Last month I took two small steps (on little cat feet) toward my long-term goal of completing a full Ironman by age 80 (and winning the age group). Two more races are now in the books: Jones Beach Ironman 70.3, and JPMCC Philadelphia, which was Capital One’s inaugural JPMCC event in the city.
Both races brought some personal records, but more importantly, after six Ironman 70.3s and ten years of running I still learn something new from every race. I am sharing my discoveries here, hopefully they’ll help a fellow (or a stranger) runner.
Athlinks
First of all, I discovered a website that’s been quietly aggregating all my race results: https://www.athlinks.com. Thanks to it I realized I’m about to celebrate the ten-year anniversary of my first official race. November 8th is when I ran Golden Gate Half back in 2015, with a respectful result 2:01:57.
My time for JPMCC Philly was 26:57, and thanks to Athlinks it’s easy to see that it’s my personal record (if we exclude the virtual 2020 event.) Ironically, I was in my best shape during Covid years, being able to swap commuting time for running in the park.
Regretfully, Athlinks doesn’t yet list JPMCC Philadelphia events.
Socks matter
My second discovery was the existence of socks labeled for the left and right foot. Black toenails, or even lost nails, are the most common injury in runners. Even though I stopped losing nails long time ago, I still occasionally get black toenail. This time I focused specifically on prevention, and the difference was drastic. After I tried the labeled ones I’ve thrown away all my old socks and will never run in anything that doesn’t have L and R printed on it again.
Runner’s Loop
The third discovery was also driven by injury prevention exploration. Most runners wear shoes at least half a size larger than their usual. But then, larger shoe may result in foot movement inside the shoe, causing unwanted pressure. To prevent this I decided to lace my shoes using the runner’s loop. I can’t say whether that contributed to injury prevention in my case, but it definitely felt right.
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