Monday, January 28, 2008

Long Layoff

As a few of you have pointed out, I haven't been blogging lately. As it turns out, I haven't really been running much lately either . . . at least not since the Houston Marathon.

The Houston Marathon was both disappointing and fulfilling at the same time. I suspected early on (mile 15 or 16) that this wouldn't be my day to qualify for Boston, but I kept on pace through about 20 or 21 miles before trotting down Allen Parkway to a 3:14:00 finish. I'm proud of my time and my training effort over these past several months. But the reality is that I wasn't capable of running two fast marathons only six weeks apart, with only ten months of running under my belt. I didn't have enough time to recouperate after the Dallas Marathon, and the break I did take only served to lessen my physical conditioning prior to the Houston Marathon. But I enjoyed the race. I supposed I'll try to write a post-race blog within the next few days and elaborate, but I really enjoyed it even though I missed my goal time by a wide margin.

So after stumbling through the finishing gate on January 13 I decided to take two weeks off from any kind of running or cross training. I felt beat up, slightly injured, and I wanted to pamper myself for a while. I think I needed a mental break from running as much as I needed the physical break.

One week into my "exile" from running I broke down and ran a bit with Julie. I wasn't really excited about running, but I figured I needed to get back to it because I wanted to run the Baton Rouge Mardi Gras Mambo 10k on 1/26/08. If I posted a sub 45 minute time I could qualify for a chip for the Crescent City Classic 10K in New Orleans, and qualifying races are in short supply. A chip is the only way you can win a poster for a top 500 finish, and my goal after finishing the Classic last year was to get a poster this year.

So I set out for a run with Julie on January 20. A familiar pain cropped up less than a mile into the run. I had a strange upper leg pain though the entire second half of the marathon which caused me to have difficulty pulling my right leg forward and taking a full stride. The upper leg irritation resurfaced on my run with Julie, and I limped to the finish with a 8:39 pace over 4.03 miles (34:55).

I didn't run again until the Mardi Gras Mambo 10K in an attempt to let it heal. I'll try to post a race report for the marathon and the 10K within the next couple of days.

1 comment:

Kevin said...

Glad to see that you are still alive and running. I think what you had was the "Marathon Blues". A common occurance after spending many weeks doing nothing but training, then you finally run and are faced with the "now what" plus that was stuck on top of two EXELLENT RUNs that you were hoping for a BQ. All I can say is GREAT JOB. You have accomplished in 10 months what many do not do in a life time.

I looking forward to your race reports and will see you in NO for the CCC10K.