Pain in the ass ...

The training is picking up, and since I'm always squeezing in runs
between work, sleep or something I seldom have the time to stretch
properly prior to, and after my runs ... the result? ... Slower/longer
recovery time. Risk of injury ... tight/sore muscles and whatnot.
Right now I'm battling with a royal pain in the ass ... Priformis pain
and some crazy "trigger points" ...

I'll work through it ...

Sightseeing at 20km/hr...

one of the nice things about running is that you get to see
interesting parts of the city that most people perhaps would overlook
...
When you're trying to find 20-30km routes around Barcelona, you
oftentimes wander into areas that you wouldn't normally see in your
daily routine...
That, to me, has always been one of the perks of urban running ...
here's something groovy I spotted the other day ...

Of course, I don't carry my camera with me on runs ... I went back to
photograph it today.

"Congrats! Now get healthy"...

Funny. You finish a half marathon in your best time. All after
having trained since early summer. Your training schedule demands 5
or 6 days a week ... sometimes getting up to a total of over 90km/week .... You shed extra weight, tone muscles and increase your
cardiovascular fitness level to a new high. You sweat all the
impurities out of your system. You've fine-tuned your diet so that
you balance your nutritional requirements of fats-protiens-carbohydrates, etc. You get in tune with running and feel your "groove" ... You feel almost like an efficient machine ... meanwhile, all of your friends (or at least mine) can't even understand why someone would go out and run 20km at night after working a 10-hour day at the office. You are in shape.

One would easily label you as "Healthy".

Upon qualifying for New York City ... I posted the news on my Facebook wall. An immediate response came from Jim Vance who I had been in touch with after having met here Barcelona last summer when he came with his wife and some friends to follow the Tour de France. His comment was direct ... "Congrats! Now get healthy!" ... Jim was aware that I was "struggling" with new knee pain. However, it seemed ironic that feeling so "healthy" I needed to "get healthy"

...but he was right. Being "fit" or "in shape" doesn't necessarily mean being "healthy" ... So I began to care for my knee ... and things got better. I pampered it, took lots of "Vitamin I" (as my brother calls Ibuprofen) and used anti-inflammatory gels. I rested and learned how to stretch. For the first time since I began running (over 20 years ago) I took the proper time ... perhaps even more ... to stretch. Before and after running. Even on "off days". I uncovered the magic of an essential tool that I had been disregarding for all the time that I have been running ....stretching (more on that in a later post). The pain slowly disappeared, but the psychological effects remained ... I had to work through the fear of feeling the knee pain again as I tried to ramp up my running again ... finally, it came to a "do or die" point and the Barcelona Marathon rolled around.

Concerned but not worried, I was convinced that my knee had healed. The race was a [personal] success ... My knee felt great and didn't bother me in the least bit. Post-race recovery was fine as well ... During a few short recovery runs, I felt slight bruising on my kneecap (similar to the pain I had during training season) ... and a strange sensation similar to having a string lightly tied across my knee .... It wasn't uncomfortable, but it was there ... and I kept wondering ....

Then I got the link to my photos from the organization ... and one of the shots showed the exact thing that I was feeling (attached). I won't say that it's a bad thing, because I don't know. I just know that it's a weird-looking thing ... and it keeps me concerned. I want to "Get Healthy" for NYC. So, I decided to schedule a visit with a sports traumatologist ... just to put it to rest (I'm sure). I'm on my way there in 30mins ... to tell him that "I had a pain that I no longer have" .... strange .... I'm confident that he'll give me the "green light" ... but I wanted to clear up all doubts ... I'll let you know how it goes.

Gotta run!...

My NYC Qualifying Race - Jan 2010

This is the race that got me in. I had the qualifying cut-off time
(1h:30 for my agegroup) set as a goal, but I wasn't too worried about
reaching it. I had thought that it would be more like another "long
run" in my training schedule. If it went well, great ... but if not,
I didn't have to sweat it ... I still had 2 months of training for the
BCN Marathon ... I had it pretty clear that my true goal in order to
qualify was to come in under 3h:10 in the Barcelona Marathon in
March... so ....
Aside from showing up a little tight for time, the temp. was pretty
chilly (the car dash read-out said -2ºC as we passed through the towns
on the way down the Mediterranean coast) and I didn't get a chance to
stretch or warm up "enough" ... The race kicked off and I battled a
cramp in my left shin for the first 3km ... it finally subsided and I
began to smooth out. The running felt good, the day was perfect and
the race turned out even better than I had thought... (Aside from the
fact that the organizers slipped up and painted one of the turns wrong
and we all ran about 350m more than we were supposed to)
My final (adjusted) time (ChampionChip calculated the overshot
distance and subtracted the corresponding percentage from each
athlete's time) was 1:27:52 so my qualification was complete. When I
called my brother to tell him how it went, he read off the ING NYC
Marathon website that "all guaranteed qualifying entries must have met
the appropriate qualifying time between January 1, 2009 and January
31, 2010" ... WOW! I should have read the fine print ... or maybe
better that I didn't. That way I enjoyed the race and ended up
qualifying too ... If I had put it off until the BCN Marathon I would
have, of course, passed the cut-off date and this would not all be
happening ....
Here's a link to my Garmin file from the race (I'm curious to see if
this works)... you can see the course, results and all 1km splits ...
etc.
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/22046038

Catch ya later .... I gotta run!

let the quest begin ...

Intro.
So, I don't know that much about blogs ... in fact, what I do know tends to bore me.  I believe I have never really read through an entire blog, and perhaps that's just the idea, you find what interests you and read what you want ... the rest is just filler ... who knows ... Either way, I wanted to try to find a way to create a running account (no pun intended) of my latest goal and to share it with whomever it may interest...

It began on the morning of March 7th, 2010 at around 11:41:09am (Barcelona time) ... that's the moment I crossed the finish line of the 2010 Barcelona Marathon in my personal best time ... 3hours 11minutes and 9seconds .... got it? ... eleven minutes (and nine seconds, but who's counting?) .... at that precise moment, even though I had just "shattered" my own personal record by more than 19 minutes in a full marathon (42.2km / 26.2miles) and had fallen short of my goal for that day of coming in under 3h:10m:00 I knew that I had to strive to come in under that magical cutt-off point of 3 hours.

My registration (via qualifying time of 1h:27m for a half marathon) for the 2010 New York City Marathon had already been accepted.  I knew that my plans this coming fall would take me back to New York where I ran my very first marathon in 1998 (3h:50m)  ... and I knew that I had to make it a big.  I knew that it was where it was going to happen....  three hours ....

Sound like a realistic goal?  I'm not quite certain it is... 
Impossible? .... no way!

Now, ahead of me lies the next 7 months that will be filled with the joys and hardships of balancing "real life" with the demanding challenges of preparing for my next marathon.  Over that period my daughter will have her first birthday.  My wife and I will celebrate our 7th anniversary.  Our son will turn six ... on the same day that I'll turn 42.  The patience and support of my wife, my family and friends will be invaluable tools for reaching this goal.  I look forward to documenting and sharing all I can throughout the course of that period here. 

I think I can do it in eleven less.  Dare me?...

Gotta run ... Ryan