    day 173

    I lost track of whether last week was week 7 or 6. It was probably week7. There are about 7 weeks till my 50 miler. I have not trained much last couple of weeks. Running a marathon takes more than a day to recover. I would say maybe even a week.

    During the summer, I thought running a marathon a month doesn’t give me enough time to recover. Now I am entering a season of a marathon a week.

    I lost count on my miles ran too. I used to religiously keep track of them but now, it is kind of eyeballing and hand-waving.

    I don’t remember if I was hurt or not last week. Good thing I was ready when the marathon started.

    I have been resting the last couple of days. Funny thing was at the start of the marathon last Sunday, my right heel was giving me problem. After several miles, it warmed up and the discomfort went away. Now my left forefoot feels a bit unwell. It is not pain but it feels hot as if it was overly used. I have been resting.

    Because of my foot, I am a bit reluctant to sign up for two marathons this weekend. I signed up a local race on Saturday and they are doing another one on Sunday. It would be an ideal time to run a back to back marathon. Yet my foot does not feel that great. I am still considering about Sunday. They say go slower on the Saturday one and I will be fine on Sunday.

    Will see. I will write something, if I do a marathon back to back.

    Total miles last week was about 30. Might have been 35 but couple miles do not make a different.

  • Mountain boys

    Day 172

    I will try to make this short. My race report usually goes on and on. The past weekend, I went to West Virginia and did the Morgantown Marathon. Boy, was it hard. To compare to previous marathons I ran, this was an ultra level marathon. I was knock out by mile 19. I walked then for three miles and finally picked up running again but was going at 15 min mile, very very slow jog. By mile 25, I walked to the finish. I finished at 5:10; the orginal target goal was 4:40-45. So I might have gone out a little too fast in the beginning.

    The course could have been tougher but I saw at many hills, the race path was diverted to an easier path. In my mind, I was thinking, thank God I don’t have to go up that hill. Though the course was made easier, it didn’t mean there was no hill. The whole course was hilly. We are in West Virginia, where there is not flat ground! There were hills that go up for a mile long. Mile 25-26 was like that. A whole mile of uphill. They had to put it at the end! Some people mention mile 20 as well, but I was walking at that point and do not remember if it was a hard climb.

    One thing I noticed was even walking was tough. You would think if you couldn’t run, you would walk to catch your breath, but while walking, my muscles felt like they would not want to take another step. At that time, if the snag wagon came by, I would have taken it and gave up on the race. I never thought walking was hard before, but in this race, walking was hard for me.

    The race organization was great. It started on time. They managed it like a 10,000 people race even though there were only 2500-2600 people registered and only about 250-260 people ran the full marathons. There were lot of food, water station, and after party. They have a pace vehicle! I thought I was running in the olympic. I couldn’t catch up to it though. There were many road crossings but they had crossing guards through out. We ran on closed roads for most of the race. There was one point though, I think one or two cars broke through a roadblock at an empty stretch. I know some people did not like us running on the road.We were in West Virginia, and to my mind, it is the wild wild west (their state slogan is ‘wild and wonderful’, indeed).

    crowd support: It was not like other big races, but some neighbors came out. I am thankful for the frozen grapes at one of the houses. Unfortunately, no one offered me moonshine on the course. I was kind of hopeful to get some moonshine in WV.

    Final word. They say run to conquere Morgantown, but I think the mountain boys conquered me.

  • How I pick races

    Day 168

    There is a famous math/computer problem in which a salesman is trying to visit every city on the itinerary, going through each city only once and doing it in the most efficient way (in a shortest path/time). There is probably a solution to this optimization problem.

    Well I thought my attempt to run in all fifty states is a traveling salesman problem and I stayed up many nights trying to come up a best way to do all fifty states in some logical order, until I spoke with my good buddy – a wise woman, but it shows how foolish I was. She immediately pointed out, that after each race I always come back home each time instead of traveling directly to the next state and this makes my problem really simple.

    It doesn’t matter the order of states I choose to visit because the overall cost of visiting every state will be the same.

    So because of her word, I would continue to pick any state to run each year as long as it is not one I have been to!

    ###

    I did a short 3.5 miles run yesterday. Legs are still sored. I felt my body is recovering fine. It is after all from running a marathon. I felt all those things about tapering and reverse tapering do not really apply this time. Got to get back into training.

    I have been searching online about how to run a faster marathon… don’t we all? It is kind of boil down to of how many miles ran during training.

