Running In The Rain

This morning I woke up to rain pounding the windows. With 14 miles to run I put on a jacket, visor and gloves and headed outside prepared to get wet. Luckily the temperatures were not bad and the wind was at my back most of the way.

Since my marathon will be a point to point race, I am planning to make several of my longer runs point to point as well. Typically my training runs are either loops or out and back routes. Last year at the Dam to Dam, I learned a valuable lesson about the importance of being mentally prepared for the route in the same way that I am physically prepared to run the miles.

With that in mind, the plan for today was to start out from home and have Erin and the girls pick me up when I finished. I wasn't exactly sure where I would end up, but I headed South out of Grimes, passed through Urbandale and Clive and ended up finishing with a loop around the pond at the West Des Moines library. By that time it was pouring down rain and I was completely soaked. I was able to wait in the library entrance for the girls to pick me up. This is officially the farthest distance I have ever run as my previous long was a half marathon (13.1 miles). I made sure to run at a very easy pace and was very happy that my legs still fairly fresh at the end.

Overall it was a very solid week of training. I logged the most distance that I have ever run in a week with a little over 32.5 miles.  I did have a scare at the pool on Wednesday as my foot twisted a little weird while pushing off the wall and hurt to walk on for the rest of the day. Luckily, when I ran that evening everything felt fine and it hasn't bothered me much since. Friday ended up being a complete rest day for me. I rolled into the pool just after 5:30 am, but when I got inside everyone was standing around and the sign in desk was not opened up yet. A few minutes later the lifeguard on duty came out of the pool area to tell us that after running 4 tests, the chlorine levels were too high for them to let us swim. I thought about returning at lunch time but decided that my body could probably use a day of rest. 

April 3rd will mark the start of my in-season triathlon training program. For me, planning out my training is part of the fun, so I enjoyed spending the week working on a new training schedule. So far, I have my schedule planned out through the marathon, which is the 2nd weekend of June. It is going to be a grueling couple of months, but once the marathon is over and I am able to back off on the number of miles I am running, things should smooth out. 

Week 6 and 2017 Goal Updates

I've successfully made it through the first 6 weeks of my marathon training program which means my race is 12 weeks away. Every few weeks my training program includes a recovery week (that pretty much just means my long run on the weekend isn't quite as long) and I was grateful that this was one of those weeks. Next week is a big one as my Monday/Thursday runs increase from 3 to 4 miles and my Tuesday run increases from 6 to 7. In addition, my long run next Saturday jumps up to 14 miles which, if I finish it, will be the farthest I have ever run...in my entire life.

Training has been going very well so far, but there has been something bothering me from time to time that is completely mental. Since I picked back up running 3 years ago, I had always seen drastic year over year improvements in my speed. This year, however, I am running at a similar pace as I was last year. Now there is no doubt in my mind that I am in much better shape then I was a year ago, but I am training a lot differently. I'm not a very competitive person, but I do tend to compete with myself quite a bit. I have had to remind myself often that I am working on tackling the marathon distance and not working on improving my speed right now. With the number of miles that I am running each week, it is imperative that I don't push many of my runs too hard otherwise I will be lining myself up for an injury.

The nice thing about using Garmin Connect to track all of my training is that their website provides a way to easily run reports. I decided to see how I was doing on some of my 2017 goals.

523.49 of 2,500 mile cycling goal

11.82 of 75 mile swimming goal

32 of 150 Strength Training Sessions

I'm doing very well with my cycling goal as well as strength training. Swimming is falling a bit behind but that was expected due to the lack of open water swimming opportunities during the winter. Once I can hit the open water, that mileage should pile up pretty quickly. 

The last goal that I had was a joint goal with Erin. We are planning to run 2017 miles in 2017 and we are both on track to split that number in half (1,008.5 miles a piece). 

225.7 of 1,008.5 mile running goal

Lastly, I thought I would mention that Erin has signed up to run the Dam To Dam half marathon on the first weekend of June. I think my favorite quote from her when deciding whether or not to race was "If I'm doing all of this running anyways, I might as well run a couple of races." This coming from the woman who swore last fall that running a half marathon was a 1 time deal. Mark my words, there will be a marathon in her future yet. 

Leprechaun Chase 10K

Well, it was suppose to be a 10K race, but it ended up a 5K. Although I was not aware of that fact until nearing 2 miles into the race when we hit a turn around on a route that was suppose to be a loop.

With a start time of 10:00 am, I headed out on a mile warm up run a little before 9:40. I'm not sure if an announcement was made during that time, or if I just couldn't hear the announcer while lining up, but it was apparent during the race that I was not the only one who was unaware of the change. After getting back to my truck I noticed that I had received an email from the race director at around 9:30 informing of the change due to the weather conditions. The last 4 miles of the race were suppose to be run on bike trails that were deemed unsafe due to the snow that had fallen overnight.

If I had known from the start that the race had been cut in half, I would have run faster. Even with the shorter distance, I was very happy with how I ran. My official time was 29:59 and I finished 607/981 overall. My legs felt great the whole time and I have no doubt I would have been flirting with a 10K PR had we run the full distance.

Even though it wasn't the race I was expecting, it still went a long way in helping me to build confidence and re-energizing me going forward with my training. In face, This afternoon I ended up spending an hour on my bicycle trainer logging over 20 miles. That is one of my best bike rides in a long time. The downside is that I will have to make up those 3 lost miles tomorrow so my training run went from 6 to 9 miles. It is a good thing that I really like to run.

All bundled up for the race and wearing green
so I don't get pinched!

Running Long

I just finished up the 4th week of my marathon training program with an 11 mile run this morning. It was a beautiful morning for a run. Clear skies led to a gorgeous sunrise (almost as beautiful as my wife...but not quite). Light winds and temperatures around freezing made it a little cold, but I would rather run in these conditions then the heat and humidity of late summer.

Although my pace was a little slower then I would have liked, I was very pleased with how well I felt throughout the entire run. My first race of the year, the Leprechaun Chase 10K, is just a week away and I'm really looking forward to kicking things off for the year. Since my focus is on the marathon in June, I'm not setting a goal time for the races prior to that, but I do plan to run those races hard.

I've been doing an excellent job on keeping up with my strength training for the year so I decided to step it up this week. I started incorporating a lot more lower body lifts and variations including squats and lunges. Needless to say, my hamstrings, glutes, and  quads have been extremely sore. In fact my legs didn't get get stretched out until 6 miles into my run this morning. I'm going to keep challenging myself during my strength training sessions to help improve any imbalances that I have.