August 18, 2008 - another halfer

well, i ended up getting my computer taken in for servicing last night, so hopefully i will have it all ready in a few days. the desktop was too heavy to run with so i took a taxi up there but made the run back. did a few laps around the pond to make it a decent work out. totalling 11.3k, not bad for what was supposed to be a day off running.. lol

onto today, with the weather report being nice, i decided to take a last-minute vacation day so i could head up to the beach for some sun tanning and swimming! i packed my backpack full of goodies - food, gatorade, camera, magazines, beach gear, etc.. stepped on the scale and saw that my bag weighted 21 pounds! yikes, what was in there that was so heavy?!?! oh well, not to worry, i thought. i had run full length marathons with 15-18 pound bags before so surely i could do 21.

well, 6k into the run, my arms started getting very numb and i had slowed down considerably.. not sure if it was too much to handle or if i was just suffering the affects of the previous 17 days of running. anxious to get to the beach, i tapped out and called a cab! which was great. got me to the beach an hour earlier than i had planned.

8 hours and 1 sunburn later, i was ready to give the backpack another go. having eaten the food and drank most of the gatorade, surely, it was down to the 15-18 pound range.. the run was slow and painful, but i managed to make steady progress until i got back in the city. after 14k, i was completely exhausted to the point where i was unable to run. i slowed to a walk for about 30 seconds, then decided to run another 1.1k so i would have an even 21.1k for the day - a half marathon. which took a total of 2.30.00 to run, over the course of the day, which lasted 11 hours on the nose.

oh well, so it's still 10 marathons, but now in addition to 2 half marathons - totalling 12 quality runs in 19 days.

it's back to work on wednesday and i think the clouds and rain will be back too. wednesday will probably be a swimming day since my knees really took a beating out there with that backpack.

still trying to think about how to plan out the rest of this month. the Nfld provincial marathon is now just 25.5 days away, so i have to really start thinking about those two dreaded words: rest and taper! i'm thinking there will be a marathon on friday, since i have to make the long hike out to the doctors office. then perhaps at least one more on the weekend to the beach (assuming we get at least one sunny day). then that might have to be it.

there's also a 5k race here in St. John's on Sunday morning, and if i sign up to run it, i'll have to come up with some sort of strategy so i won't enter it in complete pain.. lol (wonder how many people prepare for a 5k by running 42.2k the night before?.. lol - at least i will have a good excuse for not doing well. lol)

more tomorrow
Jennifer