Snow Storms and Marathon Training

I have missed more training days in the last 3 weeks than I took off this entire year combined. I need these never ending snow storms to stop, or a least give me 3 good days a week so I can trot out 3 hard workouts. My long runs have been few and far between, my tempo runs have been cancelled.. I have I normally run at least 7 miles a day. Now trotting out 4 miles on snow covered sidewalks feels like I'm running 10. I am in desperate need of a couple more good hard weeks of training. No end in sight. Note to self. The idea of running a marathon in South Carolina in January is great. Training for one in the winter time in Michigan is a bad idea. Continuing on...

Week 4 and 5 … Go!

I'n starting to feel good about things again. Starting to adapt to the stress of the slightly higher intensity and moving towards the halfway point at the end of this week. Last Saturday I knocked out a 19:23 5k in 20 mile per hour wind and 19 degree temperatures. Im about 2 minutes off where I should be right now, but seriously in late November who is really focused on time. It was hilarious to run hard in those temps. I was thoroughly warmed up and ready to go but after running the first 2 miles in sub 6 minute mile pace my body just couldn't deal with the icy cold wind to continue on at that pace. It was fun and good enough for 21st place.. After a day off I started my week of 7s. Mostly I ran different variations on the seven miler. One where I ran 3 of the 7 at 10k pace, one where I ran one mile of 7 @ 5k pace and the other two just my normal pace 2 easy running. I topped of my feeling great week with a silly post thanksgiving 19 miler that is bound to leave me a bit sore on Monday morning. Going to take a couple hard days off and start up again on Wednesday with a hard 10k. The fun continues.

Charleston Week 3

Its time to get this right. I have learned my lesson in these last two weeks. When you are exhausted you need take a rest day. This seems like an easy lesson to learn, but grinding yourself into the dirt is a difficult habit to break. I am a grinder. I enjoy working myself into a puddle and reaping the fitness benefit weeks later. Last night I ran a nice 10k in the dark with a friend from Striders, and a random ultra marathoner visiting on business. We comfortably talked about our training plans as we clipped off mile after mile at around 7:18 pace. It was nice. I need to build up my confidence to go out with the lead pack and just stick with them, but for now my focus is about getting back into really good shape and slowly getting faster. For my 6x800 meters I took to the roads for half of them and finished the last 3 on the track. Not much to say here. I tend to feel like crap running on day 2 of any week. My 800s were run @ 6 mpm or slightly under. 2 mile wo / 2 mile cd Day Three - Took Friday off. Hip Flexor was a little tight and there is no reason to not try a day off here. Day 4 wo/cd 2 miles 4.5 miles @ 7:20 pace Day 5 am easy 4 miles shakeout pm Im starting to realize how much better I feel running 90 percent of my mileage around my marathon pace or faster. Im not running a bunch of easy junk miles and then burning myself out by running everything else at my 2 mile pace. Starting to become accustomed to running consistently harder. Skipping the tempo run this week to just get a nice healthy week done without grinding myself into the ground. Racing on Saturday will be enough stress on my body.