Monthly Archives: January 2009

Numb feet?

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On my last 2 runs my right feet has been feeling numb. It had never happened to me before. It’s strange because it’s only one feet. I don’t think it’s the socks because I’ve used them for a long time now. The shoes are somewhat new (I’ve been using them for 3 weeks now) and I wear the Garmin’s footpod on my right shoe, but I don’t think neither of those things are causing it. Has anyone suffered from feet-numbness before? What can be causing it? It’s not something unbearable, it’s just annoying, And the weirdest thing of it all is that if I start to run faster it goes away…. Maybe my feet is falling asleep because I’m going too slow??? (in Spanish when a part of your body is numb, you say that it felt asleep :P )

On other news, my running has been getting better lately, I ran my first 5 miler this wednesday and I felt pretty good. I was able to push myself and go faster than on the 4 miles I ran on Monday. Now getting back to a sub 9min/mile pace (which would lead me to a sub 2 half marathon) doesn’t seem so impossible, I just have to keep training.

I have also signed up for my first 10k race of the year, it’s going to be in two weeks. A friend of mine is also going to run it, he had never run seriously until he started training for this race and seems like he’s having a good time so far. It reminds me of the time when I was starting to run. How he thought he couldn’t run farther the first time he ran 3 miles, then thought the same thing when he run 4 miles, or a panic attack he got with his first blisters… we all have to go through that, but it’s fun seeing it on someone else. I know I’m not going to set a new PR on this race so I decided to run it with him, I’m telling him that I’m going to slow him down at the beginging and then push him at the end, I think it’ll be fun.

Do or Do Not, there is no try

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For most things in life I either go all out or don’t go at all. This applies strongly to exercise, I am either training in ‘Athlete mode’ or am not training at all (or training poorly). The last race I was going to do in ’08 got cancelled, because of this I lost some motivation, also I was going to Canada for 2 weeks at the end of the year, so I knew I was going to have to stop training during that time. This all made me to turn the ‘Athlete Switch’ to off and enter ‘Lazy Mode’, where I tried to stay in shape… yeah right…

Now it’s ’09 and I’m starting my second training week of the year, I’m back on ‘Athlete Mode’ and going all out again. I’ve got a lot of races to train for, I put my goals out there for millions to see (the whole interweb community!) and there’s no way I’m letting anyone down!! But I’m paying for being on ‘Lazy Mode’ for the last 6 weeks!  My 8 min/mile pace is GONE! my I-can-run-forever-endurance left me and the 6-pack that was starting to show is now covered by a new layer of fat (AAAARRGGGGHHHH!!! *bleep*).

To be honest last week was horrible for me. I did train well and covered all the distances I had planned to, but my pace was disappointing. I feel like I’m starting again! Actually it’s worst than starting again, because I know I can be fast and do a lot better than I’m doing right now. But it’s Ok, I know I will regain my superpowers soon and start flying again, with a lot of training, but I’ll get there.

At least today I got what has been (so far) the best run of the year for me. It was a 7K run. The first 4K were a nightmare, I felt heavy, my calves were killing me and I couldn’t wait for it all to end. But then the Endorphins kicked in (I missed you SOOO MUCH!! Where had you been? Don’t ever leave me again!!!!!) and everything changed, I felt better, got a smile on my face and managed to hold a 9:15 min/mile pace for 1.5k and a sub 8 min/mile for the last 500m. Of course I’m extremely tired now and my feet hurt, but it was worth it, today I felt like a runner again!!!!

I leave you with the song I was listening when the Endorphins kicked in today. It’s not what I would call a running song, but it builds slowly to a big climax, and it fits perfectly with the momment that I had today while listening to it, I was going slow at the beggining but started to build up with it and felt like I was flying at the end (it’s not the official video of the song, but it’s the only ‘studio version’ that I was able to find).

Goals for ’09

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It’s time I set my goals for this year, I have finally found the dates to most of the races I want to do this year, so it’s time to plan my training year to try and peak for what I consider are going to be my most important races this year.

I have divided the races for this year on ‘A’ races and ‘B’ races. ‘A’ races are the most important ones, the ones where I want to be at my best possible shape and to do really well. ‘B’ races are races that I still want to do, but I’m going to do them as part of my training. They are important to me, but if I don’t kick ass that day, it’s ok.

