fifty-four and fifty-five (End of the "base building")

4 miles in 31:45
3 in 23:40


That makes 21.5 for this rest week. This marks 20 weeks til the marathon and my upcomming official training deserves a summery of these past months of mileage build up:

13 weeks of consistent running.
292 miles.
3 weeks of 20(+) miles each.
3 weeks of 25 miles
3 weeks of 30 miles

A 10 mile run in 1:13:00
A 5 mile race in 31:00

I wish I had been running since January, cause 13 weeks just flies by. I'm sure the next 20 will as well, so I will keep focused on the 2 factors that should make this first marathon a success:

1. Staying consistent. I can't imagine getting in the miles I need to without running 6 days a week. I've only let my running frequency slip a couple times over the past weeks, which is a huge success for me so far.
2. Running on purpose. These last weeks have been put together on the fly, running the workouts that I could fit in and the ones that felt reasonable on that day. I just had a weekly mileage in mind and tried to hit it by the end of the week, with some variety mixed in (Longer runs, tempo, etc)
From here on out I want to hit the target workouts on each day, or at least commit to the long run day a week in advance (this would be easier if I had a more consistent work schedule). I want to get the rest I need before important days, get the hill sprints in, etc.

All this talk...It used to get me excited to run, but now it just looks daunting. Oh well. Here it goes.

forty-fourth

Too much running rest!

 only 3 days total last week. If someone took that one week out of context, I would look like someone who doesn't know how to train. Or at least if I was that person, looking at me, I would think that. And now I am just confusing myself.

Point being. I didn't get a chance to run on friday or saturday, so I finished the week with 20miles total (supposed to be 30) and no running for 2 days in a row. Work, life, everything...gets in the way of running sometimes. That's ok, as long as I don't make it a pattern and then still expect to run a certain speed.

I got in 6 miles today in 48 min. Another week. Another chance. We'll see. This week will be a full one and then next week I'll back it off again and prepare for official training. I'm looking forward to it. 

I plan on ramping up the blog action once training begins. Not that that means anything will be more interesting to read, but hopefully I can have some video, some audio, deeper insight into where, when, why etc about each run. Who knows?!

forty-second (hot day, short run, stolen car)

3 miles. 24 min.

This was yesterday's (Tuesday's) run. Hopefully I'll have time to cram a run in tonight after work. 12 hour days for the next 3 days to finish off the week. Not looking good for getting in the mileage. I'm glad I started the week with a long run.

Not the best day when I found out my wife's car was stolen last night. We filed the police report and the car was already recovered...because it had been in a wreck. We haven't seen the car yet, but it was described by the police as "Not drivable," so I don't have very high hopes. This was our "good" car, too.

Perhaps my training will benefit. I'll just run to work (20 miles each way)...

thirty-eighth

4miles. 31:30.
8x8sec steep hill sprints.

The sprints were not nearly as draining as they have been the last couple weeks. Perhaps that means I am getting in better shape. I am hoping so. I didn't want to be doing sprints, since tomorrow I am hoping to go for a 9 or 10 mile run. I need to stick with the goal workout order:
Sunday: Long run
Monday: short easy run and steep hill sprints
Tuesday: Moderate run
Wednesday: Moderate run w/hills
Thursday: Easy run
Friday: Tempo run
Sat. Off

Obviously I am no where near that.

I think that's the order. I was (again) trying to stick with Brad Hudson's Run Faster workout order. The idea is to have the right recovery time before key workouts. You have to have enough rest before a long run and tempo run, etc in order to get the most out of those workouts and in order to run hardest on those tough days.
Makes sense to me, but right now, I am glad to get the running in whenever I can.
Once June comes and the official 20 week training block begins, I will try and keep a little more structure to the week.



I have been taking multivitamins. I don't know if they help me stay healthy and avoid colds and all that. Hmmm. Not much else to say there. We'll see how much they help.

thirty-seventh

6 miles. 46:30

I took a rest day on tuesday, which was an 11 hour work day at the end of a long string of work days. If I was streakrun.blogspot.com, I would have fit in some running regardless of the fatigue. Maybe someday I will start up a streak of running days and not break it even after running a marathon, but not today.
I slept way in on Wed. which led to running in the evening to avoid the hot late morning and afternoon temperatures. The heat is tough to get used to. Just a couple weeks ago I was talking about wearing tights and running in the rain/snow. My shoulders haven't seen the light of day since last fall. Need to remember sunscreen...

thirty second, thirty third, and thirty fourth (commitment to running)

Never enough time to post! I suppose that's a good thing if I am spending time getting the running in.
Fortunately I got the run info put into my training log on RunnersWorld.com, so I can remember the workouts.

