4th of July weekend

Day 140

Good news. I ran today. It felt good. It was a slow run and I couldn’t get my heart rate above 110 beats. I ran for 4 miles, actually 3 mile and walked for 1. This was my long run for the week! But I’m very happy because I wasn’t out of breath!

My body is really weak. I am still happy to run because for last three weeks, it has been on a downward fall. I was wondering when I would reach the bottom. I actually couldn’t run at all. And today I felt I could finally find a pace and keep it. It felt great.

I felt now this what I can work with. I can rebuild and I will take it step by step. I will need to work up my mileage all over again. It is like I have a three year set back. It is hard to believe in three weeks time it got me down to like I haven’t ever run before. I still have five months to prepare for the 50 mile race. So it is not too late.

I have a bunch of marathons in between and the few of those will probably be scratched (meaning I will run very slow or not finish). The one in couple weeks, my target time will probably be 6 or 6.5 hrs. I will have to see what the cut off is. It might really be a scratched for me (DNF – did not finish).

Exhausted

Day 137

People are saying I am exhausted. I don’t feel tired but I can’t no longer run fast.

I have been trying to do couple of short runs, just under four miles but they have been very hard.

I would be out of breath after couple minutes and I never was able to get into my pace. I run slower than the slowest person in our running group. It is almost to the point of walking. It is not like I am not trying.

I felt my heart was up on my throat. Garmin thought differently. It said I haven’t broken a sweat. My heart rate stayed in zone 1 (resting) below 90 with on occasion entered zone 2, 93-120 beats, but I felt like dying at the time.

I am taking this Saturday off training.

I also measured my blood pressure. It is low but I am not sure if that is normal. They say runners tend to have low pulse and pressure. Mine is 90 over 65 and a pulse of 50-55.

Random thursday

Day 126

1. Post-Marathon Blue again. I am beat on today run. I am more out of shape than I thought. Whether it is post marathon blue or what not, today run was horrible. I ran with two guys, the same two guys I have been running with. I think their names are Jack and Chris. We are usually about the same pace. Today though they seemed much better. They had to wait for me. Normally it is I who wait for other people. I felt they were like couple minutes faster. I couldn’t keep up at all. They beated me on the flat and downhill and uphill. I thought I would beat them on the uphill portion since that is my strength. Nope! Then I thought I would beat them on the distance since I am a distance runner. Nope. I gave up on the sprint. They dominated the whole thing. I guess I have been eating too much junk food and drinking too much sodas. Or it is really post marathon decline.

That’s life. I don’t want to believe in post marathon blue but I have run 9 marathons and each time is the same. I am suffering mentally and bodily after finishing a marathon. Life just don’t go well the following few weeks. Even my best hope — in running, I am doing poorly at it. Why even run, right? So much suffering for what.

I forgot what I want to write.

Passion. At church last night, there of course was some major lessons I can apply to running. However, I don’t remember what they were. I kind of zoned out in the middle of it. Something about the river of joy inside flowing out once you believe. Ah, once you have been with him, it will be known. It can’t be contained. Pastor looked at me and immediately identified me as a marathon man. When did I even tell him I ran a marathon? We are identified by our passion. We can’t not talk about it.

A Funny story about the hike I did. Last Sunday, I was hiking from camp to camp and the Sunday was our longest hike still. I think it was between a 18-20 mile hike. The machine (phone app) said we did 27 miles – it was way wrong. But it was a long hike.

We started out at 7 am on the dot. We actually woke up at 5 and packed our tents and had our breakfast and leisurely got our things together. There was supposed to be a heavy thunderstorm and damaging wind in the middle of the day and we wanted to reach to our camp/ a sheltering place before it hit. We knew that the half way point has a shelter. So we were hiking at a relatively fast pace around 2.4 – 2.6 mile pace. I think we hit the 10/11 mile mark by 11 o clock. This was with the full pack. 35-40 lbs. I didn’t have time to weight mine.

I was calculating that we should get to camp by 4pm. My friend thought otherwise and was aiming for 3 pm.

We stopped for ‘lunch’ which was pretty much just meant taking out our lunch from our pack and continued to hike with the lunch in our hands. I was fooling around looking for a place to pee. The sky got dark and wind blew. We were back on our way without eating (my friend finished hers before I even had mine ready). I had on my rain coat and rubber pants with my sandwiches in my hands.

Boy did the last eight miles a hard hike. The two ladies pretty much disappeared from sight on the getgo. Occasionally I got a glimpse of them like whenever we came to a hill and I was able to look up and saw them way up top while I was at the foot of it.

