15 Minutes

It´s been a pretty hectic bit and it´s probably going to stay that way until I get back. It seems a bit wierd that I can now say ¨until I get back¨ and not have it be that long.

Anyways, this past weekend, I went to the coast with my roomate Carla and an older Irish woman who works at the hospital with me named Margaret. It was a pretty solid trip. The weather was actually a lot nicer than the last time we went. Unlike the two women, my main purpose for going to the beach was to run a 5k time trial at sea level to see how my intervals had affected my fitness.

Well, it seems that Jon´s workouts have been doing pretty good work getting my legs and lungs and heart into an unstoppable trifecta. I ran the same route as last time (Early October, 5km, 16:07, 5:11/mile pace) and my goal was to go under 16:00. My secondary goal was to run negative mile splits, meaning each mile is faster than its predecessor. Well, I was able to meet both my goals! I ran 5:08, 5:07, 4:56, with a total time of 15:49, 5:05/mile (average) pace. I was pretty happy with my results and I think that my entry into the realm of 15 minutes can finally qualify me as a decent (pre-)collegiate runner.

The only buzz kill about that trip happened after my time trial when I walked down to the beach for a morning of reading and soaking up the equatorial sun and I saw a big crowd of people down by the ocean. I walked down, not exactly sure what to expect, but with a pretty bad feeling about it. I saw that there was a man lying on the sand and this didn´t help me feel any better. Finally I saw his face and he was very dead. It looked like he´d been dead for a while, too. He probably drowned the day or night before and was washed ashore. It was pretty haunting and a pretty nasty way to end an otherwise pleasant weekend.

We got back late Sunday night and so far this week has been pretty hectic. I´ve been packing and making sure I have enough room in my suitcases. It turns out I´m only allowed to bring one suitcase on the flight out of Quito, so I´ve had to consolidate a good bit.

I took a day off from running yesterday, but today I had a pretty decent workout, despite my time trial 2 days prior. For those of you who aren´t runners, you can probably just skip the next paragraph or so.

I did my usual 2 mile warmup and then foot drills. Today, though, I think I might have pulled something in my right foot during my drills. I was doing the long-walk and I got a pretty bad pain in my right big toe. I stopped and took a few minutes to massage my foot and try and feel where the pain was, and it ended up feeling all right. I didn´t do anymore long walking but finished up the rest of the drills and felt fine. It was still bugging me a bit so I said I´d do some striders and if it was bothering me, I´d call it off. strangely enough, it really only bugged me when I was walking and I didn´t really notice it at all during running. So, I figured I´d go ahead with the workout.

I was able to keep all my times at or below our goal times. The 300s I ran like you said: the first two on pace at 51 and the second two a bit faster. The 200s I tried to get faster with each, but I started a bit fast.

Here´s the workout:

2 Miles easy (7:30 pace), Drills, 4x Striders

2x400 (70): 70.3, 67.2
4x300 (51): 51.7, 51.3, 47.7, 47.4
4x200 (30): 29.7, 27.5, 29.6, 27.4

2 Mile cooldown easy (7:45 pace)

It was actually quite a fun workout. I liked the idea of getting faster and faster with each distance.

Anyways, the rest of the week I´m working, doing another interval workout on Thursday or Friday and my parents get here saturday night! Sunday morning, I think I´m going to run in a half marathon, but only as my long run (so I can get a cool t-shirt). Sunday, my parents and I are in Quito and then we´re off on our adventures. I believe the schedule looks something like this: Monday, we leave early for the Galapagos where we have 5 or 6 days on a boat tour around the islands. After that, we have a few days traveling and then we get to Perú, where we have a few days to see Maccu Piccu. I think we fly home from there and get back on 12/3.

I´ve been spending a good amount of time thinking about these past 12 weeks and I don´t think there´s a whole lot I´d change. I´ve accomplished things with my running that I never dreamed of being able to accomplish, at least not in such a short amount of time. I´ve also gone way farther with my Spanish than I ever could have dreamed. I´ve learned a lot about myself and I´ve spent a lot of time alone.

I´m incredibly happy I did this, but I´m also looking forward to going home. I don´t think these ideas have to be mutually exclusive. I´m all right with the idea that my time here is coming to an end. I am really excited to get back to the States and see my parents and friends and eat good chinese food and pizza and run outside of a city.