On thursday I ran 5 mile in 37:45. I felt a ton better that day, after a few days in a row of just being tired and groggy and not wanting to get outside and cram in the run before work or after work or etc.

The next day, in spite of being at work for 15 hours ( mostly thurs. but til 4:15am friday) I got in a cold 7.75miles in 64min. I ran with a friend. I was relieved to have a longer run in so that I could rest today. 11 hour of sleep made for more than enough energy to get in 2.25 to make the week's mileage an even 30miles.

I always wish I had been consistent between October and March this past year. It would be the longest period of consistent running for me and I would be glad to be further ahead in training and mileage. I guess we would all be further ahead in running training if we had started sooner, but I don't really know what it takes. It seems that something always slips in and derails the plan to run.
Some people thrive on some extreme goal to keep them on track. Some need a friend to be in it with them, where they encourage them and that helps them not miss too many days in a row.

On days when I don't get to post on this blog, I begin to (in a very small way, considering the conotation of the next word) panic. Like, missing a post is the first step. If I don't have time to post, then soon I will stop blogging about running all together. Then it is only a matter of time til I miss a couple days in a row. The a rest week that turns into oone or two days of running. Next thing I know...It's March 2010 and I'm out of shape and having not run a marathon or any race the past year.
A little dramatic. This isn't rocket science. I just have to keep running. I'll start with this "keeping running" tomorrow. 7 miles if all goes well. 5 of which being a race with the Rocky Mountain Road Runners. If don't sleep in.

thirtieth (Mizuno shoe test. Free tech t-shirt. oops. Dropped my apartment key in the toilet)

5 miles. 40 min.

I felt sluggish today. Definitely tired from yesterday and just needing to get through 5 miles. I'm glad I didn't rationalize turning around sooner than I hoped.

I went to this running store (not boulder running company, and not runner's roost. I can't remember) so that I could check out the mizuno truck in the parking lot where they measure your feet and arches and analyze your gait and those things. Then they recommend mizunos that work for your foot type. Different from the treadmill stride analysis you can get at a lot of running stores. It was helpful to see my foot print picture and study how my knees bend when carrying weight... 

And they give you a free tech t-shirt for being there.

 I have always liked mizunos. I wore mizuno track spikes ( well, I wore them after using the purple pair of Nike track spikes for my first few years. Those purple nikes are a right of passage, I think. At least for those of us who are young enough to miss wearing converse all-stars for the 800m.)

I think I like them cause I think they are cool. Actually, I know that that's why I like mizunos. I am almost positive that sometime in the future, I will buy a pair of training shoes that are Mizunos even if they hurt my feet, and I'll end up getting injured because of it. Stupid, I know. I was hoping that confessing this out loud and/or in typing might steer me toward a more rational shoe picking method.

Getting wordy. I'll finish quick:

Got home from the run, pulled the single apartment key out of the small key pocket in my running shorts.

Once inside, I went strait to the bathroom and sat down...a few seconds later, I brushed the hair out of my eyes and at that moment the key slipped out of my hand and right into the toilet.

That was fun. Fishing it out was even more fun. 

Not that funny of a story. I guess you had to be there. I'm glad you weren't. Awkward.

twenty-ninth

Well...I have to say that that Sammy Wanjiru is impressive. That was an understatement. I can almost not comprehend someone so young just going out and running the races and times that he has been running for the past year. 

The Evolution Running dvd compares the east African runners and their efficient strides to other runners around the world and their often (although very slightly) less efficient strides.

Point being, yes. These top marathoners that keep running high 2:04 to 2:06 consistently have the most fluid stride. It is beyond me how they can make a 4:40 mile look like brisk jog. So smooth.

I need a stride like that. I hope to make some sort of make-shift camera mount for my bike so I can take turns with my wife riding next to each other and getting video of our strides. I don't know how it will look, but if I get anything cool, I'll put it up on here.

