3/4 Marathon Training Briefing: Week 12 of 12

The big day is nearly here!

Mileage for the week: 7 miles
Long run: THREE-QUARTERS MARATHON!!!

3/4 Marathon Training Briefing: Week 11 of 12

Scaling down for the race...
Mileage for the week: 10 miles
Long run: 6 miles

3/4 Marathon Training Briefing: Week 10 of 12

Mileage for the week: 13 miles
Long run: 9 miles

3/4 Marathon Training Briefing: Week 9 of 12

Mileage for the week: 15 miles
Long run: 16 miles (my longest run ever!)

3/4 Marathon Training Debriefing: Weeks 6 & 7 of 12

It's been a weird couple of weeks for me and I've fallen behind on a lot of things, so I apologize for the double post today.

After finishing my long run of 12 miles a few weeks ago, I took off my shoes and felt an immediate pain on the top of my right foot, kinda along the tendon leading down to my big toe? Anyway, it got worse that day, and on Sunday I could hardly hobble around. According to the Interwebs, it IS possible to sprain the top of your foot, and I think that's what I'd done. No idea if there was anything in particular that caused it, or if it was just the higher mileage, but whatever.

As a result, the following week was a VERY easy week. I spent the majority of the week icing my foot, only did one run during the week, and scaled back my long run on the weekend from 9 miles down to 7. The long run also took place on Sunday morning instead of my normal Saturday, because I got up and ready on Saturday morning and then wimped out of the run, too scared that I was going to injure myself again.

The miles marked out with slashes instead of "x"s were walking mileage instead of running mileage. I also was lazy and didn't go to the gym at all. For shame, Victoria Marie!

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This past week went a lot better, although we were experiencing a crazy-muggy heatwave in Lincoln that pushed me out the door as early as 4:55 to beat the heat...on the days when I actually made it out the door in the first place. (Shameface.) Plus side: the early mornings allowed me to rationalize a little bit of retail therapy, and I bought a cute little clip-on headlight to wear on the brim of my baseball cap!

As you can see, I only got 8 (running) miles in during the week, but I did my FOURTEEN MILES on Saturday morning. This was the longest run of my ENTIRE LIFE. MORE CAPS. It went surprisingly well! I was slow slow slow, but it was, as previously mentioned, muggy as all everloving hell, and I was taking it easy out of respect/fear of my Foot Formerly Known as OW I CAN'T WALK. My muscles weren't sore after, and I only had a couple minor-ish blisters.

Things I Need to Figure Out Before the Big Day, #1: A better fueling method. Which is to say, a banana, a bagel thin with peanut butter, and a string cheese prior to the run, plus three gel packs during, still left me famished around Mile 10. Maybe Power Bars or something?

#2: A better way of blister avoidance. I bandage up my feet before long runs, but that still doesn't entirely cut it when it's 10+ miles. Moleskin worked pretty well one time, but it hurt like the dickens when it came time to pull it off. Duct tape, maybe?

#3: Forget a "better" way -- a WAY to avoid chafing. If my shorts are too short, it's inner-thigh; if my shorts are long enough, it's...well, it's butt-cheek. I apologize for the TMI. Weird thing is, I've had it happen with every run 11+ miles this summer, but it's never happened during any of my four half-marathons. Maybe it's the humidity? My dad suggested an application of Vaseline, but that just sounds positively miserable. Any ideas, oh attractive and intelligent readers of mine?

See? Tolja it was hot. Check dat RealFeel.

3/4 Marathon Training Briefing: Week 8 of 12

Mileage for the week: 14 miles
Long run: 11 miles

3/4 Marathon Training Briefing: Week 7 of 12

Mileage for the week: 14 miles
Long run: 14 (this will be the longest run I've ever done!)

3/4 Marathon Training Briefing: Week 6 of 12

Mileage for the week: 13 miles
Long run: 9 miles

Running in the Dark

I forgot to tell you guys! Last week, when I was on my long run that started at 5:21 a.m. and was DARK as all heck for the first three miles, I was running through a section of wooded trail and got hit in the head by a bat!

No, no, a bat with WINGS.

Are you seriously not getting this?

Anyway, I was running and trying my damnedest to keep the trail's middle line in my peripheral vision, because it was so dark that that's the only way I could see it, and suddenly felt something of Hacky Sack-like consistency whap against the brim of my ballcap and go skittering off the crown of my head. I squealked (cross between squeal and squeak) in surprise and resolved to get a headlamp, or at least run on well-lit trails when it's still pre-dawn: for the sake of bats everywhere. Because that's just how kindhearted I am.

3/4 Marathon Debriefing: Week 5 of 12

What what, y'all! Another week successfully completed. My long run today was LONG and I barely averaged under 12-minute miles, and around Mile 9 I got SO HUNGRY I could hardly stand it, and also the top of my right foot started hurting, but it's done and that's what matters.

