Week 3

So this week has been sort of dysfunctional, with the extreme cold, I was able to get my rest day down perfectly, but I did some yoga and body weight exercises in lieu of going to gym to weight lift on Tuesday. Since I struggled to get up and had an early meeting, which closed the window time frame for the workout quite suddenly.

I did get my Wednesday run in yesterday with no trouble, good pace and good feeling throughout.

Thursday morning (today) is another story, its -8 with -30 windchill's outside, and I decided that going to gym was just not a good idea. So I did some body weight exercises in the house, 5 x 10 body weight squats, 5 x 10 one legged squats and 5 x 20 pushups. I will do the run scheduled for today, tomorrow, when hopefully we are no longer living at the north pole!

That will be three runs in a row however (Friday, Saturday and Sunday) so I am not sure how I will handle that, the last time I moved a run, I had one of my worst runs in awhile, the Saturday run is an easy run of 3 miles, so I need to make sure I make it very easy!

UPDATE: Thursday evening I went to gym with my daughter and got my running in, it was not bad once I got to the gym, so Thursday had exercise and the programmed run, my first two a day! So then Friday is back to the no run day with weightlifting.

I love the Ginger Runner

Being a ginger myself until I was 10, I can identify with this guy, he makes some great short films! Well worth watching the videos.

Week Two Reporting!

Week 2 is over, and it was a reasonably good week, had the one clunker of a workout on Wednesday but otherwise good. I did struggle with technology on my Sunday long run, accidentally deleting and then not starting my Garmin, so really only got data on half of my long run.

So here are the weekly mileage totals to date.

Completed weeks
Week 1- 18 miles (8 mile long run)
Week 2- 19 miles (9 mile long run)

Future weeks
Week 3- will be a bit of a cut back in miles on the long run (6 miles), so I can rest just a little so only 18 miles total
Week 4- 23 miles with an 11 mile long run
Week 5- 24 miles with a 12 mile long run
Week 6- 24 miles, with Saturday speed work and a 9 mile long run. This may be rearranged a bit since I am traveling to DC on Sunday for the week and my schedule might be messy.
Week 7- 27 miles, 2 runs will be in DC, hopefully outdoors! Long run is 13 miles.
Week 8- 28 miles with potentially a half marathon that day, if I can find one.

I am slowly building up the miles, the program I based this on has a few rules that I am trying to apply.

• Total Mileage goes up 10% at most per week. (Week 3 to 4 violates this I know.)
• Long run is generally about 40-50% of your total weekly mileage

Week 1 of Wisconsin Marathon Training complete!

Had a good first week, completed all the workouts right on schedule (except for the long run, which was one day late). I hit all the time goals I established as well. Plus the weight training did not seem to interfere with the rest for my legs. My waking pulse which I track closely was in the positive zone each morning when I got up.

As for week 2, nothing terribly different other then the Wednesday run is going to be 3 miles at marathon pace minus 1 minute, as opposed to 2 miles last week, and my long run will be 9 miles instead of 8.

Week 4 has the first significant run, when I go into double digits for the first time at 11 miles. The next 12 weeks after week 4 all have long runs in the double digits except for one, so that's when I get into the meat of the plan

2015 Racing Schedule

Did some work on my 2015 schedule to try to determine what my plans are and how they match up with my running program. As I choose races to consider and or do for sure, I applied two rules.

1. Is it consistent with my training plan.
2. I rather race long then run long.

So using those rules I have scheduled the following races:

• Frosty 5K, February 22-- A race for a charity near and dear to my heart, The Friends of the Round Lake Area Park District, in Round Lake Beach
• Cary Half Marathon, March 15th-- in Cary Grove, its nearby and I need some long racing prep.
• Shamrock Shuffle, March 29th-- looking forward to this since this 8K or roughly 5 mile race, while not really close to my 12 mile run that day, the 40,000 plus runners and similar start to the Chicago Marathon will be great practice for the real thing in October.
• Wisconsin Marathon, May 2nd-- in Kenosha Wisconsin, this is the one the 20 week program is pointing towards.  If (when) I finish it will be my first marathon.
• Northshore Half, May 30th-- These are three potential half's, I will likely just run in one.
• Summerfest Half June 13th-- These are three potential half's, I will likely just run in one.
• Rockford Half, June 20th-- These are three potential half's, I will likely just run in one.
• Lake Zurich Triathlon, July 12th-- One of my colleagues from my work task force and I are going to do the team tri, with her riding the bike and me running, we have yet to find a swimmer however.
• Wauconda Triathlon, July 26th-- same as above
• Pick one! Week of August 23, 30th and September 5, there are three half's in Lincolnshire, Bativia and Libertyville. Its likely I will do one of these.
• Chicago Marathon, October 11th-- The ultimate goal!

Week 2 Day 1-- Carryover run from Sunday

So I did my long run today after refereeing in a charity soccer tournament on Sunday. Got up after a good nights sleep with my resting heart rate quite low, showing that I was ready for a good solid effort. Sure enough I was, the goal was 8 miles in 1:48 at a 13:30 mile pace, and I hit that easily being 20 second over at 1:48:20. I used a 3:1 Galloway ratio with the mph on the treadmill being 4.7 to 3.7. I drank about 30 ounces of water and had one power bar at 60 minutes. The heart rate did not get above 120 until I hit about 7 miles, which I was quite pleased with. Overall even though it took place on a Monday, the Sunday run did well.

