41 mile week

I’ve officially completed my first 40+ mile week of marathon training! Last training schedule I had one 40 mile week as my peak week of training. This training schedule has 4 weeks between 41 and 44 miles. That alone marks progress from the last round of training.

I finished up the week with a 17 mile run. In a desire to avoid being soaking wet running for several hours, we moved the run from Saturday morning to Sunday morning. We also switched from C&O to W&OD to avoid puddle jumping the whole run.

I was a little nervous about this run because of our failed attempt at a 15 mile run in Florida. Additionally, my leg was really tight during my 14 mile run before that. I wasn’t sure how my right leg would hold up and how hard the 3 mile jump would feel.

Well it felt great!

First off, it was great to run with Megan again. Our run became catch up and chat time, which always makes a run more enjoyable. I felt good pretty much the whole time. At around the turn around point, there’s a decently long hill. Last time I encountered the hill was on my 18 mile run training for MCM. This time, the hill was noticeably easier for me to handle. So, although I’m not where I’d like to be with my hill running, it was nice to notice that improvement.

Also in typical me style, I sped up on the second half of the run. Megan slowed us down a few times, but I think I kept speeding back up. Neither of us are the best at pacing, and it definitely felt like a comfortable pace the whole time. We finished much faster than I thought we would though, 2:46 and some seconds when I expected something more like 2:55-2:59. I felt pretty awesome at the end of the run, and today my legs are a bit tired and soar but not too bad. The only downside to shifting our run to Sunday is that I lose my rest day. This is going to be another high mileage week so I’ll keep my runs easy until my legs feel like they’ve rested enough.

Running on the cruise

Last week we were on a cruise! In planning a marathon training schedule that would have a vacation right in the middle of it, there was going to have to be some flexibility on that week’s running. There was no way I was getting a normal training week of running in while on a cruise ship, but I needed to run some. So I planned 3 hour-ish long runs of higher intensity (2 hill runs and a tempo run). I hoped that the boat would have decent treadmills, and I was happily impressed with Precores!

Well running on a boat is an interesting thing. I ended up running my 2 hill runs on the days the boat was the most rolly. My programmed hills had extra variation and some nice side to side incline changes thanks to the waves. It was kind of funny, especially when my flat parts turned into downhill, which the treadmill itself didn’t do. Friday the boat and the treadmill almost bucked me off! I was running 1 mile hill intervals, and holding on the whole time because of the waves. Even so it almost rolled me sideways off the treadmill with one wave!

Running in Florida

Saturday the 18th we had an early flight down to Orlando to drop off Ralph with my parents before heading off for vacation! Had I known at what point in a running training schedule I would be before buying the tickets, I might have avoided a 15 mile attempted run in high humidity and temperatures in the 80s, but I did not. The smart thing would have been to run in DC then fly, but instead we ended up with the reverse. Flying in the morning and an afternoon Florida run.

Bennett and I have both run in such conditions, and hotter ones, but that was when our bodies were acclimated to summer temperatures. This was definitely not the case. So we started out, knowing that we would need lots of fluids and electrolytes to make it through the run. We meandered all around my parent’s house, and I was once again impressed with how many nice sidewalks there are in that area. The heat and humidity was definitely getting to us long before we were even half way though. Each mile seemed much harder than it should.

The highlight of the run was being chased by two very friendly dogs that took our running by their house as an excuse to go for a run. They were really cute and full of energy. They gave their family quite the hassle in being caught. We ended up having to run back to their house to encourage them to go back to their family instead of coming with us.

The low part of the run was not being able to do the full 15 miles. Around mile 11 Bennett started feeling ill and dizzy from overheating and electrolyte imbalance. I was doing better, and would have forced myself through the last 4 miles, but I felt totally icky as well. So 15 miles became 11 miles, and we returned to my parent’s house in defeat. Stupid heat and humidity! I really can never decide which I hate more, extreme heat and humidity or the cold…

Yoga and marathon training

One of the hardest things about this round of marathon training, even greater than the more demanding training schedule, is the lack of yoga.  Yoga really forced me to take time to stretch and think about my movements in a very different way from all the running.  Lifting makes me move differently as well, but lifting is a chore to me.  It is something I believe needs to be done, but not something I enjoy doing.  Yoga, however, is an activity I really enjoy.  Even when the idea of fitting it into my schedule makes me a little stressed, taking the time for yoga is so energizing and relaxing. 

