Friday ended up being a pretty serious workout day. I parked my car at work Thursday night and caught a ride home. Friday morning, I got up early and ran 10 miles to work. I had left a change of clothes and lunch at the office along with my laptop, and (most importantly) car keys! There's a LOT more planning & forethought that goes into a run like this than you'd think!
The run was intended to be 10 miles as my marathon pace (I've settled on 7:55 as my goal pace). My last 10 miler was busted out at a pace about 20 sec/mile faster, but for some reason, the force was not with me on this morning. It was a fairly tech-free (for me) today since I left my iPod and HRM/wrist watch @ work, but I did run with my Droid and Runkeeper. It's set to update every mile, so I simply tried to run on what "felt" like a touch faster than 8:00 and used the updates to chart my progress.
It was more difficult to hold the pace than any of my previous runs at this pace or faster for a mid- to long-distance run. My hamstrings just felt off for most of the run. The only time I really started feeling discouraged was between mile 8 & 9 when I thought, "I really don't think I can keep this pace for 26 miles!" to be follow a few moments later by RunKeeper informing me that I ran that last mile at a 7:30 pace. Whoops! Slow down, dumb-ass!
My first mile was 8:53, second at 7:58. Other than two hills (8:16 & 8:02), I kept everything else between 7:44 and 7:56 (also not counting the 7:30 "oops"). There are some moderate uphills segments, but the net of the run was downhill by a couple hundred feet, so I don't feel like I really over-ran my pace for effort.
I get to work, scamper (yes, scamper) over to the gym, shower, change and start the work day. A few hours later, I'm back at the gym for my cardio class. What do we start off with? Resisted sprints in the parking lot -- one person has an unbreakable resistance band around their waist and a second person trailing behind holding tension on the bands. 10 sprints total. Then we went inside & did kickboxing moves interspersed with core work. Total calorie burn for the day estimated at just shy of 1800 Kcal.
2011-APR-29 RunKeeper Stats
2011-APR-29 Diet Log -- yes, I ate allllll 1800 exercise calories!
Saturday ended up being completely an off day. We went to friends' for their 2 yr old daughter's brunch birthday party which had many, many delicious home-made delights, none of which are remotely close to being on my diet plan... so I didn't track any of them!
Sunday was a wake-up-and-run-15-miles day. The weather was beautiful when I woke up... with a migraine. I decided the fresh air may fix it and I really wanted to get out. As I was getting ready, the nausea which tends to accompany my migraines started creeping in. No amount of mental coaxing was helping either condition and I ended up getting out of my running gear and crawling back into bed for another 3 hours.
The nausea was gone when I woke up and the headache was bearable, probably transitioning to a hunger- and dehydration-induced headache. My opportunity for a 15 miler was shot, but I was able to get out for a nice 5 mile run with my Sister-in-law who will be running in the VCMarathon this month on our Family Relay Team (Team Deep Fried Bacon; believe it or not I think it was probably the best option given the other names we were coming up with). Sunday ended up being another "off the grid" day for diet tracking, but I did manage to remember to turn the iTouch on for the run.
2011-MAY-01 Nike+ Run Graph
I seem to be doing a pretty good job keeping myself 2-3 days behind being current. I've also been doing a terrible job keeping up with the "MUSINGS" theme I was adding in my early editions of this blog. Many of those topics will most likely start showing up after the marathon as I reflect on my training and the result of the race. I've learned a lot about the science and physiology of running as well as nutrition for endurance athletes and it's information that's valuable to consolidate and share.
Thanks for running with me - I'm glad I can help you run slower. It's amazing how much you've learned about fitness and running over the last year! Inspiring. I'm also impressed by how often you post. I seem to be able to run or write in my spare time - but not both - and my blog has been sorely neglected.
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