Crossing the Finish Line

Half Marathon Jitters

I was going to wait to post about the half again until after the race but now I've started getting an adrenaline rush so I just had to say something!

I'm really, really nervous. The last month or so I have really stepped back my running. My problem started in my calves, both of them. Since it was both I just figured, eh, it's muscle soreness I need to push through, and I scaled back the miles but kept going. After about 3 weeks of that, it wasn't getting better so I went to a running store to see if I could fix the issue. I blamed it on changing running shoes (and still think that might have been the main cause). I got compression socks and the stick (already had a foam roller) and wow did they help my calves. But that made me realize that my left knee was hurting, which is not a good sign.

Since then I've gone to a sports doctor who says it's bursitis and that I can run the half without damaging my knee/leg. He said my muscles haven't been healing between the running and he's going to help me on a go forward basis to change things so it doesn't happen again. I have a feeling after the half I'll have to skip running for awhile and just do cross training (probably more bike than anything else, we'll see). Anyway, with that I decided to not quit and try to run the half.

But it hurts. All. The. Time. Sometimes worse than others but still. It hurts to run. It hurts to walk. If I don't take Ibuprofen it wakes me up in the middle of the night because it hurts. So crazy! And because of that I've been really dreading the race, not even sure I can finish it.The doctor told me that finishing the race is going to depend on my pain tolerance and I will be a "wreck" (yes his word) afterwards. We'll see!

Dave and I went to the Expo today and I started to get really excited about it like I have gotten excited for races in the past. I'm still nervous but I'm actually starting to think I might actually be able to run and finish this. 'm really disappointed because 5 weeks ago I was running at a consistent 9:15-9:30 pace for at least 5 miles and I know I could have worked up to 13.1 at a 10:00 pace or better. But with my injury, seriously, my goal now is just to do this. I want to be able to say I've run a half marathon.

So I sit here writing this post in my half marathon shirt (oops, probably too early for that, isn't it? What can I say, I'm excited!) and compression socks I bought at the expo. They say don't try anything new for race day but I'm seriously considering wearing these compression socks and a knee brace I bought.

I've been putting off doing this but I'd like to see how my training went. Here are the miles for all the weeks leading up to this week (not counting this week- I only ran once, on Tuesday, and it was a mile. I forgot my running shoes and my knee was hurting so I decided to just do one loop at a park.)

Week 1 16.1 miles
Week 2 12.4 miles
Week 3 12.2 miles
Week 4 19.9 miles
Week 5 20.1 miles
Week 6 4.5 miles
Week 7 10.8 miles (5K race)
Week 8 19.0 miles
Week 9 20.1 miles
Week 10 17.0 miles (5 mile race)
Week 11 21.7 miles
Week 12 22.7 miles
Week 13 10.4 miles (start of calf pain)
Week 14 9.9 miles
Week 15 5.0 miles
Week 16 10.4 miles
Week 17 6.2 miles
Week 18 race week

Total miles since I started training for the half: 238.4 miles

I've put a lot of work into this and hopefully tomorrow will be a lot of fun.

Photo Courtesy of Paul Meyer Photography

Half Marathon Training - Week 15

Tuesday I went to a chiropractor to have him look at my left calf. The prognosis? Bursitis in my knee. It is from my muscles not having enough time to repair themselves between runs.

He said that I can run the half marathon without injuring myself so I'm going to do it. He massaged and moved around the areas that are bad and said that the massage would help bring up any scar tissue and work it through so the muscle heals. He showed me a few stretches and said to do those every hour (that doesn't happen even though I try but especially at work I'm just too busy. I forget to do it.) He also said to make sure I ice it and use ibuprofen. When it's hurting, it's because the muscle/joint is swollen and that's not allowing it time to heal.

Several nights this past week it has hurt badly enough in the middle of the night that it wakes me up. But I take some ibuprofen and it seems to help eventually so I can fall back asleep.

He also said it's ok to run but just 2-3 miles. If I can go 2-3 miles without pain I can bump it up to 5 miles. But so far I'm still having a lot of pain, even walking sometimes. He also said that the long run isn't necessary at this point; I've built up my stamina and the risk of it hurting worse and not healing is much worse than trying to build more for the half marathon.

So the half marathon is going to be a very mental race for me. And I'm very, very nervous about it.

This week:

Monday - Rest
Tuesday - Ran 2.1 miles on the treadmill with a break at 1 mile to stretch
Wednesday - Rest
Thursday - Rest
Friday - Ran for the photo shoot with Colleen.  I talked to her about it and we probably ran at least 2 miles.
Saturday - Rest
Sunday - Walked 1.17 miles by myself and then ran 2.17 miles with Mandy and Greg.  Also did some ab workouts after icing from the run.

I think I might have rode the bike Wednesday or Thursday but I can't remember which day so I put them both as rest days. This is why I usually try to write everything down.

