Another week down

Saturday: Did 4 mile Recovery. was supposed to do 5 miles, but I got out real early and due to a big melt on Friday afternoon and some rain, Saturday morning had ALL the roads and sidewalks covered with a thin layer of ice. Probably averaged about 10:30 min miles. I was able to work on my turnover though at about 180 strides a minute. Anything less than that and my feet would start to slip.

Sunday: Headed downtown for a 20 mile run with a running partner. She's training for Boston and does her long runs at my pace which works well for me since it's nice to be able to do a long run with some company and not having to worry about slowing down (or speeding up). I'm not too familiar with the area, so she picked the route which was quite hilly and I was suffering a bit on some of the hills. Unfortunately due to a lot of ice on the side streets, we ended up having to change the route which caused us to cut it short. We ended up having to stay on the major streets which meant running beside tall buildings which meant loss of GPS signals so we figure we did about 19.25 miles total. Average pace was about 8:35 min/mile which was pretty good considering the hills. I managed to get through the whole run on only 1 bottle of water. I wouldn't recommend it though. i was very dehydrated at the end.

Did a little over 52 miles for the week. Was supposed to do 54. I'll take it.

This week has 47 miles planned, most of which are recovery runs in preparation for a marathon pace run next Sunday. Tomorrow morning has windchill temperatures of -35 degrees (C or F doesn't really matter at that temp).

5 weeks down, 11 to go

Saturday: 7 miles including 8 strides. I haven't done strides probably since last November and it really showed. I felt very awkward doing them and felt like I was going to trip over my feet.

Sunday:18 miles. Sidewalks were fairly clear but there's still some ice on the ground. It was just below freezing which was relatively warm. Overall, I averaged about an 8:30 pace trying to keep the HR at the high end for my long runs. The ankle and IT band held up okay during the run, though they were quite sore afterwards and I was kinda limping around for the rest of the day. This was a 50 mile week. Yikes! This week calls for 54 miles including a 20 mile long run.

Lap	Lap Time		Lap	Lap Time
1	08:58.00		10	08:24.40
2	08:59.10		11	08:27.90
3	08:56.10		12	08:13.00
4	08:40.20		13	08:19.50
5	08:20.70		14	08:22.70
6	08:42.70		15	08:19.60
7	08:33.40		16	08:09.80
8	08:20.40		17	08:24.00
9	08:23.60		18	08:26.40

100th post

Did 5 miles recovery run yesterday and did 17 miles today. I had originally planned on going to the gym today as soon as it opened to lay claim to one of the treadmills off to the side in the hopes that no one would notice that I was going to occupy it for two and a half hours. Alas, I slept in and realized my little plan wasn't going to work. I had wanted to go the gym because my knee is still a bit sore and wanted to be able to stop if I needed, plus all this cold weather running is getting to be a bit of a drag.

So when I woke up, the temperature wasn't too bad at about -8C and there wasn't much of a wind so I decided to head outside. To try and avoid the water bottle freezing thing, I ended up doing a 10 mile loop that took me back to my place where I could refill the water bottle with hot water. This seemed to work out well. Additionally my knee didn't give me as much of a problem as I thought it would. Didn't do the shopping mall parking lot thing this time, mostly because it was too late, but I didn't really need to. Though it's been really cold lately, it's also been relatively dry. Almost all of the sidewalks are clear.

Lap	Lap Time	Lap	Lap Time
1	09:12.60	10	08:45.70
2	09:02.80	11	08:30.40
3	09:20.80	12	08:40.50
4	08:58.30	13	08:58.40
5	09:09.60	14	08:57.70
6	08:47.40	15	08:25.90
7	09:05.10	16	06:57.50
8	08:57.50	17	08:51.30
9	09:05.60	Extra	03:36.20

Garmin was a little premature at Mile 16 so I ended up doing a little extra at the end to compensate. I'm guessing that in total I did 17.1 miles. Next week is a recovery week which is good for me since I need the break.

Blogger says this is my 100th post. I don't have anything inspiring or thought provoking to say so I'll let it pass with a whimper.

Week in review

Wednesday: 5.1 miles recovery
Thursday: 10.2 miles
Saturday: 4 miles recovery
Sunday: 15 miles

I did 15 miles on Sunday and was it ever cold. -15C and -30C with the wind chill. I had bought a face covering thing on Saturday in prep for the long run and it helped a little in keeping my face warm, but I found it quite uncomfortable. Tough to breath through that thing. I had used boiling water to make gatorade in the hopes of holding off the inevitable freezing of my water bottle, but it didn't help much. The nozzle froze up about 45 minutes into the run and by the time I finished, I had a solid block of ice in my hand. I ran the last hour and a half with no liquid intake. I do have another problem and that is dry feet. I have cracks now on the bottom of my feet due to the dry cold weather and they're a little painful. I've been using moisturizing lotion but it doesn't seem to be working.

