Worst Blog Ever

Yesterday Kristie and I did a pre-half-marathon run. We ran the full 21.1 KM just to see if we could do it. We did the entire run in about two hours and six minutes, but the run was not without incident.

First of all, I wasn't feeling it from the very start. My calves were tight, my energy level was low, but I was determined to run the whole course anyway. Kristie had pointed out that if I can run the whole course while feeling less than 100%, then I should do well on race day.

We were doing pretty well all the way to the half way point, and were still doing well for about a quarter of the way back, but then we got the point where we headed north, and BAM! We go hit with winds of about 70 KM/H!  This continued for about 4 KM of the run too! And the further you got, the heavier the winds got.

This is not uncommon at all here in Wellington. The Point, which is the part of the harbour where the wind hits you, is well known for fierce winds. As a matter of fact, there was a story of a shopkeeper who rescued a man that was blown into the harbour due to the winds yesterday!

As we neared the end, where we would reach the point and then turn west, I was absolutely exhausted! I would look down at my feet while I was running and think:

"I'm barely moving!  My feet are very slowly moving forward, but I am making virtually no headway!"

And by the time we finally did reach the point, we were absolutely livid. Our exhaustion was transmuting into rage.  To illustrate this, we saw that a couple of runners were coming towards us (being pushed by the wind); they looked as if they saw us, saw how hard we were working just to slowly move forward, and then said to themselves:

"We should turn around now."

Well, holy cow, did that piss me off. I was swearing under my breath at them, calling them wimps, etc. In my mind, they did it just to rub it in our faces!

Anyway, after we rounded the point, the wind finally let up and we had about another 3.8 KM to go. Needless to say, we had no delusions of grandeur to finish the course in under two hours. We simply wanted to finish it with the little bit of dignity we had left...which wasn't much.

We're hoping that on race day, the wind will take pity on us and realize that we had already paid our dues. However, it will be more likely that the wind will combine forces with its friends cold and rain, and attack us simultaneously.

So we're down to the final month before the 1/2 marathon, and the run distances are increasing significantly.  Over the past little while, our weekday runs were only about 4-7 KM depending on the day/week. Now, we pretty much don't have any weekday runs under 8 KM.

It would have been a bit of an easier transition if it weren't for the injury that I had a while back, as we lost about two weeks of running. But hey, what are you going to do.

My friend Daniel has a daughter who runs ultra marathons. She's off to Poland soon to compete against some of the best ultra marathoners in the world and he was telling me that she has a daily training routine of about 3.5 hours of running! 3.5 hours of running each day! Holy crap! Talk about making someone feel inadequate...

I figure if she can run 3.5 hours each day, I can manage a few long runs here and there.

Tomorrow's run is a long one (for us) at 16 KM.  But we're feeling pretty confident that we should complete it without too much trouble. We've done a bit longer before, but only once. The next week's runs are around: 8KM, 10KM, 6KM, 11KM and 13KM.

Ever since I pulled my hamstring muscle about three weeks ago, I've had to go easy on my running as it has literally become a pain in the butt. Little by little however, I can feel it getting better. The first run, a week or so ago, was quite sore, but with each subsequent run, it got a bit looser and a bit less sore.

Today's run was the longest we've done since the injury: 13.6 KM. For the most part, it stayed relatively pain free, and fairly strong. Towards the last 1/4 of the run, I could feel it tightening up a bit, so we slowed the run down and I could feel that it was helping.  It was fairly sore when we stopped to stretch, but it didn't take too long to recover after that.

I took my last round of muscle relaxant this evening, but I think it would be prudent to get another round as I still find it stiffens up during car rides.

Tomorrow we're doing a 10 KM, so it should be interesting to see how it faired after today's run.

Today, the third day back into running, we wanted to go about 12 KM, but it didn't work out that way.
A couple of weeks ago, I got a cold, which took me out of the game for a couple of days. Then, on a run that was probably too strenuous for my condition, I pushed it a bit too hard and pulled my hamstring. I tried resting it for a day or two, but when I tried running on it last Saturday, I found that it was too painful, and it would need more rest.  Judging by the pain I felt in my butt while running, we were a bit frightened that we might not make it for the half marathon.

In some respects it turned out to be a good thing, as Kristie had caught my cold, so she wasn't exactly up to snuff either. So we both rested for a week.

Three days ago, we went for our first run; a 4 KM run, and while my hamstring was quite tight, it seemed that the pain wasn't hindering continued training. Yesterday we went for a 5 KM run, and despite re injuring it again by stumbling at a petrol station, it still seemed pretty good. I was favouring the other leg during the run, but I didn't think much about it.

As I mentioned, today we wanted to do a 10 KM - 12 KM run, and things were going pretty well for the first 2/3 of the route, when I started getting a blister on the arch of my foot due to favouring my injured hamstring.

So for the last two weeks, we've barely been able to get much mileage in due to a series of cascading failures, all started with my cold. I guess I didn't need to say series of cascading failures and it was kind of implied by saying cascading... Anyway, I hope that we're nearing the end of this as our fitness level has been faltering too.