I'm icing after workouts now and just hoping I'll make it through the race.  The weekly miles are pretty dismal but my goal right now is to run this race and then go from there.  I have a feeling the day after the race is going to be pretty brutal for me.  We'll see!!!

Mileage on shoes
Mizuno: 86.23 miles
Brooks: 65.84 miles

Photo Courtesy of Paul Meyer Photography

Half Marathon Quasi Training - Week 14

I am still having calf pain. Things have seemed to clear up in my right calf, but my left calf is still hurting and my left knee is also starting to hurt as well. I have an appointment for Tuesday to go see a chiropractor to find out what's going on (hopefully).


Monday - Ran 2.65 miles and walked 0.25 miles as a warmup
Tuesday - Walked 1.00 miles on the treadmill
Wednesday - Ran 2.87 miles
Thursday - Rest
Friday - Ran 3.10 miles
Saturday - Ran 1.792 miles on the treadmill
Sunday - Biked 13.5 miles in 45 minutes


Total running miles for the week: 10.412


My monthly mileage for April is going to be dreadful.


Each of the runs this week, I did intervals of walk/run because my calves were hurting. The compression socks and stick seem to help but my left calf was bad enough after my run on Friday that I couldn't put pressure on it while I was trying to stretch. (I was trying something new Colleen showed me and to stretch out my other calf rested my leg on my car but the pressure of pushing down on the left leg when trying to stretch out my left calf was bad.)


I also tried using the Brooks on Wednesday- maybe I just can't use those shoes. I used the Mizunos after that and probably will until I can figure out what's going on. It's funny, I already have blisters on my toes with the Mizunos. But I'll take blisters over the calf pain any day if I can fix it! (The Mizunos are the "old" shoes and are at least 1/2 a size too small. They also allow too much pronation so I really should probably try to find another pair of shoes; not just size these up.)


Mileage on shoes

Mizuno: 80.79 miles 
Brooks: 65.84 miles

Half Marathon Training - Rest Week

So I decided this week to take the entire week off because my calves were still hurting. When I looked at my mileage for each week I realized I was only getting around 10 miles each week and I wanted to be at 20. I figured it would be better to take almost an entire week off and let the calves get back to normal and then keep going. BUT, my calves are still hurting.

So now I am starting to wonder if I'm just being  a big baby and I should push through this. I dunno. It's both my calves although sometimes I feel twinges in my left knee. It did feel better towards the end of the week but they're both still sore.

I wanted to run the Genesis Riverside Run yesterday but my calves were sore when I got up in the morning and we had a concert to play so I decided it was too much hassle. That race was my very first 5K, a year ago. I wanted to do the 10K this year which I know I should be able to do fairly easily, considering I ran the March Mad Dash.

I ran on the treadmill today to round out the week and did it VERY hesitantly. I didn't decide how much I was going to run, just figured I'll run a mile at a time and take a break at each mile to stretch.

I ended up (not counting time for breaks which were long I have to admit) doing 5 miles exactly in 49:48. I started out really slowly but the last two miles I set the treadmill at 6.5 mph. The last minute I set the treadmill at 7mph because I wanted to get 5 miles in at 50 minutes or before for a 10:00 pace.

We'll see how I feel tomorrow. I hope I'm not hobbling. I stretched a LOT throughout and after and hopefully I didn't push too hard after taking 7 full days off. (I didn't even cross train which might have been stupid but I was really trying to just get my calves to stop hurting.)

I should note I also used my old (Mizuno, purple) shoes to see if that would make a difference. The half marathon is 3 weeks away and this is making me even more nervous for that!

Miles for the week: 5.00 (in 49:48)

Mileage on shoes

Mizuno: 73 miles (have also been wearing them regularly though)
Brooks: 62.97 miles

Week 13 Half Marathon Training

Week 13


Monday - Some upper body strength training
Tuesday - 4.86 miles running in 48:58
Wednesday - Exercise Bike, 8.8 miles in 30 minutes
Thursday - Rest
Friday - Rest 
Saturday - 5.01 miles running in 50:35
Sunday - Rest


Totals: 9.87 miles in 1:39:33 plus some cross training


I took a few days of complete rest because my calves were still hurting.  I figure it's muscle soreness because it's both calves equally.  But when I rested I started to feel it in my left knee a little bit.  By Saturday, though, I was feeling much better and I went for a run.  I was planning on trying to get a long run in to make up for taking days off but because of my calves I only ran one loop at North Park.


I was actually somewhat ok the rest of Saturday but by Sunday my calves were hurting a lot again and they are this morning.  So, reluctantly, I think I'm going to take this whole week off.  There is a race on Saturday that I really want to do.  It was my very first 5K and I want to do the 10K this year.  They allow registration on race day; so I will just wait it out and hope that my calves fully heal or whatever and try that race if I'm feeling better.  That means my mileage will be REALLY low this week.  But I'd rather have a really low week and fully recover so I can actually run the half marathon instead of continuing to try to push through it and be miserable for the half marathon.  


