homestretch

its almost like a second ankle

After my last 20 miler a few weeks ago I didn't write about my foot hurting because I didn't think it was that big of a deal.  I was wrong on that assessment.  I had to take about 5 days off of running during what should have been week 16 of my 18 week training plan.  Not the end of the world, but not ideal either.  I figured whatever it was would go away with some rest.  After it not seeming to get better I went to a podiatrist and he said that it is a specific muscle that in inflamed.  The muscles wraps over the top of my foot down to my toes.  When it really starts to get bothered my whole foot hurts.  The only remedy at this point is ice and ibuprofen since rest is not an option.  Honestly I don't feel it on my runs now, but the longest run I have done since my 20 miler has only been 4.66 miles.  When it first occurred it was mile 18.5.  At that point it felt like stabbing pains shooting up my leg.  I'm hoping this is not a problem on my marathon as I really want to run unhindered.  At least if it does hurt I know what it is and hopefully I can man up under the pain.  I really really want to beat my time from 4.5 years ago and I don't want this to be an excuse if I don't.      

last hard week of training

This is thankfully my last hard week of training before I begin my taper.  Following my training schedule is just proving to be more and more difficult as life keeps trying to get in the way.
A great example was this last weekend Shelly and I went to my hometown for a baby shower and also for my grandpa's 89th birthday.  On Sunday morning we planned to meet my mother, mother-in-law and grandmother for breakfast around 9:00.  The only problem is that I had to pack up the car with all of the baby stuff that we had received the day before, along with Scooter's crate and all of our luggage.  Of course that was after I had showered and gone my on 12 mile run.  I set my alarm for 5:30 and thought I had given myself enough time to squeeze it all in.  At around mile 8 I realized that there was no way I was going to be able to get in all of my 12 miles.  I am kind of sick of my long slow runs anyway so I wasn't heartbroken even though I want to stick as close to my plan as possible.  I was able to get in 10.4, but that extra 15 minutes I saved was the difference in us not being late.
The rest of the week has not been any easier.  Fall on the central coast of California is one of the most beautiful times of the year, especially because the fog seems to lift and we get really clear warm days.  I was expected to do some training in some warmer weather this time of year but this week it has been in the 90s!
Because of this I pushed my 10 mile run to 7 oclock on Tuesday night once the sun had gone down.  The bad part of this was that I was starving when I got home and ate bbq chicken and salad for dinner.  It's not that I pigged out, but just eating anything like that 2 hours before a run is going to make me feel sluggish.  That coupled with the weather and just being really stressed out over a lot of things led to one of my worst runs in a long time.  I "finished" it, which was a victory of some sorts, but I was just plodding along very listless.  Thankfully my wife decided to stay up (staying up for her these days is anything past 8PM) and make me a chocolate milk because she knew how stressed out I've been lately.  It's amazing how something like a glass of chocolate milk and my wife staying up until 8:45 can put me in such a better mood.

holy crap I'm sweaty

I knew the weather today would be no better than the previous days so I got up at 5AM to do my interval runs of 8x800 meters.  Besides having to stop halfway through to poop (this is my greatest fear in this marathon, seriously) it was a really good run.  Again the bad part is how hot it was outside, even for it being 5:30 by the time I stepped out the door.  As you can tell from my picture, if I look this sweaty after a run that early in the morning, it must be freaking hot out.  Overall it was quite different in terms of my pace and energy compared to the Tuesday run.  
Depending on weather my last 20 miler will either be on Saturday or Sunday morning.  Then hopefully it is easy street for a few weeks before the actual race itself. 

5 more weeks until race day

Another week is in the books and I have only 5 more until race day!  I don't feel like writing tons so I am going to write it in the style that my students love the most, bullet points.

