And My First Injury!

Well, it had to happen and I'm glad its earlier in training. My calves (notably the right) has been bothering me on and off the last two weeks. Last night, I had a 5 mile run I had to do on the treadmill. (88+ outside) The run went fantastic.....I ran around a 9:15 pace, and it was very very easy. I could have easily run much further or faster. This morning I woke up and stepped out of bed on my right leg. I almost went down to the ground! Now, I can walk on it but there is moderate pain and discomfort in the ankle/achilles area. I dont know if I strained the tendon or what, but it was enough of a warning sign to lay off the 12 mile long run today. (I wouldnt have made it) Ill see how it goes the next couple days (tomorrow is another off day). Next week my mileage was reducing, so it wont be much lost. Ill try and maintain by elliptical work/bike work to reduce the impact on the area or the swimming pool if that's even too much. Just wanted to leave a note. Wish me Luck!

Week Two Down!

Another week of training down...both weeks I ran all of the runs scheduled although the long runs were run at a slower pace then I would have liked due to the heat. (its been brutal) Here's the breakdown for the week.....

Monday - 4 mile run @ 9:29 pace
Tuesday - 4.5 miles Hills
Thursday - 5 miles @ 9:48 pace
Friday - 5 miles @ 9:45 pace
Saturday - 9.0 miles @ 10:19 pace

This week is going as planned so far. I have been plagued with what started out as moderate calf/shin pain, especially on the right leg. That has pretty much dissipated now, and is only an issue when running on the treadmill or hard surface for an extended period of time. Next week is week 4 anyway, and I am reducing my mileage by a 40-50%. I think Ill do that every 4 weeks to allow my body to adjust to the increased training.

On a sore note, my HRM had to go in for repair. For whatever reason, the button used to start exercises is sticking pretty bad. The repair is pretty simple from what I've heard and doesn't come back, but I had to get it in before the mileage really started piling on. In addition, I was losing HR data 2/3 into my longest runs, but suspect that may have been due to a dying battery in the main unit itself. Ill see when I get it back. (should be next week or so)

Even though its still July and the Crim in Flint is still over a month away, I am really starting to get excited for it. I have reduced my race schedule dramatically this year, with a ramp up starting in August. I am somewhat worried about what the heat will be like in August, but its a 10 miler this time, and I think my wife may be running it too. (although that hasn't been confirmed yet)

Well, that's it for this week....hopefully the weather cools down just a little bit and the injuries stay away! Happy Running All!

Calories!

Now, I am not one that normally counts calories. I run quite a bit during racing season, and assumed I was eating enough and not too much. Just to see where I was at, I signed up on Livestrong.com. This has allowed me to add in everything I eat during the day and get a breakdown of how many calories I'm eating and break it down into categories such as protein, carbs etc. The really cool thing is while setting up your account, it asks you what level of activity your job is. For myself, it is more of a moderate level of activity. This activity does not include your daily exercise routine which is added later. That way, if your job is real physical, then your calorie goal will be higher.

The last two days, I have seriously lacked on the calorie ingesting amount, and frankly was surprised. My normal caloric intake is supposed to be somewhere near the 2200 level. I'm pretty good at keeping that level, but after my exercise burn is figured into it, I'm normally 400-600 calories short. For those people looking to lose weight, I guess that would be good although I think cutting 600 calories might be getting near a max on a 2000 calorie diet, but I'm no expert. Anyway, it really opened my eyes and is keeping me more aware of what I am eating. I've included a link to Livestrong in my list of sites. I don't know how long Ill use it, but for right now, its something I'm interested in following; especially to see how my weight is affected by watching this. (I really only want to lose 10 pounds....15 at the max)

Update of this Week

25 miles down this week! I felt great on every run until today, and that's the reason I'm adding another entry for the week. I woke up early this morning to make sure I got breakfast in (Cin. Life w/2% milk) Right before I took off, I chased down some Sunkist Gummy Snacks for a 100 calorie boost, and brought along a TriFruit GU just in case I needed it. Of course, I brought sportsdrink with me and was running a route that passed water fountains. The forecast today was the 70's up until around 11-12, where the temp would gradually climb to around 85 degrees. (and the humidity is climbing)

