Marathon Preparation

Good gosh almighty it’s getting close to Christmas time. Lauren has the house all decked out and ready for Santa to come and deliver my new Zipp Wheels and Zoot Wetsuit. Yeah, probably won’t see either of those underneath the tree this year. In fact, I think the only thing Tri related that I put on my list was a Nike + attachment for my ipod. Where are my priorities? Either that, or I’ve spent way too much money on acquiring Tri junk that I couldn’t possibly fit anymore in my closet. Never! There’s always room for more Tri junk!
You know, with more and more Christmas parties moving toward the Dirty Santa gift idea, it’d be kinda cool to do something like that with all this extra Tri junk that I’ve accumulated. Water bottles, bottle cages, half empty (or half full for the optimists out there) canisters of Perpetuem powder, Jerseys, E-Z laces, tire pumps, etc… Wow, they seemed so needed at the time. Now, not so much.
It’s been another good week of running in preparation for the Mercedes Marathon in February. This past weekend’s 21 miler left me hurting for a few days, but I was back at it this week. Per Paul’s (err Recovering Runner) request, here’s what my typical week looks like.

Sunday – recover (off to a good start eh?)
Monday – cross train – core exercises, light weights
Tuesday – track work – ½ mile sprints at 2:50 pace
Wednesday – Easy 6-7 miler – nice and slow on a treadmill to force a slow pace
Thursday – Tempo Run – 7-8 miler – try to keep a 7:00 pace
Friday – rest and recovery
Saturday – Long run – this week is only 16 woo hoo! Race pace is the goal – 7:17

My schedule has my long runs looking like this in the coming weeks: 16, 18, 22, 16, 18, 22, 14, 10, Race!

That’s all for now. Peace on Earth. Good Will and all that stuff.

Tell Me You've Seen This! OMG

This is featured in your blogger login page. Coolest thing I've seen since learning to gleak. It's long but worth it. Wait till the guitar solo!

What have I been doing with myself?

Yeah well, I stepped away from blogger for a bit. Believe me, it's not due to any love lost for you fine folks, but rather for the lack of anything worth posting going on. How do you write about the monotony of pounding out mile after mile in training for a marathon? God bless all who have the ability to eek out a few post worthy words from daily running. There are some that do it quite well and we're all thankful.

As it typical for any and all this time of year, life has gotten a little busier. Lauren and I are both being careful not to schedule too much of our week so that we're feeling too stressed or pulled in too many directions. Throughout the holiday season, it has gotten a little harder to find time to get my runs in. I'm mixing up my runs between morning runs and after work runs. It usually depends on my mood or the temp in the morning. Morning temps have been in and around the 30's as of late, but this weekend was in the high 40's with highs in the afternoon around 70. Weird. I did experience a really cool run the other night after work. As you can see below, I put on my reflective wear and headlamp and went for a run through the Tiny Kingdom.

Probably one of the coolest runs I've had to date. Running in the pitch black made the 8 mile run go by so quickly. It was a total blast, but a little tougher on the body due to the unexpected dips and changes in the road. Taking unexpected jars worked me a little harder than I would have liked but it was totally worth it.

Saturday I scheduled my longest run to date, a 21 miler. The goal today was to not set any records but to just get the distance in. I felt great for the first 17 or so, then I could feel my shoulders start to slump a little and my body started to wear down. After a while it felt like someone was pushing down on me the whole time. But the good news is that I finished and finished strong at that. 6.2 miles to go to the goal. Thankfully, next week's long run is a few miles shorter. Will work on speed then.

That's all for now. Hope everyone is enjoying their Holiday season. As cliche' as it's become, don't forget the Reason for the season and remember those serving our country who won't be able to see their families this Christmas. Take care and thanks for reading.

Christmas vacation

Probably my favorite moment from this tireless classic. Definitely top 5 movie rants of all time. Merry Christmas to all!