Friday, April 28, 2006

Friday morning

Friday 3.51 miles/28:43/8:11 average pace

My first morning run in quite a while was fun. It was really nice out and it was a great way to start the day.

Meanwhile, the weather forecst now officially extends to MAY 7, and no longer includes showers!! That's right folks, mostly cloudy is the good word. High of 57 on race day. Word em up.

Thursday, April 27, 2006

wed. run and Marathon Weather Watch

Wednesday 6.25 miles/1:00:38/9:42 average pace

Fun easy run in the sun with much-missed running buddy. hooray!


10 days to go... which brings up the all-important weather forecast topic!! Weather.com's 10-day outlook brings us to Saturday, marathon eve. The discrepency between our 10 day calculation is that I'm not counting today, and weather.com is. Idiots. Anyway, it's really sunny and nice for all of next week... until Thursday (partly cloudy), Friday (few showers 30% chance), and Saturday (showers 40% chance). Eeep! Well, though this may look bad, it's actually very good. The clouds and showers drop the predicted high temperature down to a beautiful 59 degrees. I have trained through winter clouds and rain, so those conditions would be best for the race. Not like rain rain, but a drizzle here and there won't kill me. I'd much prefer that over 70+ degrees. Although either way, the trees will provide plenty of shade, so there's little chance it will get too warm. So showers is fine by me. In case that matters.

This concludes today's overly analytical weather forecast. Tune in tomorrow where I"ll discuss the exact length to which I will trim my toenails, including a breakdown of the risks of cutting them too short, as well as the importance of the timing of the trim.

Wednesday, April 26, 2006

tuesday lalalaaa

Coming up with post titles sucks.

Tuesday 6.25 miles/52.47/8:27 average pace

Goal pace-ish run including a giant hill. I felt really good but my legs were a little tight after. I told them to shut up and quit being wussies.

11 days to go...

Monday, April 24, 2006

OR, OR, CA (respectively)

Thursday 8.00 miles/1:12:53/9:07 average pace

Amazon Creek trail in Eugene. Good stuff!


Friday 12.00 miles/1:46:16/8:51 average pace

Alton Baker recreation area, including "Pre's Trail" !! And then out and back along the Willamette River. The pace felt comfortable and my legs felt good. Love love love running in Oregon.


Sunday 8.00 miles/1:13:23/9:11 average pace

Easy miles (9:30 ish) until the last mile when I did 3x strides and ended up with a 7:58 mile.


TOTAL miles for taper week 1: 32

Plan for taper week 2:

Monday: 4
Tuesday: rest
Wednesday: 6
Thursday: rest
Friday: 6
Saturday: 10 Dress Rehearsal
Sunday: rest

total: 26


... In case you were wondering,
YES this is freakishly and frighteningly low miles and YES itreally really freaks me out and YES it kills me that the only thing that makes me less anxious and nervous and antsy and obsessive and crazy is running and YES that is the one thing I cannot do right now!!!!!!! And YES I acknowlege that this mental state is pretty common for someone tapering for a marathon and YES I am reminding myself of that fact pretty often. And YES I am trying to reign in my obsessive tendencies by making list after list after list of a variety of subjects including but not limited to packing list for marathon weekend, food schedule, outifit options, driving plans, race strategy, race goals, after-marathon plans, etc.... And YES I have checked the weather forecast already for the marathon weekend and NO it is NOT AVAILABLE!!!!!!!!!!! :( Oh and YES my husband is getting really annoyed with me but he is doing an excellent job of masking it.

whew.

Tuesday, April 18, 2006

(still) Tired Tuesday

Tuesday 4.00 miles/37:16/9:19 average pace

Although I felt ok following Saturday's 21 miler, the soreness was just enough for me to cancel yesterday's recovery run. I think part of it was my excitement over actually having control over my running schedule again. Now that the meat of my training is over and I am officially tapering, I do not have to worry about every single mile being accounted for. I missed this. Don't get me wrong, I love a strict schedule, but this is fun too. Anyway, I ran a little on my way home from work yesterday and confirmed that my legs were still real weak from the long run. So I took it off, then I did 4 miles today and felt pretty tight and sore still. But good sore.

So anyway, here is my tenative, loosey goosey, flexible, if-I-feel-like it schedule for the week:

(subject to change)

Monday: rest
Tuesday: 4
Wednesday: rest
Thursday: 8 easy
Friday: 14 "long"
Saturday: rest
Sunday: 6 GA

total: 32 ish.

I'm doing my long run friday this week because I am traveling and it just works better that way. :)

Sunday, April 16, 2006

LR Week 9: 21 miles

Saturday 21.00 miles/3:13:16/9:12 average pace

What an amazing run. I actually felt really comfortable the entire time and didn't really tire out at the end. Of course, my legs stiffened up as soon as I stopped running, but even in that last mile I felt good. My pace was even, maybe a bit faster on some downhill stretches. I met up with two really nice ladies and ran with them for a couple of miles, which helped a lot. Didn't turn my music on until about mile 15 or 16. I ate 6 Clif shot Blocks- 2 at a time at 1:15, 2:15, and 2:45 ish. Drank about two and a half bottles of water.

After the run I faced an extremely truncated recovery schedule as we headed down to the SHARKS game about noon. (I usually take my time icing, showering, eating, and then I lay around and nap and moan for at least 2-3 hours!) But we ate lunch in the car on the way and I was pumped up to see the San Jose sharks kick ass for the 8th straight game, including a hat trick by CHEECHOOOOOOOOOO!! Then we went out for pizza, and finally, about 6:00 got home and sat down... and that was it for me. The soreness and exhaustion caught up with me and I did not leave my post on the couch until I went to bed.

Here's my splits just for fun:

1- 9:13
2- 9:35
3- 9:32
4- 9:31
5- 9:21
6- 9:10
7- 9:14
8- 9:18
9- 8:59
10- 8:59
11- 9:16
12- 9:04
13- 9:02
14- 9:12
15- 9:21
16- 9:13
17- 8:44
18- 9:04
19- 8:59
20- 9:09
21- 9:21

:)

TOTAL miles for week 9: 46.30
Weekly Mileage Record!!!!!

Five (point one five) on Friday

Friday 5.15 miles/46:29/9:02 average pace

Lovely. Went out easy and sped up quite a bit just because it felt good. Fastest mile 8:19.

Thursday, April 13, 2006

Wonderful Wednesday

Wednesday 6.00/51:44/8:37 average pace

Solo run with no set pace, so I was pleasantly surprised to see the results. It felt really comfortable, almost easy, incluidng hills and splits as fast as 8:14. :)

Wednesday, April 12, 2006

Tempo Tuesday

Tuesday 8.15 miles total/1:07:xx/8:18 average pace

(raining, of course)

1 mile warmup 9:44

6 miles Tempo 7:42 average pace
1- 8:07
2- 8:06
3- 7:50
4- 7:43
5- 7:36
6- 7:45

1.15 miles cool down 10:42 (9:18 average pace)

The best part of this run is that it was NOT hard. I usually am breathing really hard and can feel my form slipping after a couple miles, but yesterday I felt energetic and strong through it all.

It helps to get looks of "you're crazy" from passing drivers. It's encouraging.

Tuesday, April 11, 2006

Monday's Usual blah

Monday 6.00 miles/56:48/9:28 average pace

Well, it started out blah but turned out to be a decent run. I'm always a little tired and tight on Mondays.

Ran in my NEW SHOES, which are my marathon shoes. I'm going to run in them once more this week then do my 20 miler in them. Then I'll maybe run one or two more times in them before race day. I'd like to have 50-60 ish miles on them only. My old shoes have just under 300 and feel fine still, so I should be fine running the other 80-100 miles or whatever in them.

Did I state my plan for zee week yet? I don't think so:

Monday 6 easy (done)
Tuesday 8 w/ 5-6 LT
Wednesday 6 GA
Thurs rest
Friday 4 easy (or 5)
Saturday 20 Long (21?)
Sunday rest

total planned: 44-46 :)

Monday, April 10, 2006

Oh ya

Friday 5.00 miles/47:xx/9:xx average pace

When I read back the last couple of entries I knew something was amiss... I most certainly did not run in the sunshine twice in a row! I forgot to log Friday's very soggy 5 miler.

Saturday, April 08, 2006

LR Week 8 (wow, really?!)

Saturday 14.00 miles/2:06:25/9:02 average pace

Finally some sunshine in the bay area today! It was really beautiful out, even a bit warm (68 degrees at the end of the run). I had to drink lots of water, and I could really feel the effect of the warmth. But I'm not complaining!

Zach joined me (yay) for the first 8 miles, which we ran in 1:14: 57 (9:22 average pace). I then left him to walk back to the car (another couple of miles, go Zach!) while I went into the Zone and picked up the pace. Originally I wanted to do 10 miles of this run at Goal marathon pace, but opted out of that. I knew I couldnt' pick up the pace w/ Zach with me (he agrees!) and I was just enjoying the conversational and easy pace. I guess I just wasn't feeling pumped enough to crank out 10 8:20 miles. Well, after I dropped him off at mile 8 I did end up picking up the pace quite a bit- the last 6 miles took me 51:28 (8:35 average pace). My last mile was 8:11. :) So not quite a GMP run, but a good workout nonetheless. With Tuesday's 7 mile LT run, and another coming this Tuesday, I'm not concerned about lack of pace work in my schedule. I guess I was panicking a bit when I planned the GMP run for today. So, NOT doing it is actually a sign of confidence.... That's my story and I'm stickin to it!

TOTAL miles for this fabulous week: 40.0.

One more week of hard training and then it's taper time baby.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thursday, April 06, 2006

Sunny Running- Finally!!!

Wednesday 6.75 miles/1:02:51/9:19 average pace

A lovely easy run in the sun. :) It has been a while!

Oh, and I couldn't resist the temptation of this big ol' grassy hill that I pass by all the time- man it is steep. I never run it because I'm always on some other running mission and it doesn't fit in, but yesterday I made it fit. It was fun.

Wednesday, April 05, 2006

Tempo Tuesday

Tuesday 10.25 miles total/1:27:16/8:31 average pace

2 mile warm up: 19:48 (9:54 average pace)

7 miles Tempo:
(note- I felt it was an even "Tempo" effort, even though my first miles were a bit slow. Also, since it was such a long tempo run, it is logical that my pace wasn't as fast as a 2-4 mile tempo run!)
8:21
8:25
8:03
7:44
7:41
7:40
7:48
(average pace for 7 miles LT: 7:58)
(average pace for last 5 miles LT: 7:48.. definitely tempo pace, I guess I just had to warm up into it... like 4 miles.)

1.25 mile cool dow: 11:42 (9:22 average pace)

:)

Tuesday, April 04, 2006

Easy Monday

4.00 miles/39:39/9:55 average pace

Finally, some slow miles. Felt easy (of course).

I've sort of decided to do 8 miles both today (tues.) and tomorrow (wed.) with one run easy and one run Tempo run (well, 4-6 miles of it). That was going to be 10 and 6, but I've screwed with the schedule a lot this week and that doesn't work anymore. Anyway, haven't quite decided which I'll be doing today. ....Well, assuming it remains dry, I think I'll do the hard workout tonight.

Monday, April 03, 2006

LR Week 7 20 miler

Saturday 20.00 miles/3:03:29/9:11 average pace

My longest and fastest long run so far. I really honestly tried to hold back on the pace, but ended up with a consistant 9:10 ish pace. 2 or 3 miles were 8:30-9:00. Gotta say this makes me feel good. This pace is not too far off my goal marathon pace. :)

All aspects of the run went well: hydration (probably 2 full bottles of water), nutrition (5 clif shot blocks total- 160 calories total), mentally felt strong the whole time- it actually went by pretty fast. My legs started to feel real tired around mile 18 but I was done before any real suffering began. Last mile 8:38, so I finished strong. Pretty gimpy afterwards, but today (monday) feel fine and I"m planning 5-6 miles easy tonight.

TOTAL miles for last week: 43.25

Plan for this week: (It's a bit of a cut-back week mileage-wise, but I'm going to up the intensity)

Monday 4-6 easy
Tuesday 6 easy
Wednesday 10 miles (5-6 LT pace)
Thursday off
Friday 4-6 easy
Saturday 14 miles (10 Goal Marathon pace)
Sunday off

total planned: 38-42