So cross your fingers that taking off Sunday through Friday will fix this and I'll be able to run the race on Saturday!!!  I really want to.  I might even skip cross training; we'll see.  I didn't cross train Thursday or Friday because I wanted to give my legs a complete rest.  And they were feeling a lot better Saturday.  Still somewhat tight, so maybe I should have waited a few more days.

Mileage on shoes

Teal: 362.8 miles (retired)
Purple: 68 miles (have also been wearing them regularly though)
Brooks: 62.97 miles

Week 12 Half Marathon Training

Week 12


I am off plan now so I will probably just start listing out what I've done each day.


Monday - Some upper body strength training
Tuesday - 3.24 miles running in 34:04, then a 1.47 mile walk (not counted in mileage)
Wednesday - Exercise Bike, 8.6 miles in 30 minutes
Thursday - Exercise Bike, 11.8 miles in 45 minutes
Friday - Rest 
Saturday - 4.03 miles in 43:58, lots of random walking around the beach and stuff
Sunday - 3.08 miles in 33:59


Totals: 10.35 miles in 1:52:01 plus some cross training


I'm trying to figure out how to handle some calf pain.  I am trying to figure out if this is just muscle soreness I need to push through, or a potential injury.  It affects both calves and I have to describe it more as just being really, really stiff.  But to the point that, at times, I have to hobble around.  And it's the kind of pain that hurts more when I transition from a walk to run but resolves a little bit as I run.


I tried to lay off running for a few days in a row last week to see if it would help.  It kind of did- the pain was less, but still there.  And to me it doesn't feel like a normal injury pain (not that I have experience with running injuries or anything like that.)  I also didn't get a long run in- I wanted to make this a ramp down week anyways, and we were out of town for the weekend, so I just wanted to enjoy the scenery.  


My runs on Saturday and Sunday were on the boardwalk/beach at Rehoboth Beach, DE.  When I was on the boardwalk my pace was under 10:00 a mile, but I slowed down on the actual beach.  First, I walked from the boardwalk to the water where I was running.  The sand was really soft and I didn't want to try to run until it was packed harder by the water.  Second, I just was taking it slow, enjoying the waves crashing, etc.  On Sunday I did walk almost a full split (.25 miles) trying to figure out where to get back from the beach.   How can you beat running along side this:

I might throw out my idea of doing a 13 mile run before the half marathon.  If I wanted to do that, I'd be aiming for 11 this week, 12 next, and 13 the week after.  But I really don't want to hurt myself.  (Then that would work perfectly for tapering down for the actual half.  That would give almost 2 weeks before the race to just do shorter runs.)  I could modify it and do 11 then 13 the next two weeks.  But I don't know if I'll be able to run 11 this weekend.


I don't really have a lot more to say about training.  Mostly right now I'm trying to figure out what I should do with this calf pain.  I don't think a lot of people read this blog, but I'll take any advice if you have any!  Especially from people who've done this training before.


I did try changing back to the purple shoes on my Sunday run but one day of running probably isn't going to make a noticeable difference.


Mileage on shoes

Teal: 362.8 miles (retired)
Purple: 68 miles (have also been wearing them regularly though)
Brooks: 53.1 miles

Week 11 Half Marathon Training

Week 11


Plan miles:  19 miles running plus some cross/strength training 
Actual miles: 22.65 miles in 4:02:07, no cross training but some strength training (upper body only)


This is the last week in my training plan! Next week would be a taper week with the half marathon on the weekend. Since the half marathon isn't until May 6th, I now have 6 extra weeks to keep training. My plan is to maintain the base and just bump up my long run. I do want to run 13 miles beforehand; hopefully in a few weeks so then I can taper down. Next week should be a ramp down week; I've had 2 weeks in a row with 10 mile long runs.

Having some fun taking a picture

My long run this week was supposed to be 10 miles. I made it 10.06 miles. Our group that tends to run on the weekends met at the jail trail (Eliza Furnace trail) this week. I don't know what's been wrong with me but I've been really struggling recently and this was a bad run for me. I started out ok but my knee was hurting, my calves were hurting, and I was slowing the group down the 2nd half of the run. I thought maybe it was my shoes, but when I ran 10 miles to pace Colleen last week, I felt like I could have run more if I wanted to and I wasn't sore at all afterwards. And I wore the same shoes then.  Maybe I need a ramp down week and then I'll bounce back. That was my plan anyways, to take it easier this week.


I originally blamed my runs not being as good recently on this amazing weather! I love the weather and how unseasonably warm it has been but it definitely makes running harder. I'm used to being cold and dressing in layers and I guess I've gotten used to the running being what warms me up. Runs have been hard now and I've been sweating like crazy. Someone at the running group for my run on Thursday said that this is especially hard because it went directly from 40 to 80 without a transition in the middle. I thought he was right, but it was cooler for the run on Sunday (around 55 I think) and I still struggled a lot.  


