sports

I went for a relaxing run this afternoon. It's 63 degrees, I'm sure it will get hot soon here.

The first weekend after my half marathon, and I felt strong. I think I'm recovered. Still it's a healthy habit to take it easy every other weekend.

Last Friday I went for a run and it was very tiring. It was the first time this year I ran in warm weather again (it gets hot in NC!) and it was exhausting. I finished in 38:30 minutes. Monday it was raining and a bit colder and even though I took it slow I easily finished in 37:30.

Tonight things didn't go well at all, I had to walk! That hasn't happened in many months. I think I started too enthusiastically. Anyway, I didn't want to push it too hard because... Saturday is the race! I forgot to pick up my stuff today but I can do it Friday also.

That would be me! At least I imagine I was to the driver of a car who almost bumped into me. He had come to a full stop and was waiting for me when I was on the zebra crossing. All of a sudden he moves again, just when I'm right in front of his car. So I jumped, smashed with my flat hand on the front of his car and yelled: "dude, what the ...?!". He looked very scared. It was an undergraduate student and he was pretty young. I guess I looked quite scary. I just continued running and had some extra adrenaline to make it with 29:40 at the traffic light, yeah!

Today I did my last long run before the race in two weeks. The race will be in Raleigh, and today I ran the same track as the race will be, plus an additional 1.1 miles to meet my training goal.

The track is beautiful. It starts in downtown Raleigh through the government area, and along beautiful old house. The bulk of the run is along Hillsborough road (out and back).

This weekend I have my longest run ever scheduled: 14 miles. That's a little under a mile more than the race distance, and it will be the last long run before the race two weeks from tomorrow.

I wasn't sure if I wanted to run it on Saturday or Sunday, but the weather was so good tonight that I really wanted to go for a run. That means my big run will be on Sunday, Easter morning.

The weather is getting really nice and with daylight saving time it still light an hour longer. Total time was 36:12.

Now we're going out for dinner, sushi!

When I was driving home it started raining, and I realized I'd be running in the rain tonight. I was planning on an easy run and decided to leave my watch home.

I don't think I've run in the full rain before, and it was actually quite nice. It smelled so good! It smelled of Middenmeer.

I could still feel Sunday's run in my legs yesterday. It definitely takes a heavier toll on me to run fast than to run long. I'm not used to running fast, clearly.

No really long run this weekend, as it's my easy weekend between two long runs of 13 and 14 miles respectively. I ran for 9 miles and deliberately ran faster than usual. I completed the 9 miles in 1:38, which is about 10.9 minutes per mile.

I hit a rough spot where my side was hurting for about 20 minutes after the first hour (maybe because of the gel I ate), but it was a great run. The weather is beautiful. I'm glad I waited until today; I planned to run yesterday but it was pouring.

After Saturday's long run I felt pretty good. My quads didn't hurt as much as two weeks earlier and I had no major pains.

Tuesday I ran fast. I tried to break 30 minutes to the traffic light but missed it by 45 seconds. Total time was 34:16. Today was slower, around 37:45.

The whole week I've been thinking about signing up for a 5k this Saturday, but tonight I decided against it. It's been a long week (started with a work dinner on Sunday) and I'm pretty tired. Instead, I'll go for a nice relaxing run on Saturday, maybe 6 or 7 miles just for fun.

Today was the big day: my first run in the half-marathon distance. Well, it was about 0.1 miles short of the actual 13.1 but close enough. And I made it. It took 2 hours and 44 minutes, and the last 45 minutes were hard, especially starting the second round around the golf course.

I saw a beautiful little red bird, and a heron.

For the first time in a long time I didn't have a major run last weekend. This is according to schedule, but my subconscious makes me feel guilty. More to the point, I haven't done as many small runs as I would have liked to since the previous long run. Including today's I've only done 4, but I could have done 5 or 6. Oh well.