Lemons, lemonade, and that damn run.

Posted on August 28, 2011 by Raven

Nothing prepares you for a bad run. They happen to the best of athletes. Your only choice is to weather it the best way you can, or throw in the towel and call it a day.

Yesterday morning I woke up a little early, in hopes of getting out on the road before sunrise. Since this run was going to be 18 miles, I wanted to try to get on the last part of it before the lovely Texas heat started baring down. Yeah that didn’t work out as planned. I still hit the road at 6:15 am; my normal time. My attitude was not of the best, and I think my nerves were causing me to drag my feet a bit. As my training runs get longer, I get a little more anxious, and even begin to doubt myself.

If yesterday proves ANYTHING, it’s that I should never underestimate my will.

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The Long and Winding Road

Posted on November 13, 2010 by Raven

Today was my longest run since I began training. The furthest I made when training for a full marathon in July was 10 miles. I hit that mileage last Saturday. Today was the next step – an 11 miler. Usually I would think that an extra mile would not be that big of a deal, but I guess with what all I have on my plate right now, it was a bit more of an undertaking for me.

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Long Running Success Continues

Posted on November 8, 2010 by Raven

In the past few weeks I have been taking on higher mileage runs in my training. I am happy to say that I am having continued success and have successfully avoided re-injuring my foot. The 10 mile marker was the true litmus test in my running journey. This was the distance that sidelined my training in July, and subsequent goal of my first full marathon event at the Dallas White Rock Marathon.

I have been cautiously running the higher distances, and even opted to tape my foot for the 10 mile run. My goal in doing so was to complete the run, and avoid putting too much stress on my navicular bone. The navicular sling tape job worked very well!

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Playing catch up – again

Posted on October 12, 2010 by Raven

So help me, I think about blogging most every day, but everything seems to leap forward and prevent me from sitting down and focusing on writing something. I’m still training, and doing very well actually. I won’t try to post every single map of my training runs over the past weeks, but I will post the latest long run map, because honestly it rocked.

Saturday I set out to do a 7-miler. On the weekend I do one long run, usually a mile more than the previous weekend’s run. Last Saturday I did just over 6 miles, so naturally I needed to up it to a 7-miler – capiche?

I set forth on my little running adventure. The night before I mapped it out, and sent the navigation notes to my iPhone, so I could quickly check them, so as to avoid getting lost. As the running routes increase in distance, so does my chance of running in unfamiliar territory. I can no longer circle the neighborhood, because at this distance it would get boring and dizzy. This new route had me getting to the Houston street bridge, but not crossing into downtown.

Yeah, I crossed it; but only 80% of the way.

It was fun to run over the river – well the dried up version of a river that we have here in Dallas. I had ridden over this bridge MANY MANY times on my bike, but running it was more fun. I could take the time to see the marshy area below, and the cranes that were flying around.

I got right to the point that it enters the downtown area, and turned back. I know how I am about getting caught up in the running adventure, and I didn’t want to risk over doing the mileage so much that I re-visit the foot injury that I just finally healed from.

Oh yeah the foot issue – I ran this without the need of taping and wrapping the arch. How about that? Ha!

Distance 8.16 mi, Duration 1:39:24, Pace 12:15 min/mile, Speed 4.9 mph.

This week begins week 5 of my training. I have cut back the mileage a little, so I can give my body a recovery week, but also so I can run the Komen Race for the Cure 5K on Saturday. I’ve ran 5K upwards of four times a week since March, but I have never ran an actual 5K Event. I’ve always admired the runners at the Komen 5K, but I have always just walked it. Each time I participated, I thought to myself, “Next year I’m gonna run this”, but I never did – until NOW.

This is going to be a blast!

Fresh Start

Posted on September 9, 2010 by Raven

Woohoo!!!

I am super excited to announce that my training limbo is coming to an end, and that my Half Marathon training schedule begins this MONDAY! My foot has finally healed enough for me to feel comfortable with hitting the pavement again. I have been running an average of 5K (3.11 mi) three to four times a week, and walking the same distance a couple of times a week. Those have all been on my lunch hour at work. In the EARLY mornings I have been taking our new pup on walks at least five times a week, so that has also added to my weekly mileage.

At first I started back up with my foot wrapped and taped, to help support my arch and to also stabilize that problematic navicular bone. I have gone through about six rolls of athletic tape in the past three weeks! Ace Bandage should send me a Thank You card!

In the past 5 days, I have successfully ran two days without taping my foot at all – one was 3.21 mi and the other was an accidental 4.21 mi run. I say accidental because I got a little lost and extended my mileage more than I intended. My plan is to still tape my foot on the longer runs just to play it safe, but for the 3 to 4 mile runs I feel safe enough to skip the tape and just go.

I’m going over the 12 week training schedule, and looks like this is all going to fall into place!