Two thanksgiving dinners, two workouts

My brother had us over for thanksgiving dinner #1
yesterday - really good eats...

Thanksgiving day was tough!  I attended 2 full, blow-out thanksgiving meals.  One was in the afternoon and the second was in the evening.  One was at my brother's house and the other was at my wife's aunt's house.  There was a lot of food at both places.  And it was good.

I ate the traditional thanksgiving spread at the first meal and enjoyed some ethnic cuisine - lamb biryani - in the evening (the evening meal featured the traditional thanksgiving items plus some Indo-Pak dishes as well).  I ate well.  On thanksgiving that means something a little different than on most other days.  Here you should read that as "I stuffed myself".  It wasn't easy and I didn't want to but I didn't want either of my hosts to feel bad (I'm just a real trooper in that regard).

I also didn't want to be saddled with a ton of guilt afterwards so I did what any reasonable person would do.  I worked out yesterday.  Twice.

In the morning - just as the first football game got underway (Pats vs. Lions) I took to my basement for workout #1.  I ran 2.25 miles - slow - on the treadmill and then did about 10 minutes on the stationary bike.  It worked up a sweat at least.

Workout #2 was in between meal #1 and meal #2.  We came home from my brother's house with about 2 hours to kill so I went down to the basement and ran 1 mile and then rode the stationary bike for 30 minutes.  This time I watched the Cowboys vs. Saints game (in part).

Neither workout was strenuous.  I know I didn't put a dent in the the extra calories I consumed yesterday.  But it felt good to exercise and as expected, I feel good about myself today!

Today I'm going to lift weights.  I'll do about 1 hour of exercise this afternoon.  I've got another family dinner at one of my cousin's tonight.  Again, a traditional thanksgiving spread.  I love my family too much to disappoint them so I'll force myself to partake of the feast.  Yup, I'm very generous that way!

I need to be home by about 9pm so I can wind down, get all of my stuff ready for tomorrow and get to bed at a reasonable time.  Tomorrow morning - Saturday, November 27, 2010 - is my first half marathon!

I'm excited and nervous!  But I should be able to plough through it, albeit at a very deliberate (read: slow) pace because tomorrow night is a dinner out with some of my cousins and my younger brother followed by cigars!

Good runs on Wednesday & Thursday - what's changed?

I've been off my game so to speak last week.  The last good runs I had coming up to this past Wednesday were my 11.20 mile run and the following Saturday's 7.5 mile run (both Saturday long runs).  All of last week my runs suffered from a lack of focus and my mental inability to deal with the cold weather (there may have been some soreness too but that would only account for a small part of why I didn't run well).

Thanks in large part to unseasonably warm temperature and a lack of precipitation, I've had a good week of running this week.  On Wednesday I went out in the evening and knocked out 5 miles and felt great afterwards.  Yesterday I ran 3 miles on the treadmill and rode the stationary bike for 20+ minutes, and again, I felt great afterwards.

I'm going to invest in a few more articles of cold weather gear so that I can get the training done for the upcoming 1/2 marathon (11/27/10) and then for the 1/2 marathon itself.  Heretofore the only thing I've added to my running equipment is a long sleeve mock turtleneck tech shirt from Under Armor (the cold weather kind).  I need a warm but thin jacket, some kind of sweat-wicking beanie or cap and maybe some long compression pants.

Tomorrow morning I've got the 2.12 mile race with my friends and my wife so I'm not going to run tonight.  I'll lift weights tonight and maybe ride the stationary bike a bit.

Because tomorrow I'll have a very short workout and also because last week's 12 mile was such a miserable experience, I'm going to try 12 miles again on Sunday.  I need to conquer this mileage milestone going into the 11/27 race.  I need to know that I've done it so that there is a psychological edge on race day.  I'll do the run in the afternoon after the Bears game.

Even after running 12 miles on Sunday I'll still have a solid 13 days to rest (relatively speaking).  I'll be able to run shorter distances with the comfort of knowing that I've already covered the long miles!

Getting ready for a 12 + Mile Run

I've finally reached the point in my training where I need to run a 12 + mile run.  Gulp!

This weekend I did a 7.5 mile long run because it was a "step-down" week.  This weekend I'm supposed to run 12 miles or more.  Two weekends ago I did 11.20 miles so 12 miles should not be too hard.  If I decide to try for more then it may become harder.

My diet has been absolutely horrid.  I've been eating junk food and fast food quite a bit.  It has been so bad that I've been gaining weight but it certainly isn't helping me get stronger.

I have a bit of a challenge this week (above and beyond running 12 + miles).  We're going to Michigan on Saturday morning.  I'm not going to be able to run on Saturday morning.  It looks like I'm going to have to run on Friday after work.  That's not only not ideal, it is horrible.  I don't know if I'll have the energy to do it.

I may need to take a half day on Friday to allow myself time to get my run in.  If I can started by 3pm then I can be done just as it is getting dark.  I'll probably run the large neighborhood loop (2.46 miles per), because the forest preserve closes at sunset and I'd like to not be in the middle of the preserves when it gets dark!

Once I finish this week's long run I will not have any more long runs until the half marathon.

11.20 miles (to be precise) in the cold rain was very hard

Today's scheduled long run was 11 miles.  I ran 11.20 miles at the Shoe Factory Road Forest Preserve.  I dressed for a cold and dry day.  I ended up with a cool but very wet morning instead.  The combination of the distance and the cold rain made today's run very hard.

