Resting

I haven't run all week! I feel very lazy and decadent, heh. But I deserve a week off, I think.

I am recovering nicely from the marathon. My leg was sore for a couple of days, and I slept a lot for a few days, but I'm completely fine now.

So, now I must decide what to do next. I decided not to do the Disneyland half marathon -- with the time limit of three and a half hours, it's just cutting it too close. My time for the half in LA was 3:31, and I was still moving pretty well at the half. Another six months' training would probably get my speed up, but I don't want to worry about finishing.

Another idea was the Long Beach Marathon and half marathon. Long limit, ocean views, running on the beach -- it would be perfect -- except that it's October 15, the day that I'm scheduled to return from my cruise to Japan this fall. I'm still waffling about the cruise, though. It's awfully expensive, so I might cancel it. If I don't do Long Beach this year, though, I think it would be great for the full marathon next year.

Anyway, I'll keep looking into a half-marathon for the fall, to give me something to keep training for. Meanwhile, I've decided to go ahead and get a membership at the Anytime Fitness gym near the post office, and start going there two or three times a week. I'd like to see if I can start doing some weight training again, and I'll also have the treadmills available for running. Now that I'm finally feeling strong and in shape again, I don't want to lose that.

Los Angeles Marathon 2006

I did it! Finished with an official time of 7:42:31. Longer than I wanted it to be, but not bad, considering that my right leg started to hurt by Mile 9 and only got worse throughout the rest of the marathon. Aiyee! I suspect it was mostly because the marathon was run totally on hard pavement, while I did most of my training on soft dirt roads and trails. My legs couldn't handle all the hard jouncing. It was a difficult marathon, but I got it done. Yay! Marathon number four. It wasn't my best time, but it wasn't my worst, either.

Full report, with pictures, can be found here.

The Day Before

All right, I didn't do a second run this week, but it wasn't because I was lazy, it was the opposite -- I have had so much physical work to do this week, I decided it would be best not to do any more. I'm supposed to be resting this week and taking it easy! Instead, I've been hauling and cutting firewood, shoveling snow, cleaning, setting up another fish tank.... We had a major snowstorm last weekend, and are having another one this weekend, and I was nearly out of firewood, so I've been scrambling to get some more wood cut and under cover to dry out, and to get the place ready for mom to stay this weekend while I'm gone.

So, instead of being all rested up, I'm a bit worn out. I should be resting today, too, but I will in fact be cleaning the fish tank, packing, and driving down to LA. Oh well. I'm in pretty good shape these days, and hope that a quiet evening and a good night's sleep, as well as tomorrow's excitement, will carry me through the day.

Fortunately, tomorrow is forecast to be the one nice day this week -- sunny and dry, with temps in the 60s in LA. It should be a good day for a marathon! It's snowing here right now, but is supposed to turn to rain later today. I won't be leaving for LA until maybe 1 pm, so I'm hoping the roads will be clear by then and the drive will be relatively easy. Once I arrive at the hotel and get checked in, I'll have to figure out how to get to the Expo to pick up my race bib and timing chip, which I need to get by 6 pm. Should be plenty of time. I'm mostly packed, and I have a list of things to do/pack that I'm steadily checking off. Mom came up yesterday, so she's already here and settled in to stay for the weekend.

Eee! One more day! This time tomorrow, I'll be at the starting line, waiting for the race to begin!

Last Tuesday

Did my thirty minutes today on the treadmill, feeling fine! I probably could have done it outdoors -- the weather is clear and not too cold -- but there's still snow on the ground, so I figured I'd do today's running-type-thing inside, and do Thursday's outdoors. It's not supposed to rain or snow again before Friday, so running conditions should be okay by Thursday.

Now, here's what I'm thinking of doing for my next race: the Disneyland Half Marathon. It looks like great fun -- running a race right through Disneyland! It's close by, and the timing is perfect -- it's Sept 17, so there's plenty of time to rest up after LA, continue running at some reasonable maintenance level until mid-July, then ramp up training for a couple of months for the half-marathon. Since it's only a half, it should be relatively easy to train up to a good pace. In fact, if I can keep doing eight-mile runs with some regularity until training time, I'd only have five miles to add to get up to the half. I'd probably set up some sort of schedule to get myself up to 15 - 18 miles a couple of weeks before the half, to really get myself in shape.

The registration's already over 80% sold, so I'm going to have to decide soon... oh, heck. It's $85 to register, I suppose I could afford to risk losing that if I decide not to do it.

Week 27: Eight miles

And, that's it! Long runs finished, only one week until the marathon!

I did go to the gym this morning to do my run on the treadmill. It worked pretty well -- and since there were six inches of snow on the ground when I got up this morning, and it's been snowing off and on all day, and is supposed to continue to snow tomorrow, it seems to have been my only option as well.

