One Week to Green Jewel

Well the training has went well and the taper is now. This taper is very welcome as I have been running every day for the month of February as part of the 29 Leagues Challenge, although it hasn't had any detrimental effects on me (as far as I can see), some days I have been dragging my ass out the door for a run. Having said that I am still feeling good, probably the best I have felt in a long time. My weight is down to below 170 consistently for the first time in a few years, and my runs have been a little quicker than the past year. The swimming has been going well and I am sure my over all energy level is up due to it.

This time next week I should be complete the Green Jewel 50k. Last year I finished in 4:58 and that was with a winter of lousy training through some brutal conditions. Although I haven't gotten any longer runs in than last year (longest was 35k), I feel that I am well ahead of last years training and should improve upon my time from last year. I am hoping for 4:30ish, but will be happy with just beating my time from last year. Just hope the weather co-operates. Last time I checked it was looking like about 8C and rain, but it has been up and down and all over the place every time I check.
So Chris B and I will drive down on Friday do the race, relax in the area the Saturday night and drive back on Sunday. It will be nice to get away for a weekend too. Haven't done that in a while.

As I said earlier the swimming has been going well and I am so glad that I decided to go out. It was difficult at first and actually is still to a certain extent, but I am able to swim further and push myself harder than I did a few weeks ago. Got past the 1000m mark a few weeks ago, swimming 1200m. I've been swimming 200m at a time as I did today (5 x 200m) and even did one 500m leg last week. That was rather hard. I quit doing the spin bike as it was bothering my right achilles. It is normally bothered by most things, but this was a bit more acute. So I stopped and as it was only a couple of weeks to Green Jewel, I figured a good time to back off a bit.

This weekend I planned on running only 15k today and 10k tomorrow, but with the snow and lousy conditions this morning I only did about 13k, so not sure what I'll do tomorrow. I'll see what the weather is like and make a game time decision. Then 5k or so on Monday and Tuesday, the regular thing with the group on Wednesday to finish off the 29 Leagues and then 2 days off completely, woohoo!

I'm also getting the itch to get one of the new Garmin 910 XT's, unfortunately they are hard to find. Delays in getting them to market seem to have made them that much more of a hot commodity. I will see if I can find one when down in Ohio next weekend.

February Starts with a Sick Day

Well after bragging to everyone over the past few months about how I never get sick, guess what? Yep, I've got a cold. Not a full blown illness or the flu or anything, but enough to come how early from work yesterday and stay home today. It is one of those head colds where you know you can get things done, but nothing seems to be working properly and the more I stayed at work the worse I felt, so I went home to bed and rested. It seemed to help a bit as I still went for a run last night and it was a good run. The weather had turned sharply colder and I was worried I'd feel it more, but once we got going it was a good one. Another thing that got me out for the run was committing to the February Challenge - 29 leagues in a month. The idea is to run everyday in February at least 1 league, which is about 3 miles or just under 5k. So sick or not I decided I had to go out anyway. I got 10k in. Today maybe a bit more of a challenge, its colder and I am still sick and at home. I have to go out and get a few things at the store anyway, so I will see how I feel after that. It is also a swimming night. Swimming usually makes me feel better, at least afterwards, not during!!! LOL. This coming Saturday the forecast is promising so hopefully I can get in a good 35k, followed by 25k on Sunday. THe next couple of weekends will be the last few long runs before tapering for Green Jewel. Hope the weather keeps co-operating.