Tag Archives: training

8 Months Later, I got my official pics from the SF Marathon.

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I said on my Race Report that I would eventually get them, and 8 months later they finally arrived!! The official pics from the SF Marathon. (I ordered them In Januray, so they ‘only’ took 2 months to get them here on mail). Here are some of the best pics:

Training’s been good this last week, I missed a bike ride because of rain and a swim session because there was a swimming competition for kids this Saturday on the gym (which they didn’t announce so I had to get there to find out I couldn’t swim!).

I added my weekly training schedule to the right column on the blog, I’ll be updating that every Sunday, and I’ll keep adding more things to the new blog whenever I can squeeze some time for that.

Back from Vacations

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I’m finally back from vacations. After 1 week in Vegas and another week in a cruise on the Caribbean I feel like new. I got a chance to clear my mind from everything that was going on last year and give myself a chance to view everything from a different perspective.

Vacations were awesome. I got myself new running shoes (Asics Kayano 15) the day I arrived to Vegas and put them to use the next day. I ran every morning on the Strip. I loved that I could do back to back routes instead of doing loops, I would just go out and run 20 or 25 minutes in one direction, then cross the street and come back, I don’t get the chance to run like that here. The only day I didn’t run while in Vegas was when we did a road-trip to the Grand Canyon, which was amazing! The views there are breathtaking, I had never seen something like that before.

Then I went on the Cruise where I also had a chance to run. It had a track for runners with view to the ocean that was great. I woke up extra early a couple of days to be able to run with the sunrise. It was amazing.

I still haven’t planned the races I want to do for this year or set up my fit-goals. I’m getting up to date with everything back at home and will get to that during this week because I want to start my training plan next week. I’ll keep you updated as soon as I decide my what/where I’m racing this year.

Happy New Year everyone!

A good one and a bad one

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I have 2 news, a good one and a bad one. Good news is I broke my 5k PR, I went to the Treadmill, warmed up, got ready and went as fast as I could for 5k. Took me 21 minutes 45 seconds to complete the distance. A time I’m proud of, since when I started running doing a sub 30 5k seemed impossible.

There’s a marathon on Caracas on December 13th, and the plan was to train using the FIRST plan using as a reference a 22 min 5k time, It’s slower than my new-and-shiny PR, but since I did that PR on a treadmill (which is flat and easier) I will add 15 seconds to it. Also, all the pace calculators put me around a 3:35 marathon with that 5k time, which seems crazy to me, my goal right now is just to go sub 4, maybe  sub 3:55 if I have a good day, but those times still sound crazy to me, no matter what the pace calculator say!!!

Now to the bad news. Since the San Francisco Marathon each time I ran my right knee was bothering me, I was running short distances because I wanted to give my body some time to recover. I started training for the Caracas Marathon 2 weeks ago and on my first long run, which was supposed to be a 13 mile run, my knee was hurting REALLY bad. I couldn’t complete the distance because of the pain and was able to run only 10 miles. Also I did that run on a beach house where I was that weekend with some friends and on the afternoon I had to drive 5 and a half hours to Caracas, which made the pain even worst. Since that day I can’t walk without feeling pain on my right knee, it hurts when I put weight on it.

I made a doctors appointment for this friday, is the sooner I could get into one since all the doctors seem to be on vacations right now!! A physiotherapist saw me and she said that it seems like its the tendon that goes from the quadriceps to the knee. I guess they are going to order me to rest, take some pills and maybe go to physiotherapy and that I’m going to be off for some time, I’m just hoping it’s nothing too serious that requires surgery…

So my marathon plans are gone, and probably most of my training goals for the rest of the year. This is the reason why I have been MIA from the blogs  and tweeter, its been depressing and I didn’t want to know anything about training, but I will try to get back to it this week.I also need to find a way to work out, at least a little. I can’t go to the gym because that would require me to walk from machine to machine and that’s not a good idea right now, I’ll ask the doctor if I can swim, or maybe in a couple of weeks I could get go for a bike ride.

I’ll keep you all updated, thanks for reading.

Trip to San Fran

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Hi all, I’m back in Caracas now and will be posting my marathon race report soon(ish), but I couldn’t do that without writing about my trip to San Fran first. It was a short trip but I enjoyed it soooo much, SF has got to be the most beautiful city in the world.

