Saturday, October 27, 2018

Aftermath: 26.2 miles around 46


Quite a lot of things happened in the last few months.
As we store the birthday candles and finish the vegan chocolate cake, few thoughts come to mind.
46 is pretty close from a half mark, if you are lucky, which actually sounds pretty good when you realize how much happened in the first half.
The tricky part would be how to deal with aging - I guess, to be healthy enough to keep all those years ahead as exciting as they can be.

As Chris Hauth like to say, in an endurance race, the one who will win is the one that slow down the least. 
I suspect you can apply that pretty directly to life and happiness.
You are there for the long run.

Not getting younger... Now Barnaby is usually behind

Talking about running, the last marathon (Maui Marathon 2018), 4:08 was not a bad one. With the heat and an unlucky 4 minutes bathroom stop, I was hoping a PR. 
Looking at the stats, I started way faster than usual, around 8:30 pacing, assuming I could sustain that. maybe not quite at that level yet, even if the training was overall consistent, dropping 15 minutes after 3 years was a bit presumptuous. The main difference was the decision or inability to go deep into the pain cave. When I hit the wall around 2:30, I did not force it, decided to walk to lower my heart rate and took a huge hit on the pace. I kept it below 170 and perceived effort in the "acceptable" range. It was pretty hard anyway, and I promised myself to not do it ever again.
Never again.

Of course, ten minutes after the race, I was already thinking about the L.A. Marathon next year.

Chilling Before (Wonder who was pregnant at the time)

There are quite other few things that are occupying my thoughts and I still need to lay down the 5+ year plan - we are on a hard highschool timeline - , but one thing is for certain, my running days are not over.
I am eluding adding to my bucket list one of the top 100 miler in the world. Ultra Trail Mont Blanc, Leadville 100, Western States ...
But to even have a chance to go on the lottery for those, you need already a 50 miler and at least 100km in the bag.
As we do not get any younger, a good target for 2019 would be to get the 50 in the bag.
And certainly the LA Marathon as a warmup in April.

Chilling 13 years After. 
Definitively will need a bit of luck to keep this annoying right knee pain out of the way, but if I was able to train for 4 months with it, why not 6 ? or 12 ?
Lot of foam roller, strechting watching TV helps for sure... It just looks like that you whole life circle around running.
You work standing up (to train).
You run the dog, not walk it (to train).
You exercice (to cross train), not really because you like it (does someone do?).
You eat healthy (to be light)(well because it is better for you too).
You don't go out (because you need sleep .. to train more. Is there anyway much to do on Maui at night?)
And to wrap that up, a bit of meditation every day (just because).

Well, at least that the program on paper, starting next week.
Still curious how far that will bring me :)

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