RLB Season 2: Episode One

Dear Russell Petersen,

Thank you for registering for Team In Training's South Maui Triathlon  event on Jun 12, 2011.
 Welp.

Think of the lack of a post-race update as a cliffhanger in to season two. Long story short: I finished.  I had blisters on the bottom of my feet that turned in to calluses I still haven't completely lost. The bottoms of my feet hurt to walk on the rest of the day. My knee burned like nobody's business for hours, and ached for a week. My brain shut down, and I couldn't think about anything but finishing for the last few miles. A lot of the bands had packed up by the time I passed where they were playing (p.s. you guys suck). It took almost four hours and we walked almost the entire way trying to baby my knee, but we did it. I've got the big-ass heavy medal to prove it. It's the happy ending, albeit not as amazing as I would have liked due to the degeneration in training over the last month. End of season one, credits roll, fade to black.

So here we are at the start of season two. A few minutes ago, I received my registration to Team in Training for the South Maui triathlon on June 12 of this year. Unfortunately, I went way off the rails for the holidays and I've lost everything I built up for stamina (and un-lost some weight thanks to Christmas cookies). My knee isn't back to where it was before the marathon training, and the orthopedic doctor has told me it never will be. We're more or less starting over again, but I know more about what I'm capable of when I started training last summer. I'm not afraid of being unable to finish for any reason other than my knee, and I'm confident that with enough care that it won't hold me back.

As the TNT season moves along I'll be posting about how my training is going and the experiences that are pushing me to crossing the finish line with a huge smile on my face. I expect the journey to be life-changing.

148 days to go. Training starts now.

1 Day to go

The last few weeks have been crazy busy. I'm headed out the door to go to day two of Blizzcon today, but I'm taking all my race gear with me. I won't be running the race, but I'll be walking it. My knee has improved considerably since visiting the doctor, even though all he did was tell me to stretch it out more. I'm a bit daunted by the fact I haven't really been able to test it, though I did a fair amount of walking the last few days and it's holding up well. I'm confident that tomorrow will go well enough all things considered.

19 days to go - Uncertainty looms

The race is only two and a half weeks away and I'm not in a good spot. I don't know what I did, but about two weeks ago my right knee said uncle and started complaining horribly. On the morning I was supposed to hit 8 miles, it threw a holy conniption and Katie made me stop after a mile because I was limping. I've been wearing a patella brace on my knee for the last ten days and staying off it in the hopes of some quick rehab. Tonight was the first time I've tried to run on it in that span of time, and the results weren't terribly encouraging. I started off strong but at about 3/4 of a mile the aching started to creep in and by a mile it was bordering on outright pain.

I'm in a pretty good pickle over this one. I don't have enough time before the race to fully rehab and get caught back up. In fact, I may not have time to fully rehab period, and it's not out of the question that I may scratch the race because of this. I'm hoping that I can somehow keep my lung and cardio stamina up while my knee recovers with some cross-training, but the day of the race is looking like it will be much harder than it did two weeks ago. I'd hoped to use the last week as a pure taper week and go easy, but it looks like that's going to be more like the three weeks leading up to the race instead. I'm going to be very, very tired when I cross the finish line.

31 days to go

Hello Interwebs! I have been very lax about updating this blog but I have not been lax about running.

After the horrid start to Labor day weekend things went much better and the long weekend off provided a good break. I got a run in on the Tuesday and Wednesday (4 and 2.5 miles) before the big run on Sunday morning. Katie and I got up early and churned out seven miles down San Vicente. This distance is the furthest either of us has ever run, and it felt great to make such marked progress. The following week I did a short run on Tuesday and a longer run on Thursday before work in which I was yelled at by a teacher for jogging across school grounds (even though school had not started yet, big bag of WTF there). The rest of the week didn't go so well, as Katie got sick over the weekend and then I picked up what she had earlier in the week. This means we didn't get the scheduled 8 mile run in, so last week was a wash and this week is the re-do on it. Fortunately the remaining schedule was aggressive enough that it won't really spoil our efforts. I got back in the saddle last night with a very rough long uphill run, and tonight I plugged out five miles. I could definitely tell the week off had not done me any favors. My right knee is complaining very loudly, and it's not really gotten any better over the last few weeks. I'm well convinced by this point that I did something earlier in life to screw it up, but I am not sure what the extent of the damage really is or how to treat it or even what's specifically causing it. It seems to be much worse going up hills, but I can't really tell if it's impact-related or if the joint is just not that good. I'll be doing some extra stretching the next few days and possibly getting some ice on it.

