Posted by Derek Lee-Wo on October 29th, 2006 in Training
Today I had a 6-mile scheduled. I was worried about my knee which has been giving me problems recently. ON my last 6-mile run, it started to hurt about 4 miles in. On my 4-mile run, it started to hurt after about 3.25 miles.
I took Wed and Thur easy, keeping my runs to the scheduled 3 miles each. I rested Fri and Sat as planned.
Today felt great. At 5.5 miles, I was feeling fine and my knee wasn’t giving any problems at all. I decided to go for an extra mile and ended up running 7 miles instead of 6 miles! This is the furthest I’ve run so far. Not only did I go further, but I did it faster than any other run so far, averaging 9:46 min/mile. Another nice benefit….I burnt 997 calories on the run!
I have my very first 5K race next week Sunday. My goal is to break 30 mins which should be a breeze.
Posted by Derek Lee-Wo on October 24th, 2006 in Injury, Training
Up until last week, I have been running injury-free. Sure, I had some minor aches and pains, especially early on, but that was just some muscle soreness.
On my last 6-mile run, my knee started to hurt. From the research I’ve done, it’s related to the tendon just below the knee cap. On my 4-mile run today, I started to hurt again after about 3.25 miles. I did get a knee band which is used to apply pressure to the tendon, but I’m not quite sure if I had it tight enough.
My next step is to try and change my shoes.
It’s actually pretty distressing getting injured. Even if I can continue to run, but am limited to just 3 miles a day, that would be tough. It would mean that my goal of running a marathon would disappear.
Posted by Derek Lee-Wo on October 22nd, 2006 in Training
I read an article recently where the author said that half the battle when it comes to running is just getting dressed and out the door. Once you are outside, you’re golden. This couldn’t more true especially as the weather gets colder and colder.
Here in Texas, the weather has dropped quite drastically in the last couple weeks. We’re now in the 40s at night which is the same temperature when I get up to go running. I got up at 6:30am for today’s long run. I had to wear two shirts….a long sleeve one and a short sleeve over than. There was a wicked wind blowing which had to have brought the wind-chill down into the 30s, but I got dressed and I got out the door.
Never mind that my eras felt as though they were going fall off when I first started running. Never mind that I felt like a frozen popsicle by the time I was done. Never mind that my fingers were so cold, I could barely use them. I preserved and ran my six miles in 1:00:17. I preserved and did my long run in temperatures that most people would have simply hit the snooze button and enjoyed the warmth of their bed.
Knowing that I have the dedication and motivation to go running in these adverse conditions is a great feeling.
Another wonderful milestone today is that I hit 190lbs (well, I actually hit and held it for the last 3 days). This makes it 40lbs that I have lost so far. I have 10lbs left for the initial goal which was to lose 50lbs before the end of the year and for which I’m ahead of schedule. My reward for hitting 190lbs is Buffalo chicken wings for lunch today. My reward for hitting 180lbs will be pizza.
Posted by Derek Lee-Wo on October 20th, 2006 in Training
The weather these past few weeks has been great here in Texas. I normally run at 5:45am in the mornings and today, Friday, is normally a non-running day, but the weather is so nice, I decided to go out and do an easy 3-mile run.
It turns out I ran my best time :-). For the first time, I was able to run the 3 miles in under 30 mins!
I don’t know if I’ll make it a habit to run on Friday’s, but if the weather is nice, it may well end up doing a lot of easy 3-mile runs on Fridays.
Posted by Derek Lee-Wo on October 15th, 2006 in Training
I had a 6-mile run. The longest I had run prior to today was 5 miles so it was a bit worrying. The run started out pretty good, but at 4.5 miles, everything started to hurt, my back, knee, hip, arms…everything. That eventually subsided, but then my legs started to feel heavy. It would have been easy to just stop running, but when I thought of how I would be in a marathon, I just had to keep moving and keep putting one leg in front of the other. I know when I do run my marathon, I would get to a point where I would just want to stop and mentally, I need to “keep moving”.
For the last mile, my pace had dropped to about an 11:00 min/mile pace, but for the last 0.25 miles, I picked it up and ran that under 10:00 min/mile.
In the end, I ended up running the 6 miles just 1:30 mins slower than it took me to run 5 miles just 5 weeks ago. The 5 miles took me 1:01:30 and the 6 miles today too me 1:03:00. These are the kinds of numbers that keep me motivated!
