Back in the saddle?

Today is officially the start of my marathon training program.  It's an advanced program that I got from active.com.  It consists of moderately high mileage with 1-2 speed sessions per week after the first month or so, lots of running at marathon race pace, two 20-milers, and one 22-miler.  I've done two 20-milers in training before, but never more, and never anything over 20 miles, so that will be interesting!  Luckily, it starts easily, with only 8 easy miles this weekend.

Another interesting feature of this program is that most of the weekday runs are laid out by minutes running, rather than miles.

My husband and I did just under 5 miles this morning (45 minutes).  We got up at 5:45, a little later, because my schedule allowed it today.  It is SO HARD to get up-have I said that?!  My husband leaves today for most of the week on business, so I knew our run would be the last time we would spend together for most of the week.  That helped me get out the door! Anyway, I felt like I slowed WAY down in the second half of the run, but I finished in 45:51.  My slowdown of almost a minute was significant, but not as bad as I thought.  Now that I am officially in training, there are NO more excuses to skip runs, not even a crazy work week!

Tonight I ran on the treadmill for 50 minutes.  The training plan called for one hour of running with 4-6 surges of 30-60 seconds each: a fartlek workout, I guess.  I did four surges for one minute each at 8:19 pace, and the rest of the time I ran at a 9:05 pace.  I started getting tired after about 42 minutes, but I held out until 50 minutes, and then I was DONE!  There was no way I was doing the last 10 minutes.  My heart was racing, and it took over 10 minutes to get back down to 120, which worried me a little.  I ate normally today, but I probably didn't have enough carbs with lunch.  And I had a stressful day at work (seems to be the norm these days!).

My husband is in Texas, and he had quite the obstacles to running tonight!  It was super hot and humid, so he opted to run on the treadmill inside the hotel, but when he got to the fitness center, it was empty!  (it was fine last night).  So he decided to run outside anyway.  He tried to get water, and the hotel was out (!), so he took some money on his run so he could stop at a gas station.  He forgot his watch, so he took his cell phone with him to keep time!  But he ran for an hour, hills and all!

I did a Pilates video at home, which felt SOOOO good!  I haven't really done it on a regular basis.  When I ran the PF Chang's marathon in 2005, I did Pilates twice a week for about the last six weeks of training.  I don't know if it improved my running, but I saw visible results very quickly.  And it sure feels great!

Visible ab muscles, here I come!

Tonight I ran on the treadmill.  I finished the run in 45 minutes, so I averaged just under a 9:00 mile.  I felt surprisingly good, given the fact that I had just been bowling for 3 hours and ate pizza.  Our whole office went bowling, which was fun.  I think I'm going to be sore tomorrow!  Anyway, the run felt good.

I'm following the training plan, which calls for cross training on Wednesdays.  So, yesterday I did Pilates.  It felt really good, but I don't know if the schedule will work for me.  It calls for running on Mon, Tues, Thurs, Fri, and Saturday, and cross training on Wednesdays.  But, since I usually run at night, I would be running on Friday nights and then turning right around and doing long runs the next morning.  I'm going to tinker with the schedule a bit and figure out what is best for me.

I ran 8 miles outside this morning.  It was hot, but the heat didn't seem to bother me.  The battery in my Garmin went out, so I had to rely on someone else's watch.  According to him, our total time was 1:17, which is MUCH slower than I need to be.  I don't know how accurate the time is, though, because we stopped for a bit to wait for someone, and I don't think he stopped his watch.

Today I officially enter a new age group (30-34)!  I'm glad I began my 30's doing something healthy...and then I had In n Out Burger for lunch!