Week 6 of project mileage ramp up and while my legs were heavy this week, they rebounded today and I feel very good.  I've been sleeping pretty well so so far so good.  I did another 30 miles this week, will do 30 the upcoming week and then do something more and then do the step back week as my Thanksgiving present to myself!  I'll have family staying with me so I might drink a bit too much wine and have too much fun.  I'm totally looking forward to it!

Well I did it - I went and signed up for the Eugene Marathon -- so it's official.  I've got my registration confirmation to prove it!  6 months or 25 weeks -- I'm both excited and scared.    I'm going to continue my weekly mileage ramp up through the end of the year like I've mentioned and then I'll have 18 weeks for the formal training.  I'm still reading a lot but am also thinking that now is maybe the time to get me some help on the training play by a more experienced person.  I know there are supposed to be no time goals for a first marathon but I know me -- I'll have a goal.  And it may go completely out the door (and I'm already prepared for that), I'll need the goal.  And it will be fairly aggressive (but achievable -- I know how to make SMART goals! ;)) because I just flat out don't want to be out there forever.

Anyhow -- we'll see where all this goes.

So last week's recap:

Monday -- Rest.  Love monday rest day.  Oh I did yoga but that almost doesn't count.

Tuesday -- 5.6 miles.  Was supposed to be 6 but silly me forgot my inhaler puffs and with the chillier weather I was just unable to breathe.  Combine that with fairly tired legs from the weekend before (hills!) and I just called it done a bit early.  This was also the day I had my first early morning scare.

Wednesday -- 5 miles.  Was supposed to be 4 but making up time from the day before. Legs felt a bit better and remembered inhaler so just a basic run.

Thursday -- 6.25miles Another slug fest.  My legs just weren't working.  Of course when I got home and could hardly walk I wondered if I was hydrated enough.  Two glasses of nuun later and I'm feeling perfect so I got my answer.  This week was a DUH week for sure.

Friday -- rest again.

Saturday -- 8 hilly miles at Rancho San Antonio park.  Was hydrated and puffed and body still working in slow mo.  The route we do is about a 700ft climb in 4 miles with the last mile climbing 350ft. so fairly intense hill.  We stopped at the switch back right before we headed up that last mile and I just shook my head at my friend and said I wasn't sure I had it in me.  She was having similar thoughts but we just started in and poof, the mile was done and we were at the top of the hill.  It seemed especially lovely up there that day and extra peaceful (not as many people).  Worth the run up definitely -- my friend and I just took it really easy on the way back down and just chatted.  We don't always do that so it was nice.  I finally got a second wind at 7 miles (actually it was my first wind -- ha ha -- I needed a 7 mile warm up apparently) and could have gone on a bit longer but we were almost back to the cars so just called it quits.

That same run did my quads in last week (because I hadn't done it in awhile) and while it was a harder run yesterday -- my body isn't fussing at me at all.  So that's good.

Sunday -- 5miles around the hood.  Easy peasy.  Would have been super speedy run as legs were fine fine fine FINALLY!  But, stomach was still not happy about the previous evenings wine consumption so I had to watch it.

And hey -- what about that NYC Marathon!  I actually watch it for several hours this morning before my run.  What fun!  That really might have to go on the bucket list.  47,000 people and all.  But first I suppose I should concentrate on figuring out how to run one of these things first.  THEN, we'll talk NYC.

Friday Five

1.  I had my first early morning run scare last Tuesday.  About 20 mins into my run I'm standing at an intersection.  There were cars coming from the cross street so in an effort to be nice, I was waiting until they passed before I pushed the walk button.  So this truck passes and then honks and slows down (this at about 5.50am) and shakes his finger at me.  I've no idea why but he speeds off and I keep going.  Then, I get to the next block and he's coming down that cross street.  I was far enough away so not sure what was going on but he turns right (away from me) and speeds off.  Thing is, that is the way I was running and I just couldn't see what happened to him.  In hindsight, I should have changed my route but instead I kept to my route and was nervous until I got up to the gas station on the corner and headed back into the neighborhood.  Not sure why I did that (hey, it was early) -- but it was a bit before I stopped feeling nervous.