Day 7-- Confusion already?

So I got asked to referee in a indoor soccer tournament, The Chris Applegate Memorial Tournament, that's being held in Crystal Lake today, I am doing 6 30 minute men's games starting at 9am. So I decided not to do my 8 mile long slow distance run this morning. I have two options open to me, the first is do the run when I get home today in the afternoon, and the second is to do it tomorrow morning. The reason I would be willing to do a long run on Monday is I am off all week, so I have time to run on the Monday. Basically I am going to see how energetic I am while refereeing this morning, before deciding.

Day 6-- New Garmin 610 Debuts

So I got a Garmin 610, for my anniversary which was yesterday. Today I rolled it out on the treadmill, so no distance, altimeter, and cadence figures, just heart rate. It took me about 20 minutes of the run to get the chest strap in a logical position that synced up with the treadmill, and my Basis watch, once that was done HR seemed spot on. One thing I can say is a little moisture under the strap was an amazing thing for conductivity, I will try that first thing next run.

The run went quite well, after the tinkering with monitor was done I cruised non-stop to the three miles at 13:30 pace I was shooting for with zero discomfort.

Saturday runs are slow runs for the most part, until they switch over in weeks, 6,7, and then weeks 10-16 to a variety of speed work. I also throw in some upper body weightlifting as well either in the afternoon or right after the run. Today I choose the afternoon.

Day 5-- Boxing Day Workout.

This was today's workout, after struggling to wake up I did pretty well with it, mostly chest and shoulders. I enjoy the dumbbells, it forces me to be in control of the weight at all time and focused on the muscle. Which seems like a positive, and feels like it afterwards! I got this workout from FLEX magazine, in an article by Mr. Olympia Phil Heath's for his ideal chest workout.

The workout pictured at right is an app I found on line that is called Full Fitness that is very useful with tracking and planning. You can design and or use some custom designed workouts already in the app. I would highly recommend it. I just designed the "Heath" workout right into it and was able to save it that way.

Friday's are weight training, and no running, I will have two runs to cap off the week, a 3 miles on Saturday, and an 8 milers on Sunday. I am hoping I can run outside this weekend as well.

Xmas Miracle, or Day 4, one of the two.

Happy Holidays from the Wilson Road Snap Fitness, because that's where I was at 6:30am this morning. Slept in a little but easily ran 5 miles in 57:57 (11:35 per mile pace) which is a little slower then my goal of 11 minute mile pace.

In this plan the Thursday runs are steady pace runs, and my goal pace is generally around 11 minutes. My splits were not what I wanted 10:50, 11:16, 11:27, 12:00 and 12:23 but I am okay with the whole workout. My heart rate never got above 150, and during the walk breaks it dropped quickly into the low 120's. I used a Galloway 3:1 ratio and 6.0mph to 3.7mph on the treadmill.

The reason I am okay with this workout is I ran an internal PR for the 5k of 34:40 which is about a minute faster then the NICASA 5K I ran right before Thanksgiving. The positive is I was not even shooting for that, and easily sailed past that time.

Day 3-- The first Wednesday Run

In my plan, Wednesday's are quick tempo run days (shorter distance, faster then desired pace) in this case one minute faster then my hoped for marathon pace on race day.

Today's went well, I warmed up for a slow mile, reset the treadmill to zero and took off using a Galloway run/walk 4:1 strategy and a 6.2mph to 3.7mph on the treadmill to achieve my goal of 21:00 for 2 miles.

My max heart rate hit 151 briefly, but I was consistently in the low 140's in the second half of the workout. I also recovered quite quickly during the brief minute breaks down into the high 120's.

Day 2-- Marathon Training for the Wisconsin Marathon

Upper body workout, felt good, hit all my reps with decent form and some "burn". Did a "Mr Olympia" Phil Heath workout I saw in a FLEX magazine, obviously not at his level but "close" and by close I mean, he does this workout in a gym just like me.

Day 1-- Marathon Training for the Wisconsin Marathon

A day of rest to kick things off. The perfect plan so far! I nailed this workout.

This is a 20 week program with 4 runs a week, on Wednesday and Thursday, followed by Saturday and Sunday, with some weight training and cross training thrown in for good measure. Some of the Saturday's I do speed work. But mostly I train to run at my goal pace.

The red dates are long runs of over 13 miles. I also have a couple of races thrown in for good measure, the Shamrock Shuffle, the Frosty 5k and the Cary Grove half marathon.

First run!

So using my new Garmin Forerunner 10 GPS watch (thanks Santa) I am able to track my workouts via the very cool Garmin Connect webpage.

So while the headline says "first run" it was more like first "walk/jog" of the marathon program. It was challenging and I used my heart monitor to watch my heart rate as well, which I maxed out and averaged 148bpm, which is a tad bit high for doing a marathon, but its a start!

Marathon Man

I am a big believer in having large goals. If a goal doesn't scare the hell out of you its probably not big enough! To that end I have decided to run a marathon this year. I have not decided which one yet but will shortly. The obvious one is Chicago, but I am pretty sure we will be on vacation then so I might have to look elsewhere for a local marathon.

I have been thinking about it for awhile now and of course New years is a great time to set goals!

My marathon thinking is as follows:

• Health Benefits
• Weight loss
• Fitness
• Challenging

Seems like a good mix of positives! So follow along on the Blog Mark 2.0 or should I say version 26.2!