Thursday, October 4, 2012

One Month to NYC Marathon


After the 18 mile Central Park run, I was feeling pretty optimistic. That run went better than I expected. Unfortunately, the next 7 days were awful. Every run took me at least 3 miles to feel like things were moving the way they should. So the first 3 were no fun at all. On top of that I had some crazy headache that had been building for over a week. My balance was being compromised as well which made me think that it was in my ears. I eventually realized that taking some Sudafed might actually help. Fortunately it did, I was going to the doctor the next day if it didn’t. I was getting very uncomfortable. I’m hoping that whatever is going on in there clears out soon. (I’d blame the pool but I haven’t been there.)

Sunday I went out for what I planned to be a 2 hour run. It ended up being about 70 minutes. As I said it was a bad week. I was probably 45 minutes in before my legs started to feel alright. Which was about the time the sky was looking really really black. I decided to get out of the storm and call it a day and call it a bad week.

So I knew that this week I had to get it done. Last week was practically a recovery week so hopefully things will get better.

Tuesday 5 mile run: Legs feel good right from the start. 2 miles in my right calf starts tweaking randomly again. Guess I should have put the compression sleeves on. I got through the run without too much trouble but I’m sure I was compensating in an attempt to not aggravate that muscle.

Wednesady, 9 mile run: This run went really well. I had my compression on tho’.  The last 5 miles still felt the best. I can’t believe how humid it is out there. I finished this run looking as if I took a shower somewhere along the run. I can’t imagine it could be like this on Nov 4th. It will be much bigger challenge for me if it is.

Obviously I’ve been running much more that I have in the past. I’ve also switched from running in the morning to running after work. My legs are much more stretched and ready to go in the evening. Which I’m hoping will help keep me from being injured. Also, when I finish my run. I have time to ice my feet and knees. I never had time for that if I ran in the morning. Anyhow, our town is a pretty safe place but I’ve definitely been running into more groups of teens lately that have been shouting stuff as I go along. Not that big of a deal but I’m definitely noticing them being more obnoxious now that I’m running in the dark from 7ish-9PM. Guess there’s another reason to go back to running at 5:30 AM.

I had to go back and do more work on the car again last weekend. The brake on one side still seemed to get hung up from time to time. With Genine home it made it much easier to test things out. It’s impossible to spin a wheel and work the brake pedal at the same time. This week I adjusted the emergency brake cables. Of course in the back of my mind is the comment the guy at the garage had made a long while back. He said that one of the cables was frozen in place. That didn’t seem to be the case when I had the brakes apart last weekend but this weekend I had access to both ends of the cable. It took some time to get the center console apart to get to the cables but it wasn’t difficult. Once I got there, I took all the tension off the cables and sure enough… they worked perfectly. All I had to do was adjust the tension, the one side had tipped significantly and was pulling on that side just a bit even when the brake handle was all the way down. Pretty simple job. Hopefully I won’t have to do anything with the rear brakes on this car until the rotors need to be replaced.

Projects like this are keeping me from getting out on the bike or getting to the pool on the weekends. Which honestly, is fine with me. The marathon is the goal and it’s getting all of the attention. I’m definitely looking forward to getting back to the swimming and biking tho’.
Soon enough, only one Month to the NYC Marathon!

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