2.  I'm actually probably going to break 1000 miles this year and this is huge for me.   I never set it as a goal as I really didn't think I'd stay committed this long but it is looking like I'll squeeze in -- probably that last week in Dec but I'll take it.  Considering I ran 400 miles max (estimate from calendar and garmin I got mid year last year) in 2010 (from May 29th (first day of running) on).

At the end of this week I'll have 802 miles -- leaving 198 miles in 8 weeks or 24.75 per week.  Since I'm building up from 30 per week this is doable certainly.  That's exciting and I'm already trying to figure out what my 2012 goal will be.

3.  The rain appears to be here.  Yes, I live in a  weird place where it doesn't rain for 5 months (usually mid May to mid Oct) and we are late a bit for the rain (we had a smidgen early Oct but then amazing weather the rest of the month).  But alas, I see rain in my forecast -- and this wimpy runner hates her the rain.  I guess this will actually be the weekend I join the gym so I at least have a treadmill if I can't get myself out the door in the wet.

4.  One more week at 30 miles (next week) and then I'm taking it up a notch -- 33ish maybe.  35?  Still not sure.  So far so good but my body is definitely feeling it.  I'm more and more in awe of the super high mileage runners -- 60? 80? 100?  That just got more impressive.

5.  I'm going to run this race next Friday.  The National Veterans Day Run has races next Friday in 10 cities across the country.  I wasn't going to do it initially as it is a work day -- but heck, the race starts at 7:11 -- and is just minutes from my house.  I'll do a work at home day (thank god I can) and be working by 9 latest.   The race just seemed like something that should be done so an 11k on 11.11.11 it is.  I'm excited.

Marathon Choices

Alrighty then -- as mentioned in the previous post, there will be a marathon in my spring.   I do believe the choices have been narrowed to two:  Avenue of the Giants on May 6th or The Eugene Marathon on April 29th.  

I'll outline a few pros and cons of each -- and then opinions are always welcome.  

Avenue of the Giants:

Pros:

1. Beautiful.  Like spectacularly beautiful not just run of the mill beautiful.

2. Closer (of the two) to home

3. Small!!!  (like teeny tiny)

4.  Will probably be able to convince several of my running girlfriends to run the half and then spectate until I come crawling in.  

Cons:

1. About a 200ft incline and a bit harder of a course

2. Small?? (I think that is a pro but it could be considered a con)

Eugene Marathon:

Pros:

1.  Well, this is supposed to be beautiful too but a different kind of beautiful.  more like pretty.  

2.  Smallish -- not teeny tiny like Avenue but with 8000 participants it is unlikely to freak me out either.

3.  Might get one girlfriend to come do the half and spectate me in.  

4.  More crowd support (maybe?  and this is something I don't seem to need so neutral really)

5. The course looks a bit easier:

Well, darn it -- you have to go here to see the elevation.  

Basically Eugene has a 150ft climb for 2 miles (from miles 1.5 to 4.5) -- then lots of downhill and a bit uphill from miles 21.5 on.  And by bit of an uphill, the elevation shows it to be 25ft so that isn't much at all.  

Contrast that with a 200ft elevation gain for 6.5 miles and then a lot of downhills.  But if you that map were expanded it would show a bunch of rollers, I think.  Hard to say.  

Cons:

1.  Farther away --

2. Bigger (which is both pro and con - ha ha ha -- I've used size as both a pro and con in both marathons)

Honestly I think either would be good first marathons -- neither is a super difficult course.  Both are fairly easy to get to.  Neither is a huge marathon (which would kill me as a first one, I know it).  I'm just finding it hard to commit.  

Comments?  Thoughts?  Opinions?  

Mileage and Marathons

Daily Mile says I ran 31 miles this week.  Being the low mileage girl I have been, this is a new record and other than sore quads (hills, or rather one big hill, yesterday) I'm good.

