into the double digits...

man it was humid this morning... oppressively. you could seriously chew on the air. and it was cooler this morning that it has been recently... though i suppose anything is cooler than the record woodland hills (where i live) hit last week - 119 degrees... can you fucking believe that? my dubious plan to single handedly rape the earth with my suv is finally coming to fruition! (insert dramatic horror movie pipe organ music and mad scientist laughter)

even so, we ran 10 frikkin miles today! there were points where i thought my legs were going to explode but all i had to do was concentrate on the music in my ears and it would go away. i was only able to get 1 maintenance run in between last week's 9 miler and today's run plus i've been really bad about stretching lately - all of which is not very smart if i'm hoping to finish the race without resorting to crawling over the finish line. gotta stay focused...

another really interesting/gross/painful development has popped up now that i'm running these longer distances at a stretch - nipple chafing. i guess it happens to everyone eventually.. it actually happened to me last week for the first time. no actual bleeding and so far it's happening only to my left one (since that one has a huge hunk of metal through it) but i can tell this is going to be an ongoing problem that i'll have to deal with... time to break out the bandaids!

next week we get a bit of a rest... only 5 miles. and then the week after that it's 12. good christ.

lose yourself

las vegas marathon training: week 6

max, jim and i ran 8 miles today! unreal. almost a third of the way to marathon distance - i really think i can do this!

lots of weird pains on this run. my left foot & right knee/i.t. band started aching around mile 4, hips were tight... either i didn't stretch enough beforehand or i stretched too much at a stoplight break... dunno. jim's calf cramped up at around mile 2 though he seemed really strong to me today - didn't seem to affect him much. max, of course, made it look effortless. what you would expect from someone who's run 7 marathons. i was still amazed at how strong i felt - pains notwithstanding. we only stopped twice at stoplights for 20 seconds tops each time. i made it to 8 miles without a terrible amount of effort and my lungs took no time to recover.

a funny pacing pattern seems to be emerging in our runs. around mile 5 or 6 i seem to be hitting a stride that pulls me away and out in front of jim and max. need to pay attention to that to make sure i'm not setting myself up for exhaustion later on.

booked my room today at the hotel. the race starts and ends at the mandalay so it was the most logical place to book. looks like a really nice place too. i'll definitely be hitting the spa after the race!

next week... 9 miles and it's just me and jim - max is off to comicon. should be interesting!

marathon training: mileage run #5

today marked the 5th week of my training for the las vegas marathon. we ran 7 miles today and i felt great! the arch problem i was beginning to feel in my left foot wasn't there, no pain in my knees, cardiovascularly i felt like i could have kept going... it was awesome. this after last week struggling to make it to 6 miles. amazing how different you can be from week to week. all i have to say is thank god for gu!

next week we run 8 miles. bring it on!