Vacation's Over

For the last week since the marathon I have been on a weeklong running vacation. I actually hadn't planned on taking a hiatus, but as an excuse for my unwillingness to run on Thursday, I decided that I was taking the week off. It's not a bad idea. I earned the right to not run for a week. The only pang of guilt occurred when I thought about the fact that I barely ran the last couple of weeks anyway, but that is neither here nor there.

Today I ran for the first time--just four miles to the Hollywood Farmers' Market. I started a little later than I would have liked and by then what haze there was had burned off. It wasn't too hot, though. I tried running a fast pace but I was out of breath quickly and had to walk a bit after a couple of miles. The route was also uphill on Rossmore from 4th all the way to Sunset. It wasn't the best run, but it's good I forced myself to run even though I was desperately trying to think of an excuse out of doing so.

After my disappointing run in San Francisco, I decided I need to get a little more serious about training. Lately I've been in the habit of "maintaining" rather than "improving." I've contented myself with running the same pace for the last year and haven't forced myself to improve. It's really laziness on my part and also an aversion to discomfort. Well, it's time for me to get uncomfortable.

As part of this change in attitude, I've decided to set an immediate goal for myself for my next race, which will be the Los Angeles Rock N Roll Half Marathon in October. For that race, my goal will be to run a personal best under 1:40. This should be doable since my best half marathon was 1:41. I'll only have to shave a couple of minutes. I'll just need to get myself in the same shape I was when I ran that time in San Jose almost three years ago.

Other minor goals: 1) get a watch 2) renew my gym membership 3) run at least three times on weekdays.

One last thing, here are the only good pictures of me from the marathon this past weekend: