Marathon Training Week 8

I made it through the halfway mark of my training plan. This week was a step down week in terms of mileage and long run distance. I did read a Runner’s World article about improving your marathon finish time. One of the points was to not run all your long runs as an LSD (“Long Slow Distance”). In the past, many of the training protocols I would peruse talked about doing all your long runs at a slow conversational pace. I guess there has been some changes to this thought. I decided to do my long run this week as more of a training run. So for the 10 miles I broke it up into: first 3 miles easy, middle 4 miles at moderate pace and last 3 miles at slightly moderate to easy pace. I definitely felt it more in my legs by doing this. I am hoping this will help build up my endurance better.

Here’s a summary of last week’s running.

( ) = # of miles on my plan

Tuesday – 3.25 (3)

Thursday – 3.1 (7) – treadmill, incline, intervals

Friday – 10 (10)

Saturday – 4.05 (4)

Sunday – 5.5 (5)

Weekly Total – 25.9 miles (29)

My Thursday run ended up being quite shorter than what is on my plan. A lot of this is due to my work schedule. After arriving home on Thursday from work, I helped to put dinner together and while it was cooking I hopped on the treadmill. I still feel good about the workout because I did various intervals and different inclines to get some “hill” training. Saturday’s run was truly a drag and I just wasn’t feeling it. Grinded out the 4 but it was slow and tough. The last run on Sunday was after working and I did a tempo run. Maintained around a 10 min/mile pace. Overall felt pretty good about it though my right knee was complaining some. Overall I thought the week went well.

This week’s long run I took along the river trail but towards downtown Sac and got some cool pictures. The trail runs under the Business 80 freeway and then under some train tracks.

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The graffiti actually shows a fair amount of talent. I can’t help but think these guys/gals could have a future in some sort of graphic design.

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I also like that you can run on the lower part of the trail with the berm on the side. It makes you feel like you’re in nature.

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I eventually made my way over to Sutter’s Landing park and had a view of the somewhat sad-looking Sacramento skyline.

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I do like the architecture in Midtown Sacramento. There are lots of neat looking homes. I didn’t snap too many but just have this one.

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And then I passed through McKinley Park. They are redoing the pond there and it is currently empty. They had to delay work on it due to the massive amounts of rain we had been getting.

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And I’ll leave you with this lovely maintained yard (not mine).

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-StewsCat

Marathon Training Week 7

The 7th week of training has come to a close and I completed what I’d consider my first true long run (16 miles). At the outset of my training I told myself that I wouldn’t be a slave to the plan and I’ve by and large kept up with that sentiment. As you can see below, I skipped a moderate length run on Thursday. This past week was my first week working on Thursdays again in a long time. I thought at least I’d get some miles in after work but after eating dinner, the motivation never materialized. I still managed to get out and do 16 the next day so it wasn’t all a failure.

Here’s a summary of last week’s running.

( ) = # of miles on my plan

Tuesday – 3.1 (3)

Thursday – 0 (6)

Friday – 16.02 (16)

Saturday – 3.07 (4)

Sunday – 5.05 (3)

Weekly Total – 27.24 miles (32)

The rain has subsided for now so I was able to get outside for all my runs. Tuesday’s run was a fairly quick one that I did after work in the dark. I enjoy running in the dark on occasion as it is a whole different feeling.

I decided to head upstream on the American River Parkway for my 16 miler. The day turned out to be beautiful if not a bit chilly. I think it was around 38 F when I headed out in the morning but it warmed up into the 40s and was perfect for a long slow run on the bike trail. Because of the previous rains, there were a ton of people on the trail either walking, biking, running. At one point I found myself either being passed or watching these fast ladies speed down the pathway. I have suspicions they were either from the nearby Sac State college team or possibly from the NorCal Distance Project. These ladies were fast and definitely in awesome shape. It was fun to see how quick they were. I had a guy jogging in the opposite direction of me joking if I had fallen off pace (after some ladies had passed me). I just laughed as I was going probably as slow as he was.