Here's the link, if you're interested. Don't judge too harshly.

3/4 Marathon Debriefing: Week 4 of 12

Phew! This week just WIPED. ME. OUT. I ran a farewell hash (for those of you unacquainted with "hashing," I explained it here) on Saturday for our friends Amy and Jesse, who are moving to Germany for a year. The hash put about 5 extra miles of unplanned-for mileage on my week and that, combined with my work schedule, pushed my long run back to Sunday morning. Since I have to be at work at 8:15 on Sunday mornings, that meant that I had to get up at 4:30 yesterday in order to fit in my eleven miles.

Side note: eleven miles is the longest run I've ever done by myself!

Since I don't want to run the risk of overtraining and injuring myself, I'm planning to credit those extra five miles from last week towards this week, which makes me feel less exhausted thinking about another week of higher mileage.

As for the "123," I decided that I liked to just write each number once I'd done the weight training, instead of crossing them off. That means that this week, I got in my three weight training sessions. Yippee!

And because I know you won't be happy until I gross you out (okay, okay, so maybe it's ME who won't be happy until I gross you out), here's a comparison of boob sweat after running 9 miles and 11 miles.

As you can see, the extra two miles almost completely soaked my bra. Yes, I am aware, I am nothing but classy and sexy. You're welcome.

3/4 Marathon Debriefing: Week 3 of 12 (late)

This week went well, up until my long run on Saturday, when my thighs started chafing around mile 4. Finishing that run was TOUGH. I've read plenty of articles about "what to do if you have a bad run," but I never understood what they meant by "bad run" until that humid Saturday morning.

The extra "123" on the sheet is my new system for keeping track of weight training. I'm trying to do three weight-training sessions a week: yoga, free weights, circuit training, whatever. The checkmark is for tracking all my food.

3/4 Marathon Training Briefing: Week 5 of 12

Mileage for the week: 12 miles
Long run: 12 miles

3/4 Marathon Training Briefing: Week 4 of 12

Mileage for the week: 11 miles
Long run: 11 miles

3/4 Marathon Training Briefing: Week 3 of 12

Mileage for the week: 11 miles
Long run: 8 miles

3/4 Marathon Training Debriefing, Week 2 of 12

2/12 weeks: one-sixth of the way there!

Got rained out a couple different days this week, and our membership at the Y is still new enough that I forgot that it's my contingency plan in case of bad weather. Beyond that, I still got all my miles in, and my 10 miles this morning were pretty durn good -- it was a cool, slightly overcast morning and about half of Lincoln was out running.

I need to work my strength-training into my plan more diligently; didn't get any of it done this week, and I always feel so much better when I've lifted some weights and whatnot. Gotta keep my womanly figure! By which I mean I want my arms to look good!

3/4 Marathon Training Briefing: Week 2 of 12

Week 2, here we go!

Mileage for the week: 9 miles
Long run: 10 miles

(This is how I have my schedule displayed: clipped up on the wall in our bathroom. Every mile I run, I get to cross out! and the "10 wks 'til 20" means I have 10 weeks left until the 3/4 marathon, which rounds up to 20 miles.)

3/4 Marathon Training Debriefing: Week 1 of 12

Okay, here's the sitch. I'm running a 3/4 marathon on October 5th. (That's 19.6 miles, and if you haven't heard of the distance before, that's because it's not a common race.) I set up a training schedule for myself, loosely based on Hal Higdon's marathon training schedule, and I just completed my FIRST WEEK! And it went SWIMMINGLY. (Runningly?)

So my new plan for a bi-weekly post is going to be posting the week's training schedule at the beginning of the week (Sunday) and then my recap/debriefing of the training that week will be posted on Saturday. Since we were out of town this weekend, here's the first debriefing!

This week, I was supposed to run a total of 9 miles during the week, and then my long training run on the weekend was to be 9 miles as well. In actuality, I ran 12.9 miles during the week, and did my 9-mile training run on Saturday morning. I'm still psyched about this, since we were on vacation this weekend and I still managed to stay committed to my training schedule!

We were in Rapid City for our good friends Mike and Abby's wedding, and I just gotta say, I. Love. The. Black. Hills. Every time I visit there (which has been every summer for the last three years), I decide that we'll live there someday. I'll do a post about the wedding sometime soon (omg, best wedding efvar, sorry to all my other friends who've already gotten married, but Mike & Abby totes win), but for now, here's a picture of what I found when I headed out of the hotel at 5:43 on Saturday morning.

Rapid City has some really nice trails; I hit up one near our downtown hotel which ran alongside a little creek, so I very much enjoyed my nine miles. I've been listening to Stephen King's Dark Tower series on my iPod and that definitely helps for the longer runs, when I might otherwise get bored. Listen to audiobooks when you run! Best thing I ever figured out!