week 11 was a success

This week I completed all of my scheduled miles and it was relativley easy to do. 26 was the magic number. next week I have 29 miles with a 14 mile long run. I planned out all the rest of my long runs on the map from my logging site. Its crazy when you map out those 18-20 mile runs. It really puts it into perspective how far that actually is. I pretty much have to run around pensacola.

My fundraiser has been sitting at 225$ and my goal is 300$ I guess I need to get creative to raise the last 75 bucks. Any suggestions?

On a good note, My legs have been feeling great. I never would have thought I would be feeling this good this time last month. My motivation was super low and I was really bummed out. Every time I took off for a run my legs hurt so bad I could hardly run. Now, with my legs feeling good I have much more motivation and its looking more and more like I can handle an avg. pace of 10:00 min miles during the marathon.



Eric

Hit with the FLU

This week sucked. Tuesday I started feeling like shit and woke up Wednesday morning really feeling like crap. I had all the symptoms of a flu and it didn't go away until Saturday. Friday I managed to run 4 miles and felt pretty bad the rest of the day. Today I woke up and was going to do my scheduled 12 miler but changed my mind as I think I would benefit more from a 5 miler and just dish this week up as a bad week. For better terms Ill call it my cutback week. I'm going to "redo" my plan for last week this week. I will make it happen no matter what or how I feel. I cannot afford to keep missing these miles. I have about 8 weeks left until my marathon and the last 3 weeks are my taper weeks, as it stands now I might even taper for only 2 weeks.

Total miles this week: 8.8

Eric

Finally hit my scheduled miles

Looking back at the last few weeks I see that I have not ran nearly the miles that I hoped for. This month I am going to be a few miles shy of 60 miles. To put that into perspective, last month (the hottest month of the year) I ran 77 miles. Hopefully I can stick to what I have planned. October will be my biggest month ever with 111 miles. My legs are feeling much much better and even though it is depressing to see my lack of runs for September, I feel like it was worth it in the end. I needed those rest days.

Back to this past week...... here are my runs.

• Monday~ 5.5 miles
• Wednesday~5.2 miles (ran this one in the dark, my last mile was an 8:10. felt really good to speed up a bit)
• Saturday~ 4 miles ( started at an easy pace and progressed to about 9:20 pace)
• Sunday~ 9.75 Miles ( oops, supposed to be 10)

I didn't wear my HR monitor on any runs this week, but this coming week I will wear it and see if my HR at certain paces are lower than before. I feel like things are FINALLY starting to come around as my runs are becoming easier and less painful, I feel comfortable at somewhat faster paces. I am excited to see what October has to bring.

Total miles this week: 24.5
Total in training: 139.9

Eric

2 days late and a couple dollars short

.......Of miles that is. Umm yeah about that, I didnt quite get all my miles in last week. I woke up to late on Sunday for my long run which was suppose to be 10 miles. To make up for that I was going to run home yesterday from work which was about 10 miles but had to get picked up around the 5.5 mile mark to take Zach to the emergecy room for a bug bite. last week I was supposed to run 23 miles and ended up at 11.5. Pathetic. It has been so hard to hit all my scheduled runs in. Hopefully this week will pan out better.

Week 7

Running these last few weeks has more or less been a constant battle. I took two breaks about 4 days long to heal my leg pain. So far it has worked. My last 3 runs have been completly pain free even at the begining of my runs, which is a cause for celebration. Im not sure what was wrong with me or if it will come back but it is completly holding me back from doing any type of speed work. I feel like if i speed up the least little bit i wont be able to run the next day and It will induce my shin pain. A few weeks ago, I felt that a 4 hr marathon was not going to be possible unless this month had turned around for the better and was pain free. Well, that didnt happen, it got worse and I had to take extended breaks between runs, and when I did run it was super slow, like 11 to 11:30 paces. What all this lead to was a very slow torturous 7 mile run this morning where I had to take about 5 walk breaks and a huge blow to my 4 hour marathon asperations. Since this last month has not gone the way I had hoped I am probably going to throw a goal time out the window and just hope and pray I can stay pain free. As long as I can do this with out hurting myself I will enjoy the hell out of this marathon.

Baton Rouge does not seem like it took to big of a hit so Im sure it will still be a go ahead on December 6th. I missed one of my runs this week which was my mid week medium run of 4 miles (Im in my cutback week). This next week I have 26 miles planned if I get them all in. That is the hardest part about all of this is sticking to a strict schedule and being so damn busy. Pretty much what I have been doing is to have a plan for the week and just hope I have the time to get them in. Now I am starting to run longer on wednesday for my medium long runs (8-10) miles, so Im going to have to get creative. Any ideas?

