Cranking up the mileage

Did 6 miles recovery on Saturday and just got back about an hour ago from a 12 mile long run done at 9:12 min/mile pace. Total for this past week was about 44 miles, but that's a bit misleading since the 10 miles I did on Monday was actually supposed to be my long run from the previous week. So 2 weeks ago was 31 miles, this week was 34 miles.

I think around 30 miles is the maximum "start from scratch" training week that I could probably handle with the sporadic running over the past month. Probably if I had taken more time off that would be lower. My legs are sore and my left knee is starting to bother me a bit which is something I thought I'd gotten a handle on way back during the spring.

Conventional wisdom is not to increase by more than 10% a week so I'll try and hit 40 miles this upcoming week. I'm hoping once I establish that base level, I'll be able to work in some strides and faster stuff, just in time to do a beginning of November half where I hope to PR. Not sure if I have enough time though as I'm feeling really slow these days.

TV Shows

Did 6 miles on Wednesday at about 9min/mile pace and then did 9.6 miles yesterday at just under under 9 min/mile pace but this included 2x1 miles @ an LT effort which ended up being at about 7:25 pace. My breathing could probably have handled going a bit faster, but my legs just couldn't handle anything quicker. I haven't touched this type of pace since the end of July and my legs are rebelling today. Tried to do the foam roller thing today and it hurt bad.

So the new season of TV shows has started and some of the new shows look interesting. Fringe is pretty neat. X-files kinda show with lots of science involved which makes it interesting at least for me. Though i was a big fan of the old knight rider (hey i was just a little kid at the time), the new one just might be the worse show ever. Good for a few laughs though...

Week in Review

Did 6 miles each on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Wednesday was at 8:31 pace; Thursday, i didn't take my watch but it was slow; Friday, I did at 9:09 pace and struggled. Saturday, I did a 5k recovery run at 9:22 pace and struggled. I did a little over 10 miles yesterday at about 9:20 pace.

So i received my C hicago marathon packet thing in the mail today. I'd previously said that I wasn't doing C hicago this year, but there was always a 1% chance that i would change my mind. Now it's pretty much a certainty I won't since I found out last week that I have to be in England on the Tuesday following the marathon. It would basically mean that i would have to do the marathon, fly back to Toronto that afternoon and then leave for england the following morning. Considering that i haven't really been doing any marathon training, i would probably be in a whole lot of pain.

I was thinking of trying to sell the bib on craigslist, but i know it's a major faux pas that can get you banned in future races and i'm pretty sure that the c hicago marathon has people searching for people selling their bibs. But if i just gave it away here on my blog, they probably won't find out. So if anyone wants the bib and actually intends to do the race, you can have it for free but only if you promise to return the chip. It's for an entry in Corral B which is in the 3:10 to 3:35 finish time group, though i think you can move backwards in the corral system if you need to. I'll forward the confirmation email which will allow you to pick up the race kit. You'll have to tell them you're picking it up for me and have to show some ID and sign something and as long as you don't tell them that I'm not running the race, it should be okay. Oh yeah, please don't advertise this as I wouldn't want the powers that be to get wind of it.

Movies...

Did 5k Thursday evening. Did it slow. Going to try and do 10 slow miles tomorrow, but it looks like there's going to be a ton of rain so i might do it at the gym. Haven't been there in a while. I'm thinking of targeting a half marathon at the beginning of November which would leave me with about a month of solid training.

Normally around this time of year, I'd be blogging about the film festival. I decided this year I wasn't going to do it. I was supposed to have a heavy work related thing this week, but that ended up being settled about a month ago and with other things that popped up i just didn't think I was going to have the time. I did decide yesterday to try and get some tickets to films for today and last night but there wasn't much selection left. I did end up seeing an interesting film called se xy killer. No, it's not a T&A film, but a black comedy. Funny stuff.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNnLxyH-cRQ

Registered for Boston...

Kinda.

So the past week has been brutal for work. I work at a l aw firm and let's just say that i've almost met my target for bill able hours for this month and we're only a third of the way through.  No running, no healthy eating and barely any sleep.  But that's all done now so i can hopefully get back to training and blogging a bit more.  

Registrations for the Boston marathon started last Wednesday and I was all gung ho to do it when it opened but while surfing the registration site, it was sort of anti-climatic.  While going through the process, it felt all too familiar since I've registered online for countless other races.  So to make it feel a bit different, I ended up printing out the registration form, filling it in by hand and then walking to the post office over my lunch break to get a stamp and drop it in the mail box.  First time I've ever done that for a race.  Registering by mail also meant that in addition to the race fee, it only cost me the the price of a stamp rather than the $6 on-line registration fee.   It doesn't quite make sense why it costs more to register online since I would be the one entering the information when registering online.  When I register by mail, they have to enter the information which I"m sure costs them time.   Probably should have photocopied the signed  application form or gotten a picture of me droping it in the mail box to try and preserve the moment.  Oh well.

So I guess i'll only be technically registered when they receive the application and enter the information into a computer and charge my credit card but at least the process has started.  Waiting patiently now for some form of confirmation.  Hopefully the post office won't lose my letter!!

Ironman?

Didn't do as much running this past week as I would have liked. It seems the extra week I got for a work thing just means that i get another week of no running. I managed a 5k run yesterday at 9:24 pace and then managed another 10.2 miles today @9:14 pace. I turned off the autopause on the new garmin and didn't manually stop it and it seems to have measured the distance okay. The first mile was a bit long which i think was caused by not having locked onto enough satellites, but the distance seemed to be okay for the rest of the run.

It's a bit disheartening to read about everyone going into their peak marathon training whereas I've been relegated to doing recovery runs. It's been a bit tough to get motivated to get out there with nothing really to train for. I still would like to do a half this year to try and PR and it shouldn't be too hard to beat my half PR time of 1:35:04 since I've been able to run faster times during the first half of marathons.

Congratulations to Mike who did his first ironman yesterday! This got me thinking about the ironman again. I set out to reach a goal of running Boston before I turned 35. I had this backup goal of doing an ironman instead if the Boston qualifying thing didn't play out. I always considered it to be one or the other. I never thought it would be a possibility that i might be able to do both, until last night. Ironman-Louisville 2009 is perfectly timed and is one week before i turn 35. Hmmmm, of course, there's the whole issue of learning to bike 112 miles and swim 2.4 miles. But hey there's a whole year to train for that!

Oh yeah, Boston 2009 registrations start on Wednesday!!!!