Run, Koper, run

27/03/2011 half-marathon Warsaw, Poland 1:33:05 4:24 min/km 169 hrm 505/4698 (11%) [This post is about the event itself, you can ready my thoughts from before the race here ] The beginning were not too great. I couldn't sleep (pretty normal), then I overdid it and had too heavy breakfast (pretty silly) and upon arrival at the start I realized I was assigned to the last zone, because of paying late (pretty damn unlucky). As this would be a true nightmare I decided to skip ahead to my originally assigned time-zone; luckily no-one seemed to notice or care. The first kilometer is slow as usual; I have to maneuver in the crowd, slowly making my way forward. But it's not too bad and the second one I already do with the target pace of 4:15 . After a while I see the balloons of a pace-maker -- that must be the 1:30:00 guy. I stay some 20m behind him until the water point and then slowly take over... and I'm in for a surprise as this is not the 1:30:00 , but ...

12 21 Mar - 27 Mar This week's totals: 4x, 5:37, 59km [5:37] Next week's plans: 5x, 7:48, 79km 1:14 1:25 1:13 1:44 11.0 km 14.5 km 12.6 km 21.5 km RS 60' [TM] SR 4km ER 12km R! half-marathon 141 hrm 167 hrm 135 hrm 169 hrm #11 4:13 min/km 5:24 min/km 4:26 min/km This was supposed to be a relatively light week with a highlight of the half-marathon on Sunday. And that it was. With the exception of the Wednesday training where Ruben dictated a very intense pace and before I figured out it's not smart to keep up with that I did very fast 4km and was pretty winded. Rest of the week pretty un-eventful and then the half-marathon, about which you can read more here and here . The next week I hope to put some serious kilometers and I only hope that recovering from today's run and the blisters I got will not stop me from doing so. Because the following week I have a 10K run scheduled so again I won't be able to hit myself too hard during the...

Yesterday I came to Warsaw for the half-marathon . I was a bit shocked to see the snow lying around -- not something I was planning for. Bad news continued today as I realized that I... forgot to pay the registration fee. I guess it just didn't occur to me that the organizers would not send me a kindly reminder. Gladly, it was not a problem and after visiting the event office I came back with a lighter wallet but with the starting number in my hand. Then a quick visit to marathon expo, with a nice stand by Brooks , where I was originally planning to grab a pair of my favorite Adrenaline , but instead ended up buying race shoes: Green Silence . Reason? For some time already I was very curious about the natural running and now that it is slowly starting to become trendy, I decided to give it a try before that would automatically result in being accused of blindly following the fashion (admittedly, it may be too late already ;). Anyhow, I'm not crazy enough to start running ba...

Recently I found a very interesting video (see below) on a blog of a  fellow runner . In this video  Christopher McDougall , author of the bestselling "Born to run" , talks... well, about running. I don't want to spoil the watch by giving a summary. It's just 15 minutes. If you're into running it'll be well spent 15 minutes, I promise. And if you get intrigued, as happened to me, I recommend a longer version of this talk (close to an hour), presented in the authors@Google series. Happy watching. Oh, and by the way, "Born to run" is certainly on my to-read-list. As a matter of fact, it just jumped to the front of that list. I'll try to post a mini-review soon(ish).

11 14 Mar - 20 Mar This week's totals: 4x, 5:51, 59km [6:06] Next week's plans: 4x, 5:24, 59km 1:24 1:35 1:16 1:36 13.5 km 14.0 km 13.5 km 17.7 km ER 13km RS 60' [TM] ER 13km FR 10x1km/4' 138 hrm 146 hrm 138 hrm 161 hrm 5:52 min/km #11 5:27 min/km 4:04 abs (0:15) The beginning of the week was tough. To begin with on Sunday last week I had an appointment at the gym with my personal trainer, who did a weight training plan for me and walked me through the exercises. It was tough. I didn't realize how tough until Monday and Tuesday when I could hardly move! And I mean it! Especially my back and triceps were on fire. I could not straighten my arms (at least not without it taking a full minute and causing me a lot of pain) and rotating my torso was very painful. I don't remember hurting that much. Ever. While for some this could be a discouragement, personally I think this just proves that the exercises I was told to do rock! :). So I...

Tiredness sets in, one missed training, but all in all things look good. 10 7 Mar - 13 Mar This week's totals: 4x, 6:44, 70km [10:14] Next week's plans: 5x, 7:33, 77km 1:30 1:28 1:22 2:23 14.0 km 16.1 km 14.3 km 25.4 km RS 8km, 10x[sw] SR 60' [SW] ER 60' [TM] SR 16km 137 hrm 156 hrm 156 hrm 5:18 min/km 4:40 min/km 5:18 min/km 4:55 body pump power yoga squash gym The Wednesday training with SportsWorld I again run with Michal and he sets a pretty intense pace. We end up running for an hour and averaging... 4:40 min/km! If only my heart rate was a notch lower, I'd say this is the form I'm looking for :) But after the training the coach told me that I'm doing too many intense trainings, not leaving enough time for recovery. He also advised me never to have two hard trainings on consecutive days. Before I didn't manage to implement his hint to reduce the number of sessions from 5 to 4 (mainly because I'm too crazy about wee...

Before reaching for this book my only contact with Murakami was reading his "Norwegian Wood" ; and, although I heard a lot good about him, I have to say I was not too impressed with it. However, when I heard that Murakami is a passionate runner and that he wrote a book on the subject -- I just had to read it. And I'm glad I did. The book is very non-pretensions and presents loosely connected thoughts of the author on running and the role it plays in his life. He's a fairly serious runner (running around 60km per week in 6 sessions, on average and running a marathon per year). It's been a while since I read this book so I don't remember the details, but if you are into running I think it's a good read. Let me conclude with some quotes from the book that I particularly liked. My time was awful [...]. There are three reasons I failed. Not enough training. Not enough training. And not enough training. The gym where I work out in Tokyo has a poster that s...

A perfect week, 100% of the plan accomplished :) 9 28 Feb - 6 Mar This week's totals: 5x, 8:01, 80km [10:46] Next week's plans: 5x, 8:11, 84km 1:29 1:37 1:21 1:10 2:23 14.2 16.3 13.0 km 11.0 km 25.3 km RS 8km + 10x100s SR 11km [SW] ER 10km + jog 2km [TM] RS 60' [TM] SR 14km + 3x1'/3' 136 hrm 147 hrm 143 hrm 152 hrm 5:24 min/km 5:03 min/km 5:18 min/km #10 4:55 min/km modern dance body pump On Wednesday I again joined SportsWorld running group and again we were running on our own with Michal. Great training: 10 second per kilometer faster than last week with a lower heart-rate. On Sunday the weather was perfect for a long run: sunny, but rather cold; only the wind was a minor inconvenience. I totaled 25km and in the main part of the training did 2km more than last week (14km VS 12km), with a lower hear rate, though 5 seconds per kilometer slower. All in all, I think everything's looking good. I also have my tickets to NYC and alrea...