National Half Marathon - Check!

This morning was the National Half Marathon run which starts at RFK stadium. A 5am alarm went off and surprisingly I was able to get out of bed easily.  Guess it helped to go to bed at 8PM.  D-Salazar came to pick me up around 5:30am and off we went.  34 degrees and dark ... lovely. I was fairly intimidated by this event, as my training runs consisted of 4, 5, and 6 miles.  One time I went 9 miles.  I just wasn't sure what was going to happen attempting 13.  The whole reason for this run was a deal with D-Salazar.  I run a half marathon, and he rides a century (100 miles).  I definitely think that he...

Read more »

Half-Marathon Training Week 7

7 weeks in and I've done a tremendous amount of running ... too much running in fact.  One of my goals during this endeavor was not to injure myself.  I've been fortunate to only have dealt with usual soreness and two left calf strains.  Calf strains seem to pop up when I'm pushing the run uphill. My longest run was 9.1 miles from my house down around Lake Accotink.  It was just a wee bit to far for me at the end of week 5.  There was a little walking at the end, but the hills are very demanding at the end of the run. My follow up 5 mile run was really aggressive and that's when the 2nd calf strain kicked in, 1/4 mile from finishing the run.  I rested 1.5 weeks and ran 4.4 the other day with fine success. I'm having a hard time finding motivation to keep...

Read more »