Well, so much for my plans to keep this up to date. I’ve decided to take a slightly different tack this time. First up, I’ll try and summarize last year.
Lynn’s surgery
After many trips to various doctors, Lynn went down to Oklahoma in June and had a total knee replacement. This was a long time coming and it took a lot of coordination between doctors and insurance companies. To make a long story somewhat shorter, the operation on the first knee was a success, it took a lot of post surgery rehab but the first one is now much better, this summer she is looking to have the other knee done. Same hospital, same doctor and hopefully the same rehab people. She is back into her regular swimming routine but wasn’t able to finish rehab in time to do our October half-marathon in Fairbanks, maybe next time.
My races
I had pretty big plans for races this year. I traveled to Edinburgh in May and ran the Edinburgh marathon with Victoria. After training through the winter in the interior of Alaska, the rain and chill of Scotland were pretty mild by comparison. My first time at a really big race, over 7500 runners. In my somewhat limited experience at racing, the pack normally thins out four or five miles in and you can get into some kind of rhythm. We were still in a pack at 18 miles in this race, (at least I was), I was on the pace I wanted up to that point when everything started going sideways. I really ran out of energy at that point, this had never happened before and then I started thinking about it. Not a good idea, I slowed down to recover, and found it really hard to get back on pace. Then I started doing math in my head, another bad idea, I finished in a respectable time but not nearly what I had planned for. No fault for the race, it was awesome and well organized and I would love to go do it again. After consulting with my coach post race, (yes, I have a coach), we decided that I may have been a little lax with my pre-race fueling in the couple of days before the event. Post race Victoria and I went back to her flat, picked up her dog Magnus and had a wonderful meal at a local pub.
My next race was a few weeks later in Anchorage. My daughter Jessica flew up to Anchorage and ran the Mayors day marathon with me. Great weather, as expected the legs started to get a little tired after about 21 miles but this was my second race in three weeks. The terrain was a lot flatter than the race in Scotland and that helped a bit.
Last race of the year was the Hoodoo Half Marathon in Fairbanks. This year was a new course and it had its own challenges. Most notably was the only significant hill was at the back third of the race, I did like the course and managed to set a personal best for the half-marathon this time. Lynn wasn’t able to do this one since she still had not finished her knee rehab at this point.
Next Years Plans
As if running 26.2 mile races wasn’t enough I have decided to try my hand at the next level and do an ultra-marathon. In August I am running a 49K ultra in Anchorage, what could possibly go wrong? After all its just about 4 miles further than a marathon. As if I have ever finished one of those thinking, “hey, lets run four more miles”. Other than the Hoodoo Half this is the only race I am planning on running this year. If anyone is interested I am starting to post my daily workouts on this blog under the fitness tab. I post all of my data on Strava but this should be more in line with a running journal.
That’s all for today. Stay tuned.