Min’s Way

I am so looking forward to another year of Houston Half. My goal this time is to run as close to 2hr as possible. My best time was in Austin Half around 2hr11min something.

This is August and I just started my training. barely able to run 10min pace for 3 mile any more. Lots of catch up to do. This month’s goal is to do 3mile (9:10 pace) and 15mile (per week).

Run, Min, Run

I was in a restraunt over the weekend… enjoy my delicious blueberry pie with pile of ice cream on top… I said “It is so blueblurry ish (I really mean blueberry ish) that I can’t finish it all”. Blame on the ice cream that was too cold and freze my tongue!

Started training for the Feb 2008 Austin Half back in Oct last year. This time, I want to finish the race without having to walk the last 3 miles and also achieve 10:10-10:30 pace! Heather will be running the race with me. I just recently joined the Houston Striders Running Club so maybe I will find some more running friends. I needs some motivation.   Heather & I run in Terry Hershy Park most of the time. I go in from Dairy Ashford Entrance. When I do 4-6 miles, usually heading east on more hilly side; while 8-12 miles I headed west side. Here is a KML of my 7-mile run back in Feb 2007

on Jan. 14th, 2007, we did our 1st Half. “Aramco Houston Half-Marathon”. It was humid and hazy but warm. While Heather charging ahead, Avanti and I had kept our first 10-mile at 12:00 pace steady.

 Around 10-mile, I started to feel fatigue. Avanti had spotted her friends on the rodeside to cheer her on.  She got really excited and started to speed up. So she moved on while I had to take a break and walked a little. I had drank up my 2 little bottles of energy drinks and still felt so thristy. I started to stop and get gaterade at every water station from 10 miles on. Some spectators on the rodeside cheered me on “Min, Come on, You can do it. You are almost there”. I kept thinking, “10-mile is the most mile I ever trained on to run, the extra 3-miles really killing me!!!”. Finally I saw the finish line and I managed to past that line somehow.

 When I went in to the Convention Center, Avanti spotted me. Inspite of her hurting feet and lower back, she finished about 10 minutes (almost a mile) ahead of me. We went ahead and get our finish T-Shirt and Medals. Avanti had wanted that Medal for so long and she later told us she had been wearing that medal for a whole day afterward!!! Heather did a 2:11:00 and she already started talking about go under 2 hour in her next one!

When we get to our 10-mile training runs, our body started to fell aprt. Every little flaws in our body started to tell us that they don’t like us running for long miles!!!

Kevin is a cyclist and he races every year. He thought it is going to be a great idea that he run with us sometimes as part of his off-season training. So one weekend, he did 8 miles with us. It was piece of cake for him to run 8 miles on his atheletic level. But the week after, his left knee started to hurt and he can’t even ride his bike for a couple of days. He always had this imblance on his left hip that bothered him during his race season. And gone to Dr. Sanders for treatment frequently. That exact same problem now showed up on his knee once he takes up running.

While Avanti had started mentioning about the bottom of her feet hurts started from 5 and 6 mile runs. She usually kept quiet about hurting and just suffered on. When we get to 10 mile runs, her knee started to swlloen up and she had to ice it down every time after run. She had bought a new pair of shoes and that still didn’t make all the problems go away. Although she is skinny but she is strong and she really can run. She used to swim a lot while yonger. I always thought she has a lot of potential to run much faster after training. Avanti can run a much faster pace during a race than her usual training. But something definitly not right and I told her she needs to check with Dr. Sanders as soon as possible.

While I started to feel my right knee bothers me. It is not hurting but tight. Especially serveral hours after run, I can barelly stand up right away from my couch. I need tones of streach to ease the discomfort.

It seems that the only person among us that immune from this is Heather. She ran much faster than me and nothing seems to bother her yet…

As I ran more and more miles. I started feel my leg muscles are tight. Avanti had been attending Yoga lessons and I didn’t really want to make that commitments to go to Yoga lessons at specific date and time every week. My hectic programmer life style make me looking for a more flexible schedule.

And then, I found “Namaste Yoga” program from “Fit TV” channel. Kevin even tried it out with me and really liked it. We TiVo’d daily shows and followed it since.

Avanti and I ran our 1st 5-mile together on Dec. 10th, 2006. (Chevron Jinglebell Run) We started from Chevron building at downtown and ran west on Allen Park Way then came back. I was a fun run although it was cold and been drizzling. But I wore the green JingleBell Antelope over my hat all the way. Except I we ran too fast the first 3 miles and I blew up right after the mid-point we turned around on our back way. I had to walked a little to recover from out of breath. While Avanti held on and ran to finish line. I finished it at 52:43 (10:30pace). 10:30 pace was my goal and I made it.

I learned a lesson from this race. “Know your pace and never run too fast over your pace at the begining!”

By the end of our 2nd monthes training, we had gone up to 7 mile weekend long runs. Heather used to run cross-countries and Avanti had run for a couple of monthes before we started training. 6 and 7 miles seemed rather easy for them. While I had to struggle a lot. It took me at least 2 weekend trys that I eventually able to run 6 miles without stopping. And I didn’t really care how fast/slow I ran. I just wanted to finish that darn 6 miles without have to stop and feel guilty afterward!!!