Back At It

After several days where I've been busy enough, and brain dead enough, not to have anything to blog about I finally have something to post. But before I get to that let me say a few words about that little marathon that took place a couple of days ago in an obscure place called Boston. I watched this race on the web and was riveted the entire time by both the women's and the men's contest. So much drama, and such a contrast between the two. A year ago I would have thought that watching an entire marathon would be akin to the classic "watching paint dry" analogy. Now that I have gotten my feet wet in running it is so much more interesting. Imagine how much more I'd enjoy it if I actually cared who won!?!

Also, I tracked three fellow bloggers as they ran at the very same Boston Marathon and would like to extend congratulations to them. I apologize to those that I did not track and later found out were running the race - next year I will track for sure! But to Frayed Laces for a gutsy effort, to N.D. for a terrific race only two short months removed from giving birth to a beautiful baby boy, and to The Running Laminator for an amazing race I would like to extend my most heart felt congratulations. You guys are truly inspirational! I tracked all of your splits online and must admit that I got pretty nervous waiting for each one to pop up. So glad all of you finished, and I look forward to the stories.

As far as my running goes, I continue to chug along, foot pain and all. I went to another massage therapy appointment and the focus was once again on my hips, with some hamstring work on the right side put in for good measure. Apparently I was quite "congested" in the front of the hip and the MT thinks that releasing this area might help with the plantar fasciitis somewhat, though I can't really follow the reasoning. Something nerve related is what he said.

Anyway, tonight Mon took both boys to Malcolm's T-Ball practice and this gave me the opportunity to go for a run while it was still light out. I planned on going to the track to do some intervals, but as I started running the foot was feeling fairly tight and while approaching the track I made the decision to skip the intervals and simply run more of a tempo type workout. So I headed right on past, all the while thinking how much fun it will be once I can get on that track and do some fast laps around it. Someday... someday...

Other than the foot I was feeling pretty good tonight and was running fairly fast, for me at least. The splits for the run were as follows:

1. 5:19 (8:34/mile)
2. 4:51 (7:49/mile)
3. 4:35 (7:24/mile)
4. 4:30 (7:15/mile)
5. 4:44 (7:37/mile)
6. 4:41 (7:33/mile)
7. 4:33 (7:19/mile)
8. 4:31 (7:17/mile)

The total run was 8km done in 37:49 for an average pace of 4:43/km (7:36/mile). My average heart rate was 155bpm, and I think that's pretty good considering this is the pace at which I ran my 10k PR last year and at that time I was in the 170s the entire way, dying for breath. All told this was a fun run. I think I will slow it down for the remaining runs as I head into my next race, which is now less than two weeks away.

Garmin don't lie.