Tough Day

With today being a fairly cloudy and cooler day, I decided to get out onto the track at my new place of employment: Watertown-Mayer High School. As the workout of mile repeats went along, the humidity in the air increased greatly and I was ridiculously soaked after only 3 repeats. I hit the times I was aiming for each time but by the time the third one was done, I was on the edging of passing out and puking at the same time (not a good feeling). I called it a day at that point.

Fortunately, this has been one of the few workouts over the last week and a half that has not gone well. On Saturday morning (an amazing morning for a run), I got up early and ran the Twin Cities Marathon course from mile 16.5 to the finish line and back. It went extremely well and was my longest training run so far. My legs recovered really quickly and I really felt great afterwards. I'm planning to run the City of Lakes 25K on Sunday, September 7th as a final prep race for the marathon and then will hopefully get a 20-22 mile run in sometime the following weekend before the tapering begins!!

Only 38.5 days until Twin Cities Marathon 2008!!

First Run in My New Town

I had my first run in my new town of Mound, Minnesota this morning. Right behind my apartment complex runs a brand new paved trail that used to be a rail line. I followed it west of town away from Lake Minnetonka and ended up at, for me, an infamous place: Gale Woods. For those who don't know, Gale Woods is an educational farm and park with a 5K cross country running course. I ran in the first ever cross country race held there during my senior year of high school and placed 10th in the conference meet. When I spotted the sign and realized where I was, I just had to run a little bit of the course. It's still just as challenging as it was back then with a few really tough hills but it was good to find a familiar place in an otherwise unfamiliar location.

Olympic Fever & Marathon Prep

The Olympics have been going strong for a few days and I've been glued to my TV and to my computer, watching events every free chance I get. Fortunately, I don't have to work during the duration of the Olympics so I can get away with it. I'm absolutely loving what Phelps has been doing in the pool (just got gold #4, going for #5 in minutes!) but I'm really looking forward to the track and field events starting on Friday, especially for the men's marathon on the final day of competition. I'm really pulling for Ryan Hall. He is a humble but confident runner, and he runs for all the right reasons, not for his own glory but for God's.

After about a week and a half of taking some days of rest to let my shin splints subside, I've been getting back into my training. Yesterday I got in a quality 2 hour run with the Coon Rapids High School cross country team on their first day of official practice for the fall season. I hadn't planned to run the full two hours but I ended up doing it. It counted as my long run for the week and it definitely showed to me that I was back and ready to get back into full training again. I did not run the Gopher to Badger Half Marathon as I had originally planned because of my shins, so I am planning to get a final preparation run in sometime in early September, possibly the City of Lakes 25K or a 20 miler in White Bear Lake or River Falls, WI.

I'll be moving into my new apartment in Mound, MN at the end of the week so most likely my next post will come from my new residence, certainly searching for new places to run.