Tag Archives: personal

I ran the Philadel­phia Dis­tance Run yes­ter­day. I fin­ished in 1:44:38, neg­a­tive-split­ting from the 10K point for­ward. I fin­ished at a 7:59 mile pace! My Nike Plus Sport­band alleges that I still haven’t finished.

The Philadel­phia Dis­tance Run fell at the halfway point between the offi­cial start of my train­ing and the Philadel­phia Marathon. I feel like I’m mak­ing great progress and that the next two months will get me to my goal of break­ing four hours for the marathon.

I want to espe­cial­ly thank Mark Gat­ti for let­ting me run with him on Sun­day. He set a great pace and was a fun per­son to chat with through­out the race. He also has an amaz­ing kick for that final mile! You can check out his pro­file here in the Inquir­er.

I have two doc­tors appoint­ments tomor­row. I’m not hap­py about the two days of train­ing I’ve missed, but I’m hope­ful that the doc­tors will tell me how I can work around what­ev­er’s going on with my right ankle. The best case sce­nario is shin splints; worst case is a stress frac­ture like­ly aid­ed by a kick to the shin dur­ing a soc­cer game on the beach at Helen’s birth­day par­ty. Ouch. Developing…

I rode my bike to work yes­ter­day so I could leave it with the good peo­ple at Bicy­cle Ther­a­py. I don’t have a bike pump that works with my tires and they were get­ting dan­ger­ous­ly low. That’s not every­thing that needs work though. I’ve had it since April 28th and have rid­den who knows how many miles. I can’t wait to have it back now that the weath­er’s a bit cooler.

All in all, I’m pleased with the progress I’ve made since April. If I’m hob­bled by a stress frac­ture, all I can do is con­cen­trate on heal­ing and think about run­ning next year’s marathon instead.

Some­body pinch me. I’ve been run­ning for just three months. 12 weeks. That’s all. When I start­ed, I prob­a­bly weighed more than 220 pounds. I could­n’t even weigh myself, but pic­tures tell the tale. I’m down into the 180’s now and I’m feel­ing bet­ter than I have in quite some time. It’s great to be able to run dis­tances I nev­er thought I’d attempt, but real­ly rein­forces those achieve­ments and keeps me going.

This week I skimped a bit on work­outs. I did­n’t intend to, but it end­ed up work­ing for me any­way. Not only was I on vaca­tion, I’d also been suf­fer­ing from pain in my shins and calves. It took me a while to fig­ure out, but I was tying my sneak­ers too tight­ly, which kept mus­cles, lig­a­ments, ten­dons and all that good stuff from prop­er­ly flex­ing and relax­ing. My right shin still hurts a bit, but I think I’m on the road to recovery.

I put my ten­der limbs to the test yes­ter­day on a 16 mile run that took me from 21st and Poplar to leafy For­bid­den Dri­ve along the Wis­sahick­on and back. After Hur­ri­cane Han­na ran its course Sat­ur­day night, it was a beau­ti­ful Sun­day morn­ing, the tem­per­a­ture hov­er­ing around 70 degrees. Unlike our 14 mile run two weeks ago, this felt far more com­fort­able and relaxed. We main­tained a nine minute mile pace and nev­er real­ly labored, despite hav­ing got­ten lit­tle sleep after Josh and Suzan­ne’s wed­ding at the Glen Foerd man­sion Sat­ur­day night.

Rob and I need to bite the bul­let and buy those util­i­ty belts you see peo­ple jog­ging with on Kel­ly Dri­ve. For a run of this dis­tance, it’s a real test (and a lit­tle dumb) to not have water between the 2.5 mile mark and 13.5 miles. We’ll get those belts this week. I’m already look­ing for­ward to next Sun­day’s run!