So i finished my second week of my Marathon training. I can feel how even early in my training i can feel a difference. Whit that being said on Wed when I was doing my sprints i hurt my groin muscle. I believe it was because I didn’t stretch properly. With this it had me sidelined for a couple of days. Come Saturday I was feeling better.
The wife and I were in the market for a double stroller. We had one double stroller that when walking it had the death wobble, and when the wheels were locked it always pulled hard to the right. We ended up selling that one, and we picked up a used Single stroller. This worked out great, but when my wife needed to run, she could only do it when my oldest daughter was in school. So we went to one store but they didn’t have it in stock. So we went and checked out Toys R Us. They were out as well, but the man working the department sold us the display one. And on top of that, he gave us a 20% coupon.
Our race bibs
The reason why we wanted a double stroller is that my oldest daughter has been getting really excited when I do my races. She has been telling me that she wants to race too. Well I was looking around and there was a local 5k race on Sunday. So I was able to convince my wife to enter into the 5k as well. The best part was with the entry of an adult kids under 8 ran for free. So I entered Me, my wife and my daughter (3yo) With my daughter all decked out in her new running clothes (pink of course, the only proper color for a princess). We headed to the race. I was using the race to see how much I had improved so far in my training. My wife was original was going to go for her best time, but it got sidelined with my Oldest daughter.
Stretching before the race
I get in the starting area and get set up, Then the gun goes off. I start to work my way through my traffic and try and keep pace with some of the people in front of me. This is working for me in about the 1 mile. After that, they start to pull on me. Granted most of these people have strides about 1.5 times mine. I still used them to gauge my run. The “fun” part of this course is that it is far from flat. But in retrospect this is going to help me in my Half marathon coming up on the 18th.I pass mile 2 and my legs are sore, both my calf and shins. I change up the pace a bit and it seems like it helps some. Then in the distance I see my Wife and my daughters. At this point she is coming up a hill, while pushing about 90 pounds (between my 2 girls and the stroller). It is also at this time that I then see my oldest daughter hop out of the stroller (when she got tired she rode in the stroller) and start to run. As I run past them so yells GO DADDY GO. Seeing her running and hearing that just give me a huge boost of energy.
So on the last mile I start to speed up my pace and lengthen my stride some, and right when I hit the 3 mile mark I give all that I can and sprint to the end. As I am shoving bananas, nutrigrain bars and water into my gullet my running app (Nike+) is giving me my times. This was my fasted 5k (24.20) and my last mile was my faster with a 6:18. At this point I am on cloud Nine. I finish what I was eating and then I set back out to find my Wife and kids.
When I find them my oldest is running along the stroller some. I kinda kneel on the ground and she comes running and gives me this HUGE hug. It was awesome. So we continue to move towards the finish line. Me and my oldest daughter go from walking to running, and the same with my wife with the stroller. Both are doing amazing. As we get closer we let my oldest daughter rest in the stroller so that she can run the end of the race. We get a little past the 3 mile mark and we all make the dash to the end. My daughter is so happy at this point, everyone on the sidelines are cheering for her, and she is taking it all in. She powers through the finish line and we go back to wait for the awards.
After the race eating some hot dogs
They posted the results up on the wall and i see that I placed 23 of 168 runners, 16 of 74 Male runners and 2 of 11 in the Men’s 30-34 division. I’m so excited at this time. I knew that the first place runners got prizes and I figured 2nd and 3rd did too, but that wasn’t the case. They start to do the awards for the kids. At this point I knew that my daughter came in 3rd, but they only call out 1st and 2nd. My daughter is tell us that “she just wants to win” the were giving trophies out. We sit around for a while and after they were doing i walk up and look at the results. That is when i found their flaw, when they set up my daughter they put her in a “female other” category instead of the “8 and under” so after talking with the officials I was able to get the trophy for my daughter. She was SOOOOOO happy. I very proud of her. Being 3 years old and being able to about a third of the race by her self. and finish in a time of 55.21.
All in all this was an epic end to kind of a bad week for me. This week I will be using my new Garmin 910XT to help me train. I used it for the first time today while running. It was awesome. Today was 3 miles of cruise intervals. Which is, run a mile and take a 60 sec break and repeat 3 times. My pace was around 8:25. The watch was awesome. It would help me keep my pace by telling me to either speed up or slow down. I’m very excited for this new tool in my belt.
Check out my Wife’s blog as well about the Sunday Funday
She had to take her trophy to school to show her teacher.
Bring it : Game Changers 