1/2 Marathon Completed

Well, it is finished and it didn't go too badly. It was my second 1/2 and it was my best time. Getting a PB was unexpected as my training was a little up and down. I ran 2/3 of the race with my sister and she was the reason I was able to get a PB. She is great at knowing her pace and sticking to it, which is pretty much something I am terrible at. She ended up a minute back but also her personal best.

The course was reasonably hilly (Valley Harvest Marathon - Wolfville, NS), but not too bad as I run most of my runs on hilly trails. I was pretty sore after the run and will have my first run tonight. There is a cold rain coming down but I'm running outside anyway. I think I will try a marathon in May.

1/2 Marathon in 4 days

It has been a busy month! Soccer is finished -- it ended with a loss in the finals of the Masters Provincial Final. It was a long weekend of soccer with 4 - 90 minute soccer games in 30 hours or so. I played all but about 15 minutes, so I was sore on Monday and decided not to run on it or Tuesday.

Which lead to a vacation and a trip to NYC. We spent a few days walking around the city plus seeing the U2 concert, but no runs. It was 10 days between runs and I felt it on the first one back not to mention I caught a cold. I've been able to get 5 runs in since getting back into the swing of things. One 11 miler, which was okay and 4 of my staple distance of 6.5 miles.

I am fairly certain I will be off my desired pace on Sunday's race. I'd hope to challenge sub 1:40:00 (my PB is 1:40:15); but I think I will be closer to 1:45:00. As well, I've only run very little on pavement and the entire run is on streets so it could create a problem. Oh well, time will tell!

Long time...

I've been pretty slack at blogging my running escapades; but, as I'm likely mostly writing to myself that is just fine. Fortunately, my running is more frequent than my posting, and as we have hit a run of weather that has been amazing for about 5 weeks, the running has been very enjoyable.

For the past 3 weeks I've been doing all of my running outside on the trails of Shubie. All of the runs have been great, save for a minor soreness or tightness. These are likely more from new sneakers and soccer games than from running. Luckily, the farther the better as the uncomfortableness seems to fade about half way through.

We've had a good stretch of soccer results of late, although, some of the games have been less than attractive soccer for the full 90 minutes; but at least we are pulling them out.

I'm going to run for the first time on pavement since the Blue Nose 10k in May, which was the beginning of a lot of back troubles. So, hopefully the Cole Harbour Harvest Run 6 miler is kinder to me.

The First One

Well, I decided to create this blog to help me with my running. The idea being, by blogging it will help me stay motivated to get my runs in and to set larger running goals than I have to date. I have done 5k, 10k, and one half marathon so far, but for some reason I want to do a full marathon. Call it a challenge or fascination, maybe it is that my sister has done a handful of marathons and I want to do one too. Who knows.

I have my eye on a marathon in October and I have been trying to follow a running plan to get my mileage up in time for the race. Work travel and some injuries are making it a little tough, but so far my long runs are on schedule. It is challenging at times to juggle playing a soccer game with getting a run in because I don't want to do too much all at once. I may miss a couple runs over the next few days as well as I am travelling for a few days, but I will bring my running shoes and see what happens.

Back later...