Back to where it all began

I had some things to do at my mom's place in Port Coquitlam today, so I brought along the running gear and I did my long run back in my old neighbourhood. Poco is a small town with a population of probably around 50,000 about 30 km east of Vancouver. The title of this post isn't that fitting since I didn't start my serious running until after I moved away from home. I was however, on the cross country team in high school, so I did many of my training runs around the old neighbourhood. My run today was 7 km and that's my longest since my comeback to running about a month ago. This is going to sound gross, but man I had a major case of the farts on my run today! Just 2 more weeks until my first race of the season.

This is the last week of pre-training before I start training for my half. I was worried that giving my self 5 weeks of base training is not enough to do half-marathon training but I guess I'll just have to wait and see. The first long run in my training program is 7 km and that's where I'm at now, and I've been doing tempo runs in my pre-training at the same distance and pace as I will need to in the training program, so I think I'll be fine.

In other news, I was at the local running store yesterday and I bought a new pair of shoes to rotate in with my New Balance 765 that I'm currently running in. I bought a pair of Asics GT-2120. Here's a pic of them:



I also bought a Nathan hydration belt. I was going to go with a fuel belt due to the smaller flasks (7 oz. compared to 10 oz.) but the salesperson convinced me that the Nathan belt has better flasks and that they are easier to get out of the belt because of what the holsters are made of. I also like that there's a miniature pocket in the front where I can put my keys, and then a larger (but not that large) pocket in the back for gels or whatever. I don't need the belt quite yet as my long run is only at 7 km right now, but I did carry one flask in my hand on my run today. I'm thinking of maybe just wearing the belt with the one flask filled with water just so I can get used to wearing the belt and to get used to running with 40 oz. of fluids on my waste.

That's it for now, my next scheduled run is a 4 km tempo run at 5:00/km on Tuesday.

Booooooooooooring

Easy runs are so excruciatingly slow, painful, and boring. I've been pretty good at resisting the temptation to go faster though. As boring as they are, I know they help me for recovery and preparation.

Cracking me up

So, I started seeing a chiropractor mostly for preventative maintenance because of the amount of kilometers that I plan to be logging. I know I do have some imbalances in my lower spine and in other areas. I hope that I am getting realigned and not just getting randomly cracked. She would also like to work on my left hamstring and right IT band. I knew that my left hamstring was less flexible than the right. That's the same thing that I found out the last time I had a fitness assessment done at the gym, and also when I stretch it doesn't go as far as the right. I guess it's good that they both came up with the same conclusion. I probably shouldn't have slept on the couch last night. I think she will be sending me for sports massage too.

I guess part of it is also about milking as much as I can out of my extended health plan. Woohoo!

Introduction

Hello fans! Thank you for visiting my blog. As you may have read in my profile, my plan is to use this blog to write about my rediscovered passion for running.

First, I think I will give a little history of my running:

2003 Sun Run (10K) - 48:17
2003 Pacific Spirit Run (10K trail run) - 47:05
2003 Scotiabank Vancouver Half Marathon - 1:46:08
2004 Sun Run - 50:41
2004 Scotiabank Half Marathon - 1:56:42
2005 Scotiabank Half Marathon - 2:21:10

Oh it looks like it's been more than 2 years since I've been actively involved in races. My 2005 result for the half marathon was so horrible but that's because I didn't train at all for it. I just entered to race to keep the streak alive. I was in so much PAIN at the end and for the next week. I think I was popping close to 10 Motrins a day for a few days! I won't make that mistake again.

My main goal for this year is to complete the Scotiabank Vancouver Half Marathon in under 1:45. The date is June 24, 2007. I have a few tune-up races planned between now and my big day.

I'm currently training for my training program which begins on March 4. I'm currently in week 3 of my pre-training phase. I'm currently logging 15-20 kilometers per week with my long run only being 5 km. The pre-training phase includes 4 runs per week: 1 long run, 1 tempo run, and 2 easy runs. When I get to the real training, I will be running 5 days per week and peaking at over 50 km per week! I can't imagine that. I never really trained properly in the past for my runs. I was just in general good shape and I ran 5k about 3 times per week.

The runs that I have planned for the next few months are as follows:

March 11, 2007 - Harry's Spring Run Off (8 km)
March 25, 2007 - Run Inn Sane (10 km trail run) - tentative
April 15, 2007 - Vancouver Sun Run (10 km)
June 24, 2007 - Scotiabank Vancouver Half Marathon

Then I'll recover for about 2 weeks and get right back at it and prepare for another half in October. I'm thinking either Victoria, Bellingham, Kelowna, or San Diego if I feel that I deserve a vacation. Right now I'm leaning towards Bellingham due to the proximity and also it will be the inaugural event. But part of me would prefer to run San Jose because it's a full-half instead of half of a full. It's just a mental thing - I feel like I've only run half of the race if I do half of a full marathon. I guess I'll have to get over it since the half-marathon isn't a popular enough distance to merit enough of their own events yet. My goal for next year is to run the full marathon, but I still have a lot of work to do before that. On the way to my October half, I'm sure I'll do a few 10 k events around Vancouver in the summer. One that comes to mind is in July I believe. It's called Summerfast and it's very memorable to me because I remember I signed up for it one year and I showed up a day late! I was wondering why nobody was there.

I think that's enough for now. Wish me luck on my journey!

2008 - Full marathon - Vancouver and New York, Honolulu, or Chicago