Milestones abound. You know it's kind of great being a 'newish' runner or at least a sucky one. Improvements happen all the time! When I was a kid I always got the "Most Improved Player" award just because I sucked so much to start off with. Since I've recently become more comfortable running a slowish pace for longer periods I've recently started to challange myself other ways: running faster, or longer. Today I beat my record and ran continuously for 40 minutes straight plus I beat my 5k personal best record which was previously 36'05"!

New Milestone. Yesterday I had a good run. I did my 5 minute walk warm-up and then started into an easy jog on the account of my leg injury. And this something surprising happened...I didn't feel like stopping. So I jogged 35 minutes straight! And I could have gone longer but my scheduled run was up. I felt good, I was able to ignore pretty much everything and think about something other than running and the moment (don't worry I still kept an eye out for cars and bears and such...). Hopefully I have more runs like this one in the future. More good news, my thigh doesn't have pain which is great since my long run is scheduled today.

Bad News. The pain my right thigh has returned. I'm becoming sufficiently annoyed that this occurs after the short weekday runs and not the long weekend runs. I figured that after feeling fine after the 19.4km earlier this week that I was in the clear. Apparently not. I had a run scheduled for today however I am going to take it easy. If I don't feel better by Friday I think I'm going to try out water running as much as that makes me sad.

My Fastest Runs

Before Today's Run:

After Today's Run:Check it out! I left today with the mission to run fast instead of my usual mantra, "just survive." As you can see I destroyed my 1 mile and 5km personal best times. I have a goal of completing a sub-30min 5km run at some point and have decided that after the marathon training is over that is what I will concentrate on. This is just a step to completing that goal.

Ewww. So after being pathetically weak and nauseous after my 19.4km run Sunday I decided that I could not longer delay the inevitable. I would need a supplement other than just water. I need gels. Ewww. I think of gels kind of like hair gel that happens to have a hint of strawberry or chocolate. Okay so the taste is usually not great but it's the texture that gets me. Yuck. So I went to my friendly Running Room and got some answers on what the salesman though was the least offensive. On a positive note I picked up some "Sport beans" which are jelly beans instead of gel!!! Lots of people don't like them because they think it's not good to walk during a run because that would make them less of a runner. I can imagine trying to pop in a bag of jelly beans while running could prove to be difficult. But for me (I walk through every water station) walking and eating jelly beans sounds like a nice break and a hell of a lot better than gel. Alas the beans are a bit bulky so I bought a selection of gel to try out. I'll give you my first review this weekend. Here's to low expectations....

A couple days ago I received a donation from my friend and colleague. He is currently training and fundraising for The weekend to end breast cancer which is a 60km walk Sept 11-13. He has reached his $2000 goal but is still accepting donations. Check out www.endcancer.ca/goto/MichaelSchumaker if you're interested in finding out more.

New Orthotics! My new orthotic inserts came in yesterday. It will take a while to get used to them. The schedule is to wear them one hour the first day and then add an hour a day until I can wear them all the time without pain.

Injured. After some internet self-diagnosis which left me subsequently paranoid, I went to the sports injury clinic to find out if the nagging pain in my thigh was going to be a big problem. If you drew a line down the centre of my thigh and then moved the line 2 inches from center towards the left, I had a 5" x 0.5" area of pain. The sports injury clinic determined that I had full range of motion so it was mostly likely just a muscle strain. This diagnosis made me happy but simultaneously embarassed. So I am taking the week off of running to let this injury heal. I'll start with an easy run on Tuesday.