Carlene, Jacquie and Ken’s Excellent Half-Marathon Adventure Web Site!
June 5/02 — Ken: Race report
The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly The Good: PWC 4 was a great experience. Good sessions, fabulous camaraderie, and way too much good food (Thai, CN Tower revolving restaurant, carbo loading + chocolate cake, dinner overlooking the Toronto skyline with butter tarts). Also catching up with old friends: John & Karen, Top Gear, Nancy,
Glenn, and putting new faces with old names, Carol from Indiana (not the pregnant one), Carlene, Tash, Terri from my hometown of Jax.The Bad: My first DNF. Had to drop out between 8 and 9 K. And not beating Dave Gegear. Not sure which hurts worse.
The Ugly: My left Achilles feeling like someone sliced it with a sharp knife at the aforementioned 8.5K mark. Five days later I'm still limping.
I am disappointed to say the least. I still have not officially run a half-marathon (I guess I did things a bit backwards by running a marathon first). But perhaps this is a important lesson in disguise.
The bad mojo started on May 20. I went out for a run and was trying to throw in some speed work about 2/3 into the 6 mile run. As I was running up an expressway overpass, I hurt my left hamstring. I should also mention that the day before I did a 38
mile bike ride. I wasn't thinking, but we have two mistakes here: (1) two hard days in a row (I didn't even think about that bike ride), and (2) speed work when I should have been tapering for Toronto.I did not run the rest of the week. Hamstring felt better, but I didn't do the Saturday morning fun run just to give it some more rest. But race day, just walking to the start line, my hamstring started aching again (do you think it knew?). I thought I could run
through the discomfort, but obviously doing that threw off my biomechanics. By 5K both ankles were hurting. I was doing 5/1s and tried to stretch it out a bit on the walk breaks, but to no avail. And after 8K the Achilles went. I hobbled to the sidewalk but knew my day was over. Luckily I was near where the bus was
parked -- so I knew I could just hobble back to the park. I grabbed a banana and water, and made it to the massage tent, where a nice lady spent considerable time on my legs (and told me there was scar tissue around the pain area).I managed then to find (my) Karen at the finish line, and put on my sweat shirt and pants. I was shivering from the cold, wearing only shorts and a singlet. Where was the 20C degrees you promised us, Glenn?? Then we went to Tim Hortons to drown my sorrows in a fritter and a latte.
Right now my race number is up on the wall as a continual reminder to me. A reminder of several things. Do Hard/Easy days, even in different sports. Intervals are hard on an old man. Stretch more regularly, not just after workouts. Taper means slow down, not speed up. Perhaps don't eat so much.
So now I'm looking at my first triathlon of the season in nine days, and wondering if I will be healed. Luckily it's a sprint, and the run is only 5K. On a trail, not a road. The bike and wetsuit call me this weekend, and we'll see what my legs have to say about it.
So long, and I'll see you in Chicago next year.
Ken
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Previous Ken journal: Training review, May 22
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