Colchester Half Marathon - 1:54:xx

**Colchester elevation map

Just a quick post to say I survived the Colchester Half Marathon. Holy hills batman....Ridiculous hills, like double what my normal training route looks like. Not to mention some of them are dirt roads that were covered in snow and ice today. There's another stretch of dirt road that was not plowed, so we stuck to the tire tracks and ran as flat footed as possible. The finish is a half mile or more of hill as well. My calfs have been twitching ever since! LOL

Wasn't going to for time so you can imagine my surprise at the 1:56:xx finish (haven't seen the official results yet to get the seconds and I don't remember). My overall light pace could have gotten faster I suppose....that or I need to figure out how to pace better or the Goof is going to be tough....well...tougher than it should be anyhow. Forgot to mention the fun part. My socks were soaked by about mile 4, sooooo, it was an interesting and sloppy rest of the way. The good news is that my feet appear to be okay, no blisters and such.

This past week I spent mostly in NYC, so the training went out the window. Very dissapointed in the second half of Feb, but work has gotten progressively crazier. working pretty much day and then at night when I get home. Weekends have been catch-up on school work and time with the kids. What can ya do though. Hope March will be better. I'm at 70 run miles at this point and going for my back to back run tomorrow. Probably will limit myself to 10 though as I'm still not sure my knee issue is completely ready for prime time yet although the stretching and PT is helping.

1 on 2

Well, the wife is out of town and I've got the kids till Sunday. So far so good, my son had his normal day care day today so my daughter and I went out for breakfast, played in the foot of snow that fell yesterday (predicted light snow...yeah right), and did a bit of shopping. Full day and it's not even 3p. Gotta go to pick up the little guy in a bit and it'll be the 3 of us for the remainder of the week/weekend. Don't worry, I picked up some wine to relax with after they go to bed! LOL

Running has slowed down a bit over the past week, not because I don't want to, more due to my insane schedule as of late. No worries, I'm going to supplement with the treadmill as much as possible while the wife is out of town and will get back on track with the longer outdoor quality runs as soon as possible. Of course, I'm in NYC for 3 days next week and Mondays are shot due ot work and the MBA program all night (excuses, excuses, lol). I still plan on running the "Colchester Half-Marathon" on the 27th. Just going to treat it as a training run, which is great cause it makes me get out and get the mileage in. :-) I'm going to have to get another longer run in on Sunday as my back-to-back Feb challenge, but not sure what the mileage will be.

I was thinking about how many races I've put in over the past two years and wondered what the list would look like if all of the Team Voicers combined thiers together....bet it would be pretty impressive. Of course, Amanda's list alone would put us all to shame! Perhaps we can get a thread going on the boards to pull this together?

Be safe out there folks!

ain't no band like the IT band...maaan.

Went to my first physical therapy appointment, not much to report. Apparently, most people with the same affliction can barely walk, so I'm early... I've been given some stretching for it along with an order to stretch my hammy's. Apparently they are extremely tight. I've never been the most flexible person, but now that I think about it, I really haven't worked at it. Holy stretching, this thing is going to take over my life! LOL. Anyhoo, they gave me a "block" for my shoe to try and correct some issues there and will gauge whether I need custom orthodics or not. Guessing I do though. Good news there is that my insurance covers it 100%....so what the hey, why not do it! So they do laser eye surgery, do they have laser foot surgery?

Training-wise, I've put in 5k's for the past couple of days (snowmageddon outside so it's on the mill) and plan to keep the mileage under 8 per run till I get used to the "block" thingee for the shoe. I will do a longer back to back run for the Feb challenge, but it won't be this weekend I don't think. PT therapist told me I was nuts for signing up for the Goofy...goes against all the training rules apparently....oh well.... :-)

Work is still nuts and doesn't appear to be letting up till, well, July or so when we leave for Disney. Can't wait for that trip!

Side note - We were at our local Disney Store and I asked about the new NYC store. He said they are being secretive about the locale, but everyone knows it's in times square somewhere's...I'm going to have to spend some work time in NYC in the near future so hopefully they'll open soon so I can swing by! (May be a work trip to Tokyo as well....but we'll see...)

10 on the mill..

Too windy out there today (learned my lesson from that last time) so I did the "long" run on the treadmill today. Put in 10 miles and it wasn't too horrible. Did hit a boredom wall around 6.5 miles but felt good after I broke through. Probably could have done 13 or more, but ran out of time before Lorraine had to head to work.

So that put's me at 22.3 running for the week (salvaged a so/so week); 13.5 xtrain.

SuperBowl tonight, or so I'm told.... No Eagles, so I honestly could care less. I'll watch a bit though and will pull for the Saints I think. Both teams are class acts, kinda makes the whole storyline boring...Where's Joey Porter when you need him....or T.O. for that matter! LOL

Resting a bit

Took yesterday and today off from the running, might get some bike miles in tonight though. My itband froze up on me in the middle of last night and was pretty painful. Odd as I didn't really do anything yesterday, but what can ya do. Physical therapy appointment made for Tuesday so we'll see what they say. Might need some kind of anti-inflamatory (Celebrex probably), but again, we'll see as I'd rather not if I don't have to. Till then I'm going to make sure I do my stretching of it ever day (slacked off this past week).

Going to try and get a longer run in tomorrow, but I don't want to push it too much right now. Planning my back to back run for next Friday/Saturday but not completely sure yet, will have to work with Lorraine on the scheduling.

Feb mileage totals - 12.3 run; 6 x-train.

ARRRGGHHH!

Work has taken over my life as of late, and then there is school (just finished another class...20 more Monday's to MBA, woohoo!) and family. Of course, family isn't an optional activity, it's what keeps me sane/insane. :-) Just tough as I didn't really have hours to spare in the day and now work is demanding about 5-10 more than the 50+. Fun stuff. I know, whaaaaaahhh. :-)

Okay rant over. I'm good now. So my January was pretty good overall, but I gained a little weight I think. The weight training has added a little weight, but not as much as I've gained. The evening snacking is out of control again and needs to go on lock-down. This is my personal "El Guapo" and must be taken care of.

Other stuff -
* My daughter jogged a 1/2 mile on the treadmill the other day, I was impressed. Promised to take her to the track this spring to do a little more.
* My knee hasn't acted up at all after my running since I started to target stretch the IT band. I sent in my paperwork for physical therapy and think that will start up some time next week.
* I think I forgot to mention that we got our ADR's for July set. Looks like we're going down two days early and will stay at Pop Century then x-fer over to the Beach Club Villas. I'm waiting for the passholder discount time window to open up for July and will see if I can do better than Pop for the two lead in days, but either way I'm fine with it. We've never stayed at Pop before.
* Winter needs to end....