Day 47,48,49&50

Day 47 and 48 I spent on the 2nd annual Lake Shelbyville houseboat trip. Had a lot of fun but my diet suffered. 48 hours of straight binge drinking and steak sandwiches really did a number on the body. I tried to at least get some crosstraining in by doing some swimming. Spent much of Sunday feeling ill. I considered running when I got home but decided it would be best to just wait till tomorrow.

Day 49...

7 weeks of training complete. 11 weeks to go. Time to reflect on the weeks gone past and weeks to come.

Still plenty of time before the marathon... on the bright side, that's plenty of time to get more training on; also, plenty of time to get hurt. Lately, I haven't been experiencing a lot of the soreness and twinges that I was having earlier in my training. Hopefully, this is a good sign that I'm starting to get into running shape. I just have to make sure that I don't forget all the problems I was having earlier in the year and go out and push it too hard!

The last couple weeks have been busy for me and I've skimped a little on the training. I haven't quite gotten all the miles in the intermediate plan calls for and I've lost a bit of focus from not strictly following the plan. As far as skimping on the milage I'm not too worried. I've gotten all my long runs in and I'd rather do undertrain then overtrain and get injured. The loss of focus seems to be a bit of a problem though. I think the next 5 or so weeks will be tough because it's kind of a no man's land of training... 11 weeks till marathon seems like a long time and with the 15k and half-marathon out of the way I'm running thin on short term goals.

Part of my strategy to get back focused is get back to strictly following the Hal Higdon plan. I'm also going to try and start running earlier in the morning. Part of my problem is that I'm having a hell of a time dragging myself out the door in the morning. I delay and delay and by the time I finally get out it's mid-afternoon (i.e. hot and muggy). When I finally get the run in it usually goes well and I feel better afterward. It's just a matter of getting out the door. So one goal for the next 5 weeks is for me to get out the door and running by 9:00 am every morning.

Another goal for the next 5 weeks is to lose some weight. When I started seriously training for the marathon 7 weeks ago I was under the false impression that I would lose a ton of weight simply from all the running I would be doing. This has proved to be untrue. First off, my 25-30 miles a week only burn about a pounds worth of calories to begin with. Also, the running has made me hungrier and I wind up eating more than I used too. A lot of people on different forums claim that they usually gain weight during marathon training because they wind up eating more. Luckily this has not been the case for me, but I haven't lost any either. My ultimate goal is to keep training past the Chicago marathon and eventually get back into competitive running shape. Part of reaching this goal is going to have to involve getting my weight down. At my running peak as a senior in high school I weighed about 140. Now I'm at 175. I don't think that I'll ever get back down to 140, but I think that 155 is probably attainable. Right now however, I'd like to shoot for 165. If I can lose 2 lbs a week for the next 5 weeks I think that I'll gain a good bit of speed in my marathon pace just from not having to tow the extra weight along. I'm not planning on starving myself or anything but I am going to try to eat a lot more clean. Since my garden is producing, I think I'll have a daily salad. This will help fill me up at dinner without over indulging. Also, I'm cutting out any desert and alcohol. Finally, I'm going to limit snacking during the day. Hopefully with these small changes and the steady increase in milage I can slim down.

Anyway enough ranting... here my training from the last two days.

Day 47 (July 27, 2009)
Distance: 4.01 miles
Duration: 35:40
pace: 8:53
HR Avg/Max: 149/168
notes:

Couldn't get motivated to run so I finally drove to Bradley park to force myself out of the house and for a change of venue. I was still pretty tore up from the weekend so I took it pretty easy. Even the 8:53 pace felt laborious but the venue was nice. Ran through the park and then through some of the nicer old neighborhoods in Peoria and the Bradley campus. By mile 3 I was feeling a little better and I wound up enjoying my last mile which was another loop through the park.


Day 48 (July 28, 2009)
Distance: 7.0 miles
Duration 57:12
pace: 8:10
HR Avg/Max: 153/182
notes:

It was a hot and humid run. I took the first mile casual and then pushed the pace. Mile 5 started with a big hill (700 ft elevation over about a half mile distance) this kicked my heart rate up into the 170's and I decided to push the pace the rest of the way in order to keep the HR up. I ran my final mile at a 7:15 pace and my heart rate slowly climbed up to 182 by the end of the run. I feel good now and hope that I am getting my focus back.