The run is only a month away. I've got a very busy month planned between now and then, and it's going to be tough to stick with it between work, Civ 5, my sister's wedding, Halloween planning and Blizzcon but I'm determined to give a good accounting of myself.

Remaining Training Schedule

Sept 13, Week 4: 3-5-3-8
Sept 20, Week 5: 3-5-3-10
Sept 27, Week 6: 4-5-4-11
Oct 4, Week 7: 4-6-4-12
Oct 11, Week 8: 3-5-3-8 (taper week, normally week 15)
Oct 18, Week 9: 3-3-3-13.1 (race day)

Livin' on a Prayer

I shouldn't be posting right now. I'm supposed to be spending time with my sweetheart in Santa Monica, but instead I'm at home blogging about a run I shouldn't have had the time to take. Sorry to say my streak of stupidity continued today as I managed to take a routine turn in to a gas station too short and manage to clip the curb just perfectly to tear a chunk of my tire's sidewall out at 5:30 PM on the Friday going in to a four day weekend. Long story short, I don't feel comfortable driving on it and I can't get it fixed until 10 tomorrow morning making me very late for what was supposed to be a very lazy drive up the Pacific Coast Highway. As one might imagine this infuriated me, and after a bit of cooling down I decided to take out my frustration on the pavement. I initially set out to just do the three miles I'd need to leave only the big run for the week, but not long out the door I realized that I hadn't run yesterday and I certainly wouldn't be running tomorrow, so I might as well go for it. The goal was set: six miles. I've never made it further than five.

This was a reasonably optimistic goal considering that my run on Wednesday had been a near-disaster. After doing 3 miles the day before (sorry, no data for that one, the Forerunner crapped itself again), I made the mistake of eating too much at lunch and my side stitched up very early in the run and would not go away, even when I walked for a quarter mile. I finished the four miles, but it took me nearly as long as five miles had taken me on Sunday. I felt a bit discouraged, but like so many things lately it was my own damn stupid fault and I could have avoided it.

Tonight there would be no failing. I set out up the hill, starting on a wide loop to leave myself an out if my body wasn't up to the task tonight. By the time I made it through the office complex loop I was barely tired at all, so I chugged up the next hill to the Pacific Life building. Near the top the stitch in my side threatened to make a comeback, so I shortened my steps significantly, remembering the story from Born to Run of trying to pace a metronome at 180 beats/min. This didn't eliminate it, but it did buy me enough time to go on a long downhill stretch on Pacific Park (past the $#^@ curb) before settling in on the run I'd also done a couple nights ago. Finishing the loop across Alicia, Moulton and finally Aliso Viejo Parkway took me to just shy of six miles. I probably should have felt exhausted, but at some point my body had just given up fighting so I did an intentional extra jaunt to the 73 onramp before turning around and running back to my door. This little extra bit of distance put me up and over 6.2 miles, meaning tonight I ran a 10K in a hair over an hour and a half only stopping for traffic lights. I started this blog fifty days ago and it's now fifty days to the race, and I've made it to the halfway point of the distance I need to run the race. It's a good sign, but I can't let up now.

Half marathon course announced

Short update today, the course for the half marathon was just announced. Thankfully the elevation change looks pretty minimal, so the Aliso hills should provide more than enough training in this regard. The time limit to run the race is 4 hours, and even at my slow-roll pace I should be able to beat that handily.

Ran 3 miles last night that were kind of tough due to a full stomach and a bitchy left ankle that loosened up later in the run. No stats update as the Forerunner didn't pick up reception for the first 3/4 of a mile.