17 miles

“Pain is weakness leaving the body.”

I told myself this at mile 14. It wasn’t encouraging to my aching body. Nevertheless, I completed 17 miles. I ran 5 of those miles, however, with a full bladder. Why? Because the first bathrooms that I pass on my run were locked. I have no idea why. That’s the first time I’ve ever seen them closed, and of course it was the first time I really had to use them. Thankfully, I made it to the second set of bathrooms, 5 miles later, without any accidents.

Including bathroom/drink breaks, my pace was pretty much exactly the same pace at which I ran my 14-mile-run. Although it’s nice to know I’m not slowing down as the miles keep building, I really would like to see myself getting faster. I’m praying that the cool weather coming this fall will somehow impact my pace, but I have a hard time trusting in temperature alone to get me across the finish line under 6 hours…

Dilemma. Yes, I can switch from the marathon to the half-marathon. And I don’t even have to decide until October. But, it makes sense (at least to me), that I should try to decide sooner, so I can train accordingly.

The Hammer HEED was great. Lemon-Lime tasted completely different from Gatorade’s Limon-Lime or Limon-Lime Sports Beans, but it seemed to do its job and definitly has a conservative amount of sweetness to it.

On a side note–school starts again Wednesday, and I move into the dorm on Saturday. Class work load might be the sole determinator of whether I drop down to the Half. School definitly should come first. Theoretically, I have time to both study and train. The one difficulty, though, is having the disipline to do both with 100% effort. But such is life, I suppose.

Marathon Ambition

It seems like whenever I try to update, I always get sidetracked and never get back to finishing. Anyways…

In an earlier post, I mentioned possibly running the Outer Banks Marathon in November. Well, instead, I decided to go for the City of Oaks Marathon. Same month (before my 20th birthday), a little sooner, a little closer to home, and a little cheaper. So I’ve registered, and I just completed week 14 of this plan. However, I must say I’ll definitly go back to creating my own running plans after the marathon. But for now, my only goal is to finish the marathon within the maximum time allowed–6 hours. I know that is plenty of time  for most people, but I run slow. So slow, in fact, that you probably can’t even imagine. Seeing that this marathon has significantly fewer participants than the other well-known events, I may very well be the last person to reach the finish line. I really don’t like that idea, but… it’s worth a shot.

I contemplated settling for the half-marathon this year. It’s a more logical step-up from 5K races. I would have more confidence, and I would also have time to throw in some speedwork into my schedule. But, I know that if I completed the half-marathon, there will always be the “what if.”

Behám hocikde. — “Huh?”

Living in a country other than the US, I had the opportunity to learn a foreign language. Really, if someone lives somewhere, anywhere, he or she should at least attempt, if not learn fluently, that country’s language. So what would “Behám hocikde” mean? “I run anywhere.” It does not mean that I run to anywhere. It means that I run anywhere that I currently happen to be. Whether I am in the US or overseas, whether I am at home or at Grandma’s house–I run.

So far, since January, I have tracked times and distances of “runs.” The only problem is that I also included my five minute warm-up walk and then usually a five minute cool-down walk. That wasn’t smart. Now I want to get an accurate pace calculation, so I’m entering less mileage (the mileage that I actually run) and therefore less time into my log. Ugh. Now it doesn’t look so impressive. If just anyone happened across it, it would look like I’ve been cutting down mileage instead of building it up. Oh well. At least I know my real pace, and it’s about what I think and not what others think, right?

For two nights in a row I’ve slept 5 and a half hours. I’m not running any races anytime soon so I suppose it’s not that big of a deal, but I’m still a fan of getting 8 hours of sleep if possible. Good for the body, good for the brain, good for the nerves…