It's Race Day!!!

Saturday August 23, 2008
Today is the Fleet Feet Sunrise 10K race. I am running this race with Steve, a friend of mine that I started working with when I moved to San Antonio. I was running late getting to the race as I had decided to drop some stuff off to Josh (my son) at Trinity and had to load up the van before I left. I met up with Steve at the race and picked up the T-shirt and race bib. They delayed the race 10 minutes so I was able to drop the shirt off at the car before the race. It had rained over night and the road was wet, which made for a slightly slippery road.

The race start was near the Alamo Heights pool and the course was very hilly. I do my long training run on a route that has several hills, but this course had a lot of hills on it. They just seemed to never end. I felt I did very well on the hills. I may have slowed down on them but I kept up a good pace. I am not sure if it was the hills or not, but it seemed like the mile markers were more than a mile apart.

All in all it was a good race. I was able to complete the 10k race in one hour and 1 second for a 9:39minutes/mile pace, which is a new personal record for me. Yeah ME!!! I was really surprised especially after my 10:06 pace on the Wednesday run and the added hills.

The only issues that I had were a couple of blisters that I have on my toes. The rest of my feet, legs, and knees felt good.

Hammer Nutrition was a sponsor for the race and they had a booth set up at the race area so I was able to try about 8 different flavors of their gels. I though they all tasted pretty good, but made my mouth feel thick like when you eat peanut butter. I am not sure that I would be able to use these in a race unless I had something that I could drink.

View my race results at the following website - http://www.iaapweb.com/results/08/sunrise.htm#35-39%20Male

About Me….

My name is Chad. I have lived in San Antonio for about 2 years and I am training to participate in the San Antonio Marathon. This will be my first Marathon and I started running in June 2008. Prior to this I had done very little running. In fact before June I would have never considered running a Marathon. I am currently weighing around 195 lbs, but a year ago I weighed about 335 lbs.

Yes that is a 140 lbs less!!!!

My weight loss journey began in June 2007. It started when I began researching weight loss surgery. I was on a very dismal path. My weight had been increasing over the past several years; I was on blood pressure medicine and cholesterol medicine. I really felt like things were going the wrong way and before long I would have diabetes as well as a shortened lifespan.

While researching weight loss surgery and going through the process to get approved I began walking over my lunch break and I went on a liquid protein diet. From July to October I was able to lose 45 lbs on my own. I had Gastric Bypass surgery in October 2007 and have done very well. By June 2008 I was down to around 195 so I had almost lost 100 lbs since surgery.

I was still walking, but didn’t feel that I was getting much benefit from walks so I started jogging a little bit to try and increase my heart rate and get more out of my walks. In June 2008 I was reading the newspaper and came across an article about an upcoming 10k race on June 14. I though to myself “maybe I should try that I am walking over half of that distance at lunch”. Then I cam across it again a few days later and I knew that I was supposed to run that race.

Earlier in the year my friend Gil from Detroit had called and wanted me to participate with him in the San Antonio Rock and Roll marathon. I had agreed thinking that I would walk a 5k or 10k part of the marathon (I later found out there is only the ½ and full marathon).

After running my first 10k in June I was hooked and have been running regularly ever since.

Wednesday August 20, 2008

I have been training for the San Antonio Marathon since the beginning of July 2008 when I found a free training plan on the SA Rock and Roll Marathon Website. The plan is set up through activetrainer.com website. I log into my account and it tells me how far or long I am supposed to run each day and what the tempo is supposed to be.

After I complete my workouts I log the results on the website. I have been comparing my workouts to the preivous weeks to see if there has been any improvement in the length or pace. I have started to record the average heart rate from the run as I think it will be a better comparison as to how well I am doing.

This Saturday I have the Fleet Feet Sunrise 10k race so I thought that I would try and run it a little harder to see what kind of a pace I could maintain. I did the five miles in just over 50 minutes, which was a pace of 10:06 minutes/mile and I was dying after the five miles and there is no way that I will be able to beat my 10 min/mile goal for the race especially if it has a bunch of hills.