Marathon Training Week 5 recap

     I have officially renamed Saturday as Eat Garbage Day! Last Saturday night Mandy and I headed to the one of the local county fairs to walk around, see the animals and of course eat the carny food.  Well I let the food get the best of me and boy did my stomach pay the price.  We split some Wisconsin Fried Cheese Curds, I ate a huge greasy plate of ribbon fries and a tasty ribeye sandwich.  By the time we got home, my stomach was revolting and I felt like throwing up all night.  Then last night Mandy and I headed to a local favorite, Fricker's restaurant, to watch the first Cleveland Browns pre-season game against the Detroit Lions.  It is pretty much inevitable that if we go there I will eat like shit and last night was no exception.  Mandy and I shared a plate of nachos for an appetizer, then I followed that up with large breaded BBQ wings and krinkle cut french fries drowning in ketchup.  Like with all garbage food, when you are not use to eating it, it tasted way to good going down, but later causes the gut to revolt.  You would think I would have learn by now, and it worries me a little how easy it was to go overboard.  Right now I can get away with it, a little bit, only because I am putting in so many miles.  I really need to work on this and get it under control.  The only good that came from last night was I wore my Browns jersey for the first time since last season, which use to fit me perfectly and now I am swimming in the thing! :) 

Sunday:

     It was another hot one out there today.  I must really be a glutton for punishment because instead of getting up early and heading out when it was much cooler, I waited till mid day.  I really needed some good sleep so I slept in till around 9am since I didn't have to work today.  Mandy wanted to go to the local flea market just down the road, so we got ready and headed to that for a little while.  When we were done, I felt like just getting our grocery shopping done, so by the time I got home and headed out it was around 12:30.  It was in the low 80's and I don't care what the weather image says below it was damn sticky and felt a lot higher humidity than 48%. Couple that with barely any breeze and hardly a cloud in the sky to block the sun, I was baking out there.  Today's run was at my race pace and I managed to keep it at the faster end of my goal despite the heat.  I normally don't wear my Camelbak vest for shorter runs, but with the heat I needed to take extra water and it seemed like the best choice.  My new shoes felt good as well, so I am going to start using them for my long runs now.
   
     My calves have been bothering me a little lately, just sore and achy so I am looking forward to having Monday off.  I am going to get the foam roller out and The Stick and massage out the legs.  Hopefully that will loosen them up a little.
 

Monday:

    Day off, from running anyway!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :)

Tuesday:

     Not a lot to talk about with this run.  It was cool temperature wise, which was nice, but the humidity was way way up so it was quite sticky out there.  I was able to maintain a very nice steady pace throughout the run.  It really isn't that hard to do on the easy runs as long as I don't get to lax at any one time.  Obviously I wanted to finish quite strong and it shows in a 16 second swing from mile 4 to mile 5.

Wednesday:

    

     Moving on, normally I am sleeping right now, eventually I get up and go for my run, eat lunch and then sit down and start typing out this post.  This week however, I am short staffed at work and not only am I working today, but I am working 9 straight days before my next day off.  I really didn't have a choice, two of my employees had very important reasons to be off at the same time, so to have enough coverage for the week, here I am about to head into work.

     Do to my work schedule, I had to get a little creative with my long run today.  This week was a cut back week for my long run, so I only had 12 miles to do today.  I decided to get up about 15 minutes earlier than I normally do and try and squeeze in as many miles as I could, and whatever was left I would go for another run tonight when I get home from work.  Probably not the most perfect plan but I really didn't want to get home around 7:30ish and head out for 2 hours and I didn't want to get up an hour earlier this morning so this seemed like the best solution.

     As far as the run goes, it was really creepy and I don't mean scooby Doo creepy I mean like children of the corn or Friday the 13th creepy.  Since I was up earlier than I usually am it was a little darker out and to make matters worse a heavy fog had set in overnight.  I took a pictures in town before I headed out but it doesn't do it justice.  Once I got on the bike path and got out of town the fog got even thicker and even with my headlamp I couldn't see more then 10-15 feet in front of me.  It was really creepy with the trees on the path forming a tunnel effect and when I was in the open areas of the path I had corn fields on each side of me.  I tried to relax and just settle into my run, but that never happened.  You can see it in my pace, I wanted to be around 9:50-10:00 per mile and I just kept running faster and kept my pace in the low 9:40s to high 9:30s just wanting to get back to my house.  The faster pace did help me to get in 7 miles before work so now I only have to hit 5 miles tonight.

     When I got home I quickly changed into my running gear and headed out for my other 5 miles for the day.  I was really surprised good I felt.  I really thought my pace would have been quite slow due to my first run and being on my feet all day at work.  When I looked at my watch at the quarter mile mark of my first mile I was shocked at how quick my pace was and how easy it was to hit that pace.  After I finished the first mile and saw a 9:32 I decided that I would try to keep the faster pace going for the entire 5 miles.  I figured if I wasn't able to run the entire 12 miles at once, running both sets at a faster pace would be the best way to simulate doing the entire run at a slower pace.
     
      When I headed out for my lunch today I noticed how hot it was and I figured my second run was going to suck.  Since I didn't hit the road till almost eight o clock, the sun had started setting while the temperature and the humidity also dropped and it felt almost as cool as it did during my morning run.  My legs were starting to feel it during the fourth mile as you can see by the change in my pace.  Mile five I turned on and really pushed to have as strong finish and boy was I glade when the run came to an end.  All in all this run was a nice, uneventful training run to put in the books.  Tomorrow is a rest day and then its back at it with some speed work on Friday :(

Thursday:
     I had a pretty long day at work, and when I finally got home Mandy and I continued where we left off re-watching the previous 6 seasons of Sons of Anarchy.  Each year Mandy and I re-watch all the previous episodes to prepare for the next season.  It was nice to just be able to put the feet up and relax.

Friday:

     It was a nice cool morning, but even with an extra hour of sleep I woke up tired.  When I finally headed out my legs felt like I was running in cement shoes despite what my pace shows.  My pace was kind of all over the place on this run.  My first two miles were steady, but I don't know what happened in mile three.  I don't know where that burst of speed came from to give me 40 plus second swing in pace.  Before I new it, it was gone and I had a big swing back to a slower pace.  I then had two solid steady miles, followed up with a little bit of a push to finish the run strong.  I added my pace chart to show just how all over the place it was.

 

Saturday:

          It sure was hard getting up again this morning.  I think it is a combination of all the miles and me not getting a day off from work.  I really didn't want to go and when I forced myself to go, I just kept thinking of cutting the run a little short thinking that would make me feel better.  The instant I started my legs felt really tired and my calves were a little sore.  It amazes me how I felt once I got my first mile done.  My entire body felt much better, my legs felt like they broke free of the cement shoes I was wearing and I was able to speed it up a little.  My pace stayed nice and steady after that first mile was out of the way, and as much as I thought this was going to be a terrible run, it turned out to be a pretty damn good one.  I wish I had more to say, but I guess if I did, it was because the run had problems.

Week 6 begins now

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