Our winter was so mild both weather and temperature wise- is this a sign of global warming? ;) I have to say, I am worried about the summer and how HOT it's going to be. You never know, though. We'll see!


On a side note, I'm really upset about my Garmin watch. It's not working right now. I'm going to have to call today to find out what's going on (and I don't know if it's covered under warranty anymore) but I'm bummed that it's likely I won't be able to use it next weekend. I guess it's back to Cardio Trainer on my phone, hopefully temporarily. I'll miss being able to see how far I've gone and some of the extra stats (like split times).


Mileage on shoes

Teal: 362.8 miles (retired)
Purple: 65 miles
Brooks: 44.35 miles

Week 10 Half Marathon Training

Week 10


Plan miles:  19 miles running plus some cross/strength training 
Actual miles:  21.69 miles in 3:47:46, some cross training and strength training (some lifting, just upper body though, ab work, and 12 miles on the bike in 40 minutes)


I went to get fitted for new shoes and ended up buying them.  It turns out that I pronate pretty badly and when they saw me in my old shoes they immediately said that I need new shoes.  I could tell a difference even in the store just walking to see how the fit felt!  So I now have Brooke Ravenna 3 with some inserts.  They told me that my other shoes were too wide, and not long enough.  So we went with the regular width and added another half size to the shoe.  Now I'm in 11s. That makes me feel like a giant.  


It did take a little bit to get used to the new shoes because it makes me run a little differently.  It made my calves sore more easily but by the end of the week it was feeling better.

Photo Credit: Colleen

I had my worst run ever, on Wednesday.  I'm not sure why.  I didn't drink even close to as much water as I did during the day.  It was my 2nd day in a row running and I had done a 5 mile loop at North Park by myself in slightly less than 49 minutes which is still really good for me.  I was struggling so much on Wednesday and made Mandy and Jen walk more than they needed to.  I wanted to get at least 5 miles in but we ended up with 4.3, and Jen had to get back to her Zumba class so she ran ahead while Mandy stuck behind and walked up a hill with me.


I ended up outside for every run, and took advantage of this beautiful weather.  It's so weird to be running in shorts and a t-shirt in March!  In Pittsburgh!


My long run was supposed to be 9 miles, and I made it 10 miles, helping pace Colleen for her ultramarathon.  My post about it is here.


Next week is my last "real" week of the training plan!  I'm going to have to come up with the remaining weeks myself ahead of time so that I am not just winging it.  I'm worried if I wing it I won't keep going with consistency and that's what I really need.  My goal is still to have run the full 13.1 miles once before the actual race.  I think I'm going to need that mentally.


Mileage on shoes

Teal: 362.8 miles (retired)
Purple: 65 miles
Brooks: 21.7 miles

Week 9 Half Marathon Training

Week 9


Plan miles:  10 miles running plus some cross/strength training and a 10K race
Actual miles:  7.98 miles in 1:22:41, a 5 mile race in 47:55, and 3 days of cross training (14.8 miles in 50 minutes on the bicycle and a few untimed walks around my neighborhood.)


This was another ramp down week per the plan, with a race.  I only have 3 more weeks left in the plan with the 3rd week being the half marathon week, so pretty soon I'll be kind of making my own stuff up.  My plan is to just keep building the long run by a mile and make sure I keep some ramp down weeks in there, every few weeks.


I didn't get all the miles in, but work was a little crazy, and a good friend lost her husband, so between those two I had a little bit of a time crunch.  I don't really feel too bad about being a little low on miles, though- because I feel really good about the race I ran.  I ran a 5 miler instead of a 10K because that was what was available.  My original plan was to run the 6th mile right after the race but we had a funeral to go to, and literally hopped in the car after the race to make it to the funeral in time.  (If there had been a conflict and we wouldn't have made it to the funeral, I was going to drop the race altogether.  But since the timing worked out and I had already registered/paid for the race, I still ran it.)  See my race recap here.


I did have two walks that I'm kind of counting as cross training.  I at least got out there and even just walking, I feel it in my calves from the hills.  One of the walks was with my neighbor and we walked pretty fast, and I couldn't pass up the beautiful weather on Sunday so Dave and I walked around the neighborhood again together.


At this point my minimum runs are supposed to be 5 miles unless they substitute for cross training.  I got a 6 mile run in with People Who Run Downtown and managed to squeak in 2 miles another day on the treadmill but that's really all I had time for.  My legs are still feeling pretty good though, and I'm happy with how I did this week.


Oh, and my Garmin watch I got for Christmas?!  It's now been used more than 100 miles!  At the rate I'm going, too, I better buy another pair of replacement shoes for my purple ones.  I might need them by the half marathon!  Or be close to needing them.