So I've just completed week 4 of 'lets just build miles.'  When I was reviewing all my training for the halfs that I've run, I noticed that I was just a low mileage girl, plain and simple.  I thought I'd run more this summer than last and I had - but not appreciably.  And I've proven that I can run a slightly sub 2 hr half with about 22 avg miles per week running.  I've done it, very consistently, 4 times.  My slowest half was Santa Cruz last April which I ran in 2.02.58 and my average weekly miles for that training cycle was well under 20 per week.   Each of the other halfs were:  1.59.02 (SJRNR2010), 1.58.33 (Disneyland), 1.59.11 (SJRNR2011) and 1.59.02 (Wine Country) -- (I'm consistent enough you could practically bet on me) all these were run with 20 to 24 miles per week average for 12 weeks leading up to the half.

Anyway, after going over all this in early October and really taking a look at what I want to get out of all this running business, I realize it is time for me to step it up a bit -- for two reasons.  First, I do want a 1.50 half.  Actually I want a 1.45 half but right now I'd settle for a 1.50.  Based on the above, I think I need more miles on my legs for that.  Second, I do plan on running a spring marathon (wow, that's the most definitive I've been about it yet!).  Clearly I'm not at marathon level training.  Not at all !

Which brings us to Tricia's Marathon Training, in two parts:

Part 1 -- from early Oct to Christmas time is miles building.  I'm strapping on the garmin so I can have the data but I'm not focusing on time at all.  Just running by what feels good for the amount of miles I'm running that day.  The past 4 weeks I've done 25, 28, 28, 31 miles respectively.  I'm going to hang out here at 31 for probably two weeks to acclimate a bit because hills have been added back in as of this week as well as miles.  My goal is to be at or close to 40 miles per week by Christmas.  I'm pretty sure this is doable -- and not too crazy of a plan.

Part 2 -- this part isn't finalized yet.  But part two will consist of an actual training plan and I should have 16 to 18 weeks-ish depending on which marathon is selected.  I'm reading all kinds of things now and at some point, will commit to a plan and make it mine and be ready to go for it come first week in January.  Oh yeah, and commit to a particular race.

It seems to me (and I'm always willing to hear opinions! I value them greatly) that starting a marathon training with 35 to 40 base miles per week is a good place for me to start.  I could never do a couch to marathon plan as I just require too much ramp up time to let my stamina catch up to what I'm doing (like yesterday -- it was only a 7.5 mile run but had a nice big 4 mile 900ft climb that just wore me out to the point I napped and did nothing the rest of the day!  Wimpy runner, much?  I really need to change the title of this thing).

Anyway, I'm loving this base building stuff -- it is just fun.  The runs are all good and I've got some built in flexibility on how I'm doing it so if I need to switch things up, I can.  I've found that the world is a wonderful place at 5.30 am in the dark and I've also found that the cold isn't killing me (yeah, and I get my cold is the rest of the country's balmy but still -- I'm cold).  The rain, of course, will make me melt.  I'm sure of it.  But I'll get the gym membership to handle that.

So TMT, part 1, week 5 -- Bring it on.

Three Things Thursday

1.  Burrrr -- it was a bit chilly this morning.  I think fall has finally come to the Bay Area.  Well, our version of it anyway.  First opportunity to wimp out of a morning run because of cold and I didn't (wimp out that is!).  Go me.  Of course now I have the added stress of trying to figure out what to wear -- seems I never did quite get it down last winter so am starting over.  Because I'm a nerd, I've started a spreadsheet of run date, temp, time of run, what I wore, what I wish I wore.  We'll see how that works.  This morning though I did finally figure out what a vest might be useful for.

2.  I'm loving the 5:30 am run -- even in the very dark and even in the cold.  Yesterday I ran at 9am in the morning and it totally stressed me out.  So many people around -- I had to stop at the stop lights -- crazy.    On the early morning runs there are more signs of life starting about 6 -- but from 5.30 to 6 it is really quiet still with only the occasional car.  I'm loving the peacefulness.

3.  So far, the no pressure running just to build a bigger base is working out well.  I'm mostly loving every run.  More on that later.