It has been several days since my last post, but it hasn’t been a vacation. With the light at the end of the tunnel that is law school graduation, I have several papers, projects, and assignments that are coming due. One of them, a legal research project I have been working on looking into the intellectual property right of publicity & the internet, consumed my entire weekend.
This semester is an anomaly for law school – no finals, but several projects. It is odd having my classes structured this way right at the end, but I’ll take it. Not the least reason is that completing all the assignments means I should have no questions about graduating successfully.
But all of the this work means that something else has to give. I’m still completing my runs, but it seemed all weekend like I just never had the time to upload everything and get it on BSR. Hell, right now I should be working on a different project for another legal writing class but I feel the need to update this site.
And the running is still going reasonably well. It is taper time for Glass City, so its time once again to try to find that setting between ‘off’ and ‘ludicrous speed‘. I’ve never been very good at that, honestly.
Pre-workout: Over the weekend, I’ve stuck with known quantities: Jet Blackberry, Espresso Love, & Vanilla Bean GUs. Getting back outside while the warm weather was around did not make me terribly adventurous with my nutrition.
The good news on this front is that reports from Glass City are that the on-course nutrition will include Peanut Butter, Chocolate, & Espresso GUs. This is very nice for me, as previous races have uniformly had flavors that sit less well with me mid-race. Cap City had Mandarin Orange while Columbus Marathon had Tri-Berry & Lemon-Sublime.
The half-marathon gets only one GU station, right outside Wildwood by my reckoning. So I will be taking two extra GUs anyway to try to fuel a PR. But it is nice to know that I can get a good flavor on the course.
Workout(s):Friday – 2x treadmill 5k, moderate effort
We had a painter coming on Friday to repair the botched job the last guy did on the bathroom so I needed to keep Friday’s morning run short. To ensure this happened, I decided to do a 5k on the treadmill and bump up the pace. This both increased my exertion so I felt like I was getting a decent run in, and it got me out of the gym faster.
At the end of the day, I returned to the Y with Stacy and did another treadmill 5k at the same level of effort to increase my daily mileage (and see if I could pull off the double). It wasn’t too difficult to do the second 5k. More than anything, the tedium of the treadmill wore me down.
Garmin Connect for 4/11 training run (1/2)
Garmin Connect for 4/11 training run (2/2)
Saturday: 12 mile, long run
Spring hit Toledo in (seemingly) an instant, so I and everyone else got outside for a run on the trails. In my case, that usually means either doing loops of Wildwood or an out-and-back on the UT Bike Path. Since Saturday means long runs for me, that made it the UT Bike Path.
Of course, those of you following along can probably see what happened before I say it. The 2x 5k from Friday had my legs pretty well spent before I got very far into Saturday’s run. As I was running, I decided to cut the run down to a 10 miler and have the spare GU I tucked into my back pocket at the turnaround.
By the time I got back to my car at Rocket Hall, I had needed to take a total of three walking breaks (each one two hundred meters or so) to finish the workout. Rough, but not unreasonable for the prior day’s workout demand.
Garmin Connect for 4/12 training run
Sunday: Rest day, walk the dog
Saturday’s tired legs left me with no questions that Sunday was to be a rest day. Not much to say on that. Wrote & edited my legal research paper, spent a little time with my wife, and walked the dog around the neighborhood with Stacy. Restful and productive – no complaints.
Monday: 6 mile, junk miles
Since it is time to begin tapering for the half at the end of the month, I only wanted to keep loose today with my run. Plus, the weather report was for thunderstorms so that forced me back indoors. No sense in getting struck by lightning two weeks before graduation!
In the end, today was another ‘find the silver lining’ runs. Around mile 3 I developed a side stitch. I blame this on the cord for my headphone coming out and tangling in my fingers. This made me carry my right arm awkwardly to keep that from happening, which I think created the side cramp.
But it was a chance to run and breathe through a cramp without stopping. That is useful training. If it happens in the race, I now know that it doesn’t have to bring me down to a walk.
Being tired and hungry, I ended the run after 5 miles. I’m not sure why I’m cutting my runs short so often recently. The training doesn’t feel especially taxing, so I think I may simply need an additional rest day somewhere in there. My next assignment is to teach a class on intellectual property on Thursday, so I believe Thursday is nominated as the extra
Garmin Connect for 4/14 training run