Well.....the forecast was incorrect. When I arrived at the TART trail, my vehicle read the outside temp as 76 degrees, and where I parked is only about 5 miles from my house. The first 4.5 miles of the run went without problems. It was hot and getting hotter, but I was downing fluid like I should and I took my GU at the halfway point. I went through a Nathans hand bottle of Sportsdrink, and probably 2-2.5 additional bottles of water, although its probably closer to two. I got to the point where I didn't want any more water, and was just putting it in my mouth and spitting it out to keep my mouth and lips wet. (salt crusted everywhere of course!) Granted, my running times were significantly slower then usual on purpose (about 1-1.5 min per mile slower) but I was doing the work. The last 4.5 miles is where problems started. I noticed that the temperature was significantly warmer then was forecast (it ended up around 83 at that point) and no matter how much water I was taking in, I noticed I was feeling worse and worse. I got about a mile from my car and noticed my hands and forearms had started swelling. Now for me, when this starts to happen I'm typically under hydrated or its too hot to really be running. Maybe its an electrolyte imbalance, or something else...all I know is when it starts to happen, I better be about done!

My whole point in the thread is to make sure you listen to your body. If you need to drink, by all means drink. Make sure you have adequate water or fluids along your route, and if your body is hinting to you that you should stop (dizziness, numbness, cessation of sweating, feeling ill etc) its probably a good time to stop or at least severely reduce the intensity of your run. (I would say stop....but of course that isn't what I did today) The difference with me today was I never experienced cessation of sweating or feeling real ill....I just didn't feel very good. Its important to stop before heat exhaustion or heat stroke set in. Once that starts to happen, your looking at a problem if your far from your vehicle or home.

I have included link about heat exhaustion, heat stroke and heat cramps for any ones review. It better to be safe then sorry!

How This for a Hill!!

Here it is...one of the hill runs I implement every week. This one is fun for half of it (the first downhill half!) and the second half is pretty hard, but it works out the muscles. As you can see by my cadence line, I had 4 reductions in cadence (aka walking!) One of them was waiting for traffic, one was the turn around at the half waiting to cross the road, and I will admit.....two of them were slowing down to a fast walk. Those two are pretty evident because they are on the way up the hill! This is a 4 mile route that is right off my house, so its very easy to schedule it in. I have a second run I sometimes do, but it significantly harder, and is 1.5 miles from my house. This adds three miles to my run, so until my hill run's climb to 7 miles (which they unfortunantly do, but not for at least three more weeks) Ill keep on the run I'm doing or do some trail run's I know of that have hills.

This graph also gives a pretty good indication of how this Polar I have works. As you can see, there is a line for HR which is nearer to the top and flatter except for area's where I started walking. The purple line is for elevation changes. I like that the watch gives you the ability to turn off the feature. If you have to run inside on the dreadmill, you can disable it so it doesnt crowd out the graph. Also, the watch has a finite amount of memory, and this helps to ensure you can save more to the watch. (it all uploads to the software eventually, and at that point you can erase the exercise one by one or all at once) The green line is the cadence monitor, or how fast your feet are turning over. The blue line is how fast your running it per mile. (Im sure you can change that per kilometer if you wanted. My FAVORITE part is the ability to pick out specific data (such as speed) and graph that over time. You can then see if your improving on your training. You can also do this for max heart-rate, average heart-rate, calories, energy expenditure, or any one of many other specific set's of data.

I have really decided to lay off of the racing for a little bit. My next race is the Crim 10 mile run in Flint at the end of August. As I've officially started my marathon running schedule, my mileage is going to start to ramp up and I don't feel like its probably very good to race that hard during training. (unless it happens to fall on a high mileage day) The Crim happens to fall on a day where I have a 15 mile long run, so I'm going to adjust my running that day that particular day to make it work.

As for the marathon running schedule, it's going well....better then I expected . I was expecting my legs would be sore but other then residual light quad soreness from the hill running, I feel pretty good. I already run 12 miles this week, and have a 4-mile 9-10:00/mile run today and a 9-mile run on Saturday. The 9-mile run is also supposed to be around the 10:08/mile timeframe, and we will have to see how that goes. I tend to run about a minute faster per mile then I should, so I'm going to have to really work at slowing down on the long runs. Typically, I take off too fast and run half of it about a minute per mile faster. The last half I end up walking in a couple points typically, and even though the run comes in at the goal pace, I don't know how well that is helping me out right now.

