Training for New York City Marathon Week #1: Thursday & Friday

The training scheduled for Thursday was a simple 3-miler done at an easy effort.

It was hot at 81 degrees. The day got away from me. Before I realized it, I hadn’t had lunch yet and it was already 2 o'clock. So I dashed out for a quick one. Not the most ideal time of the day to run since it was the warmest.

There’s one long gradual hill where I ran yesterday. It is the course for the 5K leg of the San Luis Obispo Triathlon. With the heat, I thought I better take it slow and just go according to how the body felt. It was the first time for my ipod to run out of juice, too. It has been a while since I charged it last and the battery held up pretty long. I am impressed with this little gizmo. At first I thought, Oh-oh, I’m in trouble now—how am I gonna take the heat and without my music? It worked out better.

It was not hard to run without music at all. I listened to my breathing and the steps of my foot. I was quite impressed with how I’ve been able to change the way with how I land my foot. It’s lighter and I land on my mid foot. I used to run with the breaking action where I would land on my heels and roll forward. It used to give me problems with my knees and lower back and hips after long runs. I know I am landing in the mid foot since the soles of my shoes shows the wear right smack in the middle. It took a long time for me to achieve that. At first it felt weird. And after a few miles of that minor change, my Achilles felt the brunt of it. I know that was normal. It was sore after every run. I was careful and applied the change gradually. It's been a year and a half since and I don’t even consciously pay attention to it anymore. I run mid foot normally and I don’t even need to think about it. All of this was due to reading Chris McDougall’s Born to Run. I love that book. It has so much historical facts and talks about all the running greats. I’m saving that for another blog post.

Anyway, I had a great run yesterday. My pace was 9:36 per mile. That’s 30 seconds slower that I had planned. With the heat, it may have been better still, should I have gone slower.

Today is Friday and a rest day. I woke up and my legs felt light and springy. I was tempted to run, but didn't do it. I have to remind myself that Saturday is a big day. It is a pace run and this is why Hal wants these legs fresh and ready to go.

Happy Running!