And Now I'm Married

That title is a line from a White Stripes song but I can't exactly remember what the next line is, the tune however is now firmly implanted in my head. Looks like I know what I will listening to on my run tonight.

But yes I am married and I couldn't be happier. It was a beautiful ceremony in Seattle on Sept 15th. Luckily all of the problems and worries about attendees, and schedule, and this and that, worked themselves out and things went quite smoothly.

It was a smallish wedding with about 45 people in attendance to watch a very brief ceremony featuring Heather and I trying to keep our composure while the Judge read through the wording we had picked. In my nervousness I tried to kiss Heather a little before the judge gave the go ahead, which was greeted with a big laugh from the crowd. Seconds later it was over and Heather and I were walking out.

We honeymooned on the big island in Hawaii. It included a lot of snorkeling, eating, driving, and getting chased by angry Hawaiians. I reached my highest and lowest elevations in one trip. A 25 foot dive while snorkeling and 13,796 feet at the top of Mauna Kea. For me this was the highlight of the trip because we got to see the array of large telescopes that are scattered around the top of the mountain. Including Keck 1 & 2, the largest telescopes on the planet.

One thing the honeymoon didn't include was running. I was able to turn off the desire to run like a switch and enjoyed the laziness. I did get a few runs in while in Seattle. Early morning trips up and down the edge of the Puget Sound. Things were cool and misty, just about exactly what I would picture Seattle was like in the morning.

The first run was an 8 miler with an undetermined amount of miles at a faster pace that I think was around tempo pace. The second run was just under two hours and I am guessing about 16 miles. After that was 9 days of absolutely no running.

Pfitzinger has some guidelines in his book about time off during training. "Less than 10 days off with more than 8 weeks till the race - continue with the plan and don't adjust goal time" I fit in that category so I jumped right back into the schedule yesterday. 15 miles with 12 @ marathon pace. This translates into 6:40 pace for me.

I had a head cold but felt OK and figured I'd be able to complete most of the workout, if not all of it. I felt great in the first few easy miles and then picked up the pace. Again I was feeling good and was dead on for the pace at the mile markers. However, after a few miles the time off and the cold caught up with me and I was soon struggling. I decided to slow it down and just get the miles in.

It was rough, my lungs felt small and my hip was aching. I even took a couple walking breaks, not because I was totally dying but because I didn't want to push myself anymore than I had to on the way back. 15 miles in 1:58

Today my legs feel kinda like I raced a 10K. Muscles are a little sore but luckily there is no pain in my hip that was bothering me yesterday. In hindsight the run was a little ambitious with a cold after 9 days off and I should have gone out easy from the start and maybe cut it short a couple miles. I am not going to read into the bad run to much, I'll just continue with the plan.