Finishing the race on Saturday.

Mileage on shoes

Teal: 362.8 miles (retired)
Purple: 65 miles

Week 8 half marathon training

Week 8


Plan miles:  20 miles running plus some cross/strength training
Actual miles:  20.09 miles in 3:27:41 and 30 minutes of cross training (9.1 miles on the bicycle)


This week I got some good runs in.  First, I met up with a running group and ran downtown, Pittsburgh.  Those miles just flew by and I was faster than I am even when I run with Colleen.  Which was really surprising.  


Another day the weather was beautiful so I just had to run around my neighborhood and enjoy the weather.


My long run was at North Park, and I did make it 8 miles.  Poor Colleen though- her knee is hurting and we did the whole thing in intervals.  I wasn't thinking.  I figured if we did intervals and took it easy, it would be better for her.  But starting and stopping running can really tear up your knees.  And from what I hear she's really hurting now.  She wrote about our run here.

Finishing the 8 mile run.  I didn't realize Colleen was taking pictures.  (Photo credit: Colleen)

Finally, we went to Hershey overnight this weekend (mostly to go to Troeg's Brewery) and I got a run in around Hershey.  I'm getting used to running with other people but this one was by myself.  I saw 3 other runners and 2 bikers, circled the high school and looked at their track, soccer field, etc.  And on the way back to the hotel a cop was parked along the side of the road watching traffic.  He might have thought I was crazy- I started circling around parking lots because I wanted to get 5 miles in.


After retiring the teal shoes, that was definitely causing my knee issues.  I had no problems on the 8 mile run or any of the other runs this week.  I think I will probably be out shopping for another "backup" pair soon.  I kind of want to get fitted again just because now I'm more comfortable with running in general and think I'll have a better feel for what will feel good.  Not that my current shoes don't work but I want to try others.  I also have a feeling my shoes have been discontinued- I got the second pair pretty cheap and they only have weird sizes available now.


Next week my minimum runs (other than where I can choose either cross training or running) are 5 miles.  This will be painful if I end up on the treadmill at all!


Mileage on shoes

Teal: 362.8 miles (retired)
Purple: 51.9 miles

After the 8 mile run.  Photo credit: Colleen

Week 7 half marathon training

Week 7


Plan miles:  16 miles running plus some cross/strength training
Actual miles:  19.03 miles in 3:32:29 and 80 minutes of cross training (23.8 miles on the bicycle)


I think it's time to retire my first pair of running shoes- the teal ones.  I was fine on the treadmill, twice, and my knees didn't hurt.  I generally wear the purple/newer shoes on the treadmill to break them in and keep them cleaner.  On the long run, I met 5 other people at North Park and at 3.5 miles in my knee was hurting pretty badly!  In fact for a little bit I was limping.  So it made the long run really hard.  When we finished the first loop (5 miles) 3 of the 6 people left but during discussions someone mentioned needing new shoes and it clicked that when I've run with the teal/older shoes, my knee has hurt pretty consistently.  I keep blaming it on other stuff- for example, running in the sand on Tybee Island, then running a race the day after that, etc.  But maybe it's as simple as the shoes.  I'll try out my next long run with the purple shoes and see if it makes a difference.

Before the long run at North Park.
2 of us are signed up for the full marathon and 4 of us are signed up for the half marathon.
Photo credit to a random runner who was at his car.  :)  And Colleen's camera

My longest run was supposed to be 7 miles and I made it a quasi 8-10 miles, depending on how you count it.  The first loop (5 miles) was with 6 of us and we ran in intervals of 4:1.  The average pace was 10:17 so even with walking intervals I consider that pretty good.  However, with my knee hurting...  I wasn't sure how far I'd go.  Sarah and I ran the 2nd loop together.  I needed 7 miles and she wanted to do 8 so I agreed to run 3 more with her if she'd be willing to walk the last 2 with me back to the cars.  That was a good plan in theory but didn't really work out.  When I'd start running, my knee hurt quite a bit.  But if I pushed it would start to feel better for awhile, and then really hurt again.  So we would run a little while, then I'd force us to walk.  Then we'd try it again.  Without doing any real intervals (although each run was more than 4 minutes- I wasn't timing, just going by how my knee felt).  I pretty much made sure we actually ran 3 miles to get to 8 but it took until about the 4th mile of 5 to get that in.  So I almost think I could count the "run" as 10 miles, or 9 miles with the last mile being a walk.


My short runs are now up to 4.5 mile runs and I'm even doing them on the treadmill, which is an accomplishment.  Right now it takes about 2 Friends episodes to go 4.5 miles.  I'm not sure what I'll do in a few weeks when I have to bump that up to 5!  Also, I'm actually starting to run those straight through without stopping or walking.  My last treadmill run was on Thursday and I hopped off at 4 miles but only to tie my shoe and I got right back on the treadmill to finish out the 4.5 miles.