I ended up doing about 10 laps around the shopping mall parking lot. I had originally set my mind on trying to find a new route, but I figurered that it wasn't a day to be experimenting. One thing about my long run was it seems that my HR came down compared to previously and my pace is getting a bit quicker. It's been a while since I averaged faster than a 9 min/mile for a long run so it seems to be coming back. I think it may have something to do with the fact that I've been running in slippery conditions for a while which forces me to be very efficient with running. The parking lot roadways were bone dry and the increase in efficiency shows.

Lap	Lap Time		Lap	Lap Time
1	09:05.40		9	08:09.30
2	08:49.90		10	08:33.80
3	08:43.10		11	08:27.70
4	08:58.00		12	08:35.30
5	08:29.90		13	08:39.20
6	08:39.60		14	08:44.30
7	08:44.00		15	08:28.40
8	08:28.70

Did a little under 42 miles this week.
This next week is looking to be more of the same cold weather, which I'm really starting to hate. This was about my limit in terms of weather.

Week 1 of marathon training

Did a 4 mile recovery run yesterday and did 14 miles today. Averaged 9:27 today. It seems my HR is back under control, at least it's now below 160 which is what I've been trying to get back to. Pace is way down though.

Lap	Time
1	10:08.20
2	09:43.30
3	09:39.30
4	09:46.60
5	09:16.10
6	09:18.60
7	10:09.60
8	08:59.20
9	09:04.40
10	09:37.20
11	09:06.40
12	09:04.40
13	09:06.30
14	09:21.30

So there was a few cm of snow on the ground and I tried to do my normal route which includes a couple of miles around a local track but the snow there was a bit too deep for my liking and the sidewalks and roads were still a bit slippery since they haven't been plowed yet. I ended up running around the parking lot of the mall that I usually do my LT runs around. 9 laps around the parking lot. Man that was boring. I"m not sure what happed in lap 7. I think the garmin just had a hiccup. I had a brief HR spike again during the 11th lap and i checked again and it does seem that my heart goes into some sort of fluttering mode which might be an arrhythmia of some sort which probably isn't good. Considering that I've had these problems with my HR monitor before, it might be a chronic thing. I have to get it checked out. Anyhow I stopped for about 30 seconds and it went back into normal beating mode.

Just over 40 miles for the week. By the way, I'm pretty much done all my work things that are due at the end of this month. I have some last minute things I have to do today. I tried to do them yesterday but the server at work crashed. The IT guy is looking at it this morning. Hopefully it'll be fixed by the time I get in.

Thanks for reading all.

Marathon training begins!

I didn't get out like I had planned on Friday morning. Just couldn't drag myself out of bed. Did do about 3.5 miles yesterday at really slow pace and did a 12.8 mile long run this morning. It's been almost two weeks since I last did any sort of running and it definitely shows. I think I've lost a lot of fitness. I've noticed my resting HR is up and my run today was not that great. My HR was going beyond my upper limit for long runs at a pace that I've been able to manage at recovery HR over the past month. On the plus side, my blood pressure has dropped since I started being a bit my conscious about my salt and water intake.

Mile	Lap Time
1	00:09:10.80
2	00:08:59.80
3	00:08:59.40
4	00:09:28.20
5	00:09:27.20
6	00:09:20.70
7	00:09:16.60
8	00:09:32.40
9	00:09:24.40
10	00:09:21.40
11	00:09:24.00
12	00:09:30.80
12.8 mile	00:07:55.90

It was -12C when I headed out today. I don't think I've ever run outside when it was this cold. Last year, I would have gone to the gym with this type of temperature but long run treadmill running at the gym is a bit tough cause the treadmills automatically shut down after an hour which means I have to restart which I rarely do if there are people waiting. i guess I jsut feel guilty hogging the thing. So I bundled up and was actually pretty comfortable running outside. it was sunny and it helped that there was no wind.

It's now 16 weeks to a May 13 marathon which means if I want to possibly BQ, I've got to start training now. I considered the 12 week Pfitz plan and though it'll allow me to finish in reasonable shape, I don't think it'll give me enough training to get me into BQ shape. So I think I'll just jump into the 18 week Pfitz 55 mile week plan at the 3rd week. It's probably not the wisest thing to do, cause Tuesday has a 4 mile LT run and I haven't run at that pace since a race back in November, but I guess I'll have to see how the body handles it. I'm hoping that I can regain my lost fitness relatively quickly. So plan for the week is:

Tuesday 8 miles general aerobic/4 miles LT
Wednesday 4 miles recovery
Thursday 10 miles general aerobic
Saturday 4 miles recovery
Sunday 14 miles long run.