I ran 9 miles on Saturday.
It felt really nice. Didn’t feel to winded, didn’t need much time to recover either.
I think that’s a tribute to my training regimen. Last time I would have been completely wiped out. This Saturday’s 10 miles don’t intimidate me either. I’ll hit the gym at 7am and be done around 8:45 or so. Ten miles should take me around 90 minutes.
It’s all about building up. I’ve put the timing out of my mind for the most part. I expect to hover around 4 hours for this upcoming marathon. And honestly, as a 41 year-old I think four hours is pretty good. But I’ve never done it before, so who knows what will happen. I might take five hours. I hope not, but it might happen. But I’m confident in my ability to finish. That’s what’s important.
Today’s run wasn’t bad. It was actually pretty enjoyable, despite not having my playlist. I remember when I ran the 9 back in June. The reason I remember is because it sucked. I’ve come a long way from then.
Using Monday as my cross-train day is going to take awhile to get used to. I was completely zapped on Thursday. Those three miles were very hard to get through. But, I believe I will be stronger because of it. Like Brett my kettle-bell trainer says: the easiest day was yesterday.
That will be my motto through this horrific ordeal. That and the phrase: Now you can eat more ice cream!
.
Man.
This was a rough week to run. Didn’t want to do it at all. Especially yesterday. I was hoping that I would break my leg so I couldn’t run.
I didn’t break my leg. And then I ran the 3 miles.
Dammit.
I have 9 miles to run on Saturday.
I’m sure I can do it, but getting back into the groove of training. It’ll happen, but it’s hard to get back into it.
I’ve just realized I have less than 100 days until the marathon. Yikes!
I’m settling back into my routine. I head from work to the gym and get ready for the treadmills.
I recall that last time I was using this training schedule, I would “run” the three miles at a constant incline. I’m doing an incline this time, but it’s not a constant one. I’d like to change it up so that I will be ready for some road action in late Feb/early March. I’m using this time as a build-up.
I’m also trying to increase my speed so that I can be running at a constant 9-9:15 minute mile. This is imperative if I want to get out of the marathon in four hours. It’d be awesome to be able to complete in a quicker time, but I know how lumberingly slow and awkward I am.
It’s been good so far. This Saturday will be an “easy” five and then I begin the steady climb towards longer distances.
Should be fun, right?
Seven miles.
Piece of cake.
Last time i looked at the schedule and saw seven miles, I was very apprehensive. But I told my wife last night “I got to run about 65-66 minutes on Saturday.” And that felt good because that’s how long I figure it will be. Last time I would have said “Oh god! I have to run seven miles! That’ll take forever…”
This time it’s just seven miles.
I’m also remembering the importance of eating correctly. Yesterday I didn’t have a chance to have my mid-morning snack and I could tell by the evening that something was off. I hadn’t taken in enough fuel. So remember, kids, always eat right!
My meals are every three hours. I eat a breakfast, mid-morning snack, lunch and a mid-afternoon snack. I round off the day with a pretty good dinner. Gotta get the carbs and the proteins so i can get the legs churning properly (and keep the head from spinning).
Ok, so it’s only been the second day of my training. But it’s an exciting development nonetheless:
Today’s simple three mile run was very non-eventful
I felt really good during my run and didn’t really feel many after effects. Yesterday’s run was kind of tough. I think that I over-thought a lot and my expectations were pretty high yesterday. At the beginning of my run, I was feeling a little bit of stress in my feet and I was struggling with my breathing. Also, about 2.5 miles in, my right shoulder started hurting like it was strained and ready to fall out of it’s socket. I remember feeling that way on some of my longer runs in the first attempt at the 18 week training.
But today was different. Today I hit 6.5 mph and didn’t look back. I increased to 7 mph with about a half mile to go and then hit 8 mph when i was at 5 tenths left. I felt pretty good.
Of course, I say that tonight. Tomorrow I’ll do another three and will probably be gasping for air after a mile and a quarter.
With the weather being a little warmer tomorrow, I might hit the road to see what happens.
I begin training today. Three miles. Should take me a little less than 27 minutes.
I remember when I started the training the last time. I thought “Three miles? Holy hell!”
This time I’m a little more prepared.
