our choices show what we truly are

Today I felt better no fever and not feeling tired. Yesterday already I was without fever but I spent most of the day sleeping. I took advantage of the holiday and I postponed my first adventure out right after lunch when the sun was out and temperatures were really nice.

The advantage of beeing sick for five days on NSAIDs is that my legs today had no pains or aches left, the side effect was that my legs didn't know how to run, but in a few more days they will learn it again.

7 miles in 52:24. Tonight I wanted to go faster, I felt no reason to keep going slow except laziness. For the first 4 miles, after struggling during the first mile, I was actually going around 7:00/mile then a suddenly strange/weird/totally unexpected pain in my left knee convinced me to slow down to a more reasonable pace, in a couple of miles pain was gone and I finished at whatever pace I was running at that point. Overall a great night of running.

I am slowly going back to a normal schedule. Slower run tonight to recover from yesterday. Actually I wanted to see in 1:00 how many miles I could squeeze in without pushing. I felt fine at the end.

5 slow miles as an active rest day. Tomorrow I will attempt first 20 miler after the marathon, I hope it will go well.

I wanted to do a long run, didn't happen. I wanted to do it at 4:50/km, didn't happen. And I wanted to be "easy" and it was not the case. I started at 8:30 in the morning with a cloudy sky, after 10 minutes the wind brought some heavy rain that lasted for the next two hours. At that point after I have already abandoned my glorious fast and "easy" goals and I was beyond miserable, wet and cold, I abandoned my last goal to finish with 17 miles in 2:15:21. Once at home I felt I survived this training. This is also the reason why I decided to do an early fall marathon and a late marathon, the weather during november can be really bad and doing a good amount of miles during this month can be challenging. In three weeks in Florence even with bad weather I can still enjoy the scenery (I hope so).

Rest day, I was just too lazy and I didn't want to go out and get another hour or so of rain and cold weather.

Another useless day in the running department. After long hours at work, I got home and it was raining hard, I ventured out around my neighbourhood to test the "water" after a mile I was wet and miserable so I got back home.

I got wet going from the train station to work, same story tonight from work to the train station (I know I should have brought an umbrella, but it was sunny when I left my house this morning), finally at home tonight there were clear skies and I went running without worrying too much getting wet.

7 slow miles, but it felt good anyway.

First good running day since the marathon. I started at 4pm (that helped) and went out on a progression run, after doing 4 miles in 38 minutes and change (not exactly fast) I came back in 22 minutes. I was feeling really great at the end. 

After last night fast run, I thought I would be destined on a slow recovery jog for today, instead my legs were fresh and ready I didn't want to push the pace and still I have done 7 miles in 57 minutes. Very easy and very fun. On a side note considering the almost full moon I left for half of the run the "safety" of the industrial loop to venture on some adjacent  rural roads using only the moonlight to see. It was eerie at the beginning but after a few minutes I was totally comfortble running with just the moonlight.

5 easy recovery miles before tomorrow 2nd attempt at running 20 miles (after  last weekend failure). At least no rain in the forecast.

Another disappointing training run. As soon as I woke up I knew that there was no way I was going to do 20 miles this morning I was already tired. I thought that I could do an half-marathon at marathon pace but after 6.5 miles in 48 minutes, keeping the same pace for just another mile would have been impossible, I resigned and finished the half in 1:48 and change and I was glad I was still able to run until the end.

I really need to rest and recover (mentally and physically).

I dragged my sorry legs for 10 slow painful miles, I friend of  mine wanted to be paced for a 10 miler in preparation for a spring half marathon. Without this external motivation I would have stayed at home this morning. Now I am feeling even more tired than yesterday.

I explored a new route through a residential area, the long loop is 2.1km the short one is 1.3km. Both loops are longer than the industrial area loop and have more variety (a long  hill, a short steep one, a flat part and the corresponding two downhills), the down side there is lots of car traffic at 8pm because there is a gym and a swimming pool. It will be good to change scenery once or twice a week. 6.2 miles in 57 minutes.

Second day without running, I am still sick again. Not much else to report.

This morning I was feeling much better, my throat is no longer on fire, even though whatever agent caused the inflammation is still in my body. I went out for a short run and it took 2k to clear up my throat and sinuses  from all the gunk accumulated in the last two days, after that I felt much better and I finished 7 miles in 55:34. I have to say I was really impressed by the outcome of this run, much much better than anticipated.

