Taking It Easy

I'm taking it easy for the next week. After reading this article in Running Times I don't want to use the word "taper". I'm peaking, not tapering. I guess tapering by another name is still tapering. Anyway...

I took yesterday off and I shouldn't have. I was scheduled for 5 miles and I just didn't do it. I have no excuse except that I was late to bed Thursday night. I slept plum till 6:30 Friday morning and got too busy with work to fit it in any other time during the day. I'll accept scolding for my slacking. I deserve it.

Today, I was scheduled for a 65-75 minute run. I got up at the way too early (for a Saturday) time of 5:45. Then I met Matt and we ran the Duck and Run course and headed east on Washington to Athens High. We did 10 miles at a shade over an 8:00 pace, and I again worked on finishing strong.

1. 8:20
2. 8:12
3. 7:56
4. 8:08
5. 8:18
6. 8:09
7. 8:13
8. 8:09
9. 7:41
10. 7:10
    

Unfinished

Today's schedule called for hills. I didn't really want to drive to Madison and fight traffic in the rain, so I opted for speedwork instead. I'll do hills Wednesday, with better weather and less traffic. I was supposed to do 4 x 1 mile @ 6:42 and 2 x 800m @ 3:10.

I didn't come close. 3 miles with 2 minutes between each, 6:38, 6:40, 6:39.

I needed a partner this morning. I snoozed twice, and then spent 15 minutes doing nothing except trying to decide if I were actually going to run or not. If I had a partner, then I would neither have snoozed nor had the do or don't discussion with myself. And a partner hopefully would NOT have allowed me to quit after only 3 miles. Counting warmup and cooldown, today's mileage was about 7.25. I'll accept that as better than nothing. It's still slacking, though.

The lesson learned today... Running is a daily thing. Some days you feel better than others. Saturday's run didn't exempt me from today's run. Every day. Even if it's a rest or x-train day, every day stands alone.

Awful Weekend (for training)

I had just a terrible training (otherwise great!) weekend. Mark, I need a good scolding!

I wanted to run the Monte Sano 15k last Saturday. Thanks, as always, to Tanjie for her timely posting of the age group results with an emphasis on the Limestone County finishers.
I had planned a trip to visit my sister in the foothills of the Smokies because of fall break, so I missed the race.

Well, this trip was about the kids, and the kids had a BLAST! I had fun, too, visiting with my family and watching the kids play and have fun with their cousins! It was a great trip! I had very limited cell phone, Internet, and TV, and that was just fine.

It was relaxed, but BUSY! I had some time to run Saturday, but I was still trashed from Friday's tempo workout, so I (wisely, I think) took Saturday off. Sunday, there was just no time to run. The return trip had me up late Sunday night, so I had no energy to run today. And my diet all weekend was horrible. Fast food, sugar, and salt. I'm up about 4 lbs. Chubby.

Now, I'm having a delima... Do I do speed (cruise) work or long run tomorrow? I'm really not sure which I should do. I'll make up my mind in the morning! Either way, I'm still behind schedule. The good news is that this week and weekend will be much more like normal, but it does have its own set of challenges. More regular posts and workouts to follow. I hope I get away with this lapse this weekend.

Tempo-ish

I was hoping to join Mike Greene for some speed work this morning, but I was just up too late last night. I don't think I could have made it on 5 hours sleep, so I slept a couple of extra hours and did my workout at lunch today. It was HOT! The next time that I'm tempted to stay up too late, I'll remember how miserable today's workout was.

My training plan calls for 2 x 3 miles at tempo pace. Well, I didn't quite make it. I did a brief warm-up because of the heat. Then I did 2 miles, stretch, then 3 miles, then 2 miles cool-down. Today's workout could be considered slacking. Wow. 7 miles is slacking. What am I trying to do?

7:25
7:37
Stretch for about 5 mins for IT band.
6:50 (too fast!)
7:09 (about right)
7:21 (too slow... I'll blame the heat, but I could have given more effort)

I didn't stopwatch the two cool-down miles, but they were between 8 and 9 minute miles.

Mark Freeman showed me some stretches for IT band. I did those last night, this morning, and before my workout. My knee did not hurt until after the second mile. Then, after the additional stretch, it didn't hurt for the 3 tempo-ish miles. It was somewhat painful on the cool-down miles. But... This is the first run in a long time that it didn't hurt more than it did on the previous run.

No news

I suppose the fastest way to lose blog readers is to neglect to update... I'm back!

No workout again today. When I started this blog, I said that I'd let myself and the world know when I slack. Well, I guess I'm slacking this week. Travel and my knee are my excuses, but I should at least be doing some other type of training like weights, ellipse, bike... something. I really hope this week doesn't kill my training.

Traveling throws me off both my exercise routine and my diet. And this week's travel was particularly brutal with early mornings and late nights. I suppose that's one of the challenges of maintaining a full time job while marathon training.

I'm still looking forward to Saturday's race!