Just Another Runner

During my run last Wednesday, there was a point when I was pacing with this other guy. The thing is, I was doing my typical low heart rate easy run and ... he was walking. It looked funny and was embarrassing at the same time. We were together for some time until I took a walk break, then he sped away. Last night, I came across this article - "Happy to be the Tortoise in the Race to Fitness." While I occasionally try to become fast, he is content and enjoys the way he runs. It gives me comfort to know that I'm not alone in the slow lane.

It's nicer to visually see my improvements in running. The pictures above are from RunPix analyses of two of my 10K races. The one on top was my 10K back in May 2010. The one at the bottom is from my 10K last May 2011. It seems that after a year, for the 10K, I've gone from a back-of-the-pack runner to a middle-of-the-pack runner. I'm now working on making the same thing happen to my 21K.

Last weekend, I was reviewing some old videos of me running. These were taken on my first couple of months of running. When my daughter saw them, she commented ... "You look like you're walking and your feet are painful." and ... "It's also like, I'm going to bounce ... nope ... bounce ... nope ... bounce ... nope ... almost, but no ..." I've lost around 30 lbs since that video was taken - more than a year ago. I hope that now, I have more "bounce" to my form and am less painful to watch.

I was having a hard time deciding if I'm going to run my first marathon at the CamSur Marathon. Well, it was decided for me. While attending the parents orientation from my sons' school, I found out that my youngest son's "Father and Son Bonding Activity" was scheduled on September 25 - the same day as CamSur. It's first things first, and it is clear what the priority is. Anyway, there will be other marathons. I'll just take this as an opportunity to focus on letting my plantar fascia heal and to focus on losing more weight, before going back to marathon training.

My race report on the Mizuno Infinity Run 11. I did the 21K distance. Since this event has a "beat my pace" challenge, my wife who ran 5K last year signed up for the 5K together with my son who wanted to beat his 5K PR of 26 minutes. Although I ran the 10K distance last year, I signed up for the 21K because in the marathon plan that I was previously following, I was scheduled for a 21K on this date. I since changed plans from Pat Carrol's to Galloway's because I couldn't keep up with it because of Plantar Fasciitis. In the past few weeks my running wasn't consistent because of sickness, rains and vacations. So now, I also decided to use this race as a reality check if I'm fit and healthy enough to continue training for a marathon. I haven't decided yet. I'll give it a day or two, and I'll blog my decision. I haven't been feeling well lately and I still have a cough, so I didn't plan to beat my PR of 2:55. I targeted a 3:00 to

My race report on the Greentennial Half Marathon. I did the 16K distance. The report has a similar format as my Perfect Race blog post. This is my first 16K! My wife ran her second 16K and my son ran his first 10K. I didn't have big expectations from this race as I just came from being sick and missed a lot of running days, plus my left foot still hurts. My plan for this race was to pace with my wife who planned a 2:1 run-walk ratio. The most memorable thing with this race was the heat. It was so hard because it was so hot. Kudos to the organizers for lots of water - I practically took baths at water stations at the last 5 kilometers, and for lots of ice - I put ice on my head held by my cap which worked to cool me in between water stations. I don't normally go through those water showers because I don't want to get my shoes wet, but this time, I didn't want to leave. It was a good thing the course was flat all the way, I'm sure I would have entertained thoug