Everything on my trip there was awesome, starting with the pilot of my flight from Miami to SF. He and the copilot had this cool Californian surfer accent, when we landed they said on the speaker something like:

“Welcome to San Fran, if you happen to live here… dude, you’re awesome! If you come here to visit and have been before, welcome back, you know you’ll enjoy your stay. And if this is your first time coming to San Fran, welcome to the best city in the planet”

…they were right.

I stayed at a friends house. Her grandma happens to live right next to my house here in Caracas and we’ve been friends for a long long time. When I planned my trip I was thinking about staying at a hotel, but when I told her that I was going to visit, she offered me stay at her house.

I spent most of my days before the marathon doing something I can’t do in Venezuela: Walking. I would wake up early in the morning, walk 2 blocks to the Muni station and just walk around the city. I walked so much during my first days there, the first day I must have walked at least 10 miles! I was loving it, enjoying every inch of the city.

Then later in the afternoon I would call my friend and we would meet somewhere and eat together. She took me to her favorite sushi place, her favorite pasta place, her favorite burger place… So I was eating everyday something delicious somewhere I had never been before.

When race day was getting closer I started to take it easy, getting to bed early and walking less around town. My friend was a great host and offered to take me on her car on a ‘bike store tour’. We went to all the bike stores that I found in google maps in San Fran, test riding and looking for the perfect bike for me (that I could afford). Until I found a gorgeous and speedy Orbea Fleche (I’m installing the aerobas and fitting it, I’ll post pics once it’s ready to ride).

The day before the marathon I woke up early but stayed at home in bed until the afternoon, when I went to the marathon expo. There I had a small pre-marathon-panic-attack. San Fran is about 30 degrees colder than Caracas and I only had a sleeveless tech shirt for the marathon. So I got really nervous about the colder temps. Luckily I had Terri’s email address on my blackberry, so I sent her an email asking for advice. She was the best friend ever, gave me some great advice that pumped up my confidence (basically she told me: ‘don’t worry, use what you have, you’ll be fine’ but I really needed to hear that from a cold weather experienced runner).

That day I went to bed really early and woke up at 4 to get ready for the marathon. My friend was really nice and also woke up to take me to the race. But that belongs to another post…

I spent most of the day after the marathon sleeping, woke up to have dinner and watch a movie that my friend had rented, and the next day I came back to Caracas. All in all, SF is the most beautiful city I’ve been to, I loved everything there, the food, the people, the streets. Can’t wait until I can go back. Here are some pics from the trip, I’ll get to writing the marathon race report now.

Be my Coach for a day

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Oh Hi! Remember me? I hope you do, because I’m back to blogging and it would be bad if noone was reading! I finished my semester a couple of weeks ago and I had been sorting everything to try and get back to normal after that.

Now, to more important things! I’m leaving to SF in 10 days and am running my First marathon in 15 days (do you think I’m exited about this?). It’s time I ask for advice to all the Pro’s out there (yup, that’s You):

I have mixed feeling about how to run the marathon. One part of me wants to race it, to go as fast as I can from start to finish and try to come out with an awesome PR. According to my 5k and 10k PR’s (23:09 and 47:15) I could finish under 3:50 and according to my half marathon PR (1:55:15) I could finish under 4:05. All this makes think I can finish my first marathon in less than 4 hours, I’m in great shape and am feeling stronger and lighter than ever.

On the other side, it’s my First marathon!! and decided to run it in San Francisco, the city where I was born and it’s the first time I’m going back in 27 years! So it’s a big thing for me, I want to enjoy the city, the view, the people… I want to remember every step and enjoy each mile, talk to people, take pictures and have fun the whole time. And usually if I’m going all out I tend to zone out, pump up the iPod and just concentrate on my body (and not dying out there).

There’s also the fact that I am traveling a huge distance, so there are a lot of variables that I won’t control. The weather is going to be different, food is going to be different, I still don’t know how I’ll get to the race, the route is going to be completely new to me and a lot of other things that could stop me from having a great/fast day.

What do you recommend? Should I follow my competitive side and go for a sub-4? or should I forget about the time, enjoy the ‘ride’ and leave the sub-4 for my next marathon? What would you do?