I ran 6 miles today. A warm up mile in 8 min. 4 miles in 26min. and a cool down mile in 9 min.

My hip was hurting a bit towards the end. Since I am trying to run flat footed, with shorter strides, I know that the hips are doing more work (the work that the thighs used to be doing). Hopefully the pain is just from that transition. That would make sense, with a hard workout today and only 2 weeks of trying to change my stride.

I'll have to respond to my sweet tag tomorrow. I a little tired and have to work early. But I look forward to sharing lists of 8. Wonderful lists. I will try not to disappoint.

eighteenth

8 miles. 1:02:50

Another week! It always feels good to make it through. For some reason I have a hard time each week at the beginning, because I just can't believe that I will get the running in. I just have to take it one day and one week at a time. On days when I have a lot of time on my hands, I try and go for a run at the first time that I feel any motivation at all, since I never know if that will be as excited about running as I will get for the rest of the day. It has been working so far.

I am debating running the Bolder Boulder 10k. It's near the end of May and it might be a helpful race to gauge my fitness right before my official block of training starts. I'll probably decide before the end of next week.

If not, I might run my own 10k or 15k "race" and use it to set different training paces until I run an official race this summer.

sixteenth

Thursday's run: 1.5 easy split between warm up and cool down.

3 x 1mile repeats at 6:10/mile with 30 second rest between intervals.

My first definately hard workout in a while. I focused a lot on my stride and foot landing. It is incredible how much more efficient the stride is (and because of this, how much faster you move while maintaining an even level of exertion when running with an efficient stride) when you hit closer to a flat-foot landing and when the leg turnover rate is closer to 3 steps/second. I have a lot of practice to do when it comes to establishing an efficient stride, and these longer repeats at somewhere near 5k pace make for an ideal practice.

I still have 12 miles to get in over the next 2 days, so I moved my long run to saturday and will take today as a short recovery run from this last workout.

eleventh

3 miles. 24 min.

I did my best to keep the pace honest and not push it too much. I am planning my longer run for tomorrow, so hopefully I will be fresh for that. It really helps me get out for the run when I know ahead of time what I need to get done that day. I know that a lot of people have an easier time with planning their runs and perhaps wouldn't even consider not having a written training plan and sticking with it. Oh well. I'm working on it.

I am excited for this week and (hopefully) having my training plan in pencil by the end of it. It is looking like I will be able to get in at least 3 or 4 weeks at 50 miles/wk. I have wanted to get to that milestone, not just because it sounds good, but because of a statistic that I heard somewhere regarding a correlation between higher training mileage (min. of 50miles/week) and less heart risks during the marathon race. I should look into/research this stat a bit more.

I got my run in just an hour or so before the snow hit hard. I would have been tempted to skip it entirely had I waited much longer. I am glad to get it in and stay on track for 6 days of running this week.

tenth

3 miles, 24 minutes.
10 x 10 sec hill sprints.

I stretched after the 3 miles and found a small steep hill. Incorporating the hill sprints will hopefully add some strength to my legs and help build more resistance to injury.
I'll be adding the sprints in after at least one run per week for the next 4 weeks. I need to read some more and figure out how often to do these during an official training cycle.

I'm still not sure how the sprints will balance out with the strides. Perhaps I will alternate between the two, following easy runs.

seventh

3 miles. 24min. 2x30sec strides@ end of run.

I tripped. On a rock. The sun had set and it was getting pretty dark. It is not very fun to fall ever, but especially while running. And holding an iPod.

Got the run in, though, and since this week is just going to get busier, it is a good thing.

second

20 minutes. 2.5 miles.
normal route, outside the apartment, around the lake/ponds. 60% asphalt, 25% concrete, 15% dirt. Or so.


One of major pieces of my running plan (as it takes shape over the next weeks/months) is to keep my running spread over 5 days/week minimum. I think it will help reduce the risk of injury because as the milage increases, I am only adding a mile or half a mile to each workout, instead of 2 or 3 miles per workout. It takes some discipline because I get nervous going for only 2.5 miles today, wondering if I will get much running in this week. As long as I stay consistent, I have nothing to worry about and a few 3 or 4 mile runs will add up quickly.
Hopefully, after this week and next, I can look into adding another workout in the week, or upping the mileage to the low 20's. Everything is still up in the air. I am not getting impatient yet, so that is a good thing.