It's official. I will soon be renaming myself Sybil. My running life has come to resemble this famous 1976 made for TV movie starring Sally Fields and Joanne Woodward. One day, I'm feeling like it's all suicide and a waste of time. The next, I'm Lance Armstrong meets Will Shorter meets Joan Benoit Samuelson. And today was one of those days.
You'll remember that I was waylayed by delirium and dizzyness on Thursday due to the meds. So today, against Dr. advice, I decided to not take my meds before the run. Went to Golden Gate Park and ran 5 miles before the gay boys got there. 5-mile Split? 43:00. That's 8:36 a mile. WooHoo!!! It was a good run, but I must confess I still felt a little disoriented from the drugs. Kind of dizzy, kind of confused, but the legs felt strong, so I kept it going. The shin issue is still working itself out. I'm figuring out how to loosen it up while running instead of having to stop. It looks like we won't have to amputate after all.
Then I had a few minutes to cool off and get some fluids before we headed off to do it again. The second 5 seemed to go much slower than the first. After all, this time I was being passed by men on their first 5 miles not their last. The miles did slow down a bit, but after mile 2 I felt great. Like I could run for another 10. I didn't, but I felt like I could have. Times did slow on the last five, but I ended with an 8:46 mile average for the day, which I couldn't be happier about.
The real question for me is where are these times coming from? After all, I took two months off, and expected to have lost more fitness than this. In fact, the times I'm turning in now are faster than those we were doing during the 1/2 marathon training. I truly think the gels and the fuel belt are helping. There were a few runs last summer when I stopped sweating, which all say is a bad thing. So, the fact that I stay hydrated is surely helping. The 10 minute break in the middle is probably helping as well.
The times I've been putting in, put me on track for a 4:05 marathon in January. Cross your fingers. That means I'll only have to cut another 50 minutes off to qualify for Boston. Oh, you forgot we were trying to qualify for Boston didn't you!!!! Get your asses out there, we've got work to do!!!!
Weeks Results:
Total miles: 14.8
Total Time: 132 minutes
Average: 8:57/mile
Overall Impression: It's A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood And Sibyl's On A Roll! (IABDITNASOAR)
Saturday, November 11, 2006
Just Another Manic Run Day!
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2 comments:
Great run, Don! (I still would have saved the extra 5 for afterwards to show off to the big ol' gay boys, but hey! that is just me). Your times are amazing. I think out times for the 12 mi. in Napa were somewhere around 9:30 averages. You are the guru. I bow down to you. Hey, I might have mentioned this or not, but I find that running on an incline early in my run helps stretch out my calves and ultimately helps numb the shinsplint pain (too bad Texas is as flat as [insert joke here]. I'd like to see you keep those times on packed sand. Ha ha. Kidding. I was waffling on running my 5 today, but now I am most definitely going to give it the ol' graduate school try.
Right on Jules. Let me know how the run went. Strangely I'm finding the opposite to be true. Running downhill allows me to stretche the shins and get rid of the pain. I'm not sure why it is, but it does seem to be the case. If I have a nice long downhill I don't have the shin pain.
Yeah, not so easy running that fast on sand. There's a stretch on the run in the park that is on sand, and it's tough. Real tough!
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