Day 42

Today is my cross training day. I always have a problem on Sundays because I like to sleep in after a long week, then between church and family dinner, there is not much time left. We decided to go for a walk as a family along the Jordan River Parkway and feed some ducks. It's probably less than I should have done, but at least I got my heart going a little bit pushing the stroller down the trail. :)

Day 21

Today is the end of week 3 and called for an hour of cross training. I normally have been trying to do it in the mornings, but it didn't work out today. The plan recommends walking, biking or swimming, so I thought it would be fun to go on a family walk. We walked about 2 miles in a little over an hour as I pulled Lindsey and Ella in a wagon while Sarah pushed Jocelyn in a stroller and the boys walked. We had a great time, even if it was kinda weird going for a walk with 5 kids at 9 at night :)

End of Week 3 stats - 15.00 miles in 2:35:33 for a pace of 10:22/mile.
Training totals so far - 46.7 miles in 8:23:17 for a pace of 10:46/mile.

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 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.