A New Reason...

During our four mile run, which we shared with a heavy down pour, it occurred to me that I now have a reason to keep a legitimate blog. My first attempt at blogging was when I created Webb Extension. It didn’t really serve a purpose (which was the point) but now I’ve designated it as a journal, so to speak, about our trainings for our first marathon. If this works, we will use it for other future challenges.

Friday, 09.19 we officially paid the ridiculously expensive entry fee for the Inaugural Rock 'n' Roll San Antonio Marathon. We are now committed to running the full marathon (26.2 miles). We passed a milestone on the following Sunday by running 14 miles. This is significant because it says we can at least go the distance (and some) of a half marathon.

A summary of the first seven weeks of our training goes like this. Laura found a 16 week training log that we shorten to 14 weeks in order to synchronize with the marathon which is on November 16th. We run, rain or shine, on Tuesdays, Thursday, Fridays and our long run is on Sundays. Each week’s total mileage is increased by 10%. For instant, week six we ran a total of 28 miles; Tues. 4 mi + Thur. 6 mi + Fri. 4 mi + Sun. 14 mi = 28 mi. So this week we will run a total of 31 miles.

5:31 pm, Tuesday, 09.23 - 4 miles at 9.15
Since it was obvious that it was going to pour, Laura and I decided at the half mile mark to run back to our house and change into our bad weather shoes. We then continued on a three mile course in our neighborhood to complete our run in the rain. I've realized that I absolutely love running in the rain with my wife! It's happened a few times during our training. Once, a massive rainbow that made a perfect arch literally marked our finish line.

Today was a bad run for both of us. In the seven weeks of training we have had great runs and bad runs. Today, I went off my schedule a bit by taking 2, 200 mg Ibuprofen 30 minutes before we started our run. Usually, I take two around 2:00 pm. For the entire run, I kept burping and throwing up in my mouth. With the streets flooding and me spitting out wired colored mucus, I was having a hard time keeping up with my wife. Around mile 1, Laura's left calve started giving her trouble. In running, a tiny misstep that normally would not cause much of a problem can do some serious damage to your legs. Unfortunately, Laura stepped wrong on something during our Sunday's run. She is going to spend this evening and tomorrow recovering. Some useful info: RICE stands for Rest, Ice, Compression and Elevate. We enjoy learning about little acronyms like RICE and other runner's lingo. However, I never use the lingo properly and I constantly have to ask Laura to remind me what acronym stands for, etc.

Since we started getting into the 5 mile plus runs, I've started having severe pain in both shins and calves. I saw an orthopod (orthopedic surgeon, another lingo thing that I just asked Laura about) when I started having this pain about three weeks ago. Incidentally, the week before I saw him, I started taking 2, 200 mg Ibuprofen hours before our runs and right afterwards and that seemed to eliminate the pain, along with RICE. The orthopod did some x-rays and did not see any stress fractures and said that I should continue doing the Ibuprofen/RICE routine. He said one of his ultra marathon (100 miles) patients swears by Ibuprofen. Also, part of the pain was attributed to the fact that I was running toe/heal and not heal/toe. -A

2 comments:

Vanessa Rogers said...

what a cute couple :)

Amy said...

I never get how people run toe to heel. Were you running in high heels?

You two are a cute couple. I sometimes forget who's posting the blog, so I hope I"m never too bossy to Laura, thinking I'm talking to Aaron, but Aaron, I did want to mention about your shins that you should get one of those squishy cylinder things (I don't know how to use lingo either) and roll on it on your hip and thigh, which may loosen up on your calf and help relieve the stress on your shin. It always amazes me how tightness in your butt can impact your calves and ankles.