You’ll have to wait until tomorrow (or Monday) for all the gory details and photos, but here are the highlights:

• I woke up at 4:30 am from a very vivid dream in which I ran a 3:34 marathon.  It was mildly frustrating because it was one of those dreams that you wake up exhausted from because it felt so real.  And on top of that, I felt 3:34 was unrealistic.
• Got to the starting line 10 minutes the gun went off race director yelled “Go.”  Cut it a little close, but it worked out.
• Enjoyed the beautiful weather and lovely course for most of the 26.2 miles
• Ran (nearly) the entire race for the first time.  I walked a couple water stations, but other than that, all running (or hobbling depending on how far along I was)
• Finished in (queue eerie music) in 3:34 and change!!! I can’t believe it.  It makes for a roughly 13 minute PR. I am still sort of in shock of the fact that I dreamed my time.

Now it is time to rest and ice my knee – it is extremely sore.  I am hoping that it is just tired and not injured. 

Thank you again for the well wishes.  It meant the world to me.

It is almost marathon time.  I would like to say that I am 100% ready, but this has been a crazy week and it is leaving me with doubts.  I am worried I tapered too much.  My exercise this week has been a complete fail – at least compared to what I usually do.  And it is affecting me both mentally and physically.  I have consistently been doing 10+ hours of training per week for months.  This week I am at a paltry 2 hours.  While I know I am supposed to rest and let the body heal itself, I am worried that I cut out too much.  Not biking or running on a daily basis has left me worn out (ironically), depressed, and mentally frustrated.  Although some of that worn out feeling and lack of mental function could be work related too.

It hasn’t helped that the pool has been closed since April 2nd.  I was banking on replacing my runs with some extra swims during my taper so that I could still exercise while still going easy on the legs.  The pool was supposed to be closed from the 2nd to the 7th, but when I went up there tonight, the closure got extended through the 8th.  Ugh.  Well, at least I can hopefully get an easy swim in tomorrow afternoon.

To top that off, I thought it would be a good idea to ram my knee into the dresser because I was too lazy to turn on the bedroom light.  Yep, not one of my smartest moments.  I did go on a 15 mile bike ride since then and it didn’t seem to bother me, but it is bruised and sore to the touch.

As for expectations, I really don’t have a firm goal in mind for the race, although a PR would be nice.  That would mean going under 3:47 which was my time at the Grand Rapids Marathon last fall.  Training wise, I trained much harder than I did for the Grand Rapids Marathon so this should be doable as long as I have a good day.  Overall though, I am just looking to get another marathon under my belt. 

The race itself looks like a good, low-key course.  It is basically an out and back course, so it could be kind of boring.  However, the elevation chart shows a relatively flat course.  Even though it looks like it goes uphill for the first half, it is only a rise of 50-75ft over the first 13 miles with only two 1% inclines.  And because it is an out and back course, you get the two 1% declines.

Check back this weekend after the race for a full race report.  I will be bringing along my #1 cheerleader and professional photographer, so anticipate plenty of pictures!

Time to look back before we can look forward though.

Last Week

I have thoroughly enjoyed this past week.  It was a light week and I got to rest my legs a bit.  I spent some extra time on the bike and doing core workouts.  I did my first “21” workout yesterday.  I found this work on Steve In a Speedo’s blog and it starts with 20 pushups and 1 crunch, followed by 19 pushups and 2 crunches, etc until you hit 1 pushup and 20 crunches.  In the end, it is 210 pushups and 210 crunches.  I took it nice and easy my first time through because I wasn’t sure if I would make it through.  Nevertheless, my arms were a bit rubbery today during my swim.  Next time, I will try and speed it up by taking shorter breaks between sets.

Last Month

Overall, I had a good month numbers wise despite it being a short month.  At the end of January, my goal was to spend more time biking this month and I met that goal.  Last month, I did 7 rides for 8 hours, 20 minutes.  This month, I knocked out 10 rides for 13 hours 23 minutes.  Not only that, but I was able to do my first outdoor ride to Grand Haven.  My running and swimming were a bit off from last month, but that is mainly because of two scheduled light weeks.  I also did about 10 strength workouts throughout the month.  I say “about 10” because I still haven’t found a great way of keeping track of these workouts – Sporttracks just isn’t doing it for me.

