Monday, August 29, 2016

Ryan Lochte made me do it!

So this post will not be about Ryan Lochte at all. I just thought it would be funny to title it as such so that when someone does a Google search for said athlete, they'll be directed to my blog.  I actually think they will be better off reading about what I'm doing vs what he's doing but that's just me.  

Since I last wrote, I ran my 26th half marathon!  So there has been much back & forth on my part regarding which number race this was exactly.  The reason for this confusion is quite simple now that I've reviewed my handy dandy tracking sheet.  I track my past and upcoming races in one spot so I can easily calculate my average times (not anal at all).  I had planned on doing several races this year that I ultimately did not race due to my work schedule. I forgot to remove those from my tracker and so was off on my run count.  I've since corrected this issue and 26 is indeed the magic number.  So what does that mean?  Well, that means I have 3,001 days to run 24 more half marathons.  I have to admit, I had a minor panic attack a few weeks ago when someone (who shall remain nameless because I'm SURE they were only kidding) asked if I was sure I could make my deadline.  I had to sit down and check my trusty spreadsheet to make sure I really could do it.  Yes, the answer is yes!  I need to hit 50 by the time I turn 50 but really, I'm trying to time it so my 50th race will be on my 15th Houston Half anniversary as that was my very first half marathon.  And as luck would have it, that anniversary will come shortly after I turn 47 so that means I'm probably going to need to average 4.8 races a year to do that.  Yeahhhhhhh.  

Back to my 26th race though.  For those of you that love destination races, Seawheeze Half Marathon was nothing short of amazing!  Vancouver has quickly jumped to the top of my list of places I want to move too - and Keith agrees!!  I seriously can't wait to go back!  The race course was absolutely beautiful with great cheer zones.  Spectator support isn't as big as Houston but the beauty of the city more than makes up for it.  My only real gripe was that they ran out of water at the finish line on a day that was about 85 with 80% humidity.  Oh, and that you had to walk up a big ass hill to get to the food.  Nope!  

So what else is new?  Oilman training!  I've tried to ease back into things and running a half with very little training was one way to go about that.  While I tend to laugh at things like this, I have to admit that the past week or so, I've been kicking myself.  I've been having this nagging knee pain that I've blamed on running 13.1 on half ass training.  The funny thing is, I have absolutely ZERO pain when I run.  Weird things like laying down and then lifting my leg hurts my knee.  And it typically gets aggravated after I've been to Orangetheory and have done lots of lunges and squats.  I had knee surgery on my right knee back in 2004 and was told then the issue I had with my lateral ligaments was also present in my left knee and that I'd eventually need surgery on that one as well.  Keith has encouraged me to go to the doctor but I'm not going to. Here is my thought process.  If I go to the doctor, there is a chance they could tell me my nagging fear is true and I need knee surgery and I'll miss IMTX.  But given my knee does not hurt when I swim, bike or run, I figure there is not need to worry about it.  :)  You may think this logic is flawed and I admit, it's not the most sound.  That's why I've instead agreed to give it a little time to heal and avoid doing lunges and squats for a bit to see if it feels better.  If it does, then it was just a pesky over-use injury and if it doesn't, I'll go in and just pray to all that's holy that it's something not requiring surgery.  

With that, I'm going to shut this awesome, non-Ryan Lochte post down for the night but will leave you with some recent pictures.  Happy training!


Coal Harbour, Vancouver

Race morning!

Who doesn't love mermaids (or mermen) on the race course?

Post race I'm all smiles despite being super thirsty!

A dazed smile after a weekend workout sesh!


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