Started out with a slight glitch -- I arrived at the gym at 9:30, only to find that the staff didn't arrive until 10 am. Oops! I'd forgotten to make note of the hours, but just assumed that they'd be there earlier. No problem, I went to Kmart and sat in the parking lot reading my mail for half an hour, then drove back.

I started out with an hour on one of the treadmills upstairs, thinking I'd want to take a break after that and maybe try one of the other machines. The hour went by easily enough. The biggest problem with that machine was that it made a horrible squeaky noise the whole time, plus I was so electric I shocked myself every single damn time my hand brushed against the metal railings.

After that, I thought I'd try a stepper for a little while and then finish on another treadmill. I was going to do 30 minutes on the step machine, but it was hard and tiring and I quit after 15 minutes and went downstairs to use one of the fancy new treadmills down there. This one was at least quieter! I started out to do 45 minutes, but then I accidentally tripped the emergency stop after about eight minutes, so I reset it for 45 and finished up. That gave me my full two hours and eight minutes or so, which is how long eight miles would take at my 16-minute-mile pace.

I went ahead and did my ab work and stretches there, then changed clothes and headed to my mom's for dinner.

And that was that! Final weekend long run finished! Now I've just got two little 30-minute runs this week, and then the marathon. I'll probably end up doing my first 30-minutes indoors on the trampoline, but the weather should clear up in time for me to do my second midweek run outside, as usual.

Go me! I actually got through the whole training without missing a single long run. Haven't missed a midweek run yet, either, and don't expect to. I may not do my fastest marathon, but I'll be able to do the best I'm capable of at this point.

Friday trampoline

A day late in getting my second 30-minute running-type-thing in this week, for the simple reason that I got distracted yesterday working on my website and totally lost track of time. Didn't even think of doing my run until it was too late. But, no problem, I did it this morning.

Now, the question remains: how shall I handle my final 8-mile run? There is currently about 5 inches of snow on the ground, and it's supposed to continue snowing today and all day tomorrow. There may well be a foot of snow here by the time it's done. There will probably be less in town, but still, it's the weekend of snow!

I figure I have three options: 1) go to the gym tomorrow and do two hours on a treadmill.

2) wait and see what the weather's like on Sunday. If it's not too cold, and the trail in the park is clear enough, go ahead and do it there. Problem is, if it's not runnable on Sunday, it will be too late to use the gym, and I'll be stuck.

3) take this last opportunity to drive down to LA and run with the group. They'll be starting at 8 am, so I won't have to leave too early, and it's a short, easy run, so I won't be exhausted driving back. Problem with that is, the weather might still be bad enough Sunday morning to make driving a problem. Plus, there's the expense of the four-hour drive.

Most practical and reliable thing would be to go ahead and do the run at the gym tomorrow, which is probably what I'll go ahead and do. I don't imagine there'll be a problem with me tying up a treadmill for two hours -- Saturday mornings are usually light at gyms, and the gym by the post office had quite a few treadmills. I suppose if it was busy, I could move to a different machine for a while, do part of it on an elliptical or stair machine. Ordinarily, that wouldn't be advisable, but for this last run, I don't think it would hurt.

Tuesday trampoline

It was cold and snowy today, so I did my 30 minutes indoors on the trampoline. It's supposed to be cold and stormy pretty much all week, so I may be trampolining on Thursday as well. And, I might just be doing my final 8-miler at the gym on the treadmill -- it's supposed to be snowing and highs in the 30s on Friday and Saturday. The five-day forecast hasn't reached Sunday yet, but if it snows all day Friday and Saturday, it's not looking good for running outdoors on Sunday. Eek! What a crazy winter. We're having more snow in March than we've had all winter so far.

Week 26: Eight miles

I think today was the only reasonably warm day this week. I wore my sweatpants and sweatshirt, anyway, and did an easy eight miles at the park. It took me 2:12:43 to do twelve loops, or about 8.4 miles, which comes out to just under 16 minute miles. I didn't feel terribly energetic, but I used my iPod the whole way and just kept going, and apparently managed to keep up my pace regardless. Go me!

One more 8-miler to go, and then the marathon! Hope the weather holds out for next week's run.

Plod, plod

I did my 30 minutes outside today, 2:3 around the house. The driveway was still damp, but not squishy muddy, and it was reasonably sunny, although a bit cold. I felt very lethargic, though, and just plodded through it. Partly, I suppose, because I'd already been out cutting up firewood, partly because it's been cold and I've been working out in the unheated part of the house for most of the day, partly because I had lunch at noon-ish and ended up going out to run just at mid-afternoon slump time. But it went fine, for all that.

It's supposed to rain tonight and snow tomorrow, but supposedly will be cloudy and mid-50s by Sunday, so I'm currently planning to to my 8-mile run at the park, as usual. Will switch to alternate plans if that changes.