[Photo by Tomas used under an Attribution-Noncommercial 2.0 Creative Commons license]

it’s been two months since i ran the avon frauenlauf, but i have managed to sporadically tie on the running shoes and get out of the house since. i didn’t beat my time from the last time i ran a 10k, but i almost tied it. the race i was trying to beat was the 10k new york run to liberty which i ran in 2002 in 57:24. at the avon frauenlauf two months ago i clocked in at 59:23. all in all, i started the race way too hot, hitting some sub 8 minute miles according to my garmin. by the time mile 4 came around there was no way i was keeping it up and i hit a big fat wall. i also forgot to drink my caffeine before the race (i had stopped drinking caffeinated drinks a few weeks before).

the race killed me a bit mentally, but since then i’ve had some time to reflect. i hadn’t run regularly since 2002 and the training schedule i started in march to train for the 10k drastically changed that. even though my race wasn’t a great success, the training meant i ran in some pretty awesome places and with some great people including: next to an agent from langley on a treadmill in vancouver while the snow was pouring down outside, a half dozen times around green lake in seattle, with melanie and her forerunner 205 while she was in berlin (run data), and my favorite, the johnstone trail. sometimes it’s hard not to get caught up by a goal. when other runners say the journey is the part that counts, try to listen.

today i managed to get myself outside to run for the second day in a row. my goal was to run longer than yesterday’s run (3.5 miles) and to run some negative splits (where the pace gets faster later in the run). i achieved both: 6.3 miles total distance, lap one pace at 9’55” minute miles, and lap two pace at 9’30” minute miles. to attempt to counteract my running plateau i’ve been trying some new things as well. firstly i’ve been drinking a sports drink while i run. i didn’t think i would like it, but after reading the evidence in Performance Nutrition for Runners, i thought i should at least give drinking while i run a try. based on the chart of pros and cons of sports drinks in the aforementioned book, i am drinking efs (no not the encrypting file system). efs comes in a few flavors; i’m using tangerine because it doesn’t contain sucralose. at first i found the taste really repulsive, but now i actually enjoy sipping it cold while i run. it hasn’t been enough time to see if it really is helping my runs, but i have been less sore after long runs where i’ve sipped along the way. the second change i’m making is to add in a bit of resistance training to my workouts — nothing drastic, just some basic crunches, squats, lunges and bicep/tricep curls.

right after my race two months ago i considered signing up for a half marathon sometime in october. i didn’t find any very local to me, so i may wait to see what my travel schedule dictates at that point. for now i’ll settle for running three to four times a week and increasing my distance. at least i can say with certainty that running is back in my life.