Nike Women's Marathon - Run Like A Girl

Last week I officially signed up for Nike Women's Marathon. There was a very nice TNT Alumni cocktail reception hosted by Nike and the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Actually I'm a pre-alum of TNT since I haven't finished my first event yet, but lets not pick nits.

I checked out the fund raising commitment and it's only $1500 even though it's a travel event. I knew it was a lot smaller amount as an alum, but I wasn't sure how much. That's cool.

It's a win/win. I love TNT and the cause is so near to my heart. Nike Women's, here I come.

Non-Buyers Remorse

Last week I almost bought a larger pair of running shoes, but San Diego Running Institute doesn't take Amex. Now that we're moving on to higher miles my feet seem to get bigger after 15 miles. SDRI held the shoes for me, but this week slipped away before I could get there to buy them with my Visa. Today I got a blister - Annoying for those last 4 miles. This week, I'm getting new shoes!

For today's training we got on the 6:40 a.m. (a!m!) Amtrak train in Solana Beach and rode North to Oceanside. Then we got back to our cars via foot power - 17 miles along the coast on beautiful Rt 101. Oceanside, Carlsbad, Leucadia, Encinitas, Cardiff by the Sea, San Elijo, Solano Beach. It was lovely. Post training, we went for a yummy breakfast of açai and granola. Of course on the drive to breakfast I downed a chocolate chip bagel too.

What hit me today is that in all my marathon training I haven't set foot on a treadmill. One of the glories of Southern California is the weather is always perfect. Lots of my training has been by the Ocean, in beautiful Balboa Park or through the adorable craftsman cottages and casitas in my neighborhood. How lucky am I?

For My Next Trick

Guess how many miles I did yesterday to follow up on that big 16.25 mile blast on Saturday. Come on, guess.

Zero, Nada, Ixnay, Zilch, Zippo.

There's no good reason and no excuses.. I didn't work especially late. I wasn't tired. I wasn't terribly busy. I just didn't do it because I didn't feel like it.

And it felt good.

Sixteen and a Quarter

I completed 16.25 miles along the silver strand beach.

For those of you playing the home game - There's less than 10 miles between the distance I went today and the total marathon distance.

Recovered, sort of

I'm almost better. Trust me, I hit that croup with all the antibiotics my body could tolerate.

Tuesday night I was simply too exhausted to workout. Wednesday I got through 4 miles and Thursday night I slammed out 5 miles. Poor Gretchen walked with me on Thursday night, but I was slower than usual since I'm still pretty stuffy. It was 100% mouth breathing for 5 miles. Oh, and stopping to drag another tissue across my sore nose. Gross!

Today is rest - whee! And tomorrow is 15 (hopefully snot-free) miles.

Sick

I lost the entire weekend of training because I was sick. Truthfully, I lost pretty much the entire weekend to being sick. I did go to class on Saturday, but other than that I spent the weekend asleep. Actually, I spent the weekend either sleeping or thanking Dr. Ernest Duchesne for the gift of antibiotics.

All in all, I got off easy with the whole sickness thing. Several of the people in my office ended up with pneumonia and will be down and out for weeks. When my officemates started dropping like flies, I was panicking that I'd be sick for so long that I'd have to drop out of marathon training. Since I had the heavy artillery antibiotics I'm pretty much back on my feet.

Per the training schedule, I should go 8 miles today, but that won't happen. I'm going to hit some light mileage this afternoon and see how I do.

Almost 5 Miles

Today was supposed to be a 5 mile trek. I was a little pressed for time so I had to cut it to 4.12. However, I was lightening fast I tell you. My best mile times ever.

An Easy 12.5 Miles

Yesterday's walk was actually very easy and comfortable. The weather was cool, deliciously cool perhaps even crisp. This was probably the easiest session of my marathon training. I think it was a combination doing a better job following the training schedule, drinking re-hydration fluids instead of water, eating a few extra carbs and that blissfully cool weather.

This wasn't my training partner's best week. She'd been sick and missed some key training time over the last 2 weeks. The last few miles of Saturday's session she was dragging. I absolutely recognized the signs of it and empathized. It's a bitter workout when you try to get back into swing of training after an unplanned break. I also remember that a few weeks ago, she pulled me through the canyon on that walk I absolutely hated. We cut our walk a bit short so that she could recover.

To celebrate we went out for our traditional enormous post workout breakfast. I had a peanut butter cup pancakes which were pure yummy gluttony.

All in all, I'm hoping that the race is on a very cool day and that yummy breakfast foods are available at the finish line.

Training Log Rock N Roll Marathon

For the sake of history - here are my training logs for San Diego Rock N Roll Marathon 2007

May 27 - June 3
This is it! The big day is Sunday!

Day
Goal
Effort

Sunday
Cross Train
Cross Train

Monday
Rest
Rest

Tuesday
6 miles
Sick

Wednesday
3 miles
Sick

Thursday
3 miles
Sick

Friday
Rest
Rest

Saturday
30 minutes
30 minutes

Sunday
26.2 miles
26.2 miles

May 20 - May 26
I'm taking a few days off to let my foot heal. Thankfully, this is a taper week, so there wasn't much mileage planned.

Day
Goal
Effort

Sunday
Cross Train
Cross Train

Monday
Rest
Rest

Tuesday
6o minutes
more Rest

Wednesday
6o minutes
Rest

Thursday
3 miles
more Rest

Friday
Rest
60 minutes

Saturday
8 miles
8 miles?

May 13 - May 19
This is the beginning of the taper for the marathon. It's all light mileage from here until June 3rd!

