Day 10

Today was an easy run, a 3 miler. My husband got up and ran with me today! The weather was great, overcast but not too humid and there was a slight breeze.

We took a stretch break half way through but it was short and we finished with about 11 minute miles. I sprinted the last quarter of a mile and it felt really easy. I have to say that these runs this week feel a LOT easier than last week. 

Just like last week, I am starting to get sleepier and sleepier every morning I get up early. Tomorrow is my rest day, YAY! So, I will get to sleep in about an hour, which will be really nice. Then Friday is a 6 miler and Saturday is 11 miles! Eeek! I am trying really hard to be confident about that run, but I haven't ran that far in a while...I gotta get used to it though - 26 is a LOT farther. 

Speaking of long runs, I have started to think about how in the world I am going to entertain myself. I don't have a running partner - love my husband but he doesn't seem that interested in actually doing this marathon - so I am going to have to provide my own entertainment. I love listening to music...but I think that will get old at about 90 minutes down...since it will probably take me about 5 hours to do the marathon, I need to figure something else out for training for the long runs. I am not worried about the actual run, I think the excitement of the race and the race entertainment will get me through it...but the 20 miler training runs, yikes! A friend of mine suggested audio books that are fun stories, like Harry Potter. I think I will try that out. Maybe this weekend? 11 miles will probably take me about 2 hours, wowsers. 

Ciao!

Day 9

My husband might have given up...at least he did today. I have to say, I am proud of myself for still doing the run. I had thoughts like "you could do it after work, you don't have any major plans..." ha! 

But, I did it. A 6 mile run. I split it up and ran the first mile with my dog ( in case husband changed his mind by the time I came back) and then did a 5 mile run. Splitting it up made me a teeny tiny bit late for work, but that is ok. I actually felt great for this run. I woke up stiff and a little sore, not sure why, maybe from Sunday's cross training? Or maybe I ran hunched over yesterday, I am not sure...but by the time I started running I felt really good. 

My splits were about 20 seconds faster than they have been and I felt great during it! In order to get the time I want I need to drop 20 more seconds which I think is totally reasonable because I think the lack of speed mostly comes from my lack of coordination with my toe shoes... Once I get that down I will be back where I was at least with my regular running shoes, which is about a minute faster than my expected marathon mile time.

Anyway, I woke up for another run and I am happy about it! Tomorrow is a 3 mile run...husband is supposed to get up and do it with me, we'll see :) Ciao!

Day 6, 7, and 8

Got a little behind on the blogging but not with the training, yippee!

Day 6

This was my first long run of my official marathon training and it was 6 miles. My plan was to wake up early and get it done before the heat started. It didn't work out that way. The day before (Friday), we found out my husband's Aunt, Uncle, and Cousin were going to be in Daytona beach for the day and night. That is only about an hour and a half away while they live in Leesburg, which is about 3 hours away...big difference. We haven't seen them in a while, so I took off from work at about 3:30 and we headed that way. 

We had a great time but it was really hard to leave. We probably would have stayed but we had left the dog at home, so we left at about 10:30. Normally I am the late night driver. My husband falls asleep pretty early but I can usually stay awake. Not that day. I had woken up that morning early to do the 5 mile run and I think after 5 days of waking up early, I was done. So my husband drove for about 45 minutes and decided he couldn't go on...so we took a nap at the rest stop! lol We planned on napping for 15 minutes but that turned into about 45, by then my husband felt good enough to finish the drive...I felt like I was going to puke, haha. Needless to say I was happy to be home, but I still had to take the dog out (a bit of an ordeal since we live on the 4th floor of a condo). By the time we got to bed it was after 1:30...my 6 am wakeup call for my 6 mile run was not happening. 

I ended up tearing myself out of bed at about 8:15. My plan was to run 5 miles on my own and a mile with my dog. My husband decided to run with me so I did a mile with the dog first and then my husband joined me for 5...we didn't end up running until almost 10...blahhh...hot. Because we were both tired and hot, so we decided to try the 5 minutes run, 1 minute walk method and that got us through it...phew...

Day 7

This was a cross training workout and so I did a circuit of jumpies, kettle bell swings, and an ab workout. I also ran with my dog for a mile. I would have liked to have done sprints with my husband but he wasn't really in the mood for a workout yesterday...I can't blame him - Friday was long (see above) and Saturday ended up being a long day too. 

Day 8

Ok, we are finally to today! I woke up early (yay!) and I felt  A LOT better than I did when I woke up on Monday last week to run. That is probably because I had just got back from a vacation or maybe I am just more used to it, either way I felt really great during the run. 

Today was a 3 mile and my husband decided to do it with me, yay! It is a little hard when he randomly decides to run with me in the morning because he takes longer to get ready and I have to be out the door at a certain time so if I don't plan for the extra time...I get grumpy that I am going to be late. Well, today luckily I had woken up extra early because we left almost 20 minutes later that I planned. My husband also told me this morning that he is going to train all week with me and if he likes it he is going to do the marathon with me, yay! We will see how it goes, I will update you as the week goes on :). Ciao!

Day 5 of Marathon Training

I woke up tired this morning. Not sore tired but sleepy tired, but I got my butt outside to do my run.

