Tuesday, September 26, 2006

The last big push

Actually, it doesn't feel much like a hard week -- yet. This is the last 50+ mile week and coming off the half-marathon race, I had hoped I'd recover fast enough to get going. Luckily, ice and epsom salts baths go a long way, as does my current conditioning.

Yesterday, I was still a bit sore, but I managed to get in an easy 5K (3 miles) on the water route. I also bought a new pair of shoes, so now I can rotate between two pairs until marathon day. Yesterday was also an odd day when my work life and running life collided. We were deciding on what features to pursue for the news site and one of the possible items was "marathon running, is it safe?" A 41-year-old died competing in the same half marathon I was running in and it was the third in Toronto in three years. It was very sad. So instead of assigning it to a researcher, I figured it'd be so much easier to write the story myself. I interviewed the Running Room's founder, a University of Toronto professor who researches marathon deaths and the race director for the waterfront marathon, who happened to be driving a bus that was carrying the elites ("Mexicans, Kenyans," he said) to Niagara Falls. Anyways, it's published here. Again, odd my journalistic life and running life would come into one... doesn't happen all that often.

Today, legs still felt a bit sore, but I set out on my 10 miler (16K) and it was fine. I ended up doing it in 1:24:38 with a pace of 8:23 miles or 5:13 kilometres.

4 comments:

Triseverance said...

Nice article, a runner in the marathon side of the race I did last weekend ended up in the hospital from a heart attack. They had to bring him back on the course but he made it. Guess he sat down, at about mile 24 then stood and tried to run and fell backwards cracking his head hard on the pavement. Two people performed CPR right on the course. It happens.

Arcane said...

Good read. I was sorry to hear about the half marathoner. I know it's kind of morbid, but I looked up his pictures from last years race and he looked remarkably fit in running the full marathon. It makes me start to wonder whether I should be getting a full physical.

Sonia said...

Really interesting article... might me think about my own health! Like Arcaner I'm now considering going for a physical, I've lost a lot of weight since I started running so I'm not sure if that would influence the heart problems too!

Anyway thanks for sharing your article, it was really informative!

yumke said...

Thanks, it is a wakeup call when you see these cases. And yes, Arcaner, he did look very fit in the pictures I've seen. No way to tell from the outside, I suppose. Good warning for us all.