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November 19, 2006

Sunday exermacize

I did 14 miles this morning as a long run. It didn't feel great, but the company was good and the weather was ... glorious. And I got to run on a new portion of the trail that has been opened only for the past year or so. It's so weird how little time I spend on the trail these days - for so many years I'd be on that trail most days of the week; now I only run on it one day a week. I hope it doesn't miss me too much!

I think I'm going to take next weekend off from a long run. I can afford it. Y'know how when you're marathon training, you wonder what a little rest will do for you but you don't want to miss a long run? Well, when you're training to run your slowest marathon in more than five years (by almost 20 minutes) you're a little more comfortable with seeing what a little rest will do. Don't get me wrong. I'm NOT taking a 3:45 marathon for granted. I will have to work for it and it's not going to be a walk in the park, but I have the luxury of more flexibility in my training schedule than I would if I were training to p.r.

Hmmmm. Don't think I've mentioned that I'm planning to be a pacer at the Austin marathon in February. That info probably makes the preceding paragraph make a little more sense? Yes? I started my pacing training this morning. At the end of the run I headed to the track for a mile at 8:34 pace. First 800 was 3:58 - not so hot - but the 2nd 800 was a 4:15 with 2:08 and 2:07 quarters. Muuuuuy bien! (Can't help but remember, though, that eight weeks ago I ran a 3-mile tempo fairly comfortably at 6:38 pace - with each of the 24 200s between 48 and 51; 13 of them right at 49 seconds. Am still wondering what happened to that girl in the 8 weeks since then. The recent me would probably be spent after ONE of those 200s. Yes ... waaah.)

So we just got back from the rest of the family's workout at the park. Matty the 11-yr old dog did ~20x 100yd repeats at top speed chasing her ball; MG did her long walk of the week (holding on to Mom's fingers still) of about 100yds with some "hills" in there. We're all tuckered out. It's just about nap time ...

Posted by jenandmats at 1:38 PM | Comments (3)

November 12, 2006

Another Motive Bison Stampede

I'm going to really be annoyed with myself one of these days for not keeping better track of my running and other, um ... details ... of this phase of my life. Not only are they some of the most interesting and challenging and fun days of my life, but there's a chance that we'll do all of this over again in a few years, and I'll want to remember how things went the first time around!

I have pretty consistently been getting in one good workout a week, and another shorter, more social run with some strides at the end during the week and then getting in an 11-14 mile long run on the weekends. My mileage is in the 20-25 mpw range. I do yoga 2-3 times a week and do strength training 2-3 times a week. I get roughly 7 hours of sleep each night.

All this got me a 1:36 this morning on my hilly half-marathon course. Another big booby-prize fourth place in my age group! So I'm still not running like I was this summer. Fortunately, I think my head is becoming ok with that. I was very relaxed and social for ten miles and then I stayed relaxed but stopped socializing and ran as hard as I could without feeling terrible for the last three. I had a good time and ran hard. And that's what I wanted to accomplish this year.

This race marked the 2nd anniversary of my last really good race on the high-mileage train. I was about seven minutes faster then. The race somewhat mimics my favorite long run in town, hitting a *really* steep hill at about four miles, followed by a series of several good hills followed by plenty of flat-ish miles to open up at the end. I think tend to feel best when I've gotten in some monster "omigod my feet are coming out of my shoes" hills and can then open up.

I'm going to try to do better at recording my workouts, but it'll be hard with work getting crazy again. This past week we did 3x 3x 300 mostly hitting around 1:07, with a 1:04 at the end and an accidental 1:14 on the second one. The week before I did 3x 4x 400, starting at around 1:40s and having most in the low 1:30s and the last just under 1:30. I'm liking being on the track and avoiding running hard on the roads or the trail, which makes me a little nervous. A few weeks ago I ran a fartlek with a group and at one point in the middle of a set a verrrrryyyy long scull (?) and its crew were making their way across the trail, completely blocking it with no practical way around. The girl I was with tried to go under the boat and they started to put in down on her head. Oy.

We have had a fabulous weekend with our girl. She's crawling all over the place and pulling up on *everything*, including her crib when she's supposed to be sleeping. She's a petite little thing, though (imagine that!) and her doctor says we should feed her more, so she's been eating all kinds of fun stuff - cereal, bagels, yogurt, cheese, honeydew, cantaloupe, apples, pears, pasta, potatotes, chicken, cooked carrots ... an oreo (that was my dad!) Mealtime has gotten much more interesting. And messy. And time-consuming. But it's way fun!

Posted by jenandmats at 8:27 PM | Comments (4)