I wrote anxiously yesterday about the upcoming 20 miler I had planned, much to my surprise I made the course absolutely FULL OF HILLS. It was funny that I said to my son that I chose a course that wouldn’t be that bad after some of the courses I put together in the summertime. Well I was wrong, really wrong.

I swear that 2/3’s of the course I chose was uphill and 1/3 being downhill … I drastically underestimated it. Regardless I got through it, and the temperature seemed to cooperate for the middle of October. I did the 20.1 miles in 3 hours and 4 minutes, which I think the 4 minutes make up for the couple of stops along hills and the stop for water at the mini-mart. I think I still have the aerobic ability to get through the marathon, but my body is real sore the day after.

So a few hours after the run yesterday, my left hip mainly, but my right hip also started getting real sore and my left hip got real swollen, I didn’t know what to make of it. It was kind of painful to the touch, but not terribly painful, so I took some ibuprofen before I went to bed and stayed off it. It was so bad that I couldn’t even sleep on that side last night … thankfully it didn’t bother me that bad this morning when I got up. I didn’t run the Ben August 3 miler in Wilkes-barre today because of it as well. I didn’t feel that sprinting at top speed for 20 minutes would do me any real good … I did manage to get out and get 7 miles in at a slightly fast pace (did it in under an hour), and its not bothering me too bad now …

So i’m 3 weeks out from the Harrisburg marathon, with one more 20 miler scheduled for next weekend. I will do the trail run next Sunday because I am really looking to get more into trail running next year. Yes, i’ve looked into next year already and have made some initial plans on what I intend to run/race/set a goal for… I stepped away a little from doing triathlons for now, however its not out of the question, but my first spring marathon will be the New Jersey marathon the first weekend of May, and possible the “Gods Country” marathon the second week of June … prior to that I intend to try the Pretzel City sports ‘trail’ runs down in the Reading area… and then maybe do the trail half-marathon in September of next year and then choose a single marathon to do in October/November timeframe… not sure how much this will change, but we’ll see.

So after I do the Diamonds, then the Jingle Bell run … I’m out of training until the start of February. I intend to do conditioning and keep running, but mix it up a bit. I need to rest my body a bit since its really been stressed out this last 7 months of hard-running … probably get on the bike, the elliptical and do some weights. I do want to get into swimming more in hopes of doing a triathlon at some point but I think it will take some time, so we’ll have to see. So about 2 months of conditioning prior to starting training the first or second week of February .. this means I won’t hit any ‘long runs’ until March thankfully. It was just TOO HARD to do 20 milers in February, so we won’t even try it this year…

As I said, the big fascinating is to try trail running instead of just road races … I think the adventure of the wilderness is something I want to experience, and we’ll see where it goes from there … check my Upcoming Races to see what I have planned.

Hopefully I’ll have time to write this week, we’ll see though… its the last high mileage week before I start a mini-taper for Harrisburg!