good days and bad days

Today was a bad day.  I woke up early for my training run and decided to do it on the treadmill so I could have the ease of the treadmill keeping my pace and wouldn't have to use as much willpower.  I guess my legs weren't quite ready after my 15 mile run on Saturday.

My long run on Saturday went really well and I felt pretty good considering it was my longest run by 5 miles since my last marathon in October.  I ran it at my mgp (marathon goal pace) plus about 30 seconds which is what my training plan had me do.

But today my legs felt like lead.  I chalked it up to a bad day and cut my intervals down a bit and ended up getting in 5 miles.  I hope my next one goes better.  I think I'll hit the pool tomorrow and do some laps to give my legs another break.

Back up and running

The ending of the Provo Half was the beginning of a miserable illness.  I had a massive cold for about 10 days, which also turned into an ear/sinus/throat infection, which also included a day of puking and chills.  I took two full weeks off and still even had a hard time starting back up.

I really take the days when I feel good and normal for granted. 

I'm at the bottom of my training plan again and ready to start getting serious again.  I'll be starting my marathon plan on Monday.  We're planning on doing the Top of Utah Marathon in Logan in September.  I did this marathon 5 years ago and really like the course and since we didn't get into St. George this year, we thought we'd go for it. 

Snowy Trail

Last week, my friend and I decided to run a downhill, half-marathon route to mix things up a bit.  The first 4 miles were beautiful and fast.  Once we hopped onto the river trail portion of our run, we found ourselves running through 2 or 3 feet of frozen, uneven snow.  We weren't the first to run through it--apparent by the other foot/bike prints.  Luckily it was frozen, otherwise our run would have been ruined.

So it was slow-going.  We ended up having to slow to an 11 minute mile pace just to make sure we didn't twist knees and ankles.  The last thing I wanted was an injury in the middle of training. 

2.5 miles later, we hit a frontage road and it felt amazing to be running our normal--even faster--pace.  We had a good fast run and ended up averaging about 8:30 miles including those 11 minute mile early on.

I never post pictures but here are a couple of pictures I took with my phone.

A Pain in the Knee

As I've mentioned before, this is the longest period of time I've been running consistently and I suppose I'm paying the price for it.  My right knee is being a pain!  Literally!  It hurts just below the kneecap, which I assume is my patellar tendon.  I don't ice it and probably don't do anything I SHOULD do to take care of it.  I don't stretch enough and I don't elevate it when I'm sitting down (of course, with the amount of time I actually get to "sit", it probably wouldn't do much good anyway. 

So I've been planning a break in running.  I'm not sure exactly when I'll do this but I think I'll need to take at least a good month off to see if I can get it back to normal.  I'll continue to cross-train and will try to get as much benefit from that as possible.  Who knows?  Maybe that will help with the recovery.

I'm also debating a marathon in the near future but I'm not sure it's feasible with our potential travel plans for the summer!

Any tips on recovery??  I'd much rather not have to stop running if possible.

Test: Failed

I went for a long run today to close out my first week of training for the half marathon.  I met my friend who is training for the Ogden Marathon.  She was due to run 15-18 miles today and I only needed to run 13 so we started together and she went on at the end to finish her run.  I decided to try out a new program I installed on my phone.  It's called Endomondo and it is designed to use the GPS system in my phone to track my run, time it, and post it online.  I pressed Start and didn't look at my phone until the end of the run.  (Running with my phone was a pain--all the jostling and bouncing.)

The run started out fine but I felt tired and unmotivated--this combined with a horribly, bitter-cold headwind made it difficult to keep up spirits.  The return run was easier with the wind at our backs and running down the long incline we'd just run up.

I finished the run feeling achy and tired.  I guess that means I worked hard enough.  I took a look at the finished map created by my phone's GPS and looked at the distance run--1670 miles?  I don't think so.  I guess I'll be testing other GPS programs for running in the future.  Ideally I'd like to get a Garmin but that requires money! 

I think a good stretch session is in order tonight.

Something worth training for

My running is going well and I enjoy working toward this goal of 1000 miles.  This doesn't mean, however, that I'm content not training for any races.  So yesterday, in a food-induced search for something to further motivate good eating and exercise habits, I signed up for the Provo Half Marathon.  I'm really excited to start training for this race and to start including speed work and tempo runs into my workouts.  I'm also recommitting to my WW plan and now have my dear husband on board with me which will help tremendously. 

Let the fun begin!!  My race is May 1st.  I may be signing up for some other races soon but I'm still researching options.  Perhaps a triathlon?