This is the route I ran:


I felt great on the "out" leg of the run (I run out to the halfway point of my planned run and the run back "in").  There was an intermittent mist all morning, but by the time I got turned around and was only about 1/2 mile into the "in" leg the mist became a steady rain and that rain continued for a solid 30 minutes.

The rain made my run harder.  I was wearing a knit hat on my head.   That's not a great choice of headgear as the cotton hat was water-logged within minutes.  I wore a cotton henley long-sleeve on top of my cold weather Under Armor long sleeve mock turtleneck shirt.  Again, it was water-logged within minutes.  My shoes and socks were soaked pretty quickly once the heavy rain started coming down.

The clothing became heavier with the water and this certainly played a role in making the run more difficult.  But as I look back on this morning's run I think the rain hurt me the most by breaking my focus and distracting me.  I should have tried harder to remain focused.  Instead of focusing on my running form and my speed and thinking about the importance of every training day leading up to the half marathon (that's a little mantra I have: "make every training day count!"), I let myself think about how cold and miserable I was.  That was dumb.  I started worrying that my wet feet would blister.  I started worrying that I'd catch a cold.  Dumb and dumber still.

I finished the run but I was dragging during the last 2.5 miles.  It should have finished the run in about 2 hours and a few minutes.  Instead, it took me 2 hours and 15 minutes.  Ugh.

I'm not beating myself up over the time.  I'm not deluding myself into trying to work on speed already.  Rather, I'm upset that (1) I didn't prepare properly for the weather, and (2) I allowed myself to lose focus.  If I would have worn a water-repellant jacket (I have one) and remained focused on the mechanics of my running I would have had a much better training day.

Today was a great hands-on lesson in the power of focus and on the mental aspect of an athletic endeavor.  I'm convinced that my negative thoughts played a significant role in the slower and more painful second part of my morning run.  I'll try to learn from today's experience and find a way to avoid the same mistake in the coming weeks.

Oh how time flies by - 11/27 half marathon is approaching fast!

This Saturday’s long run will be 11 miles.  That’s good since the November half marathon will be only one month away come this Saturday.  Given how fast the last 5 weeks have flown by I can only imagine how fast the last month of training will slip away as well.

This past weekend’s 8 mile step down run was not so good.  I was out of town, had only about 5 hours of sleep and a very hectic schedule that kept me from focusing on the run itself.  While I covered the necessary miles, I didn’t enjoy it the way I have the other long runs.  The silver lining is that I didn’t let any of these extenuating circumstances stop me from doing the scheduled long run.

Last night I ran 3 miles instead of 4.  Why?  I wanted to do some strength training.  The training schedule I created back in September called for a combination of running and strength training, but to date (since 9/13 when I officially kicked of the half marathon training) I’ve missed a lot of the scheduled strength training sessions.  I used yesterday to get myself re-charged and back on track.

As an added bonus I went to the gym to do my workout.  I needed the extra boost that working out with others provides.  Thankfully I didn’t run into anyone I know last night so my workout was focused and uninterrupted.

This evening I ran 5 miles.  I did it at night after the kids were put to bed.  It was a beautiful, clear and cool night and I decided to go on the run ipod-free.  Sometimes its nice to run in the quiet of the night.  It’s peaceful.  Oh yeah, and it’s safer too.

Tomorrow will be another strength training day.  I’m going to go late in the evening again after the kids are in bed.  Then on Thursday I’ll go out for a short run.  Friday I’ll do some more strength training and on Saturday morning I’ll hit the trails for the longest run to date!

I've crossed into the realm of double digit runs - 10 miles done!

I successfully completed my planned 10 mile run this morning!  It was hard, but not as hard as I imagined it would be.

My previous long run was 7.5 miles which I completed a few weeks ago.  My half marathon training plan called for a 9 mile run today with next week being a 10 mile run.  I decided to go for the 10 miles this week for a couple of reasons.  First, I felt like I was up for it.  Second, I am going to be visiting my in-laws next week and I had doubts about trying to do my first double digit run outside of familiar surroundings.  It was a good call.

Besides the increased miles, today's run was tougher than the 7.5 mile run a few weeks ago for several other reasons.  The 2.5 mile circuit in my neighborhood starts of with a steep hill and then a long downhill stretch and then a few other shorter hills throughout the route.  The 7.5 mile was done at a nearby forest preserve and it was flat all the way through.  Today the temperature as easily 20 degrees warmer.  This morning it was about 70 degrees when I started my run and it got hotter as the 2 hour run progressed.  Two weeks ago it was very cool out at about 50 degrees and maybe a 5 degree warm up over the course of that 1.5 hour run.

I took the advice of some friends who run (much longer distances than me) and placed a water bottle by my house.  My 2.5 mile circuit brings me by the house each time.  I stopped for a drink of water after 5 miles and then again after 7.5 miles.  In addition to the hills and heat, the repetitiveness of running laps - even long 2.5 mile versions - did make the run less engaging and therefore a bit harder.

I'm over 1 month away from the half marathon (11/27/10).  I'm considering changing my training schedule so that I do a "step-down" run every other week.  Right now I'm to run two long runs and then a shorter run on my weekly long run days.  It was easy to do 6 miles and then 7.5 miles.  I'm not sure it will be as easy to do 11 or more miles next Saturday.  I'm tinkering with the idea of running 8 miles next week and then moving up to 11 miles the week after.  I'll still do a 12.5 to 13 mile run two weeks before the race using this modified schedule.

I feel good!
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This afternoon I found this interesting article on the Runner's World website about 10-milers:  10 Reasons to Run 10 Miles.  It was a good read.