I can definitely tell I'm in general getting stronger.


Mileage on shoes

Teal: 362.8 miles
Purple: 31.8 miles

I came across a good running quote this week: My sport is your sport's punishment.  That made me laugh and think of tennis in high school.  So true!

Week 6 Half Marathon Training

Week 6


Plan miles: 8 miles running plus 5K race and some cross/strength training.
Actual miles: 7.74 miles in 1:17:04 plus 5K race with no strength training or cross training  (5K race was 3.18 miles with a time of 29:39 on my Garmin watch, no official time yet)


This week was a ramp down week with an actual race. It was supposed to be more running early in the week then rest before the 5K.  I did the opposite.  We were busy earlier in the week so I ran mostly at the end of the week.  


I did walk- both just around Savannah and one day Dave and I walked around Lake Mayer (1.45 miles) but it was pretty slow and I guess walking doesn't count as cross training....?  I'm still trying to figure that one out.


The runs themselves were awesome.  We visited my sister in Savannah, GA, and my "long" run ended up being a total of 5.17 miles.  I met her during her lunch on Friday at Jaycee Park on Tybee Island.  Before she got there, I ran 1.03 miles myself.  After she got there we did her normal lunchtime run, which was mostly on the beach and was 2.78 miles.  Then we wanted to clock the loop around Jaycee Park and that was another 0.50 miles.  Finally, I ran from Jaycee Park myself to Huckapoos, a bar where Dave was having some beer waiting for me.  That ended up being another 0.86 miles.  The weather was unbelievable and just from the run on the beach my face was a little pink.


The Garmin data is cool, too- you can tell we were on the beach because it looks like we're running in the water.  (This is just the 2.78 mile run.  I kept resetting my Garmin because I was running separately and we wanted to clock the actual loop at the park.)

I'll recap the 5K separately, with pictures, when the official results are posted.  I think it was around 29:23 though (based on pictures) and it was slightly more than 3.1 miles.


I was going to run on Sunday as well but we were out REALLY late Saturday night and drank enough that I didn't feel 100%, plus there was a thunderstorm.  I would have really enjoyed one more day of running in the nice weather.


Mileage on shoes
Teal: 352.8 miles
Purple: 22.8 miles

Half Marathon Training - week off

In my last training post, I said I might slow down this week because I'd been ramping up a lot.  Well, on Monday my calves were feeling sore, especially walking up the stairs.  I don't mind actual muscle soreness but by Tuesday it was starting to feel different.  The side of my right calf was hurting.  Not a sharp pain or anything, but it was weird enough that I decided I better take a break.  I'd rather take a few days off of running to avoid an injury than to actually injure myself and be done for weeks at a time.  One of my friends said if you get a stress fracture you can't run for 6 weeks.  That would make the half marathon very hard!


So I don't know if I was close to injuring myself but I didn't want to take the chance.


I wanted to exercise, even if it wasn't running.  I got in 3 days on the exercise bike.  30 minutes 2 of those days and 40 minutes one day.  I also went ice skating but I'm not sure that really counts because I was just out having fun and talking to Dave in between and stuff.


And I did run one day, on Sunday.  The weather has turned more normal and it snowed most of the weekend.  They get to our road pretty late compared to everywhere else.  We're in a housing plan on a cul de sac and sometimes they even go to the stop sign before the last part of our street and stop there.  Anyway, with all the snow, I decided not to attempt a run outside.  Besides, if I was feeling sore or something, it would be easier to just get off a treadmill instead of being halfway around North Park and having 2 miles or so to walk/run back to the car.


Even with that, my knee started hurting.  So I hopped off twice to get some Gatorade and see if a little rest would let me keep going.  We'll see how my knee/calf feels the next few days.  My current plan is to do Week 6 this week.  But instead of being a ramping down week, now it's going to be a ramping up week.


Total for the week:
Running 4.52 miles in 0:48:00
Biking 28.9 miles in 1:40:00


Mileage on shoes
Teal: 344.4 miles
Purple: 20.2 miles

Week 5 Half Marathon Training

Week 5


Oops, I screwed up what the plan was supposed to be last week.  Maybe I should actually print out the plan and start marking a hard copy up like a little birdie suggested.  Even though I'm a little off, I'm using Week 5 from the plan since I'm on the 5th week and I'm still on track with (and actually ahead of) what the plan thinks I should be doing.


Plan miles: 14 miles running plus some cross/strength training, or 16 miles running with one less session cross training
Actual miles: 20.13 miles in 3:26:06 with no strength or cross training 


My longest run was supposed to be 6 miles per my plan and my longest run was 7 miles.  I have to give a caveat, though, because we did briefly stop at the cars so there was a break around mile 5.  


