Muddy Calves

I haven’t found a good way to imbed my Grandma’s Training Schedule in a blog post yet but I’ve worked out a preliminary schedule. It is essentially out of Marathoning, Start to Finish by Patti and Warren Finke who taught the RRCA Coaching Class I attended last summer.

After following Jack Daniels’ (the coach, not the whiskey) plans for several years for my 13.1 races, this plan seems relatively tame as far as speedwork–I’m planning on doing 4 weeks of hilly fartleks and 5 tempo runs at race paces, maxing out at 4 miles. But it is heavy on endurance–I just ran 13.5 and my long run will be 16 miles by the end of February. Overall, I plan on doing 15 runs of 16-20 miles before the marathon. Currently, 20 (5 times) is the longest but maybe I’ll bump that up to 22.

On paper (or on LCD) it seems to make sense but we’ll see how it looks on the road. I’ve started to experience early-season doubts, you know the ones, “I can’t run 5 miles at 8:30 pace, how the hell am I going to run 26.2 at 8:00 pace”?!

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I know with training it will come but it is still amazing to me how the same doubts pop up at the beginning of every training cycle. I am worried that my body won’t hold up to the training–I’ve nursed the miscellaneous aches & pains & chafing (on some very sensitive bits) so far but the miles are just starting to rack up.

The gut battle is on-going. I started compulsively weighing myself on Tuesday, with my weight ranging from a post-long run, dehydrated 158.4 to a high of 163.8. Median daily low of 162.4, median daily high of 163.8.

I tracked my diet for a few days & the biggest thing I learned from that is serving size. Often one of my servings are two or more legitimate servings. That awareness will help me just eat less I hope. And I’ve implemented the “Banana Diet”, my own invention. Before I snack, I need to eat a fruit (most often a banana). This helps fill my stomach with a healthy food and slows me down–helps me think about what I’m eating. I think I did OK this week, my youngest daughter had a birthday party on Saturday and I was measured in what I ate.

I missed one workout this week because of a combination of a work situation and a couple birthdays I needed to celebrate but overall a good week, methinks.

After a pretty lame week, I finished off with a long, easy run of 12.25 today.  I plotted out a loop through the country roads.  Spent the first 7.5 cruising easy, a little under the 8:40 pace I was shooting for, and listening to Steve Runner’s Phedippidations.

Had a scare at 2.5 when my right ankle bent sideways they way it’s designed not to when I stepped on a frozen tractor track–had a sharp pain for the a bit and thought I may need to use the cell phone to call for a ride but after a hundred yards or so, it was feeling better and it felt fine after a half mile.  I’ll see how it feels tomorrow.

I switched to the Beatle’s Please Please Me. After P-dip.  I’m glad to run in the country where I don’t have to worry about anyone, other than an occasional cow, hearing me sing along.  I’m an awful signer to begin with, but throw in my breathlessness and the fact I know only a tiny portion of the words and the results would be pretty awful.

My pace did start to slip during the later half–I was also interrupted by a “pack” of dogs from someone’s yard, one that looked pit-bullish and a couple of big, black slobbery dogs.  They just barked but came onto the road, so I ended up walk-jogging through their territory.

I pushed the final mile to 7:48 pace, finished off with an easy quarter to get home.  Overall 12.25 in 1:46ish.

Only have to do one more mile and I’ll be doing my race distance, that always helps the confidence.  I have two more easy weeks before I start throwing in actual work-outs.  Not sure how I’m going to approach that first week, I’m suppose to be doing rep work but have a 25k (15.5 mile) race scheduled–I’ll probably do one introductory rep workout early in the week and the run the race on Saturday.  I’ll run the race hard but not truly be racing.