Tuesday, February 23, 2010

LiveSTRONG Seattle Marathon training week 12 - a quick update

Yep, I'm a couple of days late - a little thing called the high school spring musical took over the weekend, leaving little time for running, cycling and blogging.  So I chose to drop the blogging part.  But last week did go pretty well, despite one unplanned rest day.  What it boiled down to was:

  • Sunday: 17.86 miles on the home trainer in 1:00:06 (including some aggressive 2:00 on / 1:30 off intervals)
  • Monday: 4.77 miles running in 44:05
  • Tuesday: planned rest day
  • Wednesday: life intervened, giving me another rest day :)
  • Thursday: 15.15 miles on the trainer in 50:02 (including some more reasonable 2:00 on / 2:00 off intervals, but at a higher pace)
  • Friday: rest day (including a very nice acupuncture session!)
  • Saturday: 6.26 miles running in 56:02
Totals: 33.01 miles cycling in 1:50:08 and 11.03 miles running in 1:40:07.  And the weight showed some progress too, coming in at 196.0 pounds on my Saturday weigh-in.  Slowly getting back on track... and for those of you that actually have found my Nike+ account, yes, I know it says I ran 6.16 miles on Saturday.  But the fact is - I've suspected for a while it's been a little off, so I compared it against FavoriteRun.com and MapMyRide.com, which gave me 6.22 and 6.26 miles, respectively.  So for now, on "long" runs, I'm going to get my final totals from MMR.

And yes, 6.26 miles on Saturday was a long run.  I haven't gotten my Seattle RnR marathon training plan all sorted out yet, but I'll be increasing 2-3 miles every 2-3 weeks and should be in the 20-22 mile ballpark 2-3 weeks out from the marathon.  At least now I do have the little peaks showing up as long runs - those peaks that had disappeared after my hip dysplasia diagnosis:
Now it's just a matter of getting them up to at least 18 miles, preferably 22.  Onward!

Saturday, February 13, 2010

LiveSTRONG Seattle Marathon training weeks 10-11 - back at it

Finally some good news to report on the training front... while I didn't get in as many workouts as I hoped to, I'm finally over the flu that hit us and back on a semi-regular exercise routine.  The week of Feb 1st was somewhat lost with business travel (and a big project at work that was taking a lot of extra morning and evening time), but from last Saturday to today, things have been fairly consistent:
  • Sat 2/6 - 8.67 mile ride in 30:01 on the trainer
  • Sun 2/7 - rest day, but went on a nice 40 minute walk with Christine around the neighborhood
  • Mon 2/8 - 3.11 mile run in 28:35 (lungs were burning, but it was good to be back running!)
  • Tues 2/9 - rest day
  • Wed 2/10 - 13.33 mile ride in 45:04 on the trainer, which included some intervals
  • Thurs 2/11 - 4.22 mile run in 39:10
  • Fri 2/12 - rest day (plus acupuncture for the hip plus chiropractor for the back - more of a "get everything fixed" day!)
  • Sat 2/13 - 2nd rest day (plus a busy day of finishing the set for Hannah's school musical "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" which opens next Friday).
Those numbers aren't great, especially considering I have a marathon to run in just 19 weeks, but I'll take it for the first solid week back: 22 miles on the bike and 7.33 miles running.

Unfortunately, the lack of burning calories - but the added appetite from being back exercising - took its toll, and I tipped the scale at 197.6 pounds today, up 1.0 over the last week (I held steady last week).  So it looks like it's a time for a little more dietary discipline is needed the next few weeks, especially since it'd be nice to be down to around 180 for the marathon.

We did have some sad news last week on the family front - my Grandma's brother-in-law passed after a battle with prostate cancer.  Once again, this disease rears its ugly head and reminds you how fickle it can be - prostate cancer is one of the more detectable and more easily treated cancers, but if you don't get it in time, it's just as unforgiving as any other type.

So for those of you that have donated in one way or another to the fight, I thank you - we need to find a cure, and we need to find ways to help people live more comfortably during their battle.  But if you haven't donated to the fight, or would like to help out again, I encourage you to donate to my Team LiveSTRONG event.

Hopefully as the Team LiveSTRONG training gets back on track, I'll be checking in on the regular weekly basis.  So until next week, I wish everyone a happy Valentine's Day weekend.  Onward....