Here is this weeks runs:

• Mon~3 miles
• Sat~3.4 Miles (Marine Corps 5k, Ran with 1200 marines.)
• Sun~6.9 Miles (1:19 min, felt dehydrated and took some walking breaks)

Total : 13.3 for the week (it was a cutback week)

Eric

break

This week I got one run in. Wednesday when I took off on my 6 mile run I had really bad pains in my lower legs, I kept going and figured it was the same as all my other runs and would go away. Well, it never did and i had to cut my run back and took the fastest way back and ended up being 4.5 miles. I havent ran since because I think it would benefit me more by taking the rest of the week off. In the morning I am going to try running again and see what happens. Im crossing my fingers. It really is frustrating to keep going through this.

This week I am going to start going to the gym. Maybe strenght training is what I am missing. I also want to start doing some cross fit workouts.

that is all for this week, I hope next week turns out better and I can get through this week without hurting. Good luck me.

Eric

week 5 of 18

This was the first week of my build week and i finally went over 20 miles. I have been trying to pick up the pace a bit but I am still not "feeling" it. I was hoping to be feeling alot lighter by now, which only happens now and then like at the end of my 5 mile run on Friday, I wanted to keep going because it felt so easy. Friday at 4:30 AM I ran with the marines again and we did 5 miles. there were somwhere around 1200 of them and we were all in a big formation. We averaged a 9:40 pace and it felt easy. maybe because it was not hot yet. Today I ran 10 miles at what is supposed to be an easy pace, and normally it would be easy but it was just so dang hot I was pushing to keep in the low 10 min pace. My average HR for my long run was 189 (zone 5). Normally when I am running that pace my HR is in the low 180's. The last 5 miles I stayed in the mid 190's. I am using cliff shot blocks during my long runs for anything at or over 10 miles. they really help, and they are tasty too.

Next week I have another build week meaning I am going to pick up the pace a little bit and mid week I have a 6 mile tempo run planned then 12 on Sat or Sun.

Today while running I realized that a 4 hr marathon was probably not going to be in my scope, However, I am not going to move away from that goal, That is still my "A" goal. I really want that time for some odd reason and I refuse to let that go, I think within the next month or so I will be able to know more about where I stand. It will also be alot cooler (50's) at the time of the race and all this running in the heat, alough discouraging, is really helping.

Also, I may have to not only change the date of my marathon but also change the marathon itself. I have been told that I will be going to west virginia on that weekend so I looked up other marathons for around that time. The closest one I could find is the Baton Rouge marathon in Louisiana on December 6th, That is if good ole Gustuv doesnt blow it off the planet. I guess Ill find out soon.

• Wed ~5.4 miles (10:16 pace, HR 183)
• Friday~ 5 miles (940 pace, no HR monitor)
• Sunday~ 10 miles (10:24 pace Avg, HR 189)

Total for training: 85.6 miles
Total this week: 20.4 miles

Eric

week 4 of 18

This week I did not complete my scheduled miles. I missed a 3 mile run on Friday. It has been a weird week with this tropical storm. I wasnt sure I was going to be able to make my long run today because the weather was supposed to be worse today as the backside of tropical storm Fay came through. But, I woke up to the sun with mild wind, It was perfect, so I headed out. Nothing interesting happend to me on my route today. Usually with that route somthing weird happens to me. mostly involving dogs. So far my training has been going ok, I was hoping to be feeling a bit faster by now and it hasnt happend yet. In the past it usually comes out of the blue and i feel light on my feet and fast. I am having a hard time with running my goal marathon pace. But I have also been running alot of them during the hottest part of the day.

I am officially done with my base phase and going into my build phase. I havent changed much besides two things. One, my miles are going to start getting longer and two, my mid week run, along with getting longer, I am going to start doing some tempos and marathon pace runs (9:00 miles), along with doing some strides at the end of every run especially my long runs.

here is my runs this week

• Monday 3.1
• Thursday 5.9 ( was supposed to be 6 but I wimped out and finished at the closest door at work cutting that 10th off. I dont want to make excuses but it was very hot)
• Friday- rest
• Saturday- tropical storm
• Sunday-9 @10:30 pace

total for the week: 18
total in training: 65.2

Eric

Another week down but cut back

This week I had a very low milage week. I intended on running 20 miles this week but my legs were not feeling up to it. My shoes were really worn out with about 200 miles on them and my shin pains were(are) starting to return. I bought some new shoes that are made for my running style(gait). I overpronate, meaning when my foot lands it bends inward causing my lower shins to hurt. That is the conclusion I came up with after lots of reading. The new shoes I got helps prevent overpronation so that should help ease my pain. So far I have run 9 miles on them and I can already tell they will help. Yesterday I finally got out for my "long run" (shortend up) and 2 miles into it the rain came pouring with 3 miles left. it felt great though. Friday I ran a 4 mile run with 1200 marines in formation at a 9:50 pace. Here were my runs for last week (posting late)

