I'll keep running....
Because it gives me perspective.
Now I realize my problems aren't so big.
My life is pretty great afterall.
And a mile is a lot longer than it seems in the car.
7.0 miles on Mt. Greylock's Cheshire Harbor Trail for a nice New Years Day hike! Beautiful day for a hike, hit some nice ice towards the top and got to do a little sliding on our butts to get down! So much fun and other than a little soreness in my knees on the way down, no pain after the 20 miler yesterday.
I knew it was going to be way too cold today for a quick run outside so I didn't even bother attempting it....it would have taken me longer to get dressed than I was going to run.
Did a little over 6 miles on the treadmill, first 3 at 8:00 pace and 0.5% incline then cranked the incline up to 15% and hung back at a 15:00 pace for a mile then went back to the 0.5% incline and 8:00 pace for another mile then did the last mile switching from 8:00 to 6:40 pace back and forth for something to do....
5 miles on the treadmill at the gym before heading to volleyball... Man I love when people, especially new years resolution gym goers, try to treadmill race me! I am going to crush you!!!!!
mile 1- 7.5mph (8:00 pace)
mile 2- 7.7mph (7:47 pace)
mile 3- 7.9mph (7:35 pace)
mile 4- 7.7mph (7:47 pace)
mile 5- 7.5 mph (8:00 pace)
Finished with .15 miles at 6:19 pace
Felt really good in my new shoes....decided to get this pair in a size 12 (half size bigger than I have been running in in this shoe) and they feel so much better!!! I really felt like this workout flew by and I could have pushed it a lot harder but I had to go to volleyball right after it for 5 25 minute co-ed 4's games and I didn't want to kill myself!
Wasn't much to do at work today since our robots are down so I decided to hit the gym for a quick ride on the bike.... 30 minutes on level 8 for 9.11 miles then a tiny bit of abs and a little stretch.
Longest long run of training...24 miles....tomorrow!
What the heck is going on!?!?!?! 60 degrees in Boston on January 7th?!?!?! Unheard of!!! So I obviously overdressed for this run so I slid my shirt sleeves up and now I have a fantastic tan line right across the middle of both of my forearms! Crazyness.....but I love it!!!!!!
So my Nike+ somehow stopped recording somewhere around 16 miles for about 1/2 a mile which I only realized because I was taking Gu chomps every mile and a half at that point and I knew I had run more than .15 miles since 16.5 mile chomp I noticed it was in pause mode...bummer! So it says I ran 23.42 miles in 3:16:15 but since I did an out and back with 12.02 miles as my halfway and I google pedometered it....I know it was 24 miles. What it did track gives me an average pace of 8:23.
Anyway so the run was pretty good, did it on the Minuteman trail, which was really busy today with such wonderful weather, and apparently is only about 11 miles long...I didn't really think to look at where it ended so when I got to the end and still had about a mile to go to hit my halfway point, I took to the roads and ran to the middle school in Bedford before turning around and getting back on the trail. My knees ached quite a bit but other than that and wishing I had a little more water with me, it was about as good as I would expect to feel running 24 miles! Walked a bit after finishing and then jumped in the tub full of cold water for 20 minutes!
I think I have decided on some goals for the Surf City Marathon...
1. Finish under 3:45:00 (8:34 pace- I've run faster than this throughout training, should be able to do this no problem as long as nothing crazy happens and it would be right about 20 minutes faster than last year in Miami so no matter what I will be happy with this finish!)
2. Finish under 3:40:00 (8:23 pace- I have consistently run this pace in my long runs, including my 24 miler yesterday, and still felt good. I have a really good feeling I can make this happen and would be psyched!)
3. Finish under 3:35:00 and BQ!!!! (about 8:11 pace to be safe. Faster than my usual average pace when running alone, with no outside stimulation, competition, motivation, or extra adrenaline. I am not going to kill myself for this goal, but it would be totally amazing! I can't believe how much time I have taken off since training last year (even with taking the whole summer and a good chunk of the fall off from running to play volleyball) and had no idea that this would ever realistically be a goal for me! You never know what is going to happen when you get me into a race situation!! I would be super psyched to BQ but I am not at all going to be disappointed if I don't....there's always MHRM in October!)
