Rain or Shine the Road is Mine

Met Ali and KellieS at 10:30, and ran 8 miles.  Had some pancakes and turkey sausage in my gut and was lucky to not have it come up.  Fun way to start the new year!

 My legs felt heavy but not soreness in the hammies when I started like yesterday.  Our visitors (four adults and 7 kids) just left the house so now I will get a nap? 

ave pace 8:01

Best way to get a sleep in?  Don't set your alarm!  I was supposed to wake up at 4:35, but I didn't set my alarm aparently after choosing my wake up time last night, because MacK texted me to see where the heck I was, and that woke me up.  I am sure I was only half coherent.  It takes a true friend to text you at 5:19 and ask why you're not out on the road :)  We saw Marion on the road doing way geeky calf stretches.  As I passed her I thought, "Those are my favorite calf stretches", then I said hello (total etiquette extra credit since I had a running partner with me).  Then we realize we know each other.  It was great because I have wanted to introduce MacK and Marion.  Two very important blog ladies in my life finally meet! 

So I didn't get in the 11 miles I needed today to get to 80 miles for the week, but I guess that is ok since tomorrow is 15 days from my marathon, and I was going to do 20, but now maybe I'll just do 18.  We'll see.  

 15 days from my marathon!  That means I have to start eating better. 

ave pace 8:21

weight 121

I went skiing with my family, the first time with all the kids.  JJ (4 yrs) did great for his first time skiing.  He and Mickie (6) were in ski school all day except I went down one bunny hill with them after picking them up in the afternoon.  Ben did morning lessons, when Paul and I skiied sans kids, then joined us in the afternoon, which only slowed down the runs slightly, since Paul is already skiing like an old man.  We had a great time.  Weather was great (overcast and warm).  I am not sure skiing all day will be good for my tempo tomorrow, but too late to cry about that.

Had a great group planned for today: MacK, Ali, SteveK, and TylerS, but 11 inches of snow fell overnight, which is too much for my car to wade through, so yet another Saturday run messed with by mother nature.  I was originally thinking to do a 12 mile tempo, but after thinking about being 2 weeks out from my marathon, I decided to cut it to 9 miles.  Mother nature turns it into a solo run on the treadmill.

 I warmed up 4 miles, then started the tempo, with a plan to start at tinman pace (8.9 mph or 6:44) then increase after three miles to marathon pace, then increase again the last three miles.  Well, that turned out to be ambitious.  I settled for maintaining tinman.  So I did 6 miles at tinman (break at 5.25 for potty) then dropped the pace for the last three miles, eventually ending up at 9.4 or 9.5, I don't remember which.  Each time I increased pace it was hard to keep up for .5 mile, then it got better, then it would start over as I increased again.  I am not sure what makes me such a wuss on the treadmill, but this is a good tempo effort, and 18 miles on the treadmill this morning makes running 26.2 in balmy AZ sound REALLY fun.  So I am getting excited! 

I also put the  race in the course tool yesterday to see what my splits could look like.  So a 2:45 marathon is about 6:18 pace, but a couple of the middle miles could be as slow as 6:30 or so with me being on target for 2:45, because there is a grade increase, and its a little chunky.  Still, there's never a mile with even a 1% grade increase, so its pretty flat.  I figure ideal 1/2 marathon splits for 2:45 would be 1:23, 1:22.  I think I will be between 2:45 (very good day) and 2:50 (decent day).  There is an 11 sec/mile difference between the two times, so I need to not panic if some of my splits are 2:50 instead of 2:45 splits.  I do want the first half to feel easier than the first 1/2 of St G, where I felt like I went out too fast for the conditions and for how I felt.  So ideal splits for 2:50 according to the course tool is 1:25:23, 1:24:37.  So I hope I feel chipper and ready to go in two weeks.

weight 117 (all the sweating associated w/treadmill-I even drank 14 oz over the course of the run and lost that much - wow)

Bad quality sleep.  Yuck!

Way cold, 3F.  Met MacK and did 7 miles, then one more on my own.  Glad I am starting to decrease miles.  13 miles in that cold would have done me over.

ave pace 8:26

weight 121

I am retiring these shoes.  They felt non-helpful.

I met Mary Ann S. in SF midday for mile repeats.  I thought to do 5 if we ended up 5:55ish and fewer if faster.  

2.68 warm up

 FSI (for Sasha's information) I wheeled a mile before we met to make sure watches weren't off.  My watch matched the mile marker within feet.

Anyone as obsessive about my running as me (ok, I guess noone would be) can compare this workout to my Sept 23rd same workout before St. G. 

1 - 5:41, (miles 1 and 3 are new downhill of about 53 feet if I remember right, so 2 and 4 are net uphill the same amount) slowed down last couple of yards to not be sub 5:40, I guess that was kind of stupid

2 - 5:48

3 - 5:41

4 - 5:43

So averaged about 4 sec faster per mile than in September.  Nice to see improvement.  I felt like I was holding back, but perhaps I felt that way in September since I was tapering then as well.

Mary Ann came in approx 10 sec behind me each time, she'd start out with me, even pushing pace, then would struggle with breathing a bit. 

It was so great to have Mary Ann join me.  We had some fun conversation.  She's serious about her running, and that's right up my alley.  I can dig it.

weight 120

Ran with MacK then a tad on my own to get to 10.  Not as cold (26F).

weight 120.

I am going to start tracking my miles driven as a shoe so that I have records for my tax return of what I drove for 2009 without having to reconstruct.  My driving miles are my #1 expense.