Monday, October 31, 2011

Marathon Training - Week 26 of 30

Number 26 (Church)Image by World of Good via Flickr
I'm training for my first marathon, which will be the White Rock Marathon in Dallas on December 4, 2011. My training week runs from Monday to Sunday. Today is Monday, which means the beginning of a new training week!


Week 25 Review:
  • Monday: Schedule rest - completed
  • Tuesday: 5mi run - replaced with a short bike ride
  • Wednesday: 8mi pace run - skipped
  • Thursday: 5mi run - did 1hr cycling instead
  • Friday: Scheduled rest - completed
  • Saturday: 19mi long run - completed
  • Sunday: Cross-training - more cycling

Last week was all about trying to get my left foot healed so I could at least do the 19mi long run. So I did a couple of bike rides, then did my 19 mile run on Saturday. The run was both comfortable and hard if that makes sense. My left foot started hurting early on, and the pain would come and go. I guess without realizing it I started relying mostly on my right leg to compensate. By about 13 miles into the run, my left hamstring really started to cramp up and ache, which really slowed me down. It got so bad by about mile 15 that I finally had to take a break. So I walked for a solid 4 or 5 minutes and did some stretching to try to get it to loosen up. By mile 18, I guess the adrenaline finally kicked in because I knew I was almost done. I kicked pretty hard that last mile, but as soon as I crossed the finish line and slowed down my right leg started to really hurt. Lucky for me there were free massages at the finish line. I was told that I needed alot of work (no, really?). So, on the bright side, I really felt fine other than the leg and foot injuries. If I was fully healed up, I think the 19mi run would have been no problem.

Oh, and here's something - I scored my first ever first place finish* on Saturday:


* Okay, so I was the only one in my age group. I'll take it.

Now, a couple of days later, my hamstring feels fine, but my left foot pain continues to bother me. Looks like more resting/icing in my future.

Week 26
(week 14 of Hal Higdon's Novice 2 program)

This is a step-back week according to the schedule. What it really will be is a try-to-get-healed week. I plan to replace my runs with bike rides at least on Tues-Wed-Thu. We'll see how I feel on Saturday. I may ride instead of run on that day too. I really need to get serious about getting my foot healed, and the sooner the better. I don't want to try to run 26.2 on my foot the way it is now.

Okay, so in summary, here's what's on this week's schedule:
  • Monday: Schedule rest
  • Tuesday: 5mi run (to be replaced with 1hr cycling)
  • Wednesday: 8mi run (to be replaced with 1.5hr cycling)
  • Thursday: 5mi run (to be replaced with 1hr cycling)
  • Friday: Scheduled rest
  • Saturday: 12mi long run (or a couple of hours of cycling)
  • Sunday: Cross-training
Good thing I got a new saddle for my bike.

Have a great week!
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