Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Aches and pains of marathon training

My lil body is starting to hurt from marathon training. Tonight my knees are hurting. I iced them for a bit and now my foot is hurting. HAHA. Tonight I ran a fast 3 miles. I felt good while running and for some reason I am more nervous about my short runs than my longer runs. At this point it seems to take my body a few miles just to warm up. I couldn't find my watch to time my run, but I would estimate that I finished around 28-29 minutes or so. Tomorrow I'm running 8 miles and I'll be incorporating 2 fairly big hills in the run. I've been reading quite a bit about the marathon and it is quite hilly according to the reviews. I've been running on some hills, so I think I'll be ready, but it can't hurt to do a few more hill runs.

This week my long run is only 12 miles, so I'm looking forward to the shorter distance. I'm also planning to take an RPM class (cycling) and yoga class. The cross training has really made my running stronger so I plan to continue with it as the marathon approaches. I haven't been to Body Pump in about 2 weeks, mainly because of my schedule.

Marathon training is tiring. I've been training since March and I'm starting to get tired, but 45 more days until race day! I'm beginning to think what I'll do after the marathon is finished. I am definitely planning to run the Broad Street Run again and the Delaware half marathon. I think the half marathon is a distance I want to do more of and continue to improve my times!

That's all for now. Just a quick update. I'm going to try to update more as we get closer to Baltimore!

Peace. Love. Run.

Saturday, August 28, 2010

18 Miles!

A very rambling blog entry...

18 MILES! Woo. I did it. This morning. It's been a pretty long training process and I am finally getting to the workouts with BIG miles! I'm proud of the progress I've made... I still have some work ahead of me, but after today's run I finally feel like I've reached the point where I am confident in my physical ability do this marathon. Mentally, I'm still working on it! If I had to do the marathon 2-3 weeks from now, I feel I could do it!

The day before my big runs is always a day to prepare for the next day's run. I watch what I eat and I am hydrating all day. It seems to be working because my long runs have been pretty successful so far. Last night I iced my shins - they started bothering me yesterday and my knees have been a bit sore and I've been icing them as well.

This morning I woke up at 5:30 to get ready to start running at 7. I got to talk to my BFF Jessimba who happened to be up I so that was a nice, encouraging conversation before I embarked I what I'm calling "Kim's Parade Around Newark." I started my run at the Newark Reservoir and went practically around the entire city. It was a good mix of scenery and flats and some hills. Most of the run was flat though. I was really feeling good through most of the run - surprisingly good. I broke the run into 2 sections. Miles 1-11.5 I ran alone. At 11.5 I ran by my friend, Anna's, house and she joined me for the rest. She was a great help and kept me motivated!! I was tired from mile 12 on, but didn't really hit wall until 16.5 miles. And it was more of a mental than physical wall. At that point tons of obscentities were running through my head. I tried to think positive thoughts but it wasn't working well until I realized I was going to finish my run in under 3 hours so I kicked it in gear. I finished strong - the strongest finish of all of my long runs to date and I was really sore when I finished. After driving in the car, I definitely struggled to walk. As the day went on, my legs got looser and I'm feeling okay. Just okay though... I did run 18 miles afterall. At some points of the day I felt a bit naseuous, but I think it's because I needed to eat more.

A lot of times when I run I think about the progress I've made since the first day I attempted any long distance run. My first cross country meet (3.1 miles) I probably finished around 38 minutes. I walked and I complained... but eventually I grew to love running. Hence why I'm crazy enough to train to run 26.2 miles. I think anyone can become a runner if they really want it bad enough. I am amazed everyday I lace my sneakers up at how powerful the human body is. The thought of running 18 miles always seemed so daunting, but with each week of training, my body gets stronger, but more importantly, my mind gets stronger. The fact that I could run for almost 3 hours straight is simply amazing. Respect your body, people it does great things!

P.S. This is such terrible rambling jibber jabber.

Peace. Love. Run.

Monday, August 23, 2010

15 miles - DONE

Saturday was my longest run ever - 15 miles. I was really nervous about it. 15 miles is far. I mapped out my run a few days before to prepare myself mentally. On Friday I drank a lot of water, but went to bed late (David Gray and Ray LaMontagne concert - Amazing musicians!!) so I didn't start running until about 10. It was fine to start this late in the morning because it wasn't very humid. I started my run at the Newark reservoir parking lot and pretty much did a complete tour of the city of Newark. I was really out of breath for the first mile or so... I'm not so sure why. Around mile 3 I started getting terrible "girl cramps," but I worked through it and started feeling good around the 4 mile mark. For most of the run I felt good, besides some leg stiffness and the bottoms of my feet were hurting at about 1:40 minutes of running my feet really started getting tired and all I could think about was sitting down, a cold shower, a swimming pool, Rita's water ice and freeze pops. I knew I had some more work ahead of me before any of these were possibilities. I estimated that I would finished in 2.5 hours and I came in at exactly that time. I stopped a few times to stretch during the run. The course I mapped out was 15.07 miles at at mile 15 I was just ready to be done, but I felt a sense of achievement. I had almost finished running 15 miles! What an accomplishment. Once I was finished my legs really hurt. I drove home and ate a bowl of cereal, tried to stretch out a bit, but I knew it was going to be slow moving for the day. I rebounded pretty quickly and was able to clean my house later that day. The next morning I felt stiffness especially when sitting for long period of times.

Today was back to training. I did an RPM class at the gym, did ab work and some weight training. Tomorrow I'm doing 4 miles miles and looking ahead to Saturday - 18 miles! WOW. I knew I would make it, but it's still crazy to think about running 18 miles. I'm feeling confident this week!! After 15, I'm really getting excited for the marathon. I've decided I'm aiming to run under 4 hours and 15 minutes, but my ultimate goal is to just finish.

Peace. Love. Run.

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Running Running Running

I'm not a good blogger. Between writing all day at work and writing for school, I just don't feel like writing about running. But I will. I've been doing well with running lately. Tonight I ran 3.1 miles at White Clay Creek on the cross country course and I finished in 28:08. Since I haven't updated since July 25 I don't really feel it's worth writing about every single run since then. However, my long runs have been 12, 13 and this week is 10. It will be nice to only have to run 10 miles - only 10 miles. HAHA! Next week is 15 miles though - my longest run ever. I'm not worried about it. At this point it becomes a mental game. When I prepare myself to run the longer distances, I do fine. With the heat I've been carrying a water bottle and it's really helped. After the ten-mile debacle a few weeks ago I always carry water on the long runs.

My times have been a bit slower than I'd like, but I'm not really concerned. 1. it's hot out. 2. my only goal for the marathon is to finish. The talk of trying to finish in under 3:55 (mile pace of 8:55) is nonsense talk. This is 26.2 miles, people. I know my pace for the half was 8:39, but another 13.1 miles is a whole different ball game. I'm trying to live!!! However, I am still competitive and I'm going to start trying to incorporate more interval work in my training schedule. Lately, I've been working to just build the mileage, but now I think I can start doing some more speed workouts.

I bought new shoes last week; Asics Gel Kayano 15s. I like them a lot. They say to change your running shoes every 250 miles and my old shoes definitely had more than 250 on them. These are the most expensive sneakers I have ever bought, but I have a lot of running until October so I might as well get some quality shoes. I've also bought some new running shorts and shirts. I am not buying anymore running crap. I've spent way too much money!

Well that's all.

Peace. Love. Run.