LIVESTRONG Seattle Marathon training weeks 26/27 - closing in

Hi everyone!  Sorry about skipping a week, but we had an enjoyable three-day weekend for Memorial Day, and blogging was one of the last things on my mind. :)  I hope that you had a great Memorial Day as well and are making a good transition into summer... which unfortunately the Oregon weather is NOT doing.  But after what seems like 40 days and 40 nights of rain, it looks like we might be turning the corner?

Of course, being Oregonians, the rain hasn't slowed us down much... we managed to have a birthday grill-out in the rain yesterday:

But enough complaining about the weather, and on to training!  It was a couple of down and up weeks since I last checked in.  The week of 5/23-5/30 was a low mileage week due to some business travel and seminar prep/presentation.  I managed to get in three sessions on the home trainer, including a 3:15am ride before an early morning flight.  But no running, which was probably not bad for giving the legs a break.  And while not great, I did manage to keep the diet under control while I was traveling.  The week totaled out at:

• Cycling: 29.65 miles in 1:36:08.
• Weight: 197.0, down 0.6 pounds.

You'll notice that there was no long run - but in my last post, I talked about getting in a last 20+ miler before the marathon.  Well, it worked best with both the weather and with family plans to run on Memorial Day.  So after a rest day on Sunday, I attempted a 21 mile long run.  I say attempted, because I bonked big time.  The first 7 miles felt good... the next mile felt OK but I could tell I was running out of gas, so I took a walking break at a stoplight... the next two miles felt OK, including the start of a steamy run on the woodchip trail around the Nike campus.  But after that, things fell apart.  Miles 11-15 saw walk breaks of 30-90 seconds every half-mile to a mile, and finally at 15 miles I threw in the towel and decided to briskly walk back home.  What the workout boiled down to was 15.12 miles in 2:29:47 (the first 11 miles were at a 9:30-9:45 pace, so you can see how much I gave back over the final 4 miles) and then a 4.77 mile walk in 1:15:20.

Not a great confidence builder for my last long run.  So hopefully my 12-15 miler coming up a week from now will be a little more inspiring and I can find the legs that I had when I was running 15-17 miles at a time at a 9:10 pace... but those legs might have made a re-appearance in the last few days.  After a couple of rest days, I went out for a sluggish recovery run, but that has triggered five days in a row (including today) of cardio that make me feel that things are getting back on the right track.  That means we're potentially closing in on a successful marathon experience.

Totals for week 27:

• Running (/ walking): 23.12 miles in 4:12:42.
• Cycling: 29.82 miles in 1:33:36.
• Weight: 194.8 pounds, down 2.2 (yes, I got the diet back on track with a lot of healthy greens!)

Before I check out for the week, I did once again want to thank everyone that donated to my Team LIVESTRONG participation for Seattle.  We hit the $1000 goal with a month to spare, but still have an opportunity to do even more.  But if you want a bit of a change, we're also raising money for my century ride in September.  So if you want to donate to that, with the more aggressive fundraising goal of $2,500, you can donate here.

Thanks for checking in everyone... I hope you all have a great week of family, training and work.  Until next time, onward!