Run, Koper, run

It's Saturday. Tomorrow I'll have to wake up extremely early for the race so this is my last change to catch up on sleep. Doesn't work. I wake up at 9 and after some tossing and turning in bed realize that the sleep won't come back so I decide to get up. I turn to the side... aw! It's my abs. They hurt. Courtesy of CrossFit. I put my legs on the floor... ouch! It's my hamstrings. Crossfit again. Finally I stand. Owww! It's my calves. That's probably still a remainder from Big Basin . Wonderful. Looks like I'm all ready for tomorrow ;). But actually it may not be such a bad thing. Let me explain. I was planning to take it super easy with this race. But I know myself. If I reached a point in recovery where nothing was hurting, I'd convince myself that I recovered well and would probably go strong in the race. Which would not be a good thing. Because I certainly did not recover yet; my frequent racing actually improved my recovery time, but one w...

Long story short: what a dreadful, dreadful race :) Let me elaborate... I left for LA on Saturday morning. Or rather: we left, as I was going with two fellow Googlers. We made it to the expo and then drove to our hotel in Santa Monica. After going for dinner (pasta, naturally) it was basically time to go to bed, as we had to get up at 3am (!!!) for the shuttle; unfortunately we didn't manage to find an alternative mode of transportation for the start. Not surprisingly I didn't get much sleep that night. We got to the shuttle and arrived at the Dodger Stadium around 4:30am. The start was at 7:30am. So we had 3 hours to kill. Beautiful. There wasn't much we could do so we were just sitting, getting cold and urging the time to go forward faster. I wasn't very smart the following day and didn't plan any breakfast, so I had to satisfy myself with a banana and a roll that we got. So I hardly got any sleep and I hardly got any food, could it get any worse? It turn...

Before Berlin marathon. Famous. Fast. Big hopes. I know that before every single marathon I moan about how the week leading to it was not perfect and how everything in the world was conspiring against me. I won't do it this time, but take my word for it -- this time, for a change, the moaning would be well justified. This was probably one of the most stressful weeks ever. And, funny as it may sound, I could feel it in my legs. I was super tense. And I did not manage to go for a massage, or at least to a sauna, as planned. Oh well, again with the excuses. What was different about this marathon is that we went with a 5-strong group of people and still met up with few more in Berlin. Until now, except for Paris that I did with Michal, I was always flying solo (well, that is, of course, not counting my most devoted & beloved supporter :). That was a nice change and lots of fun, I have to say. The weather was almost perfect. Not too windy, not too hot, not too cold either. Pret...

So, the big day is coming. Berlin is only 4 days away, so normally it would be time to evaluate my form and come up with reasonable targets for the race. The problem is, normally I'd have done some shorter races before (10K, HM), which would give me a good indication on what I could reasonably expect. Not this time. Somehow things aligned in such a way that I did no races whatsoever since the Paris marathon (and later, Lakeland 50 , but that is hardly a yardstick to compare with, given that it was my debut on this distance). So it is going to be a bit of a guessing game. Since I love crunching numbers I decided to make a little table with all my previous marathon races and the average mileage I did in 12 weeks preceding the event (excluding the week of the marathon itself, as that is supposed to be left for tapering). Here are the results: Date Location Result Weekly mileage 19/10/2003 Amsterdam   3:23:53 30.9 km 4/07/2004 Brugge   3:15:53 44.7 km 13/02/2005 Rom...

15/04/2012 marathon Paris, France 3:17:55 4:41 min/km 171 hrm So. Paris. Would I finally break my PB? I certainly hoped so as I was sick of not being able to do that for such a long time. I certainly worked hard for that. Since the beginning of 2011 not only did I run a lot, but, perhaps more importantly, I run as systematically as never before. That surely had to count for something, right? RIGHT? I thought my preparations were fairly decent. I may have overdid it a bit with the 40K run just 3 weeks before the marathon. I may... They were decent all right. The week leading to the marathon I decided to take it very easy. On Tuesday I did easy 6K followed by strides (10x100m). And then I did a sport massage. With a follow-up on Wednesday. That was another first. The masseuse claimed that this should make a huge difference. I wasn't so sure but it certainly wouldn't hurt. Then on Thursday I did 5 1K intervals. While doing them I was thinking. Talking about t...

2/10/2011 marathon Budapest, Hungary 3:25:51 4:53 min/km 165 hrm 256/2990 (8.6%) That was supposed to be my 10th marathon. And my hopes (as usually) were high :). I wouldn't settle for anything less than a new PB... It didn't start so well. I arrived to Budapest on Friday and it was really hot. I mean, like summer hot. And when I arrived to the hotel it only got worse -- the room was sooo bloody hot; it was like an oven! Now that I think about it I should have tried to change rooms. I didn't. And I payed for it dearly as I hardly got any sleep that night. Next day -- business as usual, picking up the starting number, working out the logistics, stuffing oneself with pasta... and trying to go to bed early. Thankfully it kinda worked and I even managed to get a decent night of sleep. The race was starting at 10 so I woke up, ate breakfast and got myself to the starting line without too much hurry. The starting sections were for the grabs, that is one ...

1/05/2011 marathon Long Branch, NJ, US 3:25:40 4:52 min/km 168 hrm 141/1855 (7.6%) Wake-up at 6:30, quick breakfast & drive to the start site. I'm only half an hour before the start, so I rush through the warm-up and head to the starting line to secure a good spot. Gladly the path there is very wide and it's easy to work my way up pretty much to the front. Some guy sings the anthem a capella -- and does a pretty good job at that. We go. Ready, set, ... I want to follow the pacer for 3:15. I know it's the smart thing to do. And I do that. For 200 meters. Then the excitement takes over and I overtake him. Go at my pace. It turns out to be a pace for 3:12. I feel good. I pass miles with Swiss clock accuracy; 7:20 per mile. It's warm. Luckily there are many water stations and I don't miss a single one; sometimes even grabbing two caps: water & Gatorade. Quite quickly I'm pretty much on my own, with only few runners around, so ther...

Last week... This is the last week before the marathon. On Monday I did last serious training: 10x 1K intervals with 1K of jogging in-between. My pace is muuuch slower than it should be (4:19 min/km). I cannot even blame it on Ithaca's hills as I chose the route in such a way that I do the intervals mostly downhill (and make up for it going uphill in the jogging breaks). Oh well. I take Tuesday off. On Wednesday I catch a cold. Wonderful timing. I wonder whether to cancel remaining trainings of the week. If I knew it would help me with recovery I would do it right away, but it's not that simple with a cold -- sometimes sweating it out actually helps. I go for an easy run. It goes terribly. I go again on Thursday. Bit better. But not much. At least the weather is wonderful... Big picture I started preparing for this marathon at the beginning of the year. That means I had 17 weeks of preparation. Not too much. But this time I put my bet on regularity. My best weekly mileage w...