It was interesting to see what the recent weather had done to the trail and all the stuff around it. There were quite a few trees that were downed.

Near this tree there were a few of the orange traffic cones. I ran by one and noticed that there were some keys sitting on the top just randomly out. Of course I didn’t touch it but needed to grab a pic of such a strange occurrence.

I do wonder what those keys may open.

Lots of wildlife were out enjoy the beautiful day as well. First I noticed some of these turtles sunning themselves on a log in the river. Now I do know there are quite a few invasive turtles (mostly red-eared sliders) but I don’t know if there are native turtles on the American River.

And then there were some turkeys. They were making quite a ruckus with all their “gobbling.” The male also puffed its tail feathers at me at one point warning me off his lady friends.

And then further down the trail there are some larger areas of quieter water where lots of different water fowl were hanging out.

I made it to my turnaround point at William Pond Park. This is the same park that hosts the Run The Parkway Half Marathon that I did last fall. This was a good place to use the restroom and get some water and take my first gel.

I then headed back downstream.

Overall the run was good. I felt like it was a much bigger struggle to do my long run from the previous week, which was only 10 miles. I definitely started feeling sore and tired in my legs as I passed the 12 mile mark. But I soldiered on and completed the task.

After getting home, I definitely stretched and foam rolled. For the rest of the day, my legs were fairly sore. Even the next morning my legs were very tired. I managed to do a slow 3 that next day and then the day after did 5. I will say that while I was still sore for my Sunday 5, the legs started feeling better midway through the run even if I wasn’t going too fast. And today (Monday), my legs feel completely fine. I think that semi-sticking to my training plan is actually getting my body accustomed to the mileage.

I’m not done with my February running (probably will do one more run tomorrow), but I’ve already surpassed 100 miles for the month. And (*knock on wood*) my body seems to be holding up okay so far. I had just a little bit of right knee soreness after the long run but nothing that stayed.

Here’s my uber slow 16 miler:

-StewsCat

Marathon Training Week 6

Week 6 of training is in the books. Overall I felt like this was a decent week. I had a few aches and pains along the way. My 7 miles on Thursday was done on the treadmill and I definitely pushed it (averaging less than a 10 min/mile pace, which is pretty quick for me). And then following that the next day with a long run was a good test for my body/legs. On Saturday morning I felt the result of the previous two days and woke up sore all over. I still managed to get out and do my 5 miles though, which was again a good test of running on tired legs. I’ve been trying to do some foam rolling after my runs since I’ve increased my mileage a fair amount compared to previously. Last year I probably averaged between 15 and 22 miles per week. So far I’ve been averaging in the mid to high 20s this training cycle.

Here’s a summary of last week’s running.

( ) = # of miles on my plan

Tuesday – 3 (3)

Thursday – 7 (7)

Friday – 10.05 (10)

Saturday – 5 (5)

Sunday – 4 (4)

Weekly Total – 29.05 miles (29)

We were hit with another round of rain this past week. More importantly or impactful, we had some strong winds. This resulted in a power outage on Friday from 2:15 pm (I know since I was in the midst of catching up on some of my shows) that lasted until 10:30 pm that night. I had received a phone call from the power company at 4 pm saying power would be out until the following day at 12 pm, so it was a nice surprise that it came on later that night. Apparently a tree fell on some power lines on the nearby train tracks, which required some specialized equipment to remove the tree, lines and then replace the lines. With the power out, it gave me no choice but to complete my chores before it got too dark. We then went out to dinner and watched a movie (luckily my wife’s laptop had a full battery charge). Then it was lights out early (we were asleep when the power came back). I had unplugged the power supply to the TV since I knew that it would turn on once power was restored and figured that might be in the middle of the night. My wife had previously purchased some candle-less candles that came in very handy.

