Damn dog!

I was out minding my own business today, running along doing my recovery jog and this stupid, HUGE German Shepherd came running at me and barking. Scared the bejeezes out of me. Usually, I'll stop and turn to face them as I back away from them slowly and if they are small dogs I'll start chasing them and yelling at them. But this one was a little different. I didn't like the way he was looking at me. I was beginning to wonder which part of my body should I sacrifice first? Definitely, anything but the legs.

I usually carry some Mace with me for some kind of protection, but I didn't have much on, no pockets because it was so nice outside. I ended up flagging a car down and the teenager inside knew the dog and it's owner. So he took the dog back.

Tomorrow I call animal control. We have a leash law in our neighborhood and he just pushed my limits.

One hour?

As you all may have read from my earlier posts, I took a stepback week last week due to tapering for a race that never happened. So I guess I am coming back to running this week with a vengeance.

I set out this morning to run 6-8 miles depending on the legs. Yesterday's run was a recovery of 3 easy. I turned my Garmin on and just took off not paying attention to splits but just trying to run a sort of tempo run. If I felt like running faster(but not too fast) I'd pick up speed a bit. If I felt like the body needed to slow down, I did that too.

I decided to stop running when my watch signaled 1 hr. My total mileage for that hour was 7.3 miles!!!! I couldn't believe it! The legs felt great and I didn't feel like I was breathing THAT hard. I noticed that one of my mile splits was actually 7:45/mile. My old splits for my last 5K were in the 7:30ish range.

And this was on one of the later miles that this happened. I am SOOOO ready to race! Let me at it!

Now I just need to be smart and make sure I'm training properly to ward off injury.

No race!

Well, my worst fear came true. We got pounded with snow. Therefore, no race for me today. I didn't get to bed until late and then didn't sleep well anyway. I was so tired today that it probably wouldn't have been a good race anyway. I was a little sluggish all day until I did a 6 mile tempo run in 50 min. with a warmup and cooldown mile. Heck, I may as well have put my taper to good use for something. Tomorrow I may attempt another 8. I'll use this lower weekly mileage for injury prevention I guess.

Yesterday I received an invitation to a local 5K race at the beginning of February. Just in time to get me out of this snowy slump.

Ready to race?

This week has been a little odd. I'm preparing for a 5K this Saturday so have taken my mileage way down because I want to try for a new personal best. I'm gonna try my darndest even if it kills me. So Monday I ran 6, Tuesday 3 and today(Wed.) 3. I'm already feeling weird with so low of mileage. I never thought I'd say that. But tomorrow will be a sluggish day off and Friday will be 2 easy with some strides.

Saturday the race is not until noon and I'm meeting up with Marty and Steve from my online running group WELOVETORUN. They are doing the 5K AND 10K, I'm only doing the 5K. I will still probably run just a little more but not quite 6.2.

I haven't run a 5K race since June 2005 and it was 98 degrees at 6 p.m. I'm hoping to do great. Wish me luck!

Killer long run!

I had a killer long run today. It made up for the lame one last weekend. I set out to run 12 miles and ended up feeling so good I tacked on another mile for 13 total. I noticed that my easy, long run pace is now averaging 9:30/mile when last year I was at 10:30/mile. I see some progress and it makes me very happy.

Don't you just love those runs where you feel like you could keep running forever? This run makes up for the lousy one last week.

Heart trouble during intervals

After my poor attempt at 12 miles on Saturday, I had a great SLLOOOWWW recovery jog on Sunday of 3 miles. So I get up on Monday morning and decide, heck, today sounds like a good day to do some speedwork.

I haven't done any intervals for a few weeks so I thought I'd start back at the beginning doing only 5X400's.

I started out running a mile for a warmup. This is usually all it takes for me to be warmed up. I proceed to do the first 400 trying to concentrate on my leg turnover. Time 1:46(recovery walking for 2 min.), a little slower than usual, but I haven't done these for a bit. Next interval, 1:40, a little better and closer to normal. Next, 1:34, that's more like it. I'm getting into the groove now. Remember, after each interval I take a 2 minute walk break. Next interval, 1:42. Okay after almost using up the whole 2 minute walk break and I felt like my heart had slowed down significantly....what?...what's that? What is my heart doing? All of a sudden it is pounding very fast and hard and fluttering all over. It only lasted about 10 seconds, but felt like a minute. I wasn't sure what to make of it, but I was a little nervous to continue my intervals. Thus the 1:47 last interval. I only ran .5 miles for my cooldown and decided to call it a day.

I have had something like this happen off and on, but usually upon first lying down, but this was a different feeling and it's never happened while running. It was a little unnerving.

As much as I hate going to the doctor's, I think I just need to bite the bullet and go.

Tough long run

Today I set out to run 12 miles and only made 10. It's all I could do to finish the 10. I had stopped at a friend's house to chat for a bit and when I started back out I hadn't realized how late it was and how chilled I had become until I started up running again. By mile 8 I almost had to call my friend to pick me up and take me home. But I suffered through the 2 mile low glycemic crash and chowed when I got home. Next time I'll eat more carbs before setting out.

My first post

It seems that the blog is the way to go, so here is my attempt at starting my own. My blog will mostly be about running since it's what I love. I started running March 2004 because I was too impatient to walk and have been hooked ever since. Through the course of almost 2 years, I have run several 5K's, 10K's, my first 10 miler, 1/2 marathon and finally a full marathon last year. I love to race, if only they were all free!

I'm currently making my schedule to run my second 1/2 marathon April 29, 2006 and it's the Country Music Marathon in Nashville, TN. I will officially start training for it in February, but for now am establishing my base mileage which is between 30-35 miles/week.