4 Weeks Down

Normal kind of running week. I did miss one work out though because I was too lazy to get out of bed. Ooops. Snowed on Thursday morning making for a slippery run. And Saturday's long run of 14 miles left me feeling like total garbage afterward. Lack of hydration?

This weeks mileage: 38.4
Year to date mileage: 157.3

Week 3 comes to a close

This completed my third week of marathon training. I've decided that if the training doesn't kill me first the marathon should be a breeze! Well, probably not really, but sheesh, it's hard trying to run 6 days a week.

Besides yesterday's lost run in the woods, earlier this week I did make it DTRW for our Tuesday night run in Plymouth. Brad hosted a beer/liquor stop which is always welcome but makes for a very cold run for the remaining 1.4 miles back to the bar. It was after all only 10 degrees. Brrr. Most of the rest of my runs during the week I felt sluggish which I can blame on staying up until 2am on Monday night then being up/out until 11 last night. Yeah, I'm almost 40. I don't have the endurance I used to have. :)

Today I did a 6.9 miler in GPP which went better than all the other runs this week with a pace of 8:35.

Miles this week: 40.7
Year to date: 118.9

Which way?

Let me start by saying that last night I slipped on the stairs at work. Not the usual slip either. (yes I'm a bit of a klutz) I reached for the handrail and whooooomp whooooomp I went down.... hard. I hit so hard on my hip and back that it literally knocked the breath out of me. I've never experienced that before so I was taken aback for several long seconds. I was ok enough to stand up and get the heck off the stairs so I must not have done too much damage. Not long after I started feeling really sore and it hurt something awful to take a deep breath and to bend over.

So that's the background information. Let's just say we (DH and I) decided to go trail running at Island Lake because it was sooo pretty with the snow that had fallen earlier this week. Sure seemed like a good idea at the time. OMG, the bit of ice storm that we had before the snow were weighing down the tree branches and the trail was nearly impassible at times. I did mention that I fell down the stairs last night and it hurts to bend over right. YIKES! I had to actually and hand and knee it under one very large limb while trying to stay upright as much as I could and block the limbs with my arm rather than try to bend. Not good. To make matters worse... I got lost. Really lost.

Somehow I missed the very first turn which would send me in the correct direction down the trail. Correct meaning I shouldn't have to turn around to see the mile markers and they should have been counting up rather than down. No big deal, I thought... how hard could it be? The nice couple I fortunately found walking their dog near a subdivision (yeah, I was in the woods.... what happened?) and asked them to point out where I might be located on the map that I was carrying. "You're not on the map anymore," they replied. Uh oh. So they pointed me in the right direction warning me of the dwindling evening light. Now I could go back in the direction I came and run the trail in the *right* direction now but NOOOOO. I'm back on trail heading backwards, surely I won't get lost again. HA!

I kept my eyes pealed for the backwards mile markers and suddenly I didn't see any for a long time (more than the 1/4 mile intervals that they are posted). Not knowing the area that well, I couldn't say for sure if the 2-track I was on was supposed to be part of the trail or not. I stood for a moment in one place contemplating whether or not I'd ever get out of there. "D A V E", I yelled out really loud, but heard no response, so I plodded on. The evening sun began vanishing behind the trees and I was still not on trail, nor was I certain which way the trail was to be found. Finally the 2-track came near a railroad track and I quickly tried to identify where exactly I might be on my map. Hmmm. Ok, I see RR tracks on my map and they do go toward where the car is parked, but do I go left or right? I decided to go left and low and behold found the trail again with seriously not much time to spare. When I entered the woods again, I had a hard time seeing the contour of the trail because of the whitening effect of the snow and the darkness that the woods held. Not long into the newly found trail I saw the backwards mile marker. I could have never been happier to see it read "1/4".

First "medium long run" (MLR) - Week 2

Ooooh, that hurt.

