Day 14

No pilates this week for me since Robbie has been hogging the front room television :). I did some workouts with free weights as well as some stretching exercises to hopefully help me become more flexible, plus I did 6 sets of 25 crunches to work on my core. I wanted to go for a walk this evening, but had family over and it was too late by the time they left.

End of Week 2 stats - 16.16 miles in 2:57:26 for a pace of 10:58/mile.
Training totals so far - 31.66 miles in 5:47:43 for a pace of 10:59/mile.

Day 13

I was really kicking myself this morning when I woke up for working for 12 hours in the yard yesterday. I was sore all over and could barely move getting out of bed, but after some stretching, and energy bar and a few cups of water, I got myself out on the road, though at a much slower pace. It was my "long run" day today and it called for 7 miles at an easy pace. My numbers were 7.00 miles in 1:20:57 for an average pace of 11:33/mile. My average heart rate was 164 bpm, which was right in the area it needed to be for this workout.

A funny thing happened to me during my run though. Since I was going so far, I brought a water bottle with my full of Gatorade. About 1.5 miles into my run, a little sparrow up ahead comes flying directly at my at about chest level. When he got about 5 feet from me, I jumped out of the way and he swerved the other way. Over the next 300 feet or so, he swooped down at me 4 more times trying to grab at the water bottle in my hand. I don't know if it was the color the bottle (neon green) or what, but he finally flew back to the flock of other birds on the power lines and left me alone.

Day 12

Well, today was technically a rest day, but it ended up only being a rest day in terms of not running. I was outside from about 8:30 this morning to about 9:00 this evening doing a mountain of yard work that I have been putting off. I ended up drinking about 80 ounces of Gatorade, 32 ounces of water and 16 ounces of milk, plus I had a huge chicken fajita, turkey sandwich and a slim fast shake this morning. Oh yeah, and Sarah made homemade chocolate chip coconut cookies and I had 2 of those. Even after eating that mountain of calories and drinking all that, I am lighter right now that when I got up this morning. I am going to go watch a movie with my kids and have my feet in a foot bath/massager for about an hour, so hopefully I won't be too sore during my long run tomorrow.

Day 11

Today was a crazy day. My oldest son had surgery to repair a Ventral Hernia, so I wasn't able to run early in the morning like I usually do. The surgery all went well and we came home, then my early Father's Day present came - a Garmin Forerunner 305. I love it because besides being much more accurate than Nike+, the additional data that it gives is great for my training (elevation info, heart rate monitor, 1000% better graphing data, etc.) But, by the time I was able to get out to run, it was almost 7pm and it was about 83 degrees, much hotter than the 55 it has been when I run in the morning. I downed an energy gel (I tried a new one, Honey Stinger brand - too thick and sticky for my tastes) and a glass of water and headed out. The training program calls for an easy run on Thursdays, so I intended to keep somewhere around a 10:30-11 minute pace, but the heat and sun was really getting to me the further I went into the run. I ended up running 3 miles in 33:19 for a pace of 11:06/mile and an average heart beat rate of 165 (with that heat, it kept climbing until it peaked at 185 bpm at the end of the run).

I haven't been able to find a similar running widget like I post with the Nike+ runs, but here is a link to the workout, it's amazing all of the additional data that I get with my Garmin.
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/6237468

Day 10

I still haven't gotten back to were I was before the injuries 2 a year and a half ago, but I am certainly happy with my progress. In this training program, Wednesdays are the hard days where you are supposed to run at or near your race pace. I still want to get faster than this, but today was my best workout so far. I ran 3.02 miles in 29:52 for a pace of 9:52/mile.

Day 9

I woke up earlier than I have been because I have to go into work a little earlier this week. I felt great though and was excited to get back out running after a few days without running. I paid more attention to my pace today and it paid off with a faster pace than I have been doing and I feel great. Today's run was 3.14 miles in 33:17 for a pace of 10:35/mile.

Day 8

Today is another rest day, but I am working today so I still was not able to sleep in at all. That Yoga/Pilates workout I did yesterday must have been pretty good because my abs have been sore since. I know these rest days are important and will help me stay healthy, but they sure are difficult sometimes, I just want to get out there and run, but I will stick with the program and keep my eyes on the long term goal.

