Anenii Noi - Chisinau - Half Marathon dress rehearsal!

This Sunday (9/29/13) Sporter.md team conquered distance between Anenii Noi and Chisinau. Thanks to sporter.md for this (and hopefully the other) running event and and sportive initiative in general!

This run opens series of runs "From somewhere near Chisinau to Chisinau" :).

My first race: 87 - 26:00

Hello!

Due to small push from my friends I got to my first running race. Yes, everything is serious. This is not simple morning workout - this is race, as serious race, as it in general can be in our small country. The organizers proudly announced that this is the last step before republic competitions on sprint distance which were going to be 19th October.

Event took place in one of Chisinau parks - Valea Trandafirilor (I've never been there before, beautiful place). There were a lot of people, more than I expected, I guess more than 100, and few different distances - 1k, 3k and 6k (runkeeper said that actually there were 5.3k). As future marathon runner, I was interested in the longest distance - 6k, and my first ever number is 87!

To run, or not to run - that is the question!

To run, or not to run? 

The only reason I'm digging into this question deeper than simple "Running is good", is attitude of some of my friends and relatives - they believe I'm hurting myself with all this triathlon stuff.

I know what i'm doing, just believe me! 

But as not-hard-nosed person, I'm going to do a research on this topic and to support my point with corkers.

So, pessimistic point of view on running:

1. Running kills your joints because overload.
2. Running causes extra load to your spine.
3. Morning running is bad for your heart
4. Any kind of running is extra load for your heart which leads to bla bla bla....

Lets go one by one and try to figure out.

15k and first blister!

Awful rainy Saturday morning for me personally looked like morning of a big battle with very worthy and experienced adversary - my laziness!

As I've written before - Saturday is the day of big run - 15k. And I did it. See how it was:

5am - got up with smile and had a cap of hot tea with cookies. Hour of googling and reading motivational articles helped me to wake up and tune.

7am - It's show time. It's time to go out of your comfort zone.
As I already new, 1 lap around the lake ~ 1,4 к, which meant I had to run 11 laps. From previous experience I new that in 1hr of running my body will ask for carbohydrates, and I took few of my favorite cookies with me. Ideally it should be specially prepared gels, but I was not good in this yet, that's why - 3 cookies (there is something magic in this number)...

Enough "bla bla". Easy warm-up, tendons are ready, heart beats in right rhythm...

One more step done - preparing for 15k

I've been creating footpaths in the nearest park for almost one month and I have what to boast with. So here are my latest achievements:

• I can run 10k in one hour and few minutes (few month ago I wouldn't have believed in it, my max was few hundred meters till the nearest shop with periodic rest).
• Having few articles about swimming behind, I can swim almost 1k nonstop (almost 1k = 900m).
• Found and took as a base training plan "Marathon for the beginners" from runkeeper.com. According to it, theoretically I have to run 15k next week (my gosh, it is more than hour and a half of running - if I do it - will share my feelings, otherwise - excuses). Today felt beauty of Fartlek - figured out that I can more than I used to believe (this sensation is never enough)
• On swimming workouts I'm trying to follow recommendations from the InternetНа тренировках по плаванью я придерживаюсь рекомендаций отсюда. Я упоминал о этой статейке и раньше. I would never thought that the angle of palm in the moment of entering in the water (together with bunch of other tiny angles) so seriously affects speed and overpower you can overpower. So make sure you are progressing theoretically as well. Coach would be ideal case, but I can't afford it at the moment.