sports

“Hey buddy”, the man said to me in a slurry voice, “your battery is not working!”.

A man in his late thirties stood outside a bar with his friends. He clumsily reached for the flashlight mounted on my belt as I was running by. He was clearly drunk, making some sort of joke in his mind. I was running fast so I easily evaded him and continued my run.

The run went well. It was the first time since my long run on Sunday. I strained something and had pain for a few days at the muscle attachment my upper tibia. It’s still sore but the the run went well.

I now run with two lights — front and back — and a reflecting belt. There is a lot of traffic in Arlington — and drunk people apparently as well.

Wow, so hot! It’s only 82 degrees and 44% humidity, but it felt difficult. Still, a great run. Nice after a long week with lots of things going on.

Friday night Milan and I went to see a Durham Bulls game.

We saw the Louisville Bats beat the Durham Bulls with 9-8, but it was a fun evening.

For the first time in a long time I ran on the Al Buehler trail. Sasha walked the trail during my run.

I could feel my right knee a tiny bit around minute 17; and around minute 35 my left (tiredness). Not surprising, because this trail is much more hilly than my regular course. I think it’s good to slowly push my limits. But the next few runs I’ll do my regular course again, to give everything time to adjust.

What a day! Gorgeous, must be at least 70 degrees (it was 77 yesterday). I ran in my shorts for the first time this year. Knees felt stiff in the beginning but once warmed up everything was fine.

Well, it wasn’t too bad and definitely didn’t hurt, but I did feel my knees through this run, especially my left one. Let’s see tomorrow how things feel. I’m pretty optimistic. Tired from the run!

My knees feel stronger, but still not 100% okay. So I didn’t run this weekend, and went for a short run today. 38 minutes is 4 minutes faster than my two runs last week.

I ran with my new reflecting belt today, with the red light on my back.

See the race report.

Yours truly with a medal, when I just got home.This morning I ran the Cannonball Half Marathon in Greensboro, NC. It was my first half marathon in 18 months, and given my lack of training while we were traveling earlier this year, I wasn’t sure how this would go.

I’m so happy with the result! My time was 2:06, only a few minutes short of my P.R. and I felt great. I really should do this more often.

In fact, I only decided on Thursday to sign up for this race. I hadn’t ran since last weekend — lots of obligations this week made running in the evening impossible — and I decided to take advantage of this unplanned tapering.

Early in Greensboro

Greensboro is an hour driving due west of Durham, and I got up at 5.00 am to make it to the start line. The race was well organized, and I liked the fact that they had mile markers on every mile. It was great weather for a run — at the start it was 45 degrees, two hours later about 58 degrees. After the race there was a band playing Blues Brothers music.

Negative splits

I really tried to control my pacing this race. Usually, I start a little too fast in the first two miles, for which I’d pay the price later on. I set myself the goal to finish within 2:15, which is pretty much a 10 minutes per mile, but with the understanding that if I felt strong half-way the race I could speed up. It has been 18 months since my last race, so I didn’t want to start too fast.

Monday evening after I came back from a weekend in DC I ran 3.5 miles, the usual course.