Sunday, February 28, 2010

One Year To Go!

My one year countdown to launch has begun!  March 1st, 2011 is only 365 days away.  It seems more concrete to me now.   In one year exactly, I will be taking my first steps on a coast to coast run.

Saturday, I had a 40 mile slog in miserable conditions.  I left my house about 6:45 a.m. with dry and cloudy conditions.  As soon as I got over the Golden Gate Bridge on the Marin side, the rains came and came and came.  I followed the Bay State Trail (Click Here for Bay Trail Map) through Mill Valley and then hopped off and headed towards Tiburon.  Though I was wet, I was warm and mostly just pacing myself at about 8:00-8:30 minute miles.  I wanted to make sure I had plenty of energy for a long day.  I did not push hard. 

I turned around and headed home about 2:30 hours into the run.  Then the fun began.  The Bay State Trail had been over taken by the ocean. For at least three miles, I was running off and on in standing water.  The cold salty water reached up to my knees in many places.  My muscles tightened and lost all of the warmth they had early in the run. The rest of the lurch home took me three hours in wet clothes and shoes!   40 miles in 5:30.

This morning I felt great.  I ran four miles and rewarded myself with some steam room time to loosen my legs up.   I could have ran another marathon today albeit slowly.  Yesterday's effort followed up by an easy and pain free jog this morning gave me a lot of confidence that the run will be something that I can complete!

I did get a new toy for my run this weekend.  I bought a Garmin 301 Running GPS.  It was handy and easy to use.  Although, I did find myself obsessing over the data during the run yesterday.  Heart Rate (145-155 BPM all day), Pace (8:00 to 9:00 MPM), total mileage and other data can be watched real time ad nauseum.  I almost ran into a street sign once because I was staring at the information. 

Texting while driving may be dangerous...but I can say GPSing while running could also fall into that category!



Shooting for 300 miles in March!

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