Entries from April 2009

April 30, 2009

A chill day makes me appreciate my running routine

As I said earlier this week, I really hadn’t planned on tapering before the Broad Street Run on Sunday (visit my DC Running Examiner site for my race preview).
But with orders not to run for a few days until a cortisone shot in my ankle has a chance to work, I entered into a sort [...]

April 29, 2009

Wanted: motivation to swim

Has anyone seen my motivation to swim? I had it just a few weeks ago. I must have put it down, or dropped it on the way to the pool one day, because for the past week or so, I’ve wanted to swim about as much as I’ve wanted to step on a rusty nail.
This [...]

April 28, 2009

Cortisone shots a fix for my swollen ankle?

I’m trying not to stare at my ankle.
This morning, my doctor gave me a cortisone shot to try to quell the swelling and pain that’s been nagging my ankle since I twisted running it in Rock Creek Park back in December. He told me it would take two weeks to work. Still, I keep looking [...]

April 27, 2009

Looking ahead to the Broad Street Ten Miler

After melting in near-90-degree heat at the GW Parkway Ten Miler this weekend, where I ran a disappointing 1:26:10, I couldn’t help but start obsessing about the forecast for this Sunday, when I’m running the Broad Street Ten Miler with Jen, my best friend and training buddy.
I’m happy to share the good news from the [...]

April 27, 2009

Back to the running doc

My race calendar has been full for the past couple weeks, with the Silver Spring Earth Day 5K the weekend before last, the GW Parkway Classic Ten Miler on Sunday and the Broad Street Ten Miler in Philadelphia this coming weekend.
Amid the excitement, I’ve all but forgotten about taking care of my still-swollen ankle, which [...]

April 26, 2009

GW Parkway Classic Ten Miler post-mortem

As I said in my DC Running Examiner race review, the George Washington Parkway Classic Ten Miler wasn’t the all-downhill joyride I was hoping for.
It’s a point-to-point course along the Potomac River that includes lots of gentle, rolling hills. While it included more downhills than uphills, it didn’t strike me as a particularly fast course [...]

April 24, 2009

Mixing it up

We, as runners and as humans, are routine-driven creatures.
When it comes down to it, most of us benefit from a regular schedule, and a regular lineup of habits that help us get through the day. I’m that way with training, and I benefit greatly from Tuesday and Thursday runs with Pacers, and Monday and Wednesday [...]

April 22, 2009

Bethesda resident beats odds, streaks at Boston

Not that kind of streaking, silly.
According to a piece from Runner’s World Amby Burfoot, Ben Beach of Bethesda has run 42 consecutive Boston Marathons. Actually, the Runner’s World piece from March 2008 says he’s completed 40 — Monday marked his twenty-second, with a finish of 4:48, according to race results.
In addition to being consistent, Beach is fast, with a PR [...]

April 21, 2009

Ethiopian girls get a lift from DC-based Girls Gotta Run

Washington resident and former women’s studies professor Patricia Ortman was reading The Washington Post in her rocking chair one morning in December 2005 when her life changed course.
She read a story, “Facing Servitude, Ethiopian Girls Run for a Better Life,” that detailed the plight of young women in Ethiopia, many who find that running provides a [...]

April 20, 2009

Boston connection:Girls Gotta Run

I was thrilled to learn that my marathon time of 4:34 in 2007 qualified me to run the coveted Boston Marathon. That is, it would have qualified me on the age-graded qualifying scale if I were a 75-year-old woman.
In the meantime, I live vicariously through other Washington-area locals running the mother of all marathons, which starts [...]