Winter is coming....

With the Honolulu marathon coming in fast, less than 12 weeks, 

I kicked off the training program.

First long run, 12 miles, around 2 hours, at an easy pace - less than 150 bpm.

Light rain, No one around.
The bike is always not ideal with the rain and mud.

Trails are good. Coach Eric told me that tracks are good, and I believe him.

I am now back on trails, back on my home turf, Makawao Forest.

Selfie after the run. I look pretty good.
I mean, from a tiredness perspective.

12 miles means 2 laps, more or less.

I did not account for the mud and the fact I will keep it light, walking in the slopes, but keeping my Heart Zone in Zone 2. Sometime frustrating, but at the end, it made actually the experience more enjoyable. At that pace, I feel I can go on for hours.

My name is mud.

I don't have real trail shoes anymore, and those were sooo slippery. The old bike trails in the mud did not help. Going up was tricky, Going down was .. even more.

God knows how I did not end up on my butt.

It took 2:40 for two laps.

Way out of any record time, I don't even want to look at my past score on this one.

The good news. Time past like a breeze, barely no pain. Soreness is back, of course, but the tomorrow morning, I actually felt I could run again.

So far, it looks I am on the good track.

Let's just hope it stays that way.

Training Camp .... Part 2

Painless.

Yesterday, I woke up, walked the dog, and actually did not feel anything.

Strange.

Few pictures I took back from my Jackson's trip on the way back.

Utah is empty

Beautiful mountain river in WY

Lakes in Idaho, on the way back

Empty plains, Mountain as a background.

Those landscape are not typical in Hawaii. I realized I was craving for change.
Maybe my body as well.

Now, I am gonna start to run again, with my new confidence and new form.
We will see where it carries me.

I do not expect it to be painless :)
Just hopefully, it will be manageable.

Training Camp .... Part 1

A little bit like a vacation,
that hurts.

I won't go into technical details just right now, but I used the excuse of a work trip on the main land to do a small detour by Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
A quite complicated detour, actually.
Like 2 hours of plane and 250 miles of drive.

The running playground.

Mountain trails

Downtown Jackson's Art is ... well.
I guess they have a lot of deers there.

The view from my motel.

We have been granted a wonderful weather for this week.

No excuses.

Now it is time to get those legs going.

Running 101 : From the couch to my first marathon (14)

Go for the run as planned,

what ever the weather is.

Usually, that's an advice that is pretty easy to follow on Maui. No Snow, No blizzard, a blue sky that is almost boring.

Well, today I made the great decision to go for an early run, which ended pretty good with a 52 minutes for my "typical" lower Kula run.

Only one minute shy of my fastest ever run.

And all this with "proper running form".


Few hour later, it was the deluge.

Tropical showers should not stop you...
Usually.

As usually, the picture does not reflect the ton of water that was falling from our cloudy sky.

This one might gave you a better understanding.

Or, just go for a swim.

Well, those are violent, but usually short. 

That will give our backyard another reason to grew like crazy. 

This summer was so weird on the island.

No wind, no waves, lots of rain.

Better run than surf or kite.

Running 101 : From the couch to my first marathon (13)

Living the dream.
Now, I can run back to around 60 minutes, which sounds either amazing or depressing, depending on how your bottle is full or not.
And again.
Dreaming of beating the 4 hours barrier, in little less than 3 months.
Let's see if coach Eric is a miracle giver.
Now it is the time :)

50k - The Rut.

Mountain running seems the next big thing.
I could dig this as a cool impossible.
Specially since I discovered the wonderful world of Kilian.

The man looks amazing.
Not yet convinced by the book yet, though.

Oh yeah. Supposed to be given some kind of advice in this post.
This guy is your ultra competitor mad man. Which brought him to new heights.
I would say, that's cool if you do not compete, you run for fun.
Whatever.
To run a marathon, you need to have some kind of competitive spirit.
Either you admit it or not. Against yourself or the guy just in front of you.
But you will need it, eventually, when that's gonna be really hard.

Easy Sunday night movie.

Some good stuff though.

It's so deep in there, and you gotta beat it. You gotta face that fear. You GOT to, because if you don't, you're gonna be me, and, buddy, you don't want that. But if you do - and I don't care if you never run another race in your life - because if you DO face that fear, it'll change your life. I promise you. It's the hardest thing you'll ever have to do, but you gotta do it. Oh, you gotta do it. And then you'll be able to push right through the pain. You'll go right through the door. And when you're about ready to pass out and your legs can't move and your lungs can't breathe and your eyes can't see, you'll know that it's just the beginning, and it's so beautiful. It's beautiful.


Told you.

Over there, it's beautiful. So painful, it is beautiful.