  • Marathon and a half

    Day 167 (race reports)

    three races in one weekend – SHF Abebe Bikila Intl Peace Marathon, Arlington 9-11 5K, and Parks Half Marathon

    Total miles ran for the week was 46. Mostly all on the weekend. I did 4 miles during the week. I was mostly recovering from my backpacking trip. The tumble at the end of the trip injured me more than I initially realized. My lower back was out of wack for couple days and my left ankle was not so good. On top of it all, I woke up one day, with a knot in my neck/upper back (I couldn’t turn my head to the left, making runing difficult). Luckily, they all went away on race day.

    This week should be either the 4th or fifth week of my training, but last two weeks pretty much no running due to the Roan Trip – a week of preparation beforehand and a week of recovery. But even with very little runing, it was pretty satisfying to run a race.

    Here is the race report – three in one. I signed up to run a half marathon and a 5K, which is no big thing, but at the last minute (last Sunday or Monday) I went and signed up for a full marathon on top. I have been on the fence about the full for maybe a month. On paper, that was the amount of mileage I was supposed to run any way, but it seemed daunting because I never run three races on a given weekend before.

    I got to say even after running so many marathons, there were still lessons to learn. It all came down to preparation. I should have packed the night before and I should have slept early.

    I had about four hours of sleep the night before – my own undoing. The race didn’t start till 8 AM. Some started as early as 6, with the Race Director’s permission. The bulk of us, started at 8.

    I left my house around 6 but my head was a bit whoosie. I don’t even get up this early for work or church.

    I swallowed some oatmeal and got to the course with plenty time to spare.

    The first half of the run was pretty much on pace. I ran a 2:01 (hr:mm) for a half. Then I started to unravel after that. I lost my water bottle. It felt off from my hydration vest and somehow I never noticed when it happened. I was pretty much out of it from lack of sleep. I really didn’t need it since water stop is at every two miles but still, I am one of those guys — if something is out of place I would think about it all the time. So for the rest of the race, I was scanning the course for my water bottle.

    I caught a second wind by mile 17-18 when I was being chased by another runner (#840), well not sure if I chased her or sh was chasing me. She chased me for couple miles until the turn around point (between mile 19-20). I stopped. I needed to stop. I was out of it.

    The first half, I didn’t need to stop but second half I stopped at every station. My stomach was not doing too well. Later, I think it was because I had too much sweet (starburst candies).

    Then it was pretty much a struggle to the end. My underwears were giving me rash burn. It never happened before in previous races. It was uncomfortable. I tried readjusting them throughout the race but it stuck to my left thigh and cutting into it. I wasn’t wearing the stretchable one. So every step was painful as it rubbed and cut into me.

    Then my shirt too was burning me. The right sleeve was cutting into my arm. There was nothing I could do about it. I didn’t bring any cream or lotion with me in my vest — they were left behind in the car. I felt the heat and rub burn with every swing of my arm.

    I kind of find my tempo on and off between water stations. I probably could keep my tempo if I didn’t stop for water. I wasno longer running for time but to finish. So every water station was a stopping point. I picked up the pace on the last mile and finished it. Somehow, a marathon always seems so long but eventually, the finish line comes into view, there is a sense of relieve.

    That was my first race of the weekend.

    ######

    My second race started at 6 pm. It was a 5k. I kind of take it as a joke. A 5K, I could run it with my eyes close. Unfortunately, my body didn’t take it the same way. I had on compression socks and so I didn’t feel much from my legs.

    However, my breathing was another matter. I couldn’t breath. I think there was too much lactic acid in my chest. Every time I suck in breath, all my chest cavity hurt. I hoped I was not having a heart attack. I am so young to…

    Any way, I huffed and puffed through the first couple miles. That was the most difficult 5K ever. The pain didn’t go away until the last mile. I put on speed and rushed to the finished line. My time was little over 30 min, averaging near 10 mins mile.

    ####

    My third race was on Sunday. This was much easier than expected. I ran on tired legs, but after the first few miles, I was used to it. My breathing was under control. I didn’t start too fast. I built up my pace with each mile. I was expecting a large hill and hard climb at the end, however, the hill was smaller than I imagined. While every one paused to walked up, I sprinted up. I think it was less than 100 ft at mile 8. I ran this course last two years, but it was not how I remebered it. I had so much left in my tank this year that I blazed through the last mile. The course finished on a downhill. I used that to my advantage.

    ####

    Aftermath.

    I was sored the whole day and next. I couldn’t squat down. My quads took a beating. Not sure when I can run again. I will try any way.

    Looking back, I enjoyed the three races. The mileage was high but it shouldn’t be something that I couldn’t do. I think I am ready now to do a back to back marathon – it is no longer beyond my ability.

    Also, I ran two of the races this weekend with my friends. Though we all ran at our own pace but we celebrated together at the finish line. The race was much more enjoyable because of them.