End of Week 7

Monday: Off day


Tuesday: Off day


Wednesday:


10 miles VO2 max workout. This went well. I headed down to the track to start my 4 x 1200 repeats. I wanted to hit around 5:20 per rep, which is a 7:00 pace. I hit 5:04, 5:06, 5:13 and 5:02. I stuck to the program this time and felt pretty good. I finished off the miles around town to end with 9.76 miles @ an 8:22 pace overall.


Thursday:


Happy Birthday Half Marathon with Jen! It was her bday not mine and you can read all about this run here. From my perspective this was just an awesome day to run and to do it with a friend on their BDAY was just that much more fun. Plus, I have to pat myself on the back for the race numbers and timing chips. It was so funny to watch Jen open it and wonder what was going on. I now know that Jen is quite gullible and will use this to my advantage in the future. On another note, I pooped in the woods during our run. My first time! HAPPY BIRTHDAY JEN!


Friday: Off day


I'd originally had 10 miles scheduled for this day and Thursday was originally off. Because of the 13.1 with Jen I took today off.


Saturday: Off day


I was supposed to do a 4 mile recovery run today but it would have been impossible to fit in. I went to Hood River to tend to many last minute wedding details, then another bday celebration with my fiancee! Honestly, I don't know if I could have done 4 miles anyway - it was HOT HOT out and I was extremely tired.


Sunday:


20 mile long run.


No way around it, this run sucked. I did my usual Marine Drive run that I've done twice before. I should have at least run it backwards to spice it up a bit. But I didn't. It started out hot but right away I could tell today wasn't going to be like last week or the week before where I just locked into a sub-8:00 pace and went for it. I tried to concede to this gracefully and managed to take my mind elsewhere for several miles.

Potential reasons for my failure on this run:


1. Weather - too hot
2. Nutrition/fuel - not enough
3. Beat up body
4. Lack of sleep the past few days
5. Mind elsewhere/not mentally focused
6. Jinxed myself
7. Low points happen in each training cycle and I'm just getting mine

The weather was only really hot at the beginning then cooled off a bit toward the middle of the run. I would guess it was in the 80s when I started, then cooled off about 10 degrees toward the end. Not much of an excuse, but I could feel it at first.

Nutrition. What was I thinking? I did not plan this out well at all. I ate an english muffin with jam at around 10:00 and nothing else (but coffee) before I left at 1:30. Wait - I did have a Gu right before I walked out the door. Right away I realized that I should have had something more, but there was nothing I could do about it at that point. I had Gu chomps with me that I took around miles 10 & 13, but I only had a few each time and didn't even finish the package. My stomach just wasn't feeling like eating and I knew it was a bad idea to not finish the stuff, but I couldn't make myself do it.

My body is pretty tired. Last week one of my toenails came completely off and I could feel it on this run. For the most part it doesn't hurt, but it just makes me feel like I'm breaking down a bit. Strangely, my back was sore toward the end of this run, my legs felt tired, just a general tiredness overall. I guess that is to be expected at this stage of training, but seriously what would I do with a training program over the 10 weeks that I'm doing now? I'm too old for this. My usual sore points in my hip and knee flared up earlier than normal, so I was finding myself need to change my gait every so often to alleviate this. I'm also riding the crimson wave high tide and think my body is just a little bit depleted of everything right now.

Sleep - I've been so fired up about wedding plans and house guests and other stuff I just haven't been sleeping well. I'll be dead tired going up to bed, then when I turn off the lights my mind won't stop. I need to get more.

Mental focus - I simply wasn't as focused during this run like I was for the others. I had a lot more negative thoughts during the run than I normally do, but managed to distract myself with wedding planning. It worked for a while, but when I went back to thinking about the run I was just annoyed. I knew it wasn't as fast as I've been and that sort of bummed me out.

Of course during my run with Jen I told her how pleased I'd been with my training thus far and totally jinxed it. Ok, so I don't really believe in this, but maybe I should start.

Or maybe this is just an expected low point that everyone encounters in their training cycle and I'm just hitting mine? Overall I should not be too pissed about this run, it was still a pretty decent pace and I finished it. I'm going to put all negative thoughts out of my brain and just move forward.

TOTAL = 20 miles @ 8:28 pace, avg HR 171 bpm

***

The next couple of weeks are going to be bananas. I don't know if I'm going to have time to post here, so you'll just have to trust that I'm doing my runs and tapering properly. My parents and sister are coming in to stay with us on Saturday thru Wednesday, then we head up to Hood River from Wednesday-Sunday for the wedding activities. I think Josh and I are going to do a "mini moon" in Eastern Oregon from Sunday-Wednesday, so I'm basically out of pocket for a while.

One of my wedding guests booked her tickets for the wrong weekend but when she found out said she couldn't change her plans, so she's going to come up the weekend before the wedding anyway. WTF? She told me this a few days ago and I've been ignoring the topic all together. I should offer for her to stay at my place this Friday night but I have soooo much to do. I wanted to see her, but at the actual wedding, NOT THE WEEKEND BEFORE. How does this happen? Also, some guests have not RSVPed yet or responded to repeated bugging by both of us. How rude, right? The damn event is less than two weeks away for god sakes.

I'm blown away by all of the last minute stuff we have to handle. I was an insomniac again last night thinking about everything. I finally got to sleep around 2:00 a.m. If this persists, I am not giong to survive the next few weeks. I am so excited for everything but also so sick of planning and making decisions. I am really looking forward to life in October when I'm married and have finished the marathon. I'm going to take it REALLY easy then. Lots of pampering, drinks, food and non-wedding stuff.

My next few weeks of training look like this:

Week 8:
M = off
T = 8 miles VO2 max
W = 5 easy
Th = off
Fri = 4 easy (however, Jen and I are going to run across the St. John's bridge to test out the only elevation point in the marathon course)
Sa = 8-10k race (will probably just do something else)
Su = 16 miles

Week 9:
M = off
T = 7 + strides
W = 8 w/3 VO2 max
Th = off
F = 5 easy (wedding day!)
Sa = off
Su = 12 miles

Week 10:
M = off
T = 6 easy
W = 7
Th = off
F = 5 easy + strides
Sa = 4 easy
Su = 26.2 - race day!

Sorry no pics this time - I swear I will have a load in the next month or so. For now, this is all I got.