It was hot and toasty. Not mid day hot, but definitely hot and extremely humid. It felt like I was swimming through the air. I took a stretch break at 2.5 miles and then another one at .3 to go...my body had been screaming for one starting at about 1.5 miles to go but I tried to ignore it...it finally got to me when my stomach started to scream at me - I was like, OK! Fine! So I walked for 30 seconds (timed) with .3 to go...ridiculous...but it calmed my stomach down so I could finish and I sprinted at the end to try and make up for those 30 seconds :)

I made it through the work week doing my workouts woohoo! Now I just have the weekend. Today my husband and I are heading to Daytona to visit family that are in town and will probably head home at around 9 or 10...blahhhh. The time with the family will be fun but it is going to make it harder for me to get up tomorrow to do my 6 mile run. Which leads me to ponder, what time should I get up tomorrow? I don't have work but I have the heat...I will feel better during the run if I run at around 6, but ugh soooo early. I think I am going to shoot for that then when I get up, I will decide if I can handle the extra heat that will be out at 7....I think it will be too hot if I start running any later than 7. Gotta love heat waves. I can always nap afterwards :) Mmm, beach nap...

Ciao!

Rest Day

Day 4: Rest day! I slept in an entire hour later than I have any other day this week, it was blissful :). Although my body woke me up at the normal time ready to go...hopefully that lasts until the big day on November 5th! ha! 

Today I got to rest, tomorrow is 5 miles and Saturday is 6 miles. Then on Sunday I cross train, so today's rest day is helping my muscles grow stronger so that I am ready for this next busy week. I honestly did not want to rest today... I wanted to do something...I still might go on a walk tonight with my dog, I think that is ok...but I know it is better that I do rest. :) 

Ciao!

Day 2 and 3 of Marathon Training

Day 2 - I did my first long run. I ran 5 miles yesterday morning. I thought it would be dark but surprisingly it was light outside when I took off on my run. 

Normally I run a mile/mile and a half, then stretch out and finish the run. On my longer runs, I often add a few more of these mini breaks to drink some water. I stretched out a lot before this run (long elevator wait, hehe) and I was feeling great until about 3 miles. At that point my stomach started making funny noises and I mentally calculated how far I was from the nearest Porta Potty... (thank goodness for the construction on homes going on in the neighborhood) Anyway, I luckily did not need that, but planned to take a stretch break at about 1.3 miles away from home ( 3.7 down...). 

Well, at that point, a creepy looking man was walking...ok he wasn't actually creepy, probably owns one of the multimillion dollar oceanfront homes, but I get nervous when I am by myself running in the morning. This particular street I was on did not have any intersecting roads for about half a mile, so rather than stopping and stretching, I kept going...then once I reached a turn-off/aka safe place away from the creepy potential millionaire...I was less than 3/4 a mile away from my building, so I decided to tough it out and make it home, and I did! I think I ran the second half of the run a minute per mile faster than the first half!

Day 3 Today I was a little sorer and a little more tired. I only had a three mile run and I decided to break it up so that I did two on my own and one with my dog so I could give him some exercise too. The two miles went well, again my second mile was faster than my first by more than a minute and I did take a stretch break after a mile...my shins were hurting - the only problem with the toe shoes, your shins absorb what your shoes used to. Anyway, I can see why the training guide has a rest break for tomorrow. It will be good to give my legs a break before running Friday and my long run, which is not too long, only 6 miles, on Saturday. 

I am done with work for the day, so I am sitting in my recliner and sipping on some wine. Ahhh. Ciao!

Marathon Training Begins

Today I started my marathon training. 

My shoes:  Vibram KSO

I love these. They took some getting used to and I had to work my way up mileage wise but now I love them. The farthest I have gone is 9 miles, I am curious to see how I do in these for the longer runs...for now they are the pair I am sticking with, but I do have a backup pair of Asics just in case.

My Training Plan: Hal Higdon Intermediate I Marathon Guide

I chose this one because I have followed his half marathon plans before and they have worked out well for me. Today I am started the third week of this guide, I have been running on my own for a long time now, basically keeping longer runs in my workouts since I did my last half marathon in February. I was on vacation last week and so I thought it would be easier to officially start this plan and my marathon training this week. 

My Past Runs: I have done 4 half marathons and one Jacksonville River Run 15K. I have done a bunch of 5K's and 10K's, but the ones I mentioned I found the most challenging. I ran my fastest half marathon at the OUC half marathon in Orlando. It was my first and I really trained hard with a group of great friends. I still flied and died, but my time was 2:04...I haven't come close to that on my other three nor at the River Run. Of course I also puked a few times at the end of that and laid in a bath tub for about 6 hours before going to bed for the night...not a good feeling...

I mention all of that because I wanted to give my plans for this big race. I am fairly comfortable keeping an under 11 minute mile pace and think I will do that for the marathon. Ideally I would beat 10 minute miles, and through training that may happen...but for now my goal is to reach under 11 minute miles. 

Today's Run: Today I did a 3 mile run, which is the Tuesday run for the 3rd week of Hal Higdon's plan. I am moving the plan back a day since the marathon is on a Saturday not Sunday. I decided to officially start on a week that had less mileage because I didn't get to run much on vacation and I think it will help get me back on track rather than jumping into a higher mileage week. Plus I have been fighting an on again/off again stomach bug for a few weeks now and it is not PLEASANT when you have to do long runs. Ugh. 

I really want to do all of these runs in the morning. The marathon is in the morning and it is really nice to be done for the day with the workout and not have to worry about it after work...especially since these afternoon/evening temperatures are brutal this time of year. I have been very unsuccessful with the morning runs in the past...mostly because I have to get up so early and it's still dark out...blah...but I live in a reallllllly safe area. So I need to get over it. Tomorrow will be my first test of this because I will have to start running while it is still dark out for my 6 mile run. Yikes. Prayers! Motivation! I need it! 

This will be my training blog and my accountability blog :). Ciao.