10-11-12-13.1

In my post-Falmouth afterglow, I signed up for a half marathon on Oct. 4th on Cape Cod. When my mind cleared somewhat, I realized that I had to actually run 13 miles. It seemed like a good idea at the time. I had just finished running Falmouth, a 7 mile race, I felt great, and wanted to tackle something a bit more challenging. Imagine thinking there was something more challenging than Falmouth......when did that happen? I spent the better part of 2009 planning and dreaming of Falmouth, practically everything I did was geared toward running and finishing Falmouth. Now, afterwards, I was thinking of something more challenging? Runner's high most likely. Very high.

I bought a marathon & half marathon training book and got to work. Training plans for "the half" are all over the internet on various running websites. And all are different. Each time I found a half marathon training website, the plan was completely different than previous ones I had seen. Obviously, runners come in all different ability levels; one size clearly does not fit all.

I settled on a plan written by a Canadian sports physician and started from my last long run which was 8 miles. However, I only had till Oct 4th to get ready, so I decided to push it a bit.That meant that seven days after I ran Falmouth, I had to somehow run 10 miles. The day before I ran Falmouth, I had re-read Jeff Galloway's Training for 5K and 10K book for possibly the hundredth time and something caught my eye. He suggested that runners adopt a 5-6 minute run/ 1 minute walk routine early in a race in order to prevent fatigue from occurring. Once fatigue sets in, Galloway believes, the runner can never really overcome it; it's fatigue that ruins most runs, and is the culprit in many poor PRs. I used his strategy when I ran Falmouth; I ran for 5 minutes, then walked 1 minute. I repeated this 5/1 for the entire 7 miles. I finished without fatigue, saving my energy for the last few hundred feet. Had I not stopped to get my photo taken, I could have easily finished under 100 minutes.

Fast forward to the Sunday after Falmouth. My running partner Jan met me at the Cape Cod Canal. Jan's thinking about signing up for the half, but hasn't committed to it yet, so she's training for it with me just in case she decides to run it. We met at 6 am, hoping for an hour of coolness by the water before the heat settled in. We walked a half mile for warm-up and then proceeded to run an out and back: 5 miles out, 5 miles back, 1/2 mile cool-down walk. We thought we were going to die but we did it. We actually ran 10 miles on one of the hottest days of August, 5 minutes at a time. We told ourselves "we can run just 3 more minutes" "just 2 more minutes till our 1 minute walk" "we can certainly run one more tiny minute" and we did, for 10 hot, humid, exhausting miles.

Jan & I came prepared. We wore our hydration belts; we stocked them with Clif carb shots (WITH caffeine), Luna bars (NO nuts- bad for digestion during running per JG), dried fruit bars, and of course SmartWater, lots of it. Additionally, we lathered up with 70 spf sunscreen, and took Mister Fan along for the ride. Ten miles.

I went home and, according to Galloway, I immediately plunged my legs into a tub of ice cold water. It felt like heaven. My leg muscles were somewhat sore that evening, but 24 hrs later, the soreness was gone. Jan & I ran again 2 days later.

A heat wave settled over the Northeast last week, creating unusually hot & humid conditions even for Cape Cod. Blistering is the only word to describe the weather here. Jan & I tried to run our Tuesday 6am easy 5 mile run around the neighborhood, but had to discontinue it after mile 2. Same for Thursday's run - blistering hot by 6:30am. As a result, I got in all of 4 miles all week. So much for my training plan.

This past Saturday I had to run the canal without Jan. This week my training plan required an 11 mile run. So I ran 11 miles, 5 minutes at a time, 5.5 out, 5.5 back, Clif shots, Smart Water, Luna bars & all. After a 20 minute ice water leg bath, I continued my Saturday activities (which included putting together a media cabinet I recently bought at Crate & Barrel) with no leg soreness at all.

I ran 11 miles on Saturday and maintained a 15 minute mile in a miserable heat wave and that's ok with me. It's unbelievable what the human body is capable of doing if we just give it a chance to show us. Next week 12 miles: 6 out, 6 back, 5 minutes at a time. Briana thinks I can do it; so do I. Thanks Jeff!