Running man of a certain age

Welcome to my new blog. I have been blogging about Travel, Disney and other various things at my family blog for about 15 years, and I started training for my first half marathon, which I ran in January, about 10 months ago. I won't go into details here, but I wrote about my decision to start running here and I kept a training journal here (Thanks to +The DIS ).

Now I have decided to set myself a couple of goals:

• For this year I want to run about a half marathon a month. I am already signed up for the Sleepy Hollow Half Marathon in March and I am planning to run the Unite Half Marathon at Rutgers in April.
• By the end of the year I hope to run a full marathon. I have my eye on Philadelphia.
• Finally - I am looking to run the 10th anniversary Goofy's Challenge at the Walt Disney World marathon weekend (the half marathon followed by the full marathon).

I'm a bit worried about the the Sleepy Hollow race. It's only my second half marathon and I've heard it's a challenging course. My chiropractor, who is also a runner, did the race a few years ago and told me it is really hilly. The organizers changed the course this year and published the it on their website. I looked at the course on google maps. It's hard to tell how hilly it is - especially since a good deal of the course in on trails instead of roads. On top of that the race has a strict 3 hour and 30 minute time limit. My time for my first was 3:27 - but that race was a bit slow because of distractions and it was very crowded. The Sleepy Hollow race should only be about 1000 runners.

So, in preparation I'm doing a bit of a more challenging training routine. I decided to make sure that I used courses with hills for my practice runs. Luckily just such a course exists right outside my door. I live in a neighborhood that is on a lake, and the road that goes around the lake has quite a few hills. The distance is a bit under 2 miles, and last Sunday I did 6 laps - a bit over 11 miles - in 2 hours and 50 minutes. I plan to do one more long run before the race - I'll do 7 laps (which should be about 13 miles) and I hope to complete it in about 3:15. If I can do that I'll feel good about the race.

As a "man of a certain age" (I'm 55) I have had to deal with a few aches and pains. What I've come to realize is that if I listen to the professionals who know what they're talking about and head their advice, then I can stay on top of the aches and pains and (hopefully) avoid injury. Here ia a short history of the issues I've dealt with and how I've been dealing with them:

1. I had pretty major issues with my Achilles tendon. This was basically making it impossible for me to do any distance running - especially on hills. I started working on this quite a while ago - doing stretching and strengthening exercises recommended by my physical therapist. This completely alleviated the issue. After my run last Sunday I did feel a bit of tightness, but it was not a big issue.
2. I started having trouble with my knee. My chiropractor recommended using The Stick. I use it after all my runs and I have not been having any knee issues. I am also going to start exercises to strengthen my thighs which will help protect my knees. Unfortunately I keep forgetting to do this - but I will starting tomorrow, honest.
3. I have weak ankles, and I have been doing dome strengthening exercises on my ankles. I also started wearing a brace on my left ankle which is the most problematic. So far so good.
4. My most recent issue has been foot pain - especially my left foot (hey! sounds like a good movie title!). I started dealing with this by buying some orthotic inserts (Lynco Orthotics). This worked pretty well, but they were not perfect. I saw a podiatrist who told me I could get custom orthortics but they are expensive and not covered by insurance. He suggested I look into orthotics made by New Balance. I have very wide feet and have only worn NB shoes for many years. I got the NB orthotics after I ran the marathon in January and they seem to work very well.

I keep to a pretty regular training schedule. I do 2 short (30 minute) runs during the week and a long run on the weekends. the length of my long run varies from week to week. I'm looking to maintain a regular schedule of 4-8 miles on my weekend runs with a longer run of over 10 miles thrown in at least once a month. I hope to do the long runs as races. On the days that I run I also do my stretching and strengthening exercises. I also to weight lifting and core training 3 days a week on days I don't run. One day a week I don't work out, although once the weather gets nicer I'll go on long walks.

Very soon I will officially start training for a full marathon. I am having a physical next month and I promised my wife I would clear it with my doctor first - but I'm sure he won't have a problem with it.

 

OK, I will try to update this blog once a week. I'll keep updates on my training progress and I'll also post run reports after I do races. Please leave feedback and comments.