« WEEK NO. 15 | Main | WEEK NO. 17 »
January 29, 2006
WEEK NO. 16
REASON NO. 11 FOR RUNNING A MARATHON
If I can beat my brother across the finish line, I will become the first in our family to cross the finish line of a marathon.
From the research that I have done, no-one in our family (going back several generations) has ever ran a marathon. If I am successful in beating my brother, I will be the first person from our “family tree� to cross the finish line of a 26.2 mile race. This will give me bragging rights at family dinners for a long, long time.
Training this week was pretty tough. After my 21.75 mile run on Sunday, I was really beat up for a few days. Pretty much everything below my hips hurt on Monday, and Tuesday was not much better. I worked through the pain on Tuesday, and did a 4 mile treadmill workout at In Motion. Again, half way through the workout the treadmill belt gave up on me, so I had to shift to the next treadmill. Wednesday I was scheduled for a 9 mile run, but between the previous long run, taking my son to 6:30 AM basketball practice, and an evening dinner/awards ceremony to attend, it just did not happen. I scrubbed that run completely, and then on Thursday did a 5 mile run early in the morning in Durham. On Friday, I did a 4.5 mile hill run in Paradise.
Saturday was a cross training day, we went to In Motion with my family, my wife ran on the treadmill, and I swam about a ½ mile. It was good to get back in the pool again – it’s been probably 3 weeks since my last swim. I did a 100 yard warmup, then 6 sets of 100 yards – and I was able to keep my time under 2.0 minutes per hundred. Then did a couple of 50’s, a few warm-down laps.
Sunday was a tennis warm up with my son, and then a sorta long run. I started at In Motion, headed east through lower Bidwell Park, then up into upper Bidwell Park. Upper park has a quite a few “gentle� hills, which was my intent – I wanted to make sure that the hills of Napa are not a surprise to my system in a little over a month. I made it all the way up to Salmon Hole, which is about 2/3’s of the way up the upper park road. I was out about 2.5 hours, which is somewhere around 15 miles – I didn’t bother to map out the run beforehand.
Posted by Dennis at January 29, 2006 03:55 PM
Comments
Dennis,
Over a 20 mile run - nice! Sounds like a "marathon" belt needs to be developed for treadmills. You have my curiosity up on mapping out your last run - got a gps based bike computer and may put it to the test with your last run - just for fun...if the rain stops. Keep up the great work!
Paul
Posted by: Paul Lehman at February 1, 2006 12:45 AM
Hi Paul,
I've toyed with the idea of buying a Garmin 301 - I guess everyone that has one loves it... I just kinda hate to have one more thing to take with me. Let's see, headphones, armband radio, fuel belt, pepper spray, GU's, Camebak, Hat, Phone, ID tag, etc.......
A good internet mapping program I use all the time is www.map24.com It works great on public streets, but not so well in upper park, where the are not any "cross streets".
See ya, off for another 5 miler.
Posted by: Dennis at February 1, 2006 04:33 AM