Rollin' THUNDER

7 untimed miles.

I have taken a while off from blogging, mostly because I have been too out of shape to want to keep track of how bad my runs have been. I injured my right hip last October, and it is just now to the point where I am running pain free and then able to go through the rest of the day without getting any wierd pains or feelings in my hip. I had also drastically changed my diet and got down to a good training weight. When I got injured and stopped running I had no motivation to eat right. I went from 154 pounds on September 29th (right before I got injured), to 184 pounds on January 1st (gained 30 pounds in 3 months). I am currently at 174 pounds, and still have a long road ahead to get back to where I was, but I felt great on my run today. Maybe I felt great because I didnt have a watch and couldn't see how slow I really was going, or maybe I actually just felt great. Either way, I am now excited and motivated to run again.

I was signed up for the Ogden Marathon in May, but my hip kept me from training. I am now signed up for TOU in September. Because of my hip and studying, my training has been very off and on. With only about 6 weeks until race day, my goal is to finish without any major injuries. By finish, I literally mean finish. I have never gone over 4 hours in a marathon before, but I am fully anticipating that it may happen in this race, and if I get even close to 4:15 I think I will be really pleased. I then want to take a week or two off to recover, then get back into shape and good training for a spring or summer marathon next year.

10 miles. Same route and distance as Saturday, only today I did it 3 minutes and 13 seconds faster. My runs have been kind of sluggish lately, especially the last quarter of each run. I thought maybe I was just running a little low on energy. Yesterday and today I had a piece of bread before I headed out the door, and both of those runs have felt much better, and my time for today was much better. I know that an 80 calorie piece of bread isn't really giving me a lot, but the placebo affet has been great!

7 miles. I again ate a piece of bread before I left, and this run went way better than any of the runs I have recently done without eating before leaving.

I felt really good on this run. Each mile felt easier and easier, and I was often surprised when I would look down and see the pace I was moving at. My pace wasn't anything to post, especially compared to where I was a year or more ago, but compared to what I have been struggling to do the last few week I am very happy with the pace and how easy it felt.

Today I felt groggy and didnt want to start this run. The first half mile or so I still felt like I wanted to be on my couch. It took a little while to get going and motivated during this run. I ran the same 10 mile route I did on Tuesday and Saturday, Today I was 1:18 faster than on Tuesday, and 4:30 faster than on Saturday. Not only are my times getting faster, but I feel much better and it isn't nearly as hard to run as last week.

13 miles. This was supposed to be tomorrows run, but I am volunteering at a triathalon tomorrow at 7:30 am, so I switched todays run with tomorrows.

I took a Gu before I left, then another at mile 6. I felt good during this run. I wasn't pushing anything, just relaxed and ran at a comfortable pace. Nothing too exciting, but this was my longest run in a long time. Unforunately for me, I have a marathon 36 days.

4 miles. I left home planning on doing 9. I usually run in the mid morning, but had other plans today, so ran at night. Unfortunately my dinner was running through me faster than I could do 9 miles, so I quickly changed my route and headed directly home. I got to 4 miles right as I got to our garbage can. Made to the toilet, but afterwards didnt feel like heading back out. Calves are a little sore.