Success Then Failure

The closer I am to the Big Day, the more I doubt about the Race. But there’s no turning back for me. I go there. Here’s my condensed story about highest expectations of getting high mileage. And failing twice:

Week Sun 10/7 – Sat 10/13
– Su, 10/7, PM: 20 mi at 7:53. Read my previous post about this PR, that run made me simply more confident about my abilities in real race. At that time I was mentally and physically ready to hit 90 miles a week. Didn’t happen though.
– Mo, 10/8, AM: 5.01 mi @ 8:52;
PM: 3.00 mi @ 8:12.
– Tu, 10/9, AM: 10.40 mi @ 8:44;
PM: 3.00 mi @ 8:10. I am “authorized” by coach to have doubles, but my second run has to be no longer than mere three miles. Whatever, at that point I felt that everything is great and I’m in the middle of my best week.
– We, 10/10, AM: I’m doing 10 or 11 easy miles, it suppose to take about one and half hours. I remember dawn already broke in and it wasn’t dark anymore and I passed 9:50 mi mark when suddenly in one unlucky moment I twisted my right ankle. I limped a little bit trying to estimate situation. It was serious. That’s all. Wednesday morning, I have Total 50 + miles on my deposit but it’s All Over!

I consumed a lot of ice. On Fri eve I walked a quarter on my stadium trying to jog, but actually limping at 10:30 average pace. Next day an old marathon buddy – Mr. Paul (3:25:05 in Boston, April 16th, 2007) visited my industrial city. I have a running blog here, so I skip foreigner’s adventure on the way from Astana to Karaganda. (Just in case if you’re visiting these places, let me give you some advice: try to know elementary Russian, some Kazak would be good and get ready to have 10% those conveniences you used to have :) Paul brought me some running stuff – special socks for marathoners – surely they do not produce it here in former USSR, Running Times (Sep 07) magazine – Love It! Also now I have a DVD copy from Boston 2007 – this one is a Great motivational thing. Thank you Paul!
Recently he finally bought Garmin 305 so I showed him couple useful (imho) options for displaying more info. It is better to read Garmin manual anyway, finally I don’t think I use more than 60% of all running features in my Tool. I never used “retracing route back” to the starting point cause I know my places.
I discussed a possibility of delivering one advanced hardware thing from the States soon, as he goes there in November. Can’t tell you what is that, I think it can be used in registering running process.
OK. I was off work on Thu, Fri & Sat. Man, it is more than enough to make you feel real bad…

Another week and one more attempt to hit magical number of miles per week,
Sun 10/14 – Sat 10/20 – unfortunately I got a serious cold and had to take 2 days off..
– Su, 10/14, PM: 20.10 mi, 3:06:49 at avg. 9:17 – tough twenty miler. I was sort of jogging and hobbling. It is hard to have real long run after 3 days of inactivity.
– Mo, 10/15, PM: 12.00 mi @ 9:17. Watch out – Andrew gave me a plan which I tried hard to fulfill. The plan was 20 miler on Sunday, then 12 mi on Monday. This was the first time I ever was able to have 12 miles after grueling 20 miler. 9:17 is a sluggish pace but glad I did it.
– We, 10/16, PM: 8.00 mi @ 8:34.
– Th, 10/17, AM: 4.00 mi @ 9:23 I think I was faster but Tool started to lose satellites and I was almost sick..
– Fr, 10/18: OFF and recover
– Sa, 10/19: easy 6 miles at 8:15.
The only thing I can be glad is that both weeks I managed to get 50+ miles. Detailed summary available at Work with Andrew. Part II.
P.S. I’m getting closer to the Taper and Shanghai.
P.P.S. Non running life:
Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard released yesterday on Friday, October 26. This OS is still out of my reach.

Happy running to everybody… and Do Not Get Injured.