LiveSTRONG Seattle Marathon training weeks 13/14 - some questions and a plan

Despite a couple of very busy weeks (work-wise, family-wise and in general), my training has somehow managed to stay on track.  The last two weeks of training went pretty much according to plan:

• Sunday 2/21: rest day
• Monday 2/22: 13.61 miles on the trainer in 45:06 at a solid steady pace
• Tuesday 2/23: 4.01 miles running in 36:56
• Wednesday 2/24: rest day
• Thursday 2/25: 9.17 miles on the trainer in 30:02 with some hard intervals
• Friday 2/26: rest day
• Saturday 2/27: 5.50 miles running in 48:12
• Sunday 2/28: rest day (although a lot of physical activity, striking the set after the close of the girls' play Jospeh and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat)
• Monday 3/1: 7.15 miles on the trainer in 24:01 with some hard intervals
• Tuesday 3/2: 3.29 miles running in 28:28
• Wednesday 3/3: 18.54 miles on the trainer in 1:00:04 at a steady pace with a few surges
• Thursday 3/4: rest day
• Friday 3/5: 9.11 miles running in 1:24:21 - yep, the true long runs are back!
• Saturday 3/6: rest day, but 90 minutes of walking around the Oregon Zoo with Christine! :)

That brings the two weeks to:

• Week 13: 22.78 miles riding in 1:15:08 and 9.51 miles running in 1:25:08
• Week 14: 25.69 miles riding in 1:24:05 and 12.4 miles running in 1:52:49

The mileage is slowly getting back up there where I need to be to successfully tackle the marathon.  Now the questions are: 1) will I stay healthy? 2) can I crank it up a bit more to shoot for a PR? 3) is it possible to fit in a fifth day per week of working out? 4) will I start dropping some weight?

Those questions are yet to be answered, although so far #4 is a "no": yesterday's weigh in was 195.8, which is down 0.2 pounds over the last two weeks.  Which - as we would say at work - is statistically insignificant.  But we'll see what happens with a few more dietary adjustments (can you say carrots and green leafy vegetables, everyone?)

As for the plan, I've successfully mapped out the long runs it'll take to get me into marathon shape.  The tricky part will be the business trips (generally once/month this year) and figure out how to work out around them.  What it looks like is this:

The nice this is that - so far - I'm a little ahead of schedule, as you can tell.  We'll see if I can keep that up.  The 11 miles on 3/20 is going to be tricky because of travel and spring break, and the 14 miles on Easter weekend is going to be equally tricky - because it's Easter weekend.  But I've got my "extra" short weekend there in mid-April to bail me out.

Also on the marathon front, thanks to those of you who have donated to Team LiveSTRONG on my behalf.  Thank you!  We're 30% of the way to the $1000 fundraising goal (yay!), which we need to hit by the beginning of May.  So if you've got some extra cash burning a hole in your pocket from your tax refund, please consider donating it to the battle against cancer.

Now on to another busy week!  Onward...