I ran my long run with Colleen at North Park. She had already run one loop when I got there so we ran another one and she warned me beforehand it was pretty warm.  So I took off a bunch of layers before we even started. (It wasn't even 35 when we started the run- just crazy.  But it was sunny and must have felt warmer than the actual temperature.)  


I ended up running with a short sleeve shirt and a new long sleeve shirt over top of it and my running tights.  I like being able to unzip the top of my outer layer and the turtleneck was bugging me so at some point I took off the outer shirt and just ran in the t-shirt.  I think that was probably about halfway around the loop, around 2.5 miles.


My arms were cold but it was much better than running with my throat feeling constricted.  I think that shirt would work if it's cold out but I didn't need it today.  So when we finished the loop and were back at our cars, I left the outer shirt in the car and put on my arm warmers with the t-shirt. We also both drank some Gatorade to refuel.  Since we stopped, I suggested we run up the hill that I talked about here and we did another 2 miles.  (I realized as we ran the loop that I would only need 2 more miles to get the week over 20 total.)  I wanted to do the last two miles slowly (11:00 pace) but we don't seem to be good at that and I'm finding that I am extremely bad at judging how fast of a pace I'm running.  We actually ended up at an average pace of 10:24 with a few walks mostly during the 2nd mile.


My knee started hurting, so I think that was a good distance and I shouldn't be pushing it more.  It makes me worry about future weeks because the miles just go up and up, overall.  Plus I've been spoiled by this awesome winter weather and running outside.  I can't go as far or as fast on the treadmill.  (But I'm not complaining- at least I have that option at my house.)


The longest run was in intervals again, but I did run 5 miles earlier in the week without stopping.  I blogged about it in the same post I referred to above with the hill.


Also, the mileage on my teal shoes went up slightly more than the mileage I am reporting for training this week.  One of the days I ran around my neighborhood and my neighbor was on her way out to walk her dog as I was finishing up.  I decided to walk with her and I did log it on my GPS.  I did not count it as cross training since it was right after a run and more of a cool down, and I did not count it as part of the plan since it was all walking.  But I wanted to get that mileage on the shoes since I had them on.

Mileage on shoes
Teal: 344.4 miles
Purple: 15.7 miles


I looked at the plan for next week and it actually slows training down.  I was going to say here that I'm going to do that anyways.  I've been ramping up a LOT and I keep reading online that sometimes it's good to slow down for a week and back off a little bit.  My calves and IT bands have been pretty sore most of the week so I'm going to take that as a sign to just back off.  Besides, with Dave and my schedules this week, I'm not sure I will be able to get many runs in that aren't either around my neighborhood or on the treadmill.   I probably won't push it more, even if I do have the time.  


The plan says to skip the long run and do a 5K race.  I kind of screwed up the planning of that though!  The following week I'm registered to run a 5K with my sister.  So I'll see how this week goes and maybe swap Weeks 6 and 7.  Or mix them together somehow.

5 mile run 2/2/12

I had my longest straight run, ever.  I ran with Colleen, so maybe even that's a little cheating (having someone to talk to) but I don't care.  It still counts.

We did the loop at North Park after work again today.  We started out at the Boat House and there is a hill that looks scary and we've walked once but I've never ran it.  (Colleen has).  After running my neighborhood yesterday, I realized how freaking hilly my neighborhood is!  And I decided I wanted to try the scary hill at North Park.  So we started at the Boat House and, going counter clockwise around the lake, we started up the hill.  I was surprised, it wasn't that bad!!!  So I came home and looked at the data.

Worst hill in my housing plan:
128 ft increase in 0.26 miles
Scary hill in North Park:
66 ft increase in 0.30 miles

That makes me feel better about how much I struggle with that hill in my housing plan, too.  When I ran yesterday I considered looping around and doing it again but I walked part of the hill the first time and there was no way  I was going to do it again yesterday!  Even with the beautiful weather.

After the hill we continued around the lake.  Not even one mile in I was thinking (but not saying out loud) that there was no way I was going to be able to run 5 miles without walking at all.  I told Colleen I wanted to aim for 10:30-11:00 for a mile pace and I kept trying to slow it down so I didn't tire myself out.  We weren't sure how fast it was going to get dark, so at about 2.6 miles we turned around and headed back instead of staying on the loop and running along the busier streets.  I think we actually would have made it all the way around in time, but I'd rather be safe than sorry, and Colleen had left her light in her car.

When we were about 3.5 miles or so into the run, Colleen asked how I felt running.  At that point we discussed potentially walking after we hit the 4 mile mark but I really wanted to push it and finish. We were over halfway there!  So even though I was tired I kept pushing.  And we actually sped up at the end- the last mile was our fastest and under 10:00!

Colleen makes this prettier but here's the data with our mile times.  (She has the prettier version here with her blog post.)