• Tuesday-3 miles (treadmill)
• Friday- 4.2 miles @9:50
• Sunday- 5.16 miles @ 10:14 pace

Overall, I'm glad that I took a cutback week even though it was not planned. I needed it and Im starting to feel better already. Here is the new kicks~~~~>http://www.saucony.com/ShoeDetails.aspx?gen=m&use=Run&id=1107&rel=1118,1110,1107,1148,1109,1140,1138,1104,1113,1041,1076,1058,1102,1067,1064,1062,1146,1134,1136,1152,1150

Total miles for week : 12.4
Total miles in training: 47.2

Eric

just finished up another week

This week was a success. I was able to get in all of my planned runs. I had a 5 miler and a 3 miler at the end of the week that I had to do at lunch and it was super hot. I keep trying to get out earlier because of the heat but it never happend. You would think that I would learn my lesson. However, I think that after my runs in the heat I feel lighter on my feet when its cooler.

Here are my runs for the week.

Mon-3 @30:00
Wed- 5, 50:55(No HR monitor)
Fri-3, (no watch or Garmin)based on feel it was probable @9 min pace.
Sun-7, 1:13 (181 Avg HR)

weekly total: 18 miles

On another note, here is a safety tip. Always run going against the traffic so when redneck assholes try and run you over you can get out of the way. As I kept my composure and kept running, I saw I trail of milwaukees best light on the side of the road. He probably threw them out his rear rednect truck window as he was leaving his trailer. At least that is what I imagined. He literally got over as far as he could and gunned it, I could hear his engine rev up through my headphones.

Thanks for everyone who has donated so far. I am only 100 dollars away from my goal.

Run safe,
Eric

Week 1 complete

The first of 18 weeks is complete. I finished up the week with a 6 mile (long run).
Mile splits:

1. 10:34 (Avg. HR 168)
2. 10:14 (Avg. HR 185)
3. 10:37 (Avg. HR 193)
4. 11:10 (Avg. HR 189)
5. 10:11 (Avg. HR 198)
6. 11:07 (Avg. HR 199)

Other than feeling out of shape and sluggish, I feel great as far as having no pain. As far as my HR goes, I'm not sure why it is that high. I new I have a very high HR for my age but that just seems crazy considering my slow pace. The only thing I can think of is the heat. It was probably about 85 degrees this morning. I also left a little late(8AM) so it had warmed up a bit. Next time I will get out earlier.

I have decided to raise money for a foundation called "Team World Vision". They give aid to children in Africa who are in need. Kids are dying everyday so I figure every little bit will help. I think that running marathons is a great way to give back.

Overall weekly Milage: 16.8

game plan

I have 4 weeks of base training. I figure since im just coming off an injury(shin pain) I want to ease back into it. These next 4 weeks are just going to be slow runs where I gradually build my milage and stamina. On my last run, I could feel the effects of just getting back into running. But, it shouldnt take to long to get it back. After, the next 4 weeks I will start getting into the higher miles and I will start to speed up my runs. Last time I trained for the half, I started to use my long runs by splitting them up. The first half I would go about a 10 min pace, then gradually work up to about 8:30 miles. I think that helped for the half. But a full marathon is a whole different ball game. I only have 4 weeks of my peak phase. I think this is going to be the key to breaking 4 hours. In the peak phase I have built in some cutback weeks, one after 2 weeks, then 1 peak week, 1 final cut back and and my last peak followed by 3 weeks for taper.Including race week. I am going to start utilizing my heart rate monitor more and record my paces with my heart rate. I have a super high HR (201) and im only 27. That shit aint right. needless to say, at a 9 min pace I avg. about 180-185. Hopefully this plan keeps me pain free.

Slow and hot

Im not sure why I am feeling so sluggish but I am pretty sure its the heat. These next 4 weeks are my base weeks and this week I have 11 miles scheduled plus cross training(road bike). Tuesday I ran 3 miles during lunch and the temp was 90 plus the humidity. This morning I ran 4.78 out of the 5 planned, I just misguided my run. Total min. for that was about 54 min. at an 11:12 pace.

0 down 18 weeks to go

November 29th is the day of the Mississippi marathon. The course is a very flat and fast. unfortunatly, it is a double loop but it should be great for trying to run a sub-4 marathon. I am using the hal higdon training plan intermidiate 1. Day one starts on Monday with an easy 3 mile run. If anyone has any advise please feel free to comment. My training log is on running ahead.com