• I found out I am in the very front of the 2nd wave of the marathon in corral 22.  I am on the blue track which means only the pro's are on the blue track ahead of me.  Long story short, when I start I won't have tens of thousands of people in front of me, only the few hundred that might be in front of me in my wave since the pros will be way ahead of me.
• The IT band is a nuisance, but manageable.  It hurts the most to walk up and down stairs.  
• I got a new pair of Zoot compression calf sleeves that I really like.  They are basically the same at my Zoot compression socks, but I can wear my toe socks with them.  
• I ran a 45 minute tempo run on Wednesday and peaked running at 7:08/mile for 1.25 miles.  I felt great and could have gone faster and longer if I needed to be.  This got me thinking about running a 5k and going for sub 20 minutes(which I've always wanted to do).  I've never ran a 5k competitively and if my body is up for it I want to run the Turket Trot in my hometown Thanksgiving morning. 
• What a difference it makes in my pacing while running by turning my Garmin watch from "pace" to "lap pace."  I would always feel like I was speeding up or slowing down trying to get my right pace.  Now after about a quarter mile I tend to be right about the pace I should be running and it does not make me feel like I always have to fluctuate my speed so much.
• I have now lost a total of about 6 pounds in all of my marathon training and weigh 164.  As I started my training I wanted to be around 160 for my race, which I might get to, but I am happy with where I am at and will be happy even if I don't lose anymore. 
• Since my race is a Sunday morning, I've been think about how I can check to see the injury report for my fantasy football players so I can change my lineup if need be.  I've come up with two solutions.  The first being, run an hour and a half faster than I originally planned and get back to my iPhone before the games start.  The problem with this plan is, well, it's impossible.  My second solution is to give my password to a friend and have him do it for me.  Probably the most feasible.  Maybe I'll tweet Matthew Berry for ESPN and see if he'll help me out.  

Thanks for reading!  

feeling better and my first 20 miler done!

After my last post I was about as discouraged as I could have been.  What a difference a week and a half makes.  The greatest pluses in terms of making my ITBS manageable I believe have been well timed rest, Motrin, ice... a lot of ice, and my big blue foam roller.
I am definitely a creature of habit and the foam roller is now a part of my daily routine.  I wake up, brush my teeth, start coffee, then I start rolling my butt and IT bands on the foam roller.  The first couple time I used the roller I could tell how much I needed it because of how bad it hurt.  Now I can roll my legs for a few minutes and there is little soreness.  To me that is a sign that things are getting better.  After I roll my legs in the morning I put it in my backpack to take it to work to do the same thing on my lunch break.  I always have to make sure the door to my classroom is locked during lunch because I can only imagine what my students would think if they walked in and I was using the roller on either one of my buttcheeks. Finally one more time before I get in bed and I am good to go.  On the days I go on runs I also roll my legs before and after. 
I took off 5 consecutive days from running last week and also helped a ton.  Since then here was how my week looked...

Sunday - 8 miles
Monday - 4 miles
Tuesday - 6 miles
Wednesday - 5 miles
Thursday - 7x800 meters intervals (Yasso repeats) w/ .25 miles rest in between.  Totaled 5 miles
Friday - off
Satuday(today) - 20 miles

After each run I put ice packs on my hips where it is an IT hotspot and I also rubdown my legs with ice that I freeze in a cup. 
Today my run was great, despite it raining/drizzling for the first 18 miles.  I ran at a pretty slow pace, which is actually what I am supposed to do on my long runs.   What I was happiest about the most was that I ran this route over some bigger hills and I felt great running my last mile at my race pace of 8:52/mile.  At mile 20 to have something left in my tank, no matter what the pace, I must be doing something right. 
Now I am just hoping that my body responds well in the time after, because usually it gets most sore about 24 hours after a run. 
Thanks to those of you who wrote me encouraging emails after my last post, I really appreciate it.  

IT Band issues

Last week I only ran 3 of the 6 days my schedule due to the tightness from my IT band.  After taking those days off I felt pretty good and was able to do my long run of 19 miles on Sunday morning.  I averaged a 9:45 mile which is 50 seconds slower than the 8:55/mile pace I hope to keep during the marathon.  I was pretty pooped at the end and I thought, "How in the world can I run 7 more miles at a much faster pace than what I just ran?"  I hate when self-doubt creeps in because it can really mess with my head.  I was done with that run though, and in my mind that is all that counted.  Post run was nice as I took an ice bath while eating fried eggs and a Coke that my wife brought me.  Yes, it sounds as odd as it probably looked.
The bad news is how my body, more specifically my legs, reacted afterwards.  I took the day off after the run and then tried to get out there again yesterday.  My plan called for 10 miles but all I could muster was 8.5.  The only way to describe the pain that I have in my upper quads and knees is debilitating.  After this last run I could hardly walk.  At night I could hardly sleep as my legs and knees ached.  As I moved my legs from a bent to an outstretched position it hurt like all hell.  When I walk down stairs my knees scream at me to stop. 
It seems that at this point all I can do is not run for a while.  This is hard because I have my first 20 mile run this weekend and I really don't want to miss it.  I need to balance the need to try and get better with the need to keep up my fitness.  I am stubborn and that doesn't help.  It does help that my wife is more than encouraging but also practical in the advice she gives me.  After work we are off to go find a foam roller to do some stretching.  Hopefully that, along with other stretches I have found on the internet combined with some time off things can get better.  If not I feel like all bets are off for my even running in the NYC Marathon, and that is the biggest blow in terms of self-doubt after 11 good and hard weeks of training.   