As for this month, more of the same.  I have one more long run this week – 22-23 miles.  After that, the taper begins for my marathon.  I took the final step yesterday and actually registered for the race.  Yeah, I know, I like to procrastinate.  I had until the 9th before the price went up so I figured I would wait until the bitter end to make sure my training was going as planned.

One last note.  I emailed the Honolulu Marathon race director to find out when the 2010 date was going to be (the website still has 2009 info).  December 12th is the date.  It looks like we have some planning to do now! YAY!

Nevertheless, I thought I would provide a quick update on how my training is going.

Long Run Friday

Last week saw a long run of 14 miles.  I actually felt pretty good on this run other than being starving.  I started the run later than I had wanted and ended up running through the lunch hour.  By the time I got home, I was famished.  I remedied this by consuming an entire frozen pizza.  This was also my longest iPod-free run.  Going into the run, I actually was dreading the distance and feared that I would be missing the music towards the end of the run.  Mile 12 is when I actually thought about the iPod.  And it wasn’t because I was missing it.  I basically thought, “Hmmm, this is about where I thought I was going to be wanting some music – I guess not.”

Long Ride Saturday

Saturday was a biking day.  I did 2 hours on the trainer; my longest effort on the trainer this season.  I tuned into the Ironman Kona coverage at 4:30 and hopped on the bike.  It made for good motivation to keep going.  I even found myself enjoying the commercials and not fast forwarding through them.  However, I wish the coverage would have been longer and that they would have focused on more age groupers. 

Sunday

I just had to do an easy 6 on Sunday.  After 14, the six felt like nothing.  I actually ended up just running wherever my feet took me.  It was probably the most meandering route I have done it a while, but it was nice to just cruise along without a care in the world.

Monday/Tuesday

Monday and Tuesday were off days for running.  I can’t remember that last time I took two days off running in a row.  Even after my last marathon, I was back two days later for a short 3 mile run.  However, I decided to follow the schedule and give my legs some rest.  It should be especially good for my hamstring which acts up on me every once in a while.

That said, I couldn’t simply do nothing.  So, instead of running, I have swam both days and biked on Tuesday.  On Monday, I did 2500 yards straight at the pool in about 45 minutes.  After the swim, I went out to lunch to Yesterdog with a couple guys from the pool.  Nothing like a couple of Yesterdogs to cancel out the benefits of a long swim.  Tuesday was another 2500 yards, but in 500 yard intervals this time instead. 

I followed up the swim on Tuesday with 60 minutes on the trainer.  Didn’t really want to do it, but I want to keep my legs (and butt) in shape for when I can bike outside again.

And On

The rest of week continues to be an easy week run-wise.  I’ll total out the week at only 18 miles which will be both weird and nice.

I probably won’t be back blogging until next week sometime after the holiday craziness winds down a bit.  Until then, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all!  I hope Santa brings everyone the Cervelo, Garmin, and other tri-gear they want!

Yes, I know the tree looks bigger than the car.  Getting it off the ground on on the car
was the hardest part of the whole ordeal

It was worth it though.  It is a perfect fit in our living room.
The actual decorating will come later this week.

After getting the tree setup, we spent the afternoon with the Jennie’s family.  It was a day filled with college football, fajitas, National Lampoons Christmas Vacation (hence the title of this post) – the greatest Christmas movie ever made, and gingerbread houses.

Jennifer showing off her work of art

After a weekend with limited exercise, I jumped back into the swing of things today with a 2900 yard swim followed by an 8 mile run.  I had hoped to get a swim in over the weekend to make up for missing Friday’s swim, but there was a USA Swimming event at the pool on Saturday and Sunday and no open swim. 

Today’s swim was mainly 200 yard intervals followed by 10 x 50 yard intervals.  I rounded out the intervals with some kick drills which really tired out my legs.  I didn’t realize how tired they were until I started my run.

Later in the afternoon, I headed out on my run.  I wasn’t planning on doing 8 miles today, but I decided to switch up my marathon training plan.  Rather than following Hal Higdon’s plan again, I am switching to another plan I found here.  I like this schedule a little better because the rest weeks have an extra day off for rest and it incorporates 22-23 mile run rather than only 20 milers.  We’ll see how it goes, I’ll keep you posted!

