Fitness Friday

Another peak weak in training, and this girl is dog tired. I don't think there's enough coffee today to save me. Send an IV, stat!

Saturday - 6 miles, steady pace work out. Since my training program believes that running over 3 hours during training starts to negate your fitness gains, most of the runners (including myself) only see 16-18 miles as their longest long run in their training cycle. The way that they replicate the accumulated fatigue of a 20+ miler is to have a steady run the day before. So for me, it was 1 mile warm up, 4 miles at 8:40-8:50 pace, 1 mile cool down.

My watch has been losing satellite and being all kinds of goofy lately, so I ended up having to use the Mapmyrun (MMR) app on my phone at mile 2 for the rest of the run. Since I wasn't going to stare at my phone the entire time, I basically had to run this by feel which meant that my pace was kind of all over the place. So those steady miles were 8:31, 8:40, 8:50, and 8:44. But I got it done and took care of business on the fly.

Sunday - This run was originally planned to be 16 miles, with marathon surges: 6 x 90 sec @ 8:10 pace, 5 min rest at 8:55 in between starting at mile 9.

From the start, this run was a comedy of errors. Tummy trouble almost immediately that called for pit stops at both mile 5 and 7, then my fuel belt kept popping off mid stride. I finally got settled in and started the surges at mile 9, successfully completing 5 of them roughly at 8:00 min average with the rest periods being around 8:45-8:55, when my Garmin flashed "lap database error". Great. It stopped tracking me, reverted back to December 13th, and said that I had run 21 miles. Uh....no. So I took a break to regroup a little and figure out what I should do. I turned on my MMR app again, but I wasn't sure how far I'd gone at that point since I was so wrapped up in the timing of the surges. I figured I had about 7 miles to go, so I used my watch to time my last surge and ran that by feel before settling back into an easy pace. I got my watch to pick up satellite again with 5 miles to go, so I figured I'd at least be able to see my pace in real time.

When I got home, I plugged my route into the map feature on MMR. It said that I had actually run about 19.25 miles. Whoops. Apparently I was a little farther along then I originally thought when I started having my tech problems. I probably could have figured out how far I'd gone a I was just running an out & back course, but math on the fly is not my strong suit. Ah well, I ended right around 3 hours - I think. I also wasn't sure exactly what time I started running, but I figured it was around 6:25am and I ran till 9:30am. Good enough.

Monday - A very slow, easy 5.5 miles on the bike averaging 12.5mph. I was a little sore this morning, but actually not as much as I thought I'd be. Hooray for ice baths, foam rolling, stretching and plenty of couch time. But I am definitely glad to not be running today.

Tuesday - 9 mile cutdown: 2 mile warm up, then 6 miles at 9:15, 9:05, 8:55, 8:45, 8:35, 8:25, 1 mile cool down. I was tired from the get-go with this run, and really was not sure that I'd be able to hit the paces. Somehow I managed to muscle through it, but it definitely left me drained. Paces were: 9:39, 9:29, 9:12, 9:02, 8:53, 8:41, 8:38, 8:26, 10:13. I made sure I went to bed early enough the night before to get in 8 hours (bed by 7:20pm, asleep by 8:00pm, up at 4:15am), but I know the rest of the day will be a caffeine ride on the struggle bus. Running in the evening is just not fun or easy for me though, so it is what it is.

Wednesday - Yoga! I am starting to feel all kinds of stiff and sore with the increase mileage, so I thought my Yoga for Runners DVD would really help. It did, but it always makes my legs feel really heavy afterwards.

Thursday  - 8 miles easy at 9:43 average pace. This was hot and humid, and although I started off too fast, the humidity put me in check pretty easy. My hamstrings were bugging me Tues & Wed, but this morning it was my quads that were barking at me. What gives?

Friday - Another 8 miles easy, average around 9:38 pace. The most exciting thing about this run was that it was a brisk 47 degrees. Love! My quads are feeling a little better, thanks to a lot of stretching during the day. However, our power was out for 4 hours last night, which lead to a crappy night of sleep for me. Also, we went out to dinner last night and I probably (definitely) overindulged, which made for an unhappy tummy this morning. Not the greatest run, but it's done. Now I need to find a quiet place to nap.

Also, a quick note on marathon training and eating. A lot of people said that I would be hungry all the time. I'm not, but I know I should be eating. Which leads to overeating (because I'm not hungry to begin with). I'm a little sick of this cycle, but I don't really know what to do about it. The struggle is real! Also, I've gained 6-8 pounds, which I am really unhappy about.

How's your training going? Are you hungry all the time from running?