Lucky Number 7

I ran 23 miles last week, which is most likely an all-time best for me. It also pushed me within 6 miles of my 75 total for January 12-February 12, with 5 days to spare.

On Sunday, I saw my family for my mom's birthday. The weather was beautiful – mid 60s, sunny, or the perfect day for a run. Knowing my love for running, my parents, aunt and uncle and grandparents commented on how nice it would be to run and asked if I had gone or would be going later. Truth be told, I was hungover and running was the last thing I wanted to do at the time. I explained how much I had run the week before and that I was taking a day off (true) and that with our impending Chinese food lunch, I doubted I would make it out.

Yesterday evening I ran 7 miles, the most I’ve run since the half marathon in October. It felt good. My calf was really tight at the beginning. I have no idea why and considered cutting the run short, but after about 2.5 miles and stretching at red lights, it calmed down and I finished the run well. Running down the final hill I thought about how great it felt to run so far and then I remembered that 7 miles is just over half of the 13.1 I’ll be running March 21.

I’m right on schedule with my training. I figure by adding a mile to my long run each week will put me up to 10 around Feb 28-March 2 and I could get to 11 the following weekend before tapering. My goal is to not want to die with the same intensity as I did in Baltimore during the last three miles. I really didn’t train that much and somehow got lucky with my ability to run 8:38 miles at my first try. My ultimate goal for the spring is to get below 1:50 although I’d be happy with simply improving in DC and reaching the ultimate goal in Frederick in May.

My training now is completely different. While last summer and fall I had an entire gym at my disposal, I now only have running, a few fitness videos and 3 and 7 lb weights. While I used to do an hour on an elliptical most days, I’m now running. While I don’t run for an hour, I have to think that mostly running is better training than ellipticals and stationary bikes.

I guess I’ll find out for sure in less than 6 weeks now.

The joy of being sore

On Monday night, I went for my first "long" run of this training season. I did my six miles in 52 minutes (8:40 miles) which I was pretty happy about. It was just a little bit off of my race pace from last fall and it felt amazing. I woke up yesterday morning, slightly stiff from my run and realized that I actually miss that feeling. Since I don't belong to a gym any more and my runs have been fairly short, I haven't felt that mild achiness in a while.

I took yesterday off (I had a flag football game so I still ran around outside for a bit) and I'm thinking of finishing off the week with a few five-mile runs. My mileage is quickly increasing, and barring anything catastrophic, I'll will definitely reach and exceed my mileage goal.

I'm also trying to eat healthier. I like to think (and my co-workers like to tell me) that I am a healthy eater, but I know little improvements will make it better.
Some of my goals:
-Take a multi-vitamin daily and start taking Omega 3 supplements since I rarely eat fish
-Eat less ice cream
-Minimize random snacking (yesterday was horrible- at one point I thought I'd rather eat a bag of goldfish than a real meal for dinner, luckily I got over that and made chicken and vegetables over pasta)
-Drink green tea instead of coffee (I'm already doing really well on this one)

75 Mile Challenge - from 1/29

I decided almost 2.5 weeks ago that I would run 75 miles over the course of the next month. I used to run a lot, to the point that four mile runs were short, but I had become complacent over the course of the winter. I decided that if I reached my goal, I would reward myself with a training shirt from irunlikeagirl.com.

In October, I ran the Baltimore Half Marathon and two months later, I ran a local 10K. Since then, my runs became shorter and shorter, where over the holidays I was down to 3 miles, three times a week. Already registered for the Maryland Double, I knew that a race in May wasn’t going motivate me the same way a cute t would.

I was off to a decent start, running 16 miles my first week, 17.5 the next, then after a promising start to this week with a 5+ miler, snow and ice struck leaving me stranded in my room with a pilates video. I’m hoping enough ice will melt today that I can run for at least four miles, go on a short run tomorrow then attempt my first training run of the season (a 6 miler) on Saturday. I’d prefer to rest tomorrow, but want to get my mileage up.

At this point, I’m also considering running in the National Half Marathon (March 21). It will get the miles before Frederick so I can focus on speed work between the two. We’ll see!