T Minus Fifteen Weeks

Fifteen weeks from today is the New York City Marathon. In the training world that is both a long way out, and a blink of an eye. Up until this week, I was 50/50 on whether I would be ready to run 26.2 miles on November 5th. Today, I'm feeling more like 75/25. I've booked my post race poncho, my transportation to the start line, and re-entered my predicted finish time. In a few more weeks, I just might have to book that flight.

It's been a good week of 51 miles culminating in 13 today up Waterton Canyon. I like Waterton as it's half of however far you're running UPhill and the other half DOWN (I like down). The UP is gradual enough to be very runnable and the down is gradual enough to not be that icky quad pounding beat up thing. Today, we (my son Ryan and I) went to the "end," theoretically six miles up to the dam. You can keep going, however, and connect with the Colorado Trail. That next half mile (to get to 6.5, the turn around for thirteen), is steep. That one little half mile totally changed the complexion of my run. I will confess to feeling pretty darned AWESOME the first six miles, but throw in that "other" half mile and I hit the turn-around toasted. I never quite completely recovered.

Running buddy

I get this, though. When you're too heavy, the place where the weight exposes itself in the most INeffective way, is running up anything close to even semi-steep. But time will fix that. Check with me in the Spring.

I also like Waterton because I like the Big Horn Sheep. Today's run had ZERO sheep (a rarity) until the tenth mile when an adolescent ventured out onto the road. He looked at me awhile, waited until I was about ten yards away and then took off up the road. Too fast for me. So was Ryan, by the way (too fast for me). I released him from feeling like he had to keep me company at 7 miles and a half mile later he finally took off. He had a nice run to the bottom.

As for the training week, gone are the 3,4,5 mile runs that were the staple of my recovery existence. They have been replaced with 5,6,7, even 8 mile runs. I've reconnected with some favorite old loops and for the most part, things are looking good. I barely feel my knee AT ALL and have had a very good week with my on-again/off-again piriformis syndrome. On the whole, all is good.

I still have a LONG way to go. While my runs are  longer and considerably quicker than even a week or two ago, they are still ungodly slow, and I am a long way from being "back." This all takes time and frankly, I'm okay with that, I'm just happy to feel like a runner again!

So, as Jack Nicholson said in Something's Gotta Give, "It's all good news here." The plan is 54 miles this week ending one more week of just base building before the striders and tempo runs get thrown into the mix. Excited and ready to test out this recovery.

Run on!