I started to day dream. It might be a coping mechanism because I was about to pass out. It didn’t help because I was falling even farther behind. Then I abandoned all thoughts. I only think of one name, my friend K and instead of looking at the ground I strained my eyes to look straight ahead like I could almost see her way in the distance. I was probably half a mile behind by then. I kept chanting her name in my head and I was like a train. A machine. I caught up with them on the last mile and passed them.

We laughed about it when we got to camp. The storm didn’t hit us but to a place like 30 miles south of us (Ohiopyle). I was all drenched from head to toes not from the rain but my own sweat. My friend looked at me and asked if I had on a different pants because it was darker.

They were dark because of my sweat. I knew if I would stop sweating during the hike, I would go into shock/heat stroke. We laughed about it because I was really foolish/and stupid because I could have taken off my raincoat and pants and would have able to avoid all the suffering to the point of passing out and would have hiked even faster still and might have kept up with them. It never occurred to me to take off my jacket on a 90 degree day. My only thought was if I died I wanted my last thought to be my friend’s name. It was really stupid. Haha. Guys are dumb they say.

Last day

Day 108
It is the last day on my training plan but no running for me today because …it is the day before my marathon. I totalled up my mileage this winter/spring training. I ran more miles than in previous trainings, just by a little, rounding up 350 miles (spread sheet says 346). Personally, I didn’t feel I have run that much over last 16 weeks. I had too much time off. I was aiming for 500 miles at the beginning. O well, maybe next time which is from summer to fall, I will put up 500 miles.

Week 0: 5

Week 1: 10

Week 2: 17

Week 3: 18

Week 4: 25

Week 5: 24

Week 6: 22

Week 7: 25

Week 8: 45

Week 9: 42

Week 10: 43

Week 11: 13

Week 12: 11

Week 13: 10

Week 14: 15

Week 15: 18 + 26.2 (if I finish the race!)

Will see how it goes

Day 97

No big plan this weekend compared to the last one. I did a short run last night, about 3 or 4 miles. I was going to do 10 but my mom called for dinner, so I put my plan away. My heart was not in the run. By the end of the dinner, I didn’t want to go back out.

My body was a little better than on Tuesday. My shins still have a bit of ache. Not sure how long it will take to recover. All other parts of my body are in good condition.

I have a race tomorrow. Afterward if I am still fresh, I plan to hike/run on a trail. It would take the whole Saturday. Tapering will begin next week or a week after.

Sunday will be quiet. Maybe attend the early service and then run the rest of the day.

Recovery

Day 96

I spent last few days on recovery. Basically no running. Nothing much to say. Today is the fourth day but still I feel tired. I have not recovered 100%. I feel it is a little over 50% and maybe at 60%. I am glad to be healthy though. I should be ready for the next race. I haven’t taken this many days off from running since maybe 5-6 weeks ago.

I had a quick short run last night. It was my first run after the half marathon. My muscles were screaming after a mile in. I kept on for couple more miles. I might need tonight off. That was a good feeling. I haven’t had that kind of stress on my legs for a long time. Surprisingly running the Half wasn’t painful as my recovery run was. I know pain is bad but I think I know what I am doing. It wasn’t the kind of pain that need a doctor. It was just the muscles were tight. I didn’t stretch before running.

This week is supposed to be another 40 miles week. I will see how my body reacts. I will be lucky to get in 20 miles.

Then there will be 3 weeks of tapering. I felt I haven’t work out that hard, so really not sure how much to taper off. I probably will limit myself to 30 miles total. Or I will push my max training for another week and limit my tapering to only two weeks. My marathon is a little less than a month away. I know the next three weeks will come by fast.

Much Colder

Day 89

Runner high — Sunday Reston 10 Miler, 3/3/19

A pic for fan service. I was cruising. I think it was at mile 5 or so into the race.

Tonight I was undecided whether to run or not and in the end I did run. It was much cold than other runs I had before. Garmin and rest of the forecasters were wrong. It was not 37. It was more like 28 (-4C). I brought 4 layers of clothing with me. I ran because I will take Friday off and so I can’t afford to have Monday and Wednesday off as well, so run it was.

I put in around 8 miles. I walked probably more than running. It was just a day after the race and I was still sore.

garmin output — Garmin statistics and google map.

While running, I was debating within me whether to sign up for a 10K next Sunday, just a day after the DC Rock n Roll. Normally, it shouldn’t be a problem. However, this coming Sunday, I will have a hike and a possible dinner, meaning I will miss worship. I haven’t signed up for the 10k yet.