I’ve been engaging in “kettle bell” training twice a week to maintain an exercise routine and keep my blood flowing. I’ve been doing those for about 2 – 2 1/2 months. Before my kettle bell class, I run a quick mile (I achieved a sub-9 minute mile once!). I am also doing a little bit of a longer run on Thursdays and Saturdays hoping to keep the body shock factor down.
But today is when the training resets. 18 weeks to the Derby Festival Marathon. And 19 weeks until I can get fat again.
Speaking of: The change in my diet has been pretty drastic. I limit my sugar intake to a minimum. That’s allowed me to drop a lot of weight. I expect to lose a little more (hoping to get down to 165) by race time. I also plan keep up my kettle bell training during these 18 weeks to work on my “core” and endurance. I told my instructor that kettle bell training is a great way to make a vain man humble.
After reading the training guide, I decided that I would begin training on the following Monday. That would be week one. Pretty smart on my part.
I have a few things mentally wrong with me. One of them is the fear of working-out outdoors. But because I have a membership at Baptist East Wellness Center, I decided that I would use the treadmills.
Each day of my training, I would run on the treadmills.
However, as the lengths would get longer, I had to make special arrangements. I would need to do that because the treadmills had time limits. If you look at some of the requirements, I’d be running almost 2 hours (if I were doing at 10 minute mile).
Luckily, the LMPD have a gym that is open 24 hours. On the long run days, I would wake up early on Saturday (5am or so) and head down to the LMPD gym and run.
Some might say that training on a treadmill isn’t a good way to train for a marathon. It doesn’t give you the “real road” training that you would need to make it through 26.2 miles of outdoor running.
I completely agree with that assessment. But I knew that I would be doing this training over 36 weeks, not just 18.
On the second leg of my training, I would be doing both indoor and outdoor running.
I figured that I needed the first set of 18 weeks to get some endurance. And also to have a safety net of people that would be able to get me to the hospital if I happen to collapse from this training.
So here’s what has happened so far.
When I first actually committed to this back in late May 2011, I had no idea what I was going to do. I mean, I knew that the majority of what I was going to do was to run, but I didn’t know how to go about the whole idea of training. I’m not a training guy. I have no idea what could go into training or who to contact on training.
So I talked to my old friend “Google” and found Hal Higdon’s site. It detailed an 18 week plan. I decided that I’d do the training but I was going to do it on a treadmill (I figured that I’d need people to be witness to my death if the aerobic gets to me).
I’m smart enough to realize that I need more than 18 weeks for training. In fact, if there’s one thing I know about myself it’s that it will usually take me twice to get something done correctly. I would need at least 36 weeks of training. I’ll just go through the training and then pause to recuperate and then go at it again. The second time I’ll do it right, sprinkling in some outdoor runs so I can get used to it).
When I started the full on training, I was slow and lumbering. I looked at some of the requirements and was frightened. How in the HELL was I going to run 6 miles?
I weighed 210 pounds and could barely walk up stairs without losing my breath.
After the 18 weeks, I’m now down to 172 and when I look at running 10 or 12 or 18 miles, I hardly blink.
I figure that’s something, right?
At the onset of this, I was MAXING out at 4.5 MPH. I remember having to run 4 miles and I made sure to have at least an hour of music ready to listen to. Now I’m up to 7MPH. I need to do better, but for a 41 year old geezer, I’m doing ok.
My goal for this next round of training is to be able to hit 7.5-8MPH.
We’ll see…
I decided to run the 2012 Derby Festival Marathon back in May 2011. I don’t know why. I had gotten fed up with going to the gym and still being lumpy and not having a goal.
So I came up with a goal. Sure, I could have said I’d run the mini-marathon. But I’m a stupid moron and decided the marathon was where it was at.
In May, I began training. I found an 18 week training schedule and followed that for 18 weeks. It ended with me running 24 miles (I was supposed to run the 26.2, but I didn’t).
That sucked.
And it took forever. But it ended. However, it ended in October, not in late April, so I decided to take some time to do a different workout and restart my 18 week training anew.
Next week is when that starts. This time, I’ll be running the same schedule and training both outdoors and indoors (previously it was all on the treadmill).
This site will track my progress (and eventual death)
