The Good, the Bad and the WHY NOT
THE GOOD
In the days since my dizzying yet mind opening 24-hour jaunt around Lisle Community Park, my body has recovered in full, responding to the training bell better than I ever imagined. I can’t emphasize enough just how awesome it feels to be running at full strength again. After all the nagging injuries from last year, I wasn’t really sure how my body would respond to the big mileage races, but everything feels strong and solid right now, and that is a huge motivator.
The key, at least for now, seems to be pace.
When I run fast — and for me, anything under an 8-minute mile is something I consider “fast” — both of my Achilles flare up, stopping me for several days. I have tried different shoes, different strengthening exercises, different forms. All speed seems to lead to the same thing currently: stiff, bum, calcaneous flare ups that SUCK. So I’m just shelving fast miles for now.
Long, slow, FUN runs.
Everything I run now is to prepare for the grueling test of the Pinhoti Trail 100. I will explore speed another day. Ain’t no need for a sub 10-minute anything in a hundred miler anyway. Looking at the elevation profile only confirms that.
Long, slow, fun it is.
THE BAD
Being one of the most anal retentive slaves to organization one could ever meet, the following faux pas of mine is extremely embarrassing to confess; but this blog is just as much about failure as it is success (otherwise success would be sooooooo boooooooring!) so here it is:
Um… so that half marathon I am supposed to run in Mexico City next weekend… um… yeah… it was IN JULY.
I don’t know how I (nor my buddy who has been training diligently for it) missed that small detail, but I did. We did. I originally wanted to run the marathon, and bummed that it was sold out, quickly obliged to the website’s tempting me to run the half instead. Assuming that it would be on the same day — because that’s how it usually works, the full and the half are held on the same day, simultaneously — I gladly signed up. To my credit, as far as I can remember, there was NO MENTION of the actual date of the race during the sign-up nor the confirmation process. I double checked the confirmation email to make sure.
Then, last month, as a follower of the race’s Facebook page, I was quite curious as to why there was another half marathon, under the same race name, a month earlier than the one I signed up for. Still, I never did conclude that the half marathon pictures I was seeing were from a race I was supposed to be running. It just didn’t make sense. My Mexico City Half Marathon was going to be on August 31.
Except it’s not.
It was only after recently checking packet pick-up details that the mistake was realized.
Whoops!
Oh well. There’s not much I can do about it now. While I’m a little sad I missed out on my first international race, I am still excited about visiting La Ciudad and exploring whatever roads and trails it has to offer. Maybe my friend and I will run our own half marathon.
Why not?
THE WHY NOT
While I’m at it, I might as well run the Peapod Half Madness Half Marathon in Batavia this weekend. For the fourth year in a row. I won’t be running a personal best this year. In fact, I will probably have to work hard just to break two hours; but, in my opinion, this is one of the most fun, most charming races in all of Chicagoland: a scenic, challenging 13.1 miles through a quaint river town with all-you-can-eat pizza and all-you-can-drink Sam Adams beer at the finish line.
What’s not to love?!
And while I’m at the long, slow, fun running, I might as well enjoy twice the marathon action during the second weekend of October. At least, that’s what I was thinking when I recently signed up for the Prairie State Marathon. It’s the day before the Chicago Marathon, and should serve as a suitable warm-up to my favorite Sunday 26.2. Three weeks out from my first hundred miler, I figure back-t0-back marathons should be a nice way to start my taper.
Haha.
As if ultrarunners actually taper.
TheRunFactory.com 