So I started a blog for my uncle who is in the hospital and now I think I may be hooked on this blog concept. I'm going to start chronicling my training so that my training partners can see how far ahead of me they are :-). Seriously, this concept of journaling and sharing it with interested readers is fascinating to me.
So right now I'm training for the Boston Marathon which is run on Patriot's Day in the New England states. The tradition with Boston is that the marathon is run the third Monday in April which marks this holiday. New Englanders observe it as a holiday and people come from all over the state to watch the running of this oldest and most prestigious marathon.
I was lucky to barely qualify for this race last year when my running friends and I went to St. George, UT to run the marathon there. I barely squeaked by and got a 3:49 qualifying time. For my age group, I need under 3:50 to qualify which is about an 8:45 pace. Much slower than in my younger days but these days I am thankful for the extra cushion of time as I seem to need it!
Anyways, I've been training off and on since about December 2010 and thank goodness for my training partners. We've been diligently meeting weekday mornings at 0530 am to get in our runs. Luckily with the time change this weekend we will "spring forward" and have some light in the morning. The bummer is we lose an hour of sleep Saturday night.
As of today, we have a little under 6 weeks to go before the 115th Boston marathon. My training has consisted of 5 days of running a week. Typically I run Mon/Tues/Thurs/Sat/Sun. If I am lucky, I cross train on Wed. and take Fridays completely off. I was debating whether I should do the "Hanson" running plan which has you running 6 days a week but I figured that was just too much for me. I've never been a high mileage runner and even running 5 days/week is a lot for this old body.
We are in the high season right now. Weekday runs range from 4-7 miles even though I know they should be more like 6-8 miles but I barely have enough time to squeeze in a run before I have to shower and get to work. This early morning stuff is brutal but at least it provides me with energy for the day. Saturday runs are LSD - Long Slow Distance. I downloaded "RacePace" an iPhone app which provides training paces based on your ideal marathon finishing time goal. According to the app, I should be running my long runs at 9:06-9:56. Lately, that has been the case with me averaging 9:00 or 9:05 pace on my long runs. Oddly enough, my Sunday recovery runs of 4-5 miles have been at a faster clip - like a 8:50 pace. Mondays are complete trash for me.
Today I did a treadmill run and as much as I despise treadmills I had no choice as it was cold outside and I only brought shorts and a t-shirt and knew I would freeze if I attempted to run the bike path near the gym. It went by surprisingly quickly. Of course I had my iPod shuffle with me along with the 4 tv stations provided by 24 hour fitness. I like to catch up on the news when I run. It's all depressing but good to know how crazy Charlie Sheen is or to know what to wear to work for the week.
My last long run of 20 miles was tough. The first 18 felt easy but the last few miles I dragged. We ran from Moonlight Beach in Encinitas to the top of Torrey Pines hill. Tough, tough, climb. I am terrible on hills. Anyone who knows me will tell you that. But I'm slow and steady and I don't look up. Baby steps. I can tell I have a few blood blisters underneath my 2nd toes. No matter how big a toe box I get I always seem to get blood blisters. Sigh.
this weekend I'll scale it back down to 16 miles. We're going to do the Oceanside Pier trail. My friends, Cherl and hopefully Kelly will be joining me.
Okay, enough for now. More tomorrow.
Helen
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