6.2  miles in 57 minutes, in spite of the cold air it was not too bad.

6.2 miles in 54:40, just maintenance until next week end.

Rest day, just enjoyed a relaxing day doing laundry, ironing and mowing the lawn last time before the winter months. This week will be stressfull between a trip to Bolzano, a big meeting at work and the marathon next weekend. Not time and mind to run.

I got to Bolzano at 10:30 am quick 6 miles under a beautiful sunny sky and no snow on the mountains. Temperatures were around freezing but it was really nice, I ended up doing the last three miles along the river (slightly downhill) at HM pace. After that I spent the rest of the day at work.

I had no time to run this morning in Bolzano and when I got back home at 8pm tonight I didn't feel like going out even for a short run. I am trying to convince myself I am tapering for a marathon that I really didn't prepare at all, considering all "planned" and "unplanned" rest days during the last for 4 weeks. This marathon will end up being a long run to restart my spring training.

6.2 miles in 59 minutes.

Last run before Florence marathon. My original goal for this marathon (a month ago while I was still high on adrenaline after Pescara marathon) was to go out and trying to hit 3:10 final time or dying in the process. After two episodes of sore throat and fever and sub par slow mileage in the last 30 days I lowered my goals: first and most important it will be to finish it in one piece without broken parts, second one finish under 3:30, third and near impossible finish under 3:20, but realistically no pressure to accomplish any goal time, I want to do it as a good training high intensity run. I am doing this race in spite my low mood because last year it was my first DNS because I was sick and this year I need redemption, the second and main reason is because I have relatives in Florence I haven't seen in a couple of years and this will a good way to have a nice family reunion.

Happy thanksgiving!!!!

It was a strange race, I wasn’t expecting much in terms of results since mid october my training was just low mileage maintenance and my mind was not ready yet to push hard another marathon.

I went anyway to Florence because I wanted to visit part of my family and the marathon was the perfect excuse. I woke up at 6:45 am, breakfast, prepared my bag and headed out of the door with my uncle who drove me as close as possible to the start, otherwise if I had to drive I should have abandoned my car around 2-3 miles from the starting area. The temperatures were good on the cold side, around freezing but when the sun came up made the weather really perfect for running. We started on time but in spite of the new starting area and wider roads the first miles were still congested. I wanted to keep 4:40-4:45/km to try to finish “relaxed” in 3:20 but during the first miles it was nearly impossible to go under 5:00/km. It is still a mystery to me how in spite starting in a corral with most of the people faster than me most of them were running much slower. After 3 miles I picked up my pace and I kept a decent rhythm until mile 10 when I realized that keeping the same pace for the rest of the race was not going to be easy.  I passed the half in 1:41 and I decided that I was not going to fight to keep an already unsustainable pace. I really wanted to finish without suffering much. I moved back to the 5:00/km pace and I stayed there until mile 20 and then I progressively slowed down even more. I didn’t have any intention to suffer and all I wanted was to complete this long run uninjured. I finished in 3:38:42 really  sightseeing Florence downtown during the last 10km: Ponte Vecchio, Piazza della signoria, Santa Maria del Fiore, il campanile di Giotto e il battistero and finally Santa Croce.

It took me almost 1 hour to leave the finish area walk 1km back to my bag and reach my cousin waiting for my with his scooter to go back to their home for an italian Sunday lunch.

It was a nice long run, my legs were sore at the end like after a long run, actually all my long runs in the last four months were a little bit shorter but at a pace 45sec/km faster, the weather was great and made this run really a nice one overall. If it was raining like last year it would have been a completely different experience. One day (next year maybe) I hope I will go back with a fighting body to conquer a better time. Now it is time to start a more solid training for the upcoming early spring marathons. For sure this experience turned my fire on again to push my training back on track. I also discovered that when my mind is not there it is nearly impossible to run a "relaxed" marathon.

My legs are more sore today than yesterday, so no run. Last night I didn't sleep much and today at work I felt totally disconnected. I need a few more days with good sleep at night before starting training hard again.

Another rest day, tomorrow I will start again with a few miles. Just some residual soreness in my legs.

First run post race. 4.1 miles at a good pace overall, around 35 minutes (no watch). My legs are slowly coming back to life.