My hands freezing despite my mitts. So I didn't start really feeling it until I passed 10 miles so that's kinda typical since that's my longest run so far for this training period. Conditions were damp. Wore, blue dolphin tights with snap up blue/white trim pants, fuscia sbra, orange ls shirt, reflective vest and mitts. Took a 9 min cold soak then heated back up for at least 15 mins in the hot tub.Right now (evening of run) I feel like I might very well be sore tomorrow.... we'll see. Oh and MB says it was 9.15 miles for an 8:57 average, but who's counting! Goal was to NOT run it at my normal pace so I did just fine with even the 9:15 for the 12 mile run. Of course I'm calling this a "long run" in my log because it IS for me. Holy crap, how long will it take before I build up my mileage and my long run becomes my medium long run?

I'm still hanging in there with the extra mileage. It has of course already ocurred to me that both of the last week's mileage is more miles than I've ever ran in a week. It's exciting! It's kinda fun! Oh ow, it hurts!

Weekly Mileage: 39.3
Year to Date: 78.2

"Turkey Dip"

I'm feeling much better after Wednesday's scare and after Cindy and ran way too far on Thursday. Today is fun running with a Heavy Load hash followed by Honest?John's yearly "Turkey Dip". I took some pictures but I was shivering so hard after the dip that they were all blurry. Oops.

The hash went fine and the beers were going down smoothly. I still didn't know what to think of myself of the other crazy people that were gathering at Honest?John's prior to the Turkey Dip on Belle Isle. What is all this nonesence? Oh just the usual swim across a canal and back in a Detroit park.... IN JANUARY!!!!! Without trying to recreate all the events lets just say that jumping into freezing cold water is freakin cold! The key is getting out of the wet clothes as quickly as possible. After the dip you actually feel warm; hard to imagine I know, but it's true. The blueness of your lips is a dead give away though that your body is not happy with what just happened. Will I do it again? Mmmm probably!

Week 1 down...

Will I make it through this crazy schedule I put together? OMG. I logged 38.9 miles the first week with 2 days of rest. I had to rest on Wednesday because my right knee was feeling funky. Dammit! Ok, don't panic.... it's only the first week. I'm tired. I'm not use to getting up before dawn even thinks about peaking out this much in one week.

After the first run

So I was really sore on Monday after the Saturday trail running, which was good proof that I have a long way to go in my marathon training. Today went pretty well though and I did TWO runs: one in the morning at home and one in the evening with DTRW.

So you want to be a marathoner...

Maybe. Maybe not. 26.2 miles is a LONG way to travel and especially via foot! However, I decided that I'd give it a try. Over the last month or so following the last 1/2 marathon of the year, Detroit Free Press, I've been putting together a training schedule that will play out over the next 18 weeks leading up to The Flying Pig Marathon in Cincinnati. Now I KNOW I won't stick to it completely because it's a little rigid, but do-able at times too so I figure if I even get 85% of the distance covered and 50% of the specific training types I'll be doing pretty darn good.

Background: I've been running for 1.5 years. I've been a "member" of DTRW, Downtown Runner's and Walkers for all but 3 weeks of that time. To date the longest distance I've raced at one time has been the 1/2 marathon at 13.1 miles and I've done that race distance 6 times. In '06 I also participated in 2 relays one of which went across the state of MI covering 270 miles with 10 runners and another was 60something miles with 5 runners. In addition the longest training run I've done has been 15 miles, but that run was so ugly I can hardly take credit for more that 14. I've have several injuries along the way too, mostly due to over use: pulled upper left hamstring (that was bad), blisters, pad of foot pain, top of foot pain, etc. Obviously I've encountered a lot of sore muscles too.

ANYWAY.... I've been taking it easy the last couple weeks to let any little irky spots heal up (hopefully) before pressing on with this new goal. But Saturday we headed out to Mayberry State park for a little running with Dave and Mark. Oiy. I over did it! 9 something miles there might as well have been 13 miles on road. I'm sore, sore, sore! This is NOT how I wanted the first day of training to go!

New Blog

So I decided to jump on the blog bandwagon. I tried one before, but it was weird to just pick up at a place in time without having explained all the details leading up to it. I keep little blurbs here and there now in various places so this is suppose to be an attempt for to actually save myself time. Ha! Oh wait, I need to at least go back to the beginning of my marathon madness! I've been keeping a log.