the good, the bad and the ugly

While my blogging hasn't been very consistent, keeping up on my training has...  for the most part.  The latter has proved to be more and more difficult in the last few weeks.  Let me break it down for you.

The Good:

1.  I am more than halfway done with marathon training.
2.  I have finally lost a few pounds... 3.5 to be exact.  Anything at this point is welcomed.
3.  I have had some awesome runs where I really kept a consistent "race pace" and felt good afterwards.

The Bad:

1.  Knee pain, especially in the last week or so.  This Friday I ran 9 miles at race pace and I could hardly move my left leg later that night.  The pain has persisted all weekend.  I think it is an IT problem because the pain goes up the outer upper thigh.  I am pretty concerned about this being a lingering problem at this point.  I don't know how to balance taking time of to heal (hopefully) while keeping up my training/fitness.
2.  Over the next 7 weekends I have one 19 mile run and three 20 mile runs.  If I felt healthy I wouldn't be as weary about this.  I felt great after a 17 mile run a week and a half ago, but that was before my knee problems.

The Ugly:

1.  My top of middle toe on my left foot.  No matter what shoes I wear or what I do I get a nasty blister.  You can thank me for no picture. 
2.  Me running in "hot" weather.  I have stated this before,  I don't do well in heat.  And since I live next to the coast where it is perpetually overcast this time of year, I classify anytime the sun is shining on a clear day as hot.  A few weeks ago it was one of those clear days and I was miserable.  As I was running my wife drove by on her way to the dentist.  Since she knows my disdain for running while its sunny out and the fact that I looked like crap, she made a point to look at the temperature gauge on the car.  It read 65 degrees.  Seriously, 65 degrees.  Most people would give anything to run in weather sunny and 65 but not me.  Am I the biggest wimp or what?
3.  I forgot band aids over my nips for an 8 mile run.  I had scabs the next day.  Enough said.

Hopefully it won't be another month until I update this blog again :-)

I hate hills

One of the things I like about this training plan that I am doing is that despite running 6 days a week, I always seem to feel fresh.  I had a hard run last week where I ran hill repeats of .23 miles x 4.  Even though this workout only lasted 19 minutes it was by far the hardest yet.  I just plain and simple don't like running up or down hills.  It is disappointing because I think trail races like the ones on www.pctrailruns.com by far look the coolest but once I look at the elevation gains and losses it makes me cringe.  I actually did one of these races in Montano de Oro a few years ago and here is the elevation chart...

Basically this race killed me and my quads.  I couldn't even walk down stairs for about 3 days without holding onto the rails.  Nevertheless, days after my hill repeats last week I could still feel the effects.  My butt and all the surrounding muscles (the ones I don't realize I have until they start to hurt) were really sore.  Once I got going on my subsequent runs I felt better and I knew at that point I needed to start adding more hilly routes to my regular running routines so I am ready for the Verrazano and Queensborough Bridges.
Today was the first of those hilly days and thanks to my new running watch I can upload the run like magic...

I think at the 3.5 mile mark I was all the way down to about 12:00/mile pace which was the top of the biggest hill.  I should have just walked at that point because I would not have been going any slower but it was more of a mental thing and wanting to push through.  I know in my first marathon I told myself "no walking" and I was glad I did because it really made me keep going.  In my second marathon I forgot how tough the marathon really was and I didn't tell myself "no walking" so of course I did.  That made for a long day and a lot of walking, because once you start it's really hard to start running again.  I'm hoping to be well enough prepared come November that walking doesn't even enter my mind.