Saturday, March 03, 2007

8 mile run at Seal Point Park in San Mateo

Today was a long day for Cody and I. As I am writing this, Cody is conked out on the carpet in front of me.

This morning, we had to meet at 7am with the Team in Training group to run 8 miles. With Cody, I did 8 miles in an hour and a half, which is slightly over 11 minute miles. Considering that I always went slower than that, I think it was a good accomplishment. What also felt really nice is that I was not last in the pack. Although I started as one of the last people, my endurance outlasted at least most of the other women that were running (I stopped to walk for 3 minutes total, and only after running over 6 miles straight).

We had a person who specialized in sports injury prevention speak to us after our run. He showed us different stretches and sold some Styrofoam rollers to help us stretch some areas (like the IT band!). I've been wanting to get a roller for awhile, so it's helpful. Also, there were some stretching techniques he showed us that I hadn't heard about before.

On a sidenote, I think I need to start measuring my times as "WD" or "WOD" ... "With Dog" or " Without Dog". I feel like Cody not only helps me in pulling me forward (but that's usually only for the first mile until he realizes that he's wasting his energy and all the pulling he can do isn't going to get me to run to the front of the pack where he wants to be), but he also psychologically motivates me not to stop. Usually, if I want to stop, it's because I'm tired. However, Cody usually is not. So if I think about stopping, I usually have to think about planting myself with enough force to prevent myself from falling forward when Cody decides that he would rather continue running. Usually I think this is a bad idea and I might as well continue running anyways. That's probably the biggest reason that I only stopped twice (minute and a half each time) in today's run.

Anyways, I think the next long run is not dog-friendly so I may end up finding out what my WOD time will be soon enough!

Thanks again for everyone who has sponsored me. If you still haven't, here's the link:
http://www.active.com/donate/tntsvmb/phoebeho
I have $1948 more to go by April and $448 more to go by March 15.

Friday, March 02, 2007

3 months to go!

Well, there's 3 months to the marathon.

Last Sunday, I was able to run 8 miles with Cody even with the torrential rain that came down in the middle of the run. I think the rain was to teach me a lesson and to make sure I wear quick-dry fabrics rather than cotton.

Through the week, I've been running between 2-5 miles each day, as well as meeting with my personal trainer on Tuesdays and Fridays to do weight training. Tomorrow, we'll be doing a "long run" of 5-8 miles in San Mateo. The trail should be dog-friendly so I should be able to get a good time with Cody helping me out :)

Here are a couple of pictures of Cody and me running on one of our Team in Training group runs:






Thanks for all who've sponsored me so far... $2000 more to go!