 

I didn’t go straight back to yoga after MCM because I wasn’t sure what would be helpful or harmful to my leg issues…so I just opted for rest.  Probably yoga would have been really helpful, especially since the yoga instructors at the place we go are so good and attentive.  But it really didn’t occur to me at the time, ant the restricted running was making me feel lazy even as it also made me feel edgy.  It was odd.  Sadly, when I was feeling ready to motivate myself to go back to yoga, Bennett and I were feeling the need to limit expenses a bit.  So yoga class has not made it back into my weekly routine.

After a 14 mile run on Saturday where my right thigh and hip tightened up in very strange places, I decided that maybe I would try some yoga on my own.  So Sunday night I did some sun salutations, warrior I and II, triangle pose, and side angle pose.  And wow…I found muscles, tendons, and ligaments that were seriously tight that I had no idea were tight!  I finally found a way to stretch this one part of my upper quad that I had been struggling to stretch.  It was such a strange feeling to have my body resists movements that had always been fairly easy for me.  

I have been so focused on specific issues with my leg over the past few months, that I have lost touch with my body in other ways.  I have forgotten how practicing yoga grounds me in the awareness of my own body and how it responds to different movements.  I need to work towards regaining the ease of those simple poses.  I want to strive to practice some yoga on my own, to ground myself in the awareness of my body, breath, and thought.  Even though I feel inadequate at creating my own yoga sequences, trying to do so is better than no yoga in my life. 

My right leg

So, my right leg in particular has been a big focus of mine since the marathon.  I have been very happy that I have not experienced any real knee pain for about a month now!  However, the muscles in my right quad, outer hamstring, and less often my outer calf are still noticeably tightening up on me.  If I get lazy on having Bennett massage my hamstring tendon and forget to use the foam roller a few times a week, I can most definitely feel the tightening trying to take over.  

Last week I got lazy because I was sick.  As a result, rather than my leg feeling tight towards the end of my run, it felt tight during the entire 9 miles on Saturday (no pain though!).  Sitting in my chair right now I can feel the quad muscles tightening and pulling on my hip and knee.  This is very aggravating

 

I am incredibly happy that my knee is not hurting.  I can tell that I have strengthened my hips and butt significantly over the last 2 months.  It’s frustrating though that my muscles in my right leg are retaining the tendency to tighten up.  I hope this is because I started pushing things a little too soon and not something that I will have to deal with forever.  After Gettysburg, I’m hoping that an even steady running schedule will get my muscles back to normal.  My left leg is of course, just fine.

Running with a cold

*Written yesterday

I’ve been dealing with a cold for the past week and a half.  I spent several days thinking I was going to fight it off without getting too sick, but by last Wednesday, the cold was clearly winning.  I was very lucky not to get too sick during training for MCM, and previously, being congested usually meant I’d do something low key at the gym if I worked out at all.  

My experience running over the last week and a half of cold-y-ness has been interesting though.  Over the course of this cold I have had days where running was completely not happening, which is expected.  I’ve had days where my runs were miserable, but these were not the days I felt the worse.  Those were the days I felt like I was fighting off the cold but hadn’t gotten fully sick.  The days I felt the worse, excepting the 2 days I didn’t run, I ended up having really great runs where I pushed through the cold somehow and felt strong and good.  This includes 2 long runs, a hill interval run, and a tempo run this morning.  I haven’t done hill intervals or tempo runs in months since I was babying my right leg/knee.  

It’s very odd how my body has almost set the cold aside on some days to really perform well.  Maybe I was more determined mentally on those days to run my best?  Interestingly, as soon as I stopped running, I felt worse than before my run.  Exercise is such an odd thing…