Must keep up!

This is for my own benefit.
Marathon is over. I hurt my foot rather badly around mile 13, and by 17 I was in serious pain. This was after many stops to massage foot. I did finish, but angry and at 6:13 and some. But I did finish.
Since then, I've been recovering well.
Monday - Wednesday I rested. I mean rested. Didn't leave the couch, much less my house. Slept as much as I could and ate well.
Thursday I went for a short @ 2 mile run. Followed by a long walk around Georgetown
Friday I took most of the day slow. All the activity the day before did have a toll on me. But I did do the static bike for about 2.5 miles and lifted some weights.
Saturday I went with my parents to Great Falls National park, and although there weren't many easy running trails and I didn't have a watch, I must have run around 2 miles again. Beautiful spot with great views!
Today, Sunday I went for my first real run. I went about 1:20 or so. I took it slow and stopped to walk twice. I suppose I ran somewhere between 6.5-7 miles.
I feel rather sore, but my foot has been perfectly fine since the day after the marathon. Thanks to an ice bath, elevation, and a nice rub. Figures!

So far, this week

Monday I crossed trained rather lightly. I did a stationary bike for about 20 minutes and lifted some weights with my upper body only and some sit ups. I wanted to give my body, mainly my legs, time to recoup. My foot was quite sore as was my left leg where it joins the hip by the butt area.
Yesterday, I just could not get going for some reason, so I ended up talking the day off. I'll just run through the week, skipping Friday's rest and it will all balance out.
I realized that a big part of why I hadn't been feeling my best is that I've been forgetting my medicine for at least 3 days. So today I took it and went out for a bit of an unpleasant 5 miler (my mood was still awful, but I got it done). By the time I got back home, my mood was improving, so I went to lift some weights with my entire body this time. It helped, because I could see my muscles defining themselves both on my legs and my arms.
Tomorrow I have a busier day than I'm used to, so I have to get the run in in the morning. This means, I have to be out no later than 8 am. It is only 6 miles, so I should be able to handle it without too much trouble.

20 miler

I spent a few moments going over what I did write about last year's training, and it looks like my 18 miler, although painful, was much better last year. I have no record of how I did on 20 milers. Today I finished the only 20 miler of my training in a bit under 4:30 hours, which seemed good until I noticed that last year's 18 miler took me less. But I chose to compare this training season to itself, as last year I didn't have the health issues I did this time around. Also, I finished the 20 miles in much less time (about 35-40 mins) faster that the 18. All in all, I feel ready. I am really in not much pain, aside from my foot.
GOOD TIMES!

The tough week begins

This week is peak week. Last week's long run was a 12 miler and the one before was 18 (had I been sticking to my Intermediate I plan it would have been 20 also, but it gave me time to recover).
Yesterday, I did what I said I would do, and had a nice easy 20 on a stationary bike and some weight training, plus some house cleaning (it helps if I make that part of working out :))
Today I had a 5 miler, which I forced my self to do in one go, i.e. no walking breaks. For crying out loud, I used to do 12 milers like that and at 10 miles an hour!
I still clocked over an 11 minute mile, but at least I kept the run under an hour.
I also had a promising job interview, we'll see what comes of that later.
Tomorrow is an 8 miler, which I intend to take a bit slow, but also try to do in one go. Breaks are fine, and necessary for strategy, but I need the endurance. I realize it is a bit late in the game, but I figure if I can ace this week, I"ll be good.
I'm toying with the idea of only tapering for two weeks as opposed to 3. I'll decide that next tuesday, see how I feel a couple of days after the 20.
This is a lot of work, but I still have fun!

Getting Back

I'm in the final month of marathon training and haven't kept a diary, and I keep hearing that it is useful, so here we go, starting with this ending weekend.
9/26 I did a 10K race just to see how I did and did terrible. I had a seriously slow time of 1:8:30. I felt horrid afterwards, but proceeded to run up hill for another mile 1/2 to fulfill my quota for the day. The weather was perfect, and I didn't feel in pain, just slow. I have been running rather slowly these days anyway, but I thought this would help. I did eat a very modest meal of artichokes, a little brown rice and a tomato salad, this might have been part of the problem. The other problem was there were few people cheering along, and that makes a difference.
9/27 12 mile long run. I did it mostly comfortably, did need to take quite a few walking breaks and it did take 2:45 minutes, which is again, way too long. I also noticed I started getting hungry around the last 4 miles. I have to remember always to eat something. My foot was sore and also my knee hurt (left leg).
9/28 Cross training day, but I still have the soreness. I'm planning to take it slow and also clean the house.
Good news, I'm finally losing weight! I've lost about 8 lbs since late August! Hope yesterday's pizza doesn't counteract too much.

It is time, again!

So, I decided to run a second marathon, which of course means, a second bout of training, which began this week. Monday was cross train day, so I went to the gym and used the stationary bike for a half hour or so, then lifted weights for about an hour.
Today was a 3 miler, and that's all I did, aside from walking up to the store twice (about .3 miles away) as I am trying to look after my visiting mother who clearly has food poisoning due to a 3 day old burrito, the poor thing. Good news is, she's been laying down and sleeping for the last couple of hours without bathroom trips. I take this to mean the nasty part is over.