Marathon Training Day 24

3 miles on treadmills in Vibrams at the Rec.

Phil
3 miles / 29:06
9.7 minutes / mile

Niki
3 miles / 43:12
14.4 minutes / mile

Personal Best for Phil!  WHOOP!

I ran at 6.2 (9.667 minutes / mile) the entire time.  It actually didn't feel too bad.  And it feels great to have run 3 miles in less than 30 minutes.

Niki, on the other hand, was having calf pain issues and ended up walking most of the way.  Her calves hurt even more now.  She refused to take ibuprofen or ice them.  She'll probably be in pretty poor shape tomorrow.  I feel for her.  She feels how I felt when I first got my Vibrams: righteously awful calf pain.  It goes away eventually as your calves get stronger.  But those first couple of weeks are rough.

We ran late tonight because my meeting with Rego lasted a very long time and the Olympics are on.  It's surprisingly hard to get motivated to run while the Olympics are on.  It feels so good to just sit in front of the TV and watch other people engage in athletics.  But, then something about figure skating came on and we had no problem turning it off.

And now I have to wait before I can go to bed so my post-run snack can settle.  So, you get to read more while I wait.

I finished reading Born to Run by Christopher McDougall.  It is an extremely good book which I highly recommend.  It was recommended to me by a friend who told me it helped renew his love for running and he thought it would fire me up about running (since we are training for a marathon we definitely need firing up).  It fired me up all right.  I finished it in 3 days and lost several hours of sleep because I could not put it down.  I even had dreams about running.  Which is awesome!  I cannot wait until it warms up so Niki and I can go running outside and really reap one of the best things about running: nature.  Trail running is something I am really looking forward to.  Niki doesn't want to start reading it until she finishes re-reading Lord of the Rings for the 6th or 7th time.  LotR is also a great book, so I understand her reasoning.  But I still cannot wait for her to start reading Born to Run because I know that she is really going to enjoy it.

Special Note: My heart rate peaked somewhere around 165 - 170 and was under 100 again before I stepped off the treadmill after my cool down.  That is awesome considering that when we first started training my HR would peak at over 200 and I wouldn't have even run a mile (and that was at a slower pace).  I was in the zone for a very fit person my age.  Apparently, I am very fit.  Or, I am not very fit (only moderately fit) and I was working too hard.  Niki's HR is seeing similar improvement.  (My HR right now, more or less at rest, is 88 bpm.  So, I'm not a well conditioned athlete yet.  Actually, that's a very bad RHR.  Maybe blogging is more stimulating than I thought.  Or, I am in terrible shape and it's a miracle I survived today's run.)