week 5 - 6: running against a busy schedule

week 5: 2 runs, 6 + 6
week 6: 2 runs, 7 + 7


The major challenge of these 2 weeks is time. Work plus all the activities I'm doing. and on top of that, my best friend came visit me during the weekend. I know that there are ways to have everything working at the same time, but at times it seems rather hard. I cut down my sleep hours, which is never a good idea, and keep doing everything I want. This can last for sometime, but the toll I'm taking makes it not worth it. 

Giants week 4: dealing with knee pains

Last week I breezed thru with 5+3+3, this week I ran a 6 and now my right knee hurts. 


This time not just uncomfortable, but it literally feels painful. Maybe I wasn’t doing something right. Maybe I need to hit the gym, I think my leg muscles are not strong enough. This is the most upset I’ve felt so far in my training. I knew it could happen but I thought I’ve done enough to prevent it. Anyways I’m seeing my PT Dave today.
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it was encouraging to see Dave because he always makes me feel that the pain I’m having can go away with proper exercise and care. 

He explained to me how muscles help cushion the knees and I totally got enrolled. I will need to strengthen my calves, quads and glutes. It seems that my calves are the weakest of the 3 right now. 

He also talked about the balance of the whole body’s muscular system. Because I’m sitting most of the time during the day, some muscles get too weak so other muscles compensate. This is not good because then the whole system is not working together properly, which causes muscles to get over stressed and become tired easily. 

What I need to do is balance out my workout so every muscle plays a part in my running, including upper body (core is extremely important, as it can carry some weight off lower body keep a good posture)

  

Giants: Week 3: pain free marathon

I ran 8 miles on Sunday, with my new Brooks running shoes. It was quite painful after the 7^th mile. My knees felt very tired but I kept pushing through it. I then took 2 days off from running. I thought about doing some swimming or working out on my leg muscles but ended up doing just some research about knee health. It seems that the wear on knees from running is unavoidable. Dang, this is gonna be my first race, but certainly not the last one. So I went to see a physical therapist, David Severson in Milpitas. My coworker strongly recommended him to me and the visit turned out great! I learned some useful exercises and got a lot of assurance and now, I’m committed to run the race PAIN FREE!

Giants Week 2: learning while running

I took a day off and the next one for playing tennis. Meanwhile, I did some research online for marathon training and also talked to Craig (a crazy runner=D).

What I found was that it may be a better idea to take a break every other day, and having a big run on Sunday. So I got back running 3, 5, 4 miles on Mon, Wed and Fri. Conditions on my knees didn’t feel like getting worse. But I will definitely get myself a better pair of shoes than these tennis shoes I've been wearing now before running the big run (shooting for 8 miles) and I’ll also need some ice-packs.

Giants Week 1: kick-off

This series of entries that have "Giants" in them are for the race "the avenue of the giants"

I ran on the tread mill for 3 miles every day, with speed either 6 or 7 mph. On the eighth day, I felt soreness under my knee caps. Nothing major, and it was totally expected. I took the next day off.

I started off without a detailed plan. The idea was simply to give my body a heads up. I think this went OK. After the first 2 days, 3 miles seemed very mild. I had music on and sometimes I can even sing some lines without losing my breathing rhythm :D which is pretty fun.

The Avenue of The Giants

Race: the Avenue of the Giants full marathon

Date: May 2^nd 2010

I’ve had the idea of running a marathon since the first time I met Craig Peterson, a big fellow I met at the San Jose Landmark Education center. Craig was sharing his running experiences. 6 feet 5, 220 lb, being in his late 30s, if not older, Craig has run 30+ marathons, including some Iron Man races.

It struck me hard because I have always had this concern that I cannot be a runner since I’m tall (6 feet), and don’t have strong knees (thanks to basketball). I’ve been keeping the idea of marathon very well under my interest radar. But when Craig stood in front of me, I couldn’t help but thinking, “There is got to be a way for me to do it without hurting myself”

But then I didn’t know Craig that much and I didn’t feel comfortable declaring that I’m going to do it so I said nothing and time went passing by. Until one day this January 2010, I finally mustered enough courage to go up to him saying, “Hey Craig, I want to run a marathon this year. Could you give me some advice?” He was lit up and asked me which one I wanted to run. I had no idea. So he started to list out all the marathons in the north-Cal and he especially mentioned the one in Humboldt in May. Right at that moment, the possibility of running the race was so present to me, as if I could already see myself doing it. A couple of weeks later, I registered to that race online and officially started my training.