Running update for 8/27

8 weeks until the marathon!! And I hit a new record high number of miles for the week! It was a good week of running including a huge 15 miler today. Man. I can't imagine how far the marathon will be :) But I'm doing well after the run. I took the train downtown and ran on the lakefront path from randolph to hollywood and back down to oak st beach, where I took a tip from leah and jason and took a dip in the water as a quasi-ice-bath. :)

Tuesday: 3.2 miles at the reservior
Wednesday: 7.4 miles at lake arlington
Thursday: 3.8 miles at the Motorola parking lot
Sunday: 15.0 miles on the lakefront path in the city

Total: 29.4 miles

Another race...

So I just signed up for the Chicago Half Marathon. Yay for another race this year before the marathon!! :)

Running update for 8/20

So the running is definitely back on! That heel pain just magically disappeared last Sunday and all has been great since. I'm loving my new shoes (and learning to love the color) :) Today's 10 mile was nice and easy and relaxing. No pain at all, so I feel confident to keep going with training and get that mileage back up there! So it's 9 weeks until the marathon! I only need to double my longest run! ;)

Tuesday: 2 miles at the reservoir
Wednesday: 3.2 miles at the reservoir
Thursday: 5.0 miles at Nike's Run Hit Remix
Sunday: 10.0 miles at Moraine Hills State Park

Total: 20.2 miles (not so bad for coming off of an injury and taking it slow!)

Run Hit Remix: the 90s

The skyline
Originally uploaded by scrapplequeen.

Last night was the Nike Run Hit Remix: the 90's race. It was such a great time! I showed up to Grant Park a little bit early for some pre-race goodies...mini clif bars, jamba juice, trying out the nike+ shoes and ipod thing, and just walking around a bit to get warmed up.

Around 8:30pm or so, all 10,000 runners headed up to Columbus drive to line up. It was very well organized! As you walked up to the street you got a mini bottle of Propel and all along the street were signs for the pacing that you wanted. I camped out just in front of the 9 minute group thinking that sounded like a good pace for a Thursday night fun run :) The whole time they have a DJ playing 90s music. It was just like I had brought my iPod with me :)

Right at 9pm, the race started! It was a good course out and back to 31st st via lake shore drive and the lakefront on the way back. We got to run past soldier field, mccormick place, the aquarium, the field museum, and back in to grant park. And every mile there was another 90s group playing. We were entertained by Digital Underground, Young MC, a local U2 Cover Band, and another local generic 90s cover band. Lots of great music to keep you going!

The running itself went well, and I'm glad to report that no heel pain returned. I was keeping up a slightly sub-9 pace for the first three miles or so but then took a quick water break and fought off a little cramp and lost a few seconds in the last two miles. All in all, I finished with a respectable 46:03 which wasn't bad for taking the past week and a half off of running :)

After the race, there was more Jamba, more Clif bars, free Goose Island Beer (nike doesn't skimp on the beer, only the best for them!), and a concert by De La Soul. I stuck around until about quarter to 11 and then walked back to the train. All in all a very fun night and something I must repeat again next year!

Oh, and thanks to Random Flickr User for the great picture of the skyline from last night with "RUN!" written out on the Blue Cross Blue Shield Building!!

back to running...

So my foot was feeling much better these past few days and I decided to try a nice easy two miles today. The plan was to take it easy, nice 10 or 11 minute pace just to feel things out and make sure my foot didn't go back into horrid pain. Well, I got moving and all felt really great! I started moving a little faster than I though I'd go and 18 minutes later found myself at the 2 mile point. Needless to say, it was a successful run! The plan is for 3 or 4 tomorrow, and then 5 at the Run Hit Remix on Thursday night. The training is back on! Yay!

a pause in the running...

So as many of you know, I hurt my heel last week. Lots of stupid things put together added up to a painful experience. My shoes were approaching end of life and ran on them anyways, I added 15% to the mileage and swapped two weeks of the training because I knew the next weekend would be busy with a friend in town, and I ran a little faster than normal because it was getting hot outside and I wanted to finish before it got *really* hot.

In the end, it hurt, and hurt badly. I saw the doctor yesterday and he labeled it a "contusion" although he wouldn't rule out the slight possiblity that it was the start of a stress fracture even though he couldn't see anything on the x-rays. In any case, I took the week off of running and probably need another two weeks off. So sadly, no CDC for me this weekend :( But I think I'm going to use that free 1 month bally's membership that came with Race to the Taste and get in some pool running these next two weeks combined with some good bike time.