I ended up finishing the run in just under an 8:00 min/mile pace, so I can’t complain.  My legs felt very heavy and lethargic though.  I think I overdid it with the kick drills in the pool today.  I’ll have to plan better in the future so that I can make the most out of my runs during marathon training.

And finally, a huge congrats to Alli and her friend Roxanne for finishing her first marathon – the Memphis Marathon – on Saturday.  She kicked butt and is already looking to do another one.

So, that makes today the first day of the training plan.  I think I am going to modify the plan a bit and cut it back to 4 days a week of running coupled with continued swimming and biking to round out each week.  Rather than doing two light workouts (Tuesdays and Thursdays on the schedule), I’ll instead do one speed workout.  This should allow me to fully prepare for the marathon without losing any of the base I have built up for when triathlon season starts back up.

Part of my decision came from motivation from fellow bloggers; both directly and indirectly.  From the direct “Do the marathon!” to reading about others’ experiences it pushed me to go for it.  I was inspired by one blogger who trained for the Twin Cities Marathon with a long run of 9 miles coupled with CrossFit training.  Her result was a 3:31 finish – very impressive!

As for training, I am horrible at tapering, but I am going to try and take it a bit easier this week.  I will still get out every day and do something whether it is a short run, bike or swim.  It keeps me sane.  I simply can’t just sit around and do nothing.  Knock on wood, but my stomach has been incident free for the past couple of days, so hopefully that keeps up for this weekend.

Stay tuned!

Today, my goal was to do an 8-ish mile run just to get the miles in.  I ended up doing 7.5 miles in 59:48 accompanied by the lovely Jennifer on the bike.  I really thought the course was going to be the full 8, but my distance estimations must have been a bit off.  Nevertheless, it was a very strong run.  There were 3 decent sized hills and I was able to push it all the way to the top without feeling sluggish.  In fact, two of my fastest three miles included hills: 7:44 and 7:47 respectively.  I had a strong finish as well with another sub 8 mile and a 6:59 pace for the final half mile.

This run put me above 30 running miles for the week again.  I am aiming to do a fall marathon of some sort, so it is good to get this base mileage in.  I haven’t decided which marathon, but the Grand Rapids Marathon will probably be my fall back because it is in town.  The OBX Marathon sounds like a lot of fun, but I don’t know if I am up for the travel.  Either way, I really need to nail down a decent training schedule for the next few weeks.  I am sure that I can get my mileage up where I need it to be, but I like to have weekly goals written down so that I don’t get off target.  In the past I have followed Hal Higdon’s wonderful training plans, so I may just use those again.  However, I was thinking of trying something new that I read about in Runner’s World a few months ago.  The gist was to focus less on long runs (18 – 20 miles) and more on medium distance quality ones (12 – 16 miles).  It even suggested that rather than doing a 20 mile run, to do back to back 12 miles with the second day at a faster pace than the first.

Weekly Report

Birthday Wishes

On a completely unrelated note, Happy 26th Birthday to the bestest, most wonderful, wife, supporter, and best friend.

 
A cake complete with a tub and a half of frosting and Jennie’s first wetsuit

Yesterday was an easy 6 miles around Gaslight Village and Aquinas.  I had only planned on doing 4 or 5, but felt pretty good and was keeping the pace light, so I figured why not.  Plus, with all the unhealthy eating out I had to do the previous two days, followed by sitting in an airplane for 6 plus hours, it just felt good to be moving.

On to today.  I started off with a 3000 yd swim; my longest ever.  I did one of the workouts from the Swim Workouts for Triathletes book.  It consisted of 6 x 75 for a warm up followed by intervals of 2 x 200, 1 x 100, 2 x 300, 1 x 100, 2 x 400, 1 x 100 and a 6 x 75 cool down.  After the swim, I got a bit of work done and mowed the lawn before I headed out on a run.  I ended up doing a little over 10 miles.  It was great weather for it – overcast and not too warm.  It really feels great to be able to tackle these long runs again.  At this rate, I think I can be ready for the Grand Rapids Marathon in October.

Not sure what the plan is for this weekend (other than celebrating the lovely Jennifer’s big 2-6), but depending on how I feel, I may try to get in a longish bike ride and another medium distance (8 miles or so) run.  Hopefully the weather cooperates.