Shawn Burke's Blog

Oh man, what have I gotten myself into? The dial has definitely gotten turned up over the last two weeks, especially this one.

Two weeks ago was Thanksgiving week. Unfortunately, it was only a week and a half after we got back from Europe so it was another challenge to work around training-wise. Worked out okay. With some creative scheduling, and going to the 24-Hour Fitness in Spokane with Deb, I was able to get all my workouts in. Plus on Sunday, we ran the Seattle Half Marathon. My goal for the half was to get long run in, have fun, and to incur the minimal amount of recovery time. My buddy Kevin was running it so I was there to support and pace him. The weather was awful - low 30s and raining the whole time - but we had a good time. Nice and easy, we pegged 9-minute miles and came in just under 2 hours. The upside for me was how easy it was. I ran the Kirkland Half in 2002 in 1:52, which was a lot of work. Running this race in 1:58 with an average HR of 143 was a nice change of pace. During the later parts of the run, I kept thinking "this is how I want my IM run to feel." I wish. Anyway, week 8 was mostly uneventful.

Week 9 has made it crystal-clear to me what I'm in for. I've finished my preperation phase and have move into the first major base phase. So the hours have gone up, especially the running and swimming. Unfortunately, after the Seattle Half (not sure if that was really related), on Tuesday I developed a really odd issue in my right foot. I didn't wear my orthodics for a couple of days and somehow I managed to pull a muscle (I think) inside my foot. It's working it's way out now, and it actually worked out okay because the snow/ice here made it impractical to run outside anyway. But the major issue was a big jump in swim yardage. Over 7 miles in the pool this week. We made some changes to my swim stroke as well - unfortuantely my right shoulder isn't happy about it so that's an issue to work out this week. I've got my schedule for the new weeks now and the volume gets big, so scheduling will be a major issue from here on out. Thank God I've got Netflix...