My ‘A’ races are going to be:

*Margarita Half Ironman 06/14/09 – Yup, this is a big one, but I think I’ll be ready. My goal for this event is to get alive and on my own 2 feet to the finish line.
*San Francisco Marathon 07/26/09 – I signed up and bought the plane tickets, there’s no going back on this one!! Again, my goal is to finish, to get to the finish line and enjoy the day in San Francisco as much as I can, although… I know that I wont be happy if I don’t finish under 4:30
*Run the ’09 Human Race (11/08/09) in under 45:00 – When I finish with the BIG endurance events I want to work on my speed, and improve my current 10k PR (53:02).

My ‘B’ races are going to be:
*1st 10k Gatorade – 02/08/09 – This will be the first race of the year, to warm things up.
*Hebraica Triathlon – 03/29/09 – This will be my first tri EVER, and it will be the day after my birthday, hope being one year older doesn’t affect me!
*Caracas half marathon – 05/17/09 – I plan to improve my time from last year (2:08:25)
*Caracas Rock 10k – 10/04/09 – ’08 Caracas Rock was an incredible race, the organization and the people on it were great, I don’t plan to miss it this year!
*Gatorade Sprint Triathlon – 11/22/09 – This will be my first sprint tri, but after the half IM it should be eaaaasy to finish it, but I don’t have any special goal for it at this time, I guess I’ll come to one as I get closer to the date.

There are also other ‘C’ races on my list, but they are not important for my year planning, so I’ll decide if I run them or not depending on how I’m feeling at the moment…

There is another event that I want to take place in, but that I haven’t listed up there:
The first one is ‘El cruce del Orinoco-Caroni’. The ‘Orinoco’ is the biggest river in Venezuela, and the Caroni is another river. ‘El cruce del Orinoco-Caroni’ is a race where you have swim both rivers at the point where they converge, the distance is approximately 3km. I didn’t list this with my ‘A’ races because I haven’t been able to find out when it’s going to take place, and if it’s too soon I won’t be ready, or if it’s too close to the half IM, I wont do it.

Well, those are the goals for ’09, I think they are big, but not something crazy, I’m confident that if I train right I’ll be able to pull it off, I’ll keep you posted!!

Done! I signed up and bought the plane tickets

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So I finally did it. I spent over 1500$ and am going to travel over 3957 miles alone to go to a city that I don’t know so I can run 26.2 miles. Most people would say I’m crazy, and probably they are right. But if you are reading this you are not thinking that, because you’re not most people, like me, you also love running!

So what’s my destination?? San Francisco!!! I am going to run the San Francisco Marathon on july 26th!! Wait what??? why?? why did I choose SF when there are so many marathons closer to me? The answer is simple, almost 27 years ago I was born in San Francisco. My parents were finishing their studies there, but I only lived there for 3 months, after that I came to Venezuela and I’ve never gone back to SF.

It had always been one of my dreams to go to SF and get to know the city, but never really got the chance. Then a few months ago I was reading a race report from one of my favorite bloggers and I saw a pic she took of the Golden Gate Bridge while running the marathon, and I got the idea that the best way to know the city would be running a marathon on it. Two days after that I got hired for a freelance project that paid really well, so I saved the money for the plane tickets. I had to wait until I got back from Canada to buy everything.  But now the wait is over, I’ve got the plane tickets and my bib # for the marathon  (5182!!!). All I have to do now is train for it!

So who’s up to run the San Francisco marathon this year??? I heard it’s a great race, really nice views, you see the ocean and also go through the middle of a really beautiful city, it’s only one lap so you don’t go through the same place twice, and to make it better, I’M GOING TO BE RUNNING IT!!!!!!

The Alien’s new home!!

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Hello everyone and welcome to the new home for my blog!! This is a new year, with new races, new challenges and new goals. So I decided it also deserved a new blog to write about it all!!!

I’m still playing around with the layout and all the widgets and plugins, so expect to see changes often around here until I manage to get everything working the way I want it to work. I imported all the old posts and comments here, so all you have to do is update the RSS address (if you’re subscribed to the blog, if you’re not… what are you waiting for??? do it now!!) and get ready to read about all my new adventures on this new year!!

That’s all for now, I’ll come back soon with the goals and main races for
09!! Hope you like the new layout!! I think it looks pretty good! Oh yeah.. Happy new year everyone!!