Thursday, March 30, 2006

Week 16 - Day 4: Lots of Stuff Going On

What a beautiful day. It's like 76 degrees outside and really feels like spring! I ran 6 miles with my sister, Holly, today during my lunch break at work. We had planned on running 6.4, but decided to cut it off at 6. The run involves several patches of woods, and I'm not confident that my Garmin didn't cheat us out of a .10 or so. Anyways, I had tired legs from last night's 8 miles. And that shin pain and knee pain I mentioned is back. I hope I am not all the sudden falling apart. One good thing is that the tendon in my foot that was hurting before the 1/2 marathon is better. I haven't had a problem with it in over a week. But the shin splints and the knee pain now concern me. I really think the 24 miles was a little too much on them. Either that or didn't stretch well enough before and after the run. I am icing the shin and knee after running, and back on the good ol' Aleve. I am supposed to run 4 miles tommorrow, but I am not sure if that's the best thing or not. I've got 4 tommorrow then 12 Saturday. I really want to make the 12 Saturday, so I may do some cross training tommorrow instead, and give the shin and knee some time to get better. Maybe a swim and a bike. These little injuries are getting on my nerves. I always took lots of pride in keeping myself injury-free....well, so much for that. I am 4 1/2 weeks away from the Marathon, and things are flaring up all over the place.

I was digging around on the internet, and found some things that sparked my interest about Marathon running. Like this:

When your mind goes to the finish
line and wanting to finish....bring the mind back to your body and focus on the
(present)...
Remember if your mind goes to the finish line...it has abandoned
your body to do the last 5 or 6 miles alone....and that's not good. Bring the
mind back to the present....breathing....relaxing shounders, jaw, eyes...eyes on
the horizon...and relaxing toes....relaxing toes.

©1998 Austin "Ozzie" Gontang, Ph.D.

I think that's what happened to us Sunday. For the last 6 miles or so, we lost our focus. We could see the sun was starting to go down, we were wondering how the kids were doing, and knew we needed to hurry up and get finished. And also knew that by the time we did finish, there wasn't gonna be much left of the day. It felt like an entire day gone. We just wanted to be finished. Our mind left the present, and our body suffered because of it. That's why I prefer to run in the morning. When you start early, you still have plenty of the day left to look forward to. This is certainly a confirmation of what an astounding effect the mind has on your performance.

I also ran across this on that same website:

Remember on marathon day, you will be full of energy. By running the first 3
miles slower 30 seconds to 1 minute slower than marathon pace, you will be ready
to settle into your marathon pace. Should you go out 30 seconds to a minute a
mile faster than your marathon pace, you will finish the marathon 20 minutes to
1 hour and 30 minutes slower than you expected. Since you are well rested, don't
let the excitement and adrenaline affect your first 3 miles which are 30 seconds
to 1 minute slower than your marathon pace. Do not waste any glycogen storage by
going out faster than race pace those first 4 to 8 miles.

©1998 Austin "Ozzie" Gontang, Ph.D.

I think that is interesting, as well. One that thing I can say that has always proven true for myself, is that every race in which I have started out too fast - I had disappointing results. And every race in which I was relaxed went out easy - I was pleased with the results. I am horrible about doing this in a 5k. I will take off as fast as I can, worried that I won't have time to make up any speed, and then I will crash and burn by mile 2. That's a bad feeling - when know that all those runners behind you are reeling you in ever so steadily, and there's not a whole lot you can do about it.

Well, enough of my thoughts for the day. Say a prayer for my shin and knee if you don't mind...I am too close to back out, now!!

3 comments:

Michele said...

Great stuff! I will tell Ronnie that it is his fault for making me focus on the finish on that long run since he called me twice!!
I will say that prayer tonight, you can't get hurt NOW we are almost there, and this was your idea in the first place!!!

Anonymous said...

I enjoyed the run yesterday, Lana. I'm sure I slowed you down. Thanks for waiting on me. Hope the injuries get better. I'm looking forward to joining you for 7 or 7.5 of your 12 in the morning. Let me know what your ETA @ Rayfields is going to be. I'm bringing my MP3 player again.

Michele said...

Holly, what do you need your MP3 player for?? You will be in such GREAT company!
Let me know what time and then I will see y'all in the morning!