Day 7

This is the end of week 1 and calls for 1 hour of cross training. I'd like to mix some swimming in here during the 18 weeks, but today I decided to focus on my core and upper body. For core workouts, my wife suggested that I try her Yoga/Pilates video. I've had a few suggestions on doing Yoga to workout your core, so I figured why not. I could certainly feel it working my abs, but next time I need to make sure I wake up before my kids, so that I don't have 4 kids all pointing out to me that "this is for Mommies". The workout lasted a half hour and other than the time that the elastic band slipped off of my foot and snapped me across the back of my legs, it felt good. To regain my kids masculine view of their father, I spent the last 30 minutes doing bench presses and curls. :)

End of week 1 stats - 15.5 miles in 2:50:17 for a 10:59/mile pace and most importantly, my body feels great and I've had no injuries. I think the easing into the mileage that Hal Higdon put into the training program is a great idea and I am looking forward to going into the marathon injury free.

Also, my wonderful wife is letting me get my fathers day present early this year. She is giving me a Garmin Forerunner 305 that we found a smoking deal on. I'm excited for it to get here so I can use the GPS monitoring to keep track of elevation as well as speed and distance, plus the heart monitor will be a great way for me to know exactly how far to push myself and watch my progress.

Day 6

I actually surprised myself by waking up at about 6:15 and getting out by 6:45 instead of resetting the alarm a few dozen times and rolling out of bed around 8. I'm glad I did though because it is so much nicer to run early in the morning when it is still cool and somewhat quiet. I was very happy with my run today, I felt good and I was able to keep a somewhat steady pace. My cardio is still a bit ahead of my legs, I doubt I am getting my heart rate up all that high at this pace, but I want to wait a little while to get my pace faster until my legs feel a bit better so that I don't hurt myself. Today's run was 6.03 miles in 1:06:03 for a pace of 10:56/mile.

Day 5

Friday's are rest days designed to have you rest up for the longer runs on Saturdays. It works out well for me because I have got a busy day today taking Robbie to to the Pediatric Surgeon for a consultation about his hernia. I also had a filing come out last night when I decided to have a couple of dots candy that I had bought for the kids when we walked to blockbuster, so I also need to get into a dentist, but I am waiting to find out what goes on at the consultation this afternoon with Robbie before I schedule anything for that.

Day 4

I got a little bit more sleep than before, but still felt pretty tired this morning. I got out about 30 minutes later than I wanted to, but still had a decent run. My stats this morning were 3.12 miles in 34:18 for a pace of 10:58/mi. At least I am consistent, I think after a few weeks more of this my legs will have a little bit more conditioning and I will be able to push the pace a bit more.

Day 3

Once again I had a poor nights sleep and ended up getting about 5 hours of sleep, so I was not feeling energized this morning, but I still got my self out on the road. Once again the training program called for a 3 mile run, which I was really sluggish in until the latter part of the run. I ended up running a tiny bit faster than I did yesterday, which surprises me, but not by much. My final numbers were 3.16 miles in 34:47 for a pace of 11:00/mile.

Day 2

I just got back from my first official run of the new training program. It was hard to get much sleep last night because it was so hot in my house and I was worrying about my oldest son, Robbie, who developed a hernia yesterday and after a trip to the ER, we have a referral for a pediatric surgeon to have it surgically repaired. Despite all of that though, I finally dragged myself out of bed and got out for an easy run. According to my Nike+ I ran 3.18 miles in 35'06" for an 11:02/mi pace (yes, I'm still pretty slow). The time and mileage is right, but for some reason the graph on the nike site shows me finishing at a 34:50 pace, so I'm not sure exactly how that happened. I paused the workout when i stopped, then took the ipod out of my arm band and ended it, but perhaps I accidentally started it again for a few seconds while i was trying to turn it off. I am feeling pretty good though and love starting my day off with a run.

Day 1

Today is the official start to my training schedule, although it is a rest day. In the training plan, Hal Higdon says to spend this first day "contemplating the training that will begin tomorrow." I'm excited to start training, I just hope I am able to stay injury free and make it to September 19th. I think the thing I will have the hardest time with is making sure I get enough sleep and that I am able to get myself out of bed each morning. I've got to work on my core strength also to improve my running and endurance, so if anyone has any suggestions for core excersizes other than crunches, I'd love to hear them.

Here I go.

I started running 2 years ago and have had a blast, but after hurting my foot a few times that year (I suspect from overtraining), my running started to become very infrequent. I ran 2 half marathons that year, so I have signed up for the Top of Utah Marathon which is being run September 19th. I’ve settled on Hal Higdon’s Novice I training schedule which I start this week. I’m going to use this blog to record my training, health and emotions leading up to the marathon.