We have 2 more weeks of intense training, followed by a tapering process, leading us up to Nov 5th and the marathon. Last Sunday I ran 13 miles on my own at a pace of 8:11 per mile. Relatively flat course, finishing with one mile on the local track to check my speed. The last mile was at an 8 minute per mile pace. Not too difficult.
Monday was a 45 minute recovery run, followed by a speed workout of one hour on Tuesday. For this I ran about a half mile to the local High School track, and ran one mile repeats (5 of them) at about a 7:10 per mile pace. Each mile was followed by a quarter mile cool down. This workout ended up being about an 8 mile run, and was quite challenging.
Sunday October 8th we will run as a group in the Westchester half marathon. We are supposed to run this at a steady pace thruout the 13.1 miles. It is a pace that is as fast as we can maintain for this distance. I think I'll run between 7:30 and 7:45 per mile.
Our final long run before the marathon is the following weekend, October 15th, a 23 miler. I am planning to be in Washington, DC that weekend, so will have to find the right time and place to fit that into our family plans.
My body has been adjusting to the longer runs and increased intensity of the workouts, so I must be starting to get into shape. I read a story about Running Buddhist Monks, which makes my training schedule look like childs play. Here is the story.
"Buddhist monk finishes running ritual"
by Kenji Hall (AP, September 20, 2005)
Tokyo, Japan - A Buddhist priest dubbed the “marathon monk” has completed an ancient running ritual in the remote Japanese mountains that took seven years and covered a distance equivalent to a trip round the globe.
The 44-year-old monk, Genshin Fujinami, returned Thursday from his 24,800-mile spiritual journey in the Hiei mountains, a range of five peaks that rise above the ancient capital of Kyoto.
Dressed in his handmade sandals and robe, with a straw raincoat draped over his head, Fujinami was greeted at the end of his journey by a crowd of worshippers, who knelt to receive his blessings.
“I entrusted everything to God. I am satisfied,” Fujinami was quoted as saying.
Since 1885, only 46 other so-called “marathon monks” of the Tendai sect have survived the ritual, which dates to the 8th century and is believed to be a path to enlightenment, according to temple officials. The last monk to complete it returned in 1994.
A rigorous regimen dictates that in each of the journey’s first three years, the pilgrim must rise at midnight for 100 consecutive days to pray, run along an 18-mile trail around Mount Hiei — stopping 250 times to pray along the way. He can carry only candles, a prayer book and a sack of vegetarian food.
In the next two years, he has to extend his runs to 200 days.
His most difficult trial, however, comes during the fifth year when he must sit and chant mantras for nine days without food, water or sleep, in a trial called “doiri,” or “entering the temple.”
In the sixth year, he walks 37.5 miles every day for 100 days. And in the seventh, he goes 52.5 miles for 100 days and then 18 miles for another 100 days, before returning to the temple.
Once the New York Marathon goal has been accomplished, I hope to set a new one, but I don't think I'll go for the Monk's "simple" life.
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