Now well into my second week of my mid-off season, I seem to be on the road to recovery with my various race-related injuries. I still am having some twinges in my leg, particularly if I have to walk more than a mile or so at a time, but it seems to be getting better.
I have been hitting the pool at the gym irregularly, and have been attempting a few walks with Kami, although have been less successful. I am just hoping at this point that my leg will have recovered sufficiently for the large group hike I am participating in at the end of this month. Still plenty of time for recovery, so I am very hopeful.
I was recently browsing at Half-Priced books while Kami was searching for more in one of her serials, and stumbled across several new Buddhist works that I hadn't seen before. Most were the usual dissemination of various Sutras or compilations of various philosophical writers, even a few Thich Nhat Hahn works that I had not run across before. However, mixed in with these various works was a small unassuming form caught my eye immediately. It was simply titled "The Teaching of Buddha". A quick glance through showed that it was only half in English, with what appeared to be Chinese for the rest of it. Normally I'm skeptical of such works, as they usually turn out to be early and rough translations of older Sutras, but after reading a few lines from the middle I knew I had something different here. Rather than risk it not being there upon my return I purchased it and brought it home.
Upon doing a little further research I discovered that it is a proselytizing work developed by the Society for the Promotion of Buddhism in Tokyo, and apparently is as readily found in hotel rooms there as copies of the Gideon bible are found here in the US. Furthermore, it turned out to be an extremely well translated compilation of selections from several dozen Buddhist works, and is quite possibly, no, make that definitively, the most comprehensive and accurate single volume on Buddhism I have yet to come across.
Furthermore, I also learned that the society will happily distribute free copies of this work to anyone that asks for them, in well over several dozen languages. I'm thinking I may take them up on this so that I can acquire a more recent copy that is solely in English. In the meantime, I have been devouring the contents of this volume almost fervently. If anyone is interested in a great primer work for all aspects of Buddhism, this is book to start with.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Half Marathon Complete
I am not sure how exactly it happened, but all of July has come and gone since the last time I took to writing on these electric pages. Somehow I have been finding excuses not to record my running adventures (or lack thereof). Fortunately I can say that this was not due entirely to a lack of running, although there certainly has been some of that. Just a little bit after the fourth of July I sustained a bruise to the back of my ankle, and has this area would repeatedly become painful every time I attempted a run. Consequently my running essentially tapered off during the last half of July as I fought to find some balance between healing and keeping fit for my half marathon. As we rolled into June I started getting panicky that I couldn't appease both masters, and opted to halt exercising the entire week before the race (I was planning to do this originally anyway, but due to my reduced regimen preceding that week I wasn't comfortable missing any more runs).
I am happy to say that this gambit appears to have paid off, as I managed to have a very successful performance at the Tacoma Narrows Half Marathon, despite a number of factors working against me, besides my ankle. The weather for the race yesterday was absolutely abysmal, waffling between drizzling fog and outright rain. I am sure I have mentioned this before, but my running performance usually dips dramatically in rainy weather. Fortunately it cleared up as the rain continued on, becoming just marginally cloudy, which made for much better racing weather.
At the start of the race the temperature was also so low that despite keeping on my warm up gear until the last second, I was shivering a worrisome amount. I knew that I would warm up once the actual race got started, but I also knew that there would be an unbearable patch between when I had to hand over my extra gear to the gearcheck booth, and the race's start. I can't recall having seen (or felt) such a cold day in August before.
Because of my leg and other factors, once the race began I didn't push as hard as I normally would. In fact, I stayed well below my training speed, and hung out a bit behind the pace leader for the 1:50 time. This was actually quite a nice way to spend a good chunk of the race, as he kept up a fair bit of banter and took my mind off of my other concerns. However, once we hit the halfway mark, I realized that I was too full of energy for that point into a 13-odd mile run, and that my leg had settled into a happy state of numbness. I kicked up my pace by about a mile an hour faster than I had been going and took off, using my heart rate to guide my speed. At this point though we were well along the Scott Pierson trail, so I was in familiar enough territory that I knew what to expect ahead. I kept up at that pace until about the last two mile, where I kept speeding up until I was basically flying toward the finish time. My official time was a little under 1 hour 44 minutes, which in hindsight could probably have been even less had I started out at a bit faster pace, but then again I might have hurt my leg even worse and not finished at all. So yeah, I guess you could say I'm very satisfied with this race's results.
So now that the race is over and I'm good and sore (not just in my ankle, but everywhere), I'll be starting my mid-off season. Basically means no running for the rest of August, but I will be hitting up the bikes and pool at the gym. Also, Kami started an evening walking routine some time ago, which has gotten to be a nice excuse to be outside a little bit more this summer. I suspect that odds of running into us down by the waterfront for the rest of this month will be pretty good. Then once September gets here it'll be nonstop training until the Seattle Marathon at the end of November.
Good times ahead.
I am happy to say that this gambit appears to have paid off, as I managed to have a very successful performance at the Tacoma Narrows Half Marathon, despite a number of factors working against me, besides my ankle. The weather for the race yesterday was absolutely abysmal, waffling between drizzling fog and outright rain. I am sure I have mentioned this before, but my running performance usually dips dramatically in rainy weather. Fortunately it cleared up as the rain continued on, becoming just marginally cloudy, which made for much better racing weather.
At the start of the race the temperature was also so low that despite keeping on my warm up gear until the last second, I was shivering a worrisome amount. I knew that I would warm up once the actual race got started, but I also knew that there would be an unbearable patch between when I had to hand over my extra gear to the gearcheck booth, and the race's start. I can't recall having seen (or felt) such a cold day in August before.
Because of my leg and other factors, once the race began I didn't push as hard as I normally would. In fact, I stayed well below my training speed, and hung out a bit behind the pace leader for the 1:50 time. This was actually quite a nice way to spend a good chunk of the race, as he kept up a fair bit of banter and took my mind off of my other concerns. However, once we hit the halfway mark, I realized that I was too full of energy for that point into a 13-odd mile run, and that my leg had settled into a happy state of numbness. I kicked up my pace by about a mile an hour faster than I had been going and took off, using my heart rate to guide my speed. At this point though we were well along the Scott Pierson trail, so I was in familiar enough territory that I knew what to expect ahead. I kept up at that pace until about the last two mile, where I kept speeding up until I was basically flying toward the finish time. My official time was a little under 1 hour 44 minutes, which in hindsight could probably have been even less had I started out at a bit faster pace, but then again I might have hurt my leg even worse and not finished at all. So yeah, I guess you could say I'm very satisfied with this race's results.
So now that the race is over and I'm good and sore (not just in my ankle, but everywhere), I'll be starting my mid-off season. Basically means no running for the rest of August, but I will be hitting up the bikes and pool at the gym. Also, Kami started an evening walking routine some time ago, which has gotten to be a nice excuse to be outside a little bit more this summer. I suspect that odds of running into us down by the waterfront for the rest of this month will be pretty good. Then once September gets here it'll be nonstop training until the Seattle Marathon at the end of November.
Good times ahead.
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