Distance	Mile Time	Total Time
1.00	10:25.4	10:25.4
2.00	10:41.8	21:07.2
3.00	10:27.5	31:34.7
4.00	10:25.4	42:00.1
5.00	09:53.9	51:54.0
5.07	00:39.8	52:33.8
Average Pace		10:22.1

Best 0.25 mile Split 2:25.4
Worst 0.25 mile Split 2:48.8

With my pace goal, I wanted to keep our splits between 2:37 and 2:45 so that's pretty good.  Of the 20 splits, 9 were in that time range.  1 was slower than I was aiming for and 10 were faster.

Here is the graph comparing the elevation and the speed (elevation in green and speed in blue).  The biggest spike in the speed (slowest pace) is when we turned around to head back.  We didn't climb the hill the 2nd time around so the distance out was a little further than the distance back.

I really appreciate that she's willing to slow down for me.  I know she can run much faster and further than I can and it's so nice to have the company!

Week 4 Half Marathon Training

Week 4


Plan miles: 13 miles running plus some cross/strength training.
Actual miles: 19.94 miles in 3:20:49 with no strength training and two days of cross training (40 minutes on a stationary bike, 11.6 miles and walking 1.5 miles in 22:30- not counted in total for miles though)

My longest run was supposed to be 6 miles per my plan and my longest run was 7.5 miles.  That was a decent group run with 5 other friends.  The first 5 miles all 6 of us ran somewhat together in 4:1 intervals (4 minutes running, 1 minute walking).  Then we stopped for water because that was one loop of the park.  We all headed out again.  2 turned back after a little over .5 miles to get another mile.  1 wanted to do the whole loop 4:1 again.  The other 3 of us did 3:1 intervals and the goal was 3 miles.  I was getting tired though so I turned in a bit early and made it 2.5 miles instead of 3 while they continued on.  It was probably better for them anyways; they sped up once I broke off.


I figure doing run/walk intervals I can stretch it longer, so it's ok that I went more than the plan called for.  And I'm starting to learn the signs from my body that it's been enough.  That's part of the reason I turned around and cut out .5 miles.  I am starting to figure that my knee is where I'm going to feel it the most.  And my knee was starting to hurt.


When I first started running the loop around the lake with Colleen, my knee would hurt quite a bit by the end.  I had completely forgotten that until today and realized- I didn't even notice that my knee has stopped hurting when we run the distance of the loop.  (We try to get out about once a week and I haven't felt it in a while now.)  That's definitely proof I have made progress!


Clothing wise (on the long run), I thought it was going to be pretty cold so I bundled up in layers.  But I ended up starting in my purple shirt with thumb holes, a short sleeve shirt and my arm warmers underneath, my running tights with shorts over, wool socks, a hat, and gloves.  And by the end of the first loop I had peeled off even some of those layers.  No more hat, gloves, or purple shirt.  I was running in just a t-shirt and the arm warmers.


Mileage on shoes
Teal: 323.5 miles
Purple: 15.7 miles


Next week is going to be lower as far as total miles.  I already know I won't be able to work out at all on Monday or Tuesday.  But I probably could use the rest after the run today.  

Week 3 Half Marathon Training

Week 3


Plan miles: 12 miles running plus some cross/strength training.
Actual miles: 12.21 miles this week  in 2:07:52 with one day of strength training (free weights at home) and one day of cross training (30 minutes on a stationary bike, 8.6 miles)

The way I was calculating the plan miles previously was different than I did this week.  Some of the plan days it says "x miles or cross training".  Week 1 and 2 since I didn't do cross training, so I counted the miles for those days.  Since I did the cross training this week, I didn't count the miles for the cross training day.  (It would have added 2 more miles to make it 14.)


Also, I was on my way to actually following the plan (and not having to make up the miles with a long run) but the weather and work got in the way.  Thursday night I couldn't get home until late and hit a guardrail...  Friday I had hoped to have the day off but had to work both Friday and some on Saturday as well.  It looks like I can't really count anymore on Fridays off.


I had another 6 mile run- broken up into 5 miles and 1 more mile back to back.  In the middle of the extra mile we stopped and took some pictures.  I forgot how crappy my clothing "ensemble" looks running, trying to wear the right clothes for the weather.  Here's a picture though.  The sunglasses were free from the Hot Chocolate 5K/15K expo.  And I much prefer not having a hat on for pictures.  But I wasn't thinking about how I looked; it was basically at the end of our run.  

I also have a pretty bad blister on one of my toes.  This is not a good sign this early in training, is it?

Teal: 310.6 miles
Purple: 8.6 miles


Here are some more pictures of both of us.  I love that the camera captures both feet being off the ground.

For some reason to me it looks like I'm walking in this picture.
But no, if you look closely, both feet are off the ground at the same time...

I think Colleen likes close-ups better but I really like this entire shot- with the sun at the top
and the scenery (snow and bare trees, yes, that's still scenery) in the background.