Is it over yet?

Less than 3 weeks to go until Cleveland. I'm not ashamed to say it but I honestly can't wait until the big event. Sure I'm super anxious to push myself to run 26.2 miles but the other part of me is I'm just anxious to be done with it. I have seemed to slip into a cycle where everything just seems to hurt. Not painful like broken bones pain, just sore like sore muscles and joints. Part of the problem I'm sure stems from my shoe issues. I'm still trying to find that perfect pair. My Nikes are too old and cause my toes issue due to the tight toe box. My Mizuno's are spacious in the toes but have made my legs super, super sore. I'm now deciding to train in my Nikes but run the race in my Mizuno's. I'll suffer the consequences later. Besides that, I think I'm just sore from the weeks of mileage that I've been continually running. My body is in great shape for runs up to 7 or 8 miles, but continually doing longer runs on the weekend is taking its toll. I'm learning a valuable lesson, I need to rest but then start running those longer runs sooner in the marathon training plan if I'm going to take another shot at Columbus later in the Fall. I just need to make the physical adaptations of running at that distance just like I did when I started getting to 5 or 6 miles in length. That being said, I'm happy that I'm still relatively healthy and barring any disaster like catching the Swine Flu, I should be on the start line very shortly.

b

5 weeks to go

To be exact, there is 5 weeks, 3 days, 18 hours, 31 minutes and a few odd seconds until the start of the Cleveland Marathon. I sit here today terribly frustrated and worried as I'm feeling a bit nervous that I may have sustained yet another marathon ending injury. My left leg is again hurting similar to how it did when I ended up with a stress fracture. How could this have happen? I'm sitting here really contemplating that... I picked up a new pair of running shoes as my old Nike's were well past their expiration date. I switched brands to a pair of Mizuno's as the Nikes were too cramped in the toe area as I've been having issues with blisters and bloody toes. The Mizuno's opened up a bit and in the few runs that I have in them so far I can tell a world of difference. Besides that, this past week was actually a rest week so my mileage was way down. I put in a solid 13 mile run on Sunday where my buddy Pat joined me on the later half, but mileage, tempo and terrain (trails) were nothing out of the ordinary for me. I am still sore from that run so I must have over did it and I'm praying that this will all quietly go away tomorrow. Waking up in the morning and limping to let the dog out though brings back some bad memories. I'm going to wait another day before I schedule a doctor's appointment.

brian

Running...ouch

This past weekend was another long one...18 miles. I wasn't as pumped up about this one for some reason as I was when I had to run 17 miles the previous week..probably because it was only one more mile :)

Thanks to a hint from my wife on the weather forecast, I decided to run the 18 on Saturday in lieu of Sunday. I'm all about avoiding bad weather at all costs when I'm running. It's work enough, why throw lousy weather into it?

This week I decided to focus more on my nutrition during my run so I can figure out how much and what I should be eating during the event. This week I carried along a Gu and some Jelly Belly Sport beans that I picked up from somewhere as well as some Gatorade. My cousin lent me his belt a few weeks ago that has 4 small bottles on it as well as a pouch for carrying some food. Man, I look more geeked out than I normally do but unless I want to run circuits around my house there's just no other way around it. The solution...turn up the tunes on my iPod so I don't hear the bystanders and countless wildlife creatures that pass my way laughing at me. I seemed to do better this week but I'm still having problems getting it to work out right for me. This time my stomach was a bit upset. I think I'm getting a bit too much sugar and in lieu of bringing only Gatorade, I'm going to try to pack half water and half Gatorade to give my stomach a break. I had planned on hitting the drinking fountains down on the Towpath but they're still turned off for the season. Darn freeze/thaw cycle.

I would link to my data now but once again, the Garmin site is down. That site seems to be down every week. If you're a Facebook friend you can see the link there. If not, get on Facebook and become my friend so you can see the data!

What I learned this week is that 18 miles is a heck of a long way. I finished up with the thought of how am I ever going to run another 8.2 miles? It was that difficult for me. I think my long runs are on a much more difficult course than the marathon will be (lots of elevation....you'd see it if I could link to it) so I'm hoping the more difficult training course pays off for me on race day. Also, I had just ridden 40 miles the day before with Tim House which I know affected my legs. My current cycling schedule is that I seem to ride my bike only once every other week. Not nearly enough to keep up with the elderly in their motorized wheel chairs but I'm hoping to make cycling workouts a bit more regular now but with all the irons in the fire I'm not too optimistic. My cycling season starts May 20th...look out!

b