It was raining a decent amount on Friday morning but I decided to head out and do my long run anyway. I elected to go down by the river trail to see what it looked like. We had had a few days of dry weather and I wanted to see what the river levels looked like. The river had receded and you could actually run on the bike trails (that were previously under water). The receding water had left a thin layer of dirt/mud on the trails so it felt a little strange underfoot – not like running on a smooth surface. There was a section that was really muddy and forced me to climb the berm and run on top of it. The rain wasn’t so bad but the wind was biting at times and made me question why I was doing it. As you can imagine there weren’t many people out. A few other brave souls were out running though and one guy gave me a thumbs up from afar as you and I both kept on our runs.

I rewarded myself post long run with some bad for me food. Fish and chips and fried clams to boot. There’s a small local fish and chips shop run by Koreans that I like to go to (and I like supporting local businesses). So I stopped in and picked up their daily special.

With the large amounts of rain that we’ve been getting, a lot of the area trees and plants have started blossoming early. Since Saturday’s run stayed dry (looked like looming rains), I managed to get some shots of some trees. One of the trees has these really cool looking purple-pink and white flowers. The flowers are extremely short-lived on the tree and fall off relatively quickly – especially with the strong winds.

There are a number of them in our neighborhood and I really like purple so it helps.

Another tree that has bloomed is the one that has a very distinct smell. The flowers give off the odor of a certain bodily fluid (aka semen). It’s very strange.

img_20170218_133745 — *Callery Pear (Pyrus calleryana)*

And there are a ton of Camelia trees in our neighborhood (including a few on our property). I like them because of the various colors that exist. These also tend to make a mess when they drop their flowers.

And finally one of our bare Chinese Pistache trees and one of our lavenders. I’m just glad the lavenders have survived this long (we had previously tried to plant them in years past and they’ve all died).

img_20170217_175443 — *Chinese Pistache*

I also broke in two new pairs of shoes in the last week or so. I haven’t run in Mizuno shoes previously and so am trying my first pair with the Mizuno Wave Catalyst. I’ve only done one run in them but so far they seem all right. I also did my first run in a shoe I’ve previously run in, the Altra Repetition. My original pair is getting towards the end of its life with close to 450 miles on it so I’ve started in on its replacement (same shoe, different color).

Altra Repetition

I think the Repetition is billed as a trail running shoe (it is a maximalist zero drop shoe), I’ve found it to be a great road shoe. I’ve done a half marathon in my previous pair as well as a decent amount of long runs. I’ve been a fan of Altra now for a few years and also run in the Altra Provision 2.0 currently as well. As I’ve said before, the diversity in shoes that I use in training I think helps to keep me from getting injured (*knocks on wood*).

-StewsCat

Marathon Training Week 2

My second week of training is complete. I continue to fine-tune my training plan. I had 3 miles on the schedule for after work on Tuesday. However, I was feeling some soreness with my right lower leg (below the knee) on Monday and somewhat into Tuesday. With my history of injuries, I don’t want to take any chances with hurting myself, especially this early into the training cycle. So I decided to skip Tuesday’s run again.

( ) = # of miles on my plan

Tuesday – 0 (3)

Thursday – 5.01 (5)

Friday – 10.03 (10)

Saturday – 6.05 (6)

Sunday – 3.26 (3)

Weekly Total – 24.35 miles (26)

Overall I feel good at the end of the week. Today’s run I did with my wife biking alongside me (she’s been doing this for some of my shorter runs and it is great having the company). Compared to the run last Sunday, this one felt easier and my legs felt better – even though I did more miles this week than last. Hopefully that is a sign my body is actually adapting to the miles.

I’m excited for this coming week as hopefully will be getting a fun delivery, we shall see and I’ll update as things unfold.

We had some crazy rains/winds here with more of the latter than the former. These last few nights I’ve actually been awoken due to the high winds outside. Somewhat scary as there have been multiple trees in the neighborhood that have either have large branches fall or even entire trees (as seen below). Here are some shots from this past week’s training: