One Bad Ass Runner

Today, I ran the Weston Memorial Day 5K, to start my road to Berlin with a bang.  It was a bang alright, to my chest!!!!! Summary Asthma Attack - Check Hot Weather - 84F? Check High Humidity - 72 Dewpoint?  Check Sunny and Shadeless - Check Nice Patriotic Outfit - Check Long Version After my last 5K, I really didn't want to do another one, but knew that a more recent race would help me determine the paces for my marathon training, which started today.  Oh, how I wish I had stayed in bed. Weather was yucky, 75F and 72 dewpoint when I got there before the sunrise, but 84F and 72 dewpoint, sunny, and no clouds by the time I finish.  It was bound to happen.  Asthma attack came at Mile 3.  I finished in 27:55 and barely made the 28 minute mark.  I so hate 5Ks! Instead of doing this as an RR, I wanted to look at my 2011-2012 racing season, which ended today, and look at how far I've not come.  I feel like the last year has...

Today, I ran the Baptist Tour of the Gables 5K in Coral Gables, FL.  This is the second time I have done this event and it's always a tough race due to the fact that it's in May and in the 80s.  I planned on using this as a measure of my current ability to use the paces for marathon training.  Although I ran strong, very well, and asthma free (well, more on that later), my time does not reflect what I am capable of doing, as more explained below.  Still, any asthma free races where I give it my all and run all out is a good experience. For this race, I did no taper whatsoever, except I did an extra SRD yesterday due mainly to life rather than needing it.  I did a new pre-race vegetarian recipe and even ran in new racers, neutrals at that (I usually wear stability but I have been switching to neutrals and the switch has been going well).  I am in love with the Mizuno Ronins.  The plan was to treat it as an all out race with no expectations and to ru...

Today, I ran the 11th Annual Lou Gehrig's Disease 10K race.  This is the fourth time I've done this event.  This was to be my goal 10K of the season and I've been training for close to 11 weeks for it.  Goal was just to get as close to the pre-asthma paces as possible, post-asthma PR if I could.  Several things made this race one of my worse races in the last year. It will sound like a comedy of errors but each and every thing I am writing really happen.  I swear. Training : I've been doing Daniels' 5K - 15K training program with some modifications for tempo runs (the asthma prevented me from doing tempo runs until two weeks ago).  In the beginning of the training, I was running 200-400m close to 8mm and now I can easily do 200m at 6:50mm and 400m at 7:30mm, without getting asthma attacks.  800m and 1000m went from impossible to doable.  The asthma seemed to improve and so did I. Illness :  And then I got sick last week.  I...