Well, that's it for now! Unless something dramatic happens, Ill continue to post about once a week and more during races and hopefully this training keeps going to way it has!

The Marathon Schedule Approaches!

Well, after a week off due to being out of town and enjoying it too much apparently, I have started the week off great. I wanted to post and mention a little about marathon training schedules.

What a maze of schedules to pick from! There are those schedules that a person only runs 3-4 days, and other where I've seen it all the way up to six. I've seen schedules that are as short as 8 weeks and as long as 18 weeks. (I discounted the longer ones then that) I've seen long runs of only 1 or 2 20 milers in a program, and those that go up to 23. So what did I choose? Well, I would love to break 4 hours in my very first marathon, but don't know if Ill be ready for it by October. I could have finished the half last year in certainly 2 hours, and likely 1:50, but not much faster then that. That time doesn't really bode well for a under 4 hour marathon. I have picked the Runner's World schedule to break 4:00 though. I have looked through the schedule, and can keep up the running at the pace desired until probably August. Then again, hopefully my fitness keeps up. Will I be totally devastated should I not break 4:00? Nope, not really. I just hope to finish the thing with hopefully all of my toe-nails and not crawling across the line. Since I've restarted running from the Mexico trip in April, I've already lost about 7 of the pounds I gained, and that's only with a 20-25 mile a week schedule with many easy runs.

I figure if I'm not ready for breaking 4:00, this schedule will definitely get me close to the goal. But you know I'm going to be on that 4:00 pace group!! I'll hang as far as I can, unless the pace is too quick right away.

On a much different note, my son is going to another school this coming year, and they offer track and field along with cross country. If he puts his mind to it, he's actually quite a good runner. (he's 15) He can belt out 6:00 minute miles without barely losing his breath. He wants to run with me this year, and I think Ill take him on my shorter 3 mile runs. I really would like to see what he can do. Personally, I can only run 3 miles between 21-23 minutes if I'm running fast and its flat. He wants to run on the track team, so I figure he can run with me and maybe I can give him some pointers.

That's it for this week! Until next week!

Another Week Down!!!

Much better week as far as training is concerned. Like I mentioned, I bit the bullet and registered for the Metro Health Marathon early, mainly because I didn't want to miss out on it by waiting too long, and secondly, the motivation factor. I have decided to pass on Charlevoix at the end of the month, but for a much different reason. I was going to register, but after checking out the fee's this year backed out. Its the same reason I'm backing out of the National Cherry Festival's races this year. Some races this year have increased there fee's or the fee's for the half and full marathon are significant jumps up from the other races. If the race is well organized, has enough aid stations etc etc....then its worth it. Am I going to pay over $60 for a race where there aren't a lot of aid stations, the only refreshment at the end of the race is water and the expo is non-existent? No....Now don't get me wrong, I don't really run for the perks, but if I'm going to pay near $100 for a race, there better be some perks!! If not....I can just go out and run the same distance on the weekends, or even worse....crash the race, which I don't condone. These races do cost money and that does peeve me off to see people running it and partaking in refreshments at the end who didn't pay.

Anyway, back to this week....

Sunday - 3 Mile run @ 9:26 pace

Monday - 3 Mile run @ 8:55 pace

Thursday - 800m intervals 8:00/mile pace on 800m with 2 min cool down. 3 miles in 800m intervals and 1.4 miles in warm up, cool down and in between.

Friday - 1.5 mile warm up @ 9:15 pace and 1.2 mile Elliptical Workout for about 18 minutes

Saturday - 7.4 mile run @ 11:17 pace....felt pretty beat up the whole run.

I work close to home for most of the week, but starting Friday, will be in Indiana for a little under a week. Ill likely run all through the week, but keep it real light throughout the week and try to get my long run in Thursday. I wont be running over the weekend, and to be honest, will probably be challenged to run next week at all, but we will see.

After a lot of thought though, I have decided to run the 10 mile run at the Crim in Flint this year. I typically don't run anything in August due to the heat, but I will be in the beginning of transitioning from half marathon to full training, so it will be a good run for the weekend. Ill try and talk by wife into that one as well, but that might be asking too much!!