Monday, March 22, 2010

Half Marathon Recovery Day

After yesterday's half marathon, today was an easy 6 mile recovery run. I had off from work, so it took a little while until I got out there. I should've ran early, as storms broke for a bit. Once I started up, it was raining pretty well.

Because of the rain, I started off at my apartment. I couldn't get my watch to work at first, but it after a minute. I started it and put it in my pocket to keep it dry. I ran down to Lloyd Hall and then ran the Schuykill Banks loop. As I made my way down the Banks, the sky really opened up. It poured like crazy.

I actually never cleaned the mud off of my old shoes from last week. I wore them during this run and the rain did that. Usually it doesn't rain hard enough to go into your shoes immediately. It poured that heavily for a stretch of this run though. The other frustrating thing was wearing my jacket. It was still very warm and kind of hot. Plus when it got wet, it really weighed me down.

I cruised on back to Lloyd Hall. After that, I ran out 3/4 of a mile. I then ran towards the Art Museum, heading uphill at the end of the run. I continued to take it easy. My Garmin claimed that I ran one mile at 6:07. That certainly isn't right, as I never ran that fast.

The run went pretty well and even though I'm a little sore, it isn't too bad. I might do an easy run tomorrow morning and run with the run club after work too. This week is going to be quite an increase in mileage. Hopefully I can handle it. My mileage was high for a few weeks, but dropped down over the last three.

It is always nice to reflect after a race. I was happy with the way I ran. I know I have even more in me though, particularly on a faster course. I looked into the Pocono Marathon again today. The elevation drop there is crazy. It goes from around 1900 feet to 400 feet. Even though I felt like yesterday's race had a nice hill, that was less than 250 feet of incline. The Steamtown Marathon is very popular and fast as well and it only drops 900 feet.

I started putting together my revised training plan for the marathon. It is about 8 weeks away, so I still have plenty of time. My biggest worry is that I'll increase my mileage too much. I'll just have to watch for signs of overtraining. I think continuing to run fairly long on trails will be a big help for my quads. That should strengthened them, as will be needed on this mostly downhill rolling course. I was told that some races can be comped by work. I'll have to look into it.

I was feeling a little run down before the half marathon and wondering if I'd even run a spring marathon. Running fairly well and not really killing myself was a huge boost. I know now that I can qualify in Boston in a few weeks. I just need to get in more long runs and speedwork. I've run some speedwork, but haven't done it consistently enough.

6 miles - 47:52 (7:58 pace)

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