Day
Goal
Effort

Sunday
Cross Train
Cross Train

Monday
Rest
Rest

Tuesday
6 miles
more Rest

Wednesday
4 miles
6 miles

Thursday
3 miles
5 miles

Friday
Rest
Rest

Saturday
12 miles
9 miles

May 6 - May 12
Day
Goal
Effort

Sunday
30 minutes
30 minutes

Monday
4 miles
Ditch

Tuesday
6 miles
7 miles

Wednesday
4 miles
Skip

Thursday
3 miles
5 miles

Friday
Rest
Rest

Saturday
20 miles
20 miles


April 29 - May 5
Day
Goal
Effort

Sunday
30 minutes
40 minutes

Monday
6 miles
Nada

Tuesday
8 hours
Zilch

Wednesday
6 miles
Zip

Thursday
4 miles
5 miles

Friday
Rest

Saturday
10 miles
10 miles

April 22 - April 28
Day
Goal
Effort

Sunday
Rest
Rest

Monday
6 miles
Nada

Tuesday
8 hours
Zilch

Wednesday
5 miles
3 miles

Thursday
4 miles
5 miles

Friday
Rest
Rest

Saturday
18 miles
17 miles

April 15 - April 21
Day
Goal
Effort

Sunday
Rest
Rest

Monday
6 miles
Sick

Tuesday
8 hours
Sick

Wednesday
6 miles
5 miles

Thursday
4 miles
5 miles

Friday
Rest
Rest

Saturday
15 miles
16.25 miles


April 8 - April 14
Day
Goal
Effort


Sunday
Rest
Rest

Monday
5 miles
4.12 miles

Tuesday
2 hours
1:18 hours

Wednesday
7 miles
7.27 miles

Thursday
3 miles
Sick

Friday
Rest

Saturday
15 miles
Sick



April 1 - April 7
Day
Goal
Effort

Sunday
30 min
30 min

Monday
5 miles
2.5 miles

Tuesday
8 miles
5.8 miles

Wednesday
3 miles
4.1 miles

Thursday
6 miles
7.71 miles

Friday
Rest
Rest

Saturday
14 miles
12.5

Hitting My Stride.

This morning I did 2.5 miles at my fastest time ever. I have a new Cardio Coach audio workout and it is awesome. Cardio Coach blows away the iTrain workouts - either that or I was so friggin' sick of the two iTrains that are designed for outdoor runs. Actually, the iTrains are good too, but I bored with them.

Tonight I'm meeting Debbie and Gretchen for 5 miles.

So for you math majors that's and extra 1.5 miles over the training plan.

Tomorrow is my rest day - you can be sure I'll be able to do that one.

Going that extra mile

Wednesday - scheduled for 3 miles went 4.17 miles

I actually went farther than I was committed to go today. Take that training log!

As I was ambling through my neighborhood on my walk it occurred to me that today is April 4th. The marathon is June 3rd.

There are less than 2 months of preparation remaining.

Get Steppin'

Monday - scheduled for 5 miles went 2.5 miles
Tuesday - scheduled for 8 miles went 5.8 miles

It's two days into the week and I'm 4.7 miles behind on my mileage. The sad part is that this might be the best I've done of any week in my training. Raise your hand if you think I'm going to be one sorry girl on Saturday when I need to walk 14 miles.

Joining the Circus

I missed my Saturday training session - again. Not good for the marathon plan since I spent most of this week in San Francisco and I didn't do so well on honoring my workout schedule. Let's call this a sub-stellar week of training.

At least I had a good reason to skip Saturday. I'm taking some courses at the University of California, San Diego. Saturday was our first class. This session was a team building exercise at Challenge-U on a ropes course. If you've never done one of these ropes course, you do all these team activities that for some reason involve rope - tightropes, knots, webs.

Honestly, I've had bad ropes course experiences including one at Adventureworks in Tennessee. At that one our team banded together and quit the day early. In our defense, it was a blisteringly hot and disgustingly humid August day. There was a Lyme disease outbreak that summer and everyone had to wear long pants and long sleeves. We were incredibly smelly, sticky and uncomfortable. Also, the instructor was a jerk of epic proportion. The best decision our team made was to quit and go sit on the air conditioned bus and wait to go home.

I was approaching this Saturday with a mixture of dread and peevishness. Dread over the fact that I don't want to relive middle school gym class and peevishness that I had to drive an HOUR and get there at 8:30 in the morning. What is with everyone conspiring to hijack my Saturday morning snooze time?

It was much better than I'd hoped. Just like my horrible day at Adventureworks, I did screw up the go through the web thing - twice. It completely frustrated me since the entire team was penalized for my ineptitude. (If you scroll down the Challenge-U page, the picture in the middle is the *@!#*%$ pass through the web game.)

Now the good part! The second half of the day is the "high course". I climbed a 50 foot pole. Then I left the relative safety of that pole and walked on a tightrope. Yeah, I was wearing a helmet and a safety harness, but I'm telling you that you aren't thinking safety harness when you're up there. You're thinking "Please, please let me get across this wobbly, shaking rope without falling.". (Now scroll all the way down the Challenge-U page to see a pic of the high wire stuff.)

The other thing is that while I was up there I somehow managed to get an incredible bruise on the underside of my arm from the guide rope. It didn't hurt at the the time because I was hyped up on adrenaline. The bruise is so angry that I can't bear to have anything touch it including sleeves. Other than a hip pointer that I got in high school, I've never had a bruise that hurt with this intensity. It's enormous and spectacularly bright purple. I am, of course, ridiculously proud of that bruise.

I'm hoping that someone in my class is posting photos of everyone on the high wire....if they do I'll add a link.

Next week, I promise to go to my marathon training session. I promise, I promise, I promise.