Decided I needed another day off after only getting 2.5 hours of sleep last night because for some reason my stupid hips/side of my butt were wicked achy! They don't really hurt but I couldn't get comfortable enough in bed to actually fall asleep until 3am and unfortunately for me, I have to get up at 5:30 for work.
I did get in my daily 4 mile walk to/from work which I haven't been keeping track of on here, but it has been every work day except about 5 when the weather was particularly hideous, since early september...so at least I have that!
Some light stretching tonight and headed to bed early so I can get up even earlier to get a run in before work because I have to bring Emma to the airport then have a dinner date with my long lost ex-marathon partner Jenny after work. One of these days I'll have 5 minutes to sit and take a breath...
Ah still icky sick and have absolutely zero energy! Took a 3 hour nap after work yesterday, woke up, ate some homemade coconut blueberry ice cream while watching The Little Mermaid, and then went right back to bed. I knew I needed to at least move my legs today since it is super nasty raining and I didn't get to walk to work so I went down to the treadmill and pushed hard to finish 3 miles running and almost another mile walking. Did a round of my stretches and foam rolled my hip flexors like I learned in PT yesterday and plan to go through it all 2 more times tonight before I head back there tomorrow.
Still feeling icky and have no energy but I did 3.75 miles on the treadmill before PT this morning at 8:00 pace for all but the warm up/cool down. Ah.... PT was good today though, we found a way to take some pressure off my hip flexors and hopefully a better way to stretch one without compressing the other which HURTS! Got some good butt strengthening exercises to help with that and the IT/knee crap! Better luck tomorrow!
Having not run much all week, being icky sick, and having a volleyball tournament tomorrow, I went out, after contemplating a million excuses to skip the run, for an easy 12-14 miles just to get some miles on my legs. The first 4 miles or so sucked, if I wasn't that far from home, I would have quit and called it a day. But then, I don't know if it was the PT or rest or watching The Lion King this morning or whatever, I just felt good, my stride felt much more open than usual and I just went with it, figuring I'd take the speed while I was feeling it and I could just slow down when I couldn't hold it...but I stuck with it and getting close to home right around the half marathon distance, I went for that and was psyched and shocked to see I did it sub 8:00 pace and broke the 1:45:00 I was planning to push hard for in my next 1/2 race! Looks like I'll have to set a new goal!!!
did the first 2.5miles by increasing from 7.5-8.0 mph each half mile then walked .10 miles and did that again but only for 1.5 miles then brought the incline up to 15% for 1 mile (4.0 mph) then another half mile at 10% incline, walked a bit then ran out the final mile at 7.5 mph. I was bored so I kept switching it up
then went to the Celtics!!!!!! game because tickets are getting cheap again now that they aren't so good anymore, but a night at a game is always a blast and I still love those boys....and they won!!! <3
I hate that I can't run on the treadmill, I just don't go as fast and I can't stand to go nearly as far as I would outside....
Of course it would decide to start being winter here with my last long run coming up tomorrow.... I should be grateful that every long run up to now has been great weather but this is going to ruin it for me! One more week mother nature, I just wanted one more week!!!!!
Ran on the treadmill at the gym during the Pats game. 7 miles close to marathon pace (8:13) then 1.5 miles at 6% incline at 15:00 pace because the game wasn't over yet! GO PATS!!
My body finally gave in to getting sick. It fought it off and fought it off but now it's here and with just 9 days until the marathon...fooey! I've been feeling it coming on strong since early this week so I tried to rest....now it's just me, a bag of oranges, and decongestant pills.
Went to volleyball tonight anyway because it's hard to skip out when the team is only 4 people... played 5 25 minute matches and worked pretty darn hard! I tried to pretend I was olympic training in Denver since I wasn't getting much oxygen with this stuffy nose!
Still feeling icky but really wanted to run. The weather is scarily warm for January in Boston...mid 50s but it is raining like crazy so I did the treadmill. 5 miles at 8:13 pace then went from 7:47 pace to 6:40 pace for the last .35 miles.
