First "long" run in the Kinsei

When I trained for my first marathon, my buddies told me that at the peak of training, a ten mile run would seem like a tuneup. I thought they were crack smokers. At that time, my longest run had been six miles or so. Ten seemed like a looooooong way.

They were right. Or else I've been smoking the same crack. Progressively longer runs have made 10-milers less significant. Last year, 20-milers became routine. During the holidays, I would do one every other week without killing myself. Such an effort would have made me a bed-ridden pile of goo in the past.

So it pains me to say that today I did a long run of nine miles in the Kinsei. "Long" and "nine" seem like a contradiction in terms these days. When did that happen?

Nevertheless, the run was great. It was cool and overcast. I ran with friends for the first time in a week, which was a welcome change.

Another welcome change was that I had no problems breathing during the run. I was hacking beforehand, but an albuterol and atrovent cocktail seemed to do the trick.

The only niggling problem was that I got a hot spot on the forward part of my arch. No blister, but it probably would have developed, given time. My right shoe was probably a little loose. It had to be the shoe or the lacing because the socks were tried and true standard Asics.

The run for next Sunday? That one goes to eleven. Next week I'll feel like a runner.

Long run and weekly wrap up

Long run was pretty easy this week: 8 miles at marathon pace. Ran our canal course and it was 43 degrees or so with no wind. Nice.

Had some blister issues. On Thursday I used some new socks my wife bought, Champion C9 with a thinner sole. They caused a blister on my left pinkie toe in less than seven miles. The blister was pretty painful, so I switched back to my generic Coolmax socks from Target. I'll stick to these for the race.

Left piriformis is tight, per usual. No issues on the right side.

Final tally: 5.4 miles speed work, 5.7 tempo, 2.8 easy, and 8 long.

Another bad long run

Training tip: the night before a long run, eat something. Friday night as I lay in bed obsessing over my blog, I didn't eat dinner. Well, I had a bowl of cereal, but that was it. The next morning, I got down a smoothie before my run. Big mistake.

The combination of bad eating, lack of sleep (only 4 hours or so), and fighting sickness finally caught up with me. I had difficulty running 8:09 for 13. I stopped after 11 and change, and managed only 8:39. Not catastrophic, but two bad long runs in a row don't build confidence. The marathon is 2 weeks from today.

What makes it more demoralizing is that this week was a low mileage week because of the taper. Yassos were 8.5, tempo was 5, and long was 11.5. 25 miles for the week. I'm fighting the urge to do 5 easy on the treadmill to make 30.

I'm still waiting on the new domain. Very disappointing. My new domain is with 1and1.com, and I'm not up after almost 48 hours. With godaddy.com, where I registered my other domains, I could get my blog on the domain within an hour or two. Oh well.

End of the week ... whew

Over 54 miles this week, including the half. Since I start my week on Monday, the half doesn't really count. I'm hurting, though. Thank goodness I'm starting my taper.

Did my 20 today and it was miserable. Temperature was in the low 30s and plenty of wind to make me feel horrible. My head and right ear are still hurting ... 8 hours after the run. To top it off, I ran 2:49 (compared to 2:45 two weeks ago) and only finished 19.75 miles (compared to a true 20). Bummer. At least the Eagles and Ravens lost today.

To think that earlier this week, I was running in 80-degree weather and complaining about it. Tally: 41 miles for the week. 62 miles for the year. Looking forward to two days off and the start of the new season of "24." Go Chargers.