Living and mostly well

Cross posted from my living testimonial over at Equivita’s website.

Life has been busy lately, all around.

Work = busy

Running = busy

Other activities = busy

With everything going on, I’ve not made enough time to update my corners of the online world. I last wrote on August 13th about the completion of Phase 1 of my training and some of the highs and lows I’d gone through. In keeping with that theme, here is a rundown of the last three or four weeks.

The Good

There are so many little good things, that I’m feeling very positive. I’m not receiving any negative feedback from my body with the slight increase in mileage, which is a major plus. My last two long runs have been done using a run/walk strategy, which has been interesting. Simply put, I walk the first 90 seconds of each mile, then resume running at a normal pace (whatever feels “easy”) for the remainder of the mile. What I’m finding is that not only are my miles ticking off at a remarkably similar pace to what I was doing before, I’m also not wearing myself down quite as much and I have more energy left at the end of a run. After completing the longest run of my life on Sunday, 14 miles, I had some aches but was not physically spent. I’m thinking that it’s more and more likely that I’ll use some form of this in the marathon.

The “Bad”

A point I made after Phase 1 was that I had not missed or shortened any runs. Sadly, I cannot say the same at this time. Between excessive amounts of softball (some day I’ll learn to say “no”), non-running related injuries, and some neat circumstances (seeing an old teacher of mine out on the trails and stopping to talk for 20 minutes), I’ve missed a few runs or cut some a few miles short. I’m not proud of it, but I’ve been very careful not to let these things take root and last more than one day, and I also don’t let myself get down about the situation. Life happens, and you have to move on. I could easily sulk about a missed run or two, and let it drag me down for a few weeks. But the smarter thing to do is to pick up and get back on track.

Somebody I know stated that if every run you do is training for a certain event, you can get down too easily and it quickly becomes boring and feels like a job. But if you think of each run as a very small part of your entire running life, you don’t feel the pressure and are more free to enjoy yourself. Some days, this line of thinking is very helpful.

The Ugly

When I play softball, I only know one speed. Full. Sometimes, this gets me into situations that a 145 lb man doesn’t need to be in. One of these situations, hypothetically of course, would be trying to tag out a guy running at me full speed. Did I mention that this guy outweighs my by 30+ lbs? Well, I lost that trainwreck and messed up my left arm for a good week. Thankfully, I happened to find myself on an Equivita training table within 48 hours of the collision. The friendly staff (Do you notice how it’s always “friendly” and “helpful” long after the fact, but when you’re laying on that table, those aren’t the first words that come to mind? Interesting…) listened my description of the pain, did some tactile assessment of the situation, and gave me my “prescription” for the next few days. I followed the directions, and within 4-5 days I was feeling back to normal again. I’m thankful that I wasn’t hurt worse than I was, but I’m very glad that I have folks available to me who take a few minutes to help. Some people would go straight to the doctor for an MRI. And while in some cases that’s certainly warranted, this wasn’t one for me. I just hope I don’t get a $1,700 bill from the friendly, helpful staff for their work.

Phase 2 of marathon training is done, and I’m right in the middle of Phase 3. My long run two days ago of 14 miles is the longest distance I’ve ever done. That record will last until this Sunday, when I go for 15. It’s a little over 10 weeks until I sign my life over to the monkeys.

Game on.