Chicago Marathon Week 3 Day 1

Welcome to the third week of training!! Woo!! (And yes, I’m actually posting on the day!! Double woo!!)

Per my ticker we are at 4 months, 2 weeks and 1 day to go!! It seems like a long way off, but if my past experiences tell me anything, it’ll be here before I know it!!

Also? We are most definitely getting into summer temperatures! Wowza was it warm already at 9am! So lesson learned…as much as sleeping in on a day off is nice, for these hot weather runs it’s far better to get my little butt out of bed and run early. I can nap later if necessary!!

But today… Woke up around 8:30 and by the time I got dressed and headed out the door it was about 9. Since I knew I had work this evening, I chose to just do my regular route around the little park close to my apartment. Which was fine, except people were already getting there for their cook-outs (Sorry, I was raised in Carolina barbecue country and burgers and hot dogs on a grill is not a “barbecue”, it is a cook-out. If a pig roasting on a spit or grill isn’t involved, it’s NOT a barbecue.) which added two interesting elements: dodging people who were unloading from their cars and walking stuff across the sidewalk to hand it over the fence AND patches where the temperature rose a good 10 degrees or more as I ran by grills which had already been fired up.

So I took it nice and slow and even walked more than intended. I’m not going to feel bad about that either, especially as I get acclimated to these temperatures. Drank plenty of water on the run and when I got in. Also treated myself to wrapping up in my Chilly Pad towel which is INCREDIBLE!! Love that thing!!!!

Week three has commenced! And so far, I’m feeling good about this training!!

Training mileage: 34.27
Weight: 177.4

Chicago Marathon Week 2 Day 7

I went back and forth on what to do today since I slept through my scheduled XT on Tuesday.

Initially I’d thought I’d do yoga today and make up for it. But that didn’t happen before church. And now…while I could do it, I did do a good bit of walking getting to and from church, so even if it’s not XT in the totally proper sense of the word, it’s not like I was a slug all day either.

So I’m just going to call it a rest day as scheduled and that is that.

It’s hard to believe two weeks have already gone by!! When I first looked at the plan, I thought it looked SOOOOO long!! And it is – most marathon plans are 18 weeks tops. But at the same time, October will be here before we know it!!

Wowza!!

Training mileage: 33.27
Weight: 177.4

Chicago Marathon Week 2 Day 6

Long run day!!

Got up and took a bit of time getting ready while debating where I wanted to run. I finally decided on Central Park so that I could possibly go to running club after the run. On the way there decided to just make it a Mini 10K preview.

I really need to work on keeping my pace for my long slow runs slower than my weekday runs.

And I still need to try as my pace was again around 13:20/mile. Oops!

And that was with the Harlem Hills!! I hate that section of the park – only because of the hills. It’s nice for running though in terms of not having to dodge horse carriages, pedicabs, and tourists either wandering cluelessly on foot or shakily attempting to ride a bike and paying no attention to what’s going on around them. But that’s the only nice part. The hill part is ICKY!

Still, all in all it was a good run! 6.61 miles including warm-up and cool-down (I’m never sure how to count that on either kind of run day, so I just count it in for everything) and generally felt good throughout. But it was hot and humid. Blech!!

I didn’t make it to running club because I spent a lot of time going from one Starbucks to another to find one that had all the ingredients for my preferred (yesterday anyway) post-long run treat. One was out of peppermint but had chocolate chips; one had chips but no peppermint. And then the one I did find with everything the girl had to be all “It’s not really light…just skim milk.” Um sweetie? That IS light. “Skinny” is with skim and sugar free syrups and ain’t no such thing as a skinny frappuccino. Oy vey!

Training mileage: 33.27
Weight: 177.4

Chicago Marathon Week 2 Day 5

Yay early morning runs!

Got up and was wheezier than I’ve been as of late. Probably because the humidity was up more than it has been. Welcome to summer!

Got up and dressed and out the door. Today was a shorter run – only 30 minutes pplus warm-up and cool-down. I started off slower than usual thanks to the wheeziness, but once the inhaler kicked in I was able to pick it up a bit. Ran pretty steady during my run intervals.

Final distance 2.96 miles at around 13:28 or so, so right on track for where I should be.

Training mileage: 26.66
Weight: 177.4

Chicago Marathon Week 2 Day 4

Yoga Meltdown Level 2

This one…I don’t know. I know a day or so later that I’ve done a workout because it works leg muscles that don’t get AS used while running (yes, I know…weird, but there are indeed some like that) because they are sore and just sitting down can be a painful experience. But while I’m doing the workout I don’t feel like it’s as much of one as Level 1 is.

I think it’s because Level 2 is more about the poses and you don’t have the sun salutations between each set so you’re not moving as much. I know I need the poses in Level 2…I just need to maybe add them into Level 1 but without necessarily doing both “levels” back to back.

IDK…I’ll have to work on that.

Training mileage: 23.7
Weight: 177.4

Chicago Marathon Week 2 Day 3

This morning was another tired morning. I happened to wake up at around 4:30 – not fully clear on if it was an alarm that did it or not.

I got in slightly earlier last night – got off at 10:45, and was able to take the train I like to. Only to discover that the train that gets me back to my apartment was running every 30 minutes. And I’d just missed it by literally seconds.

Oh joy.

Still, I was in an hour earlier and was able to get a little more sleep.

When I woke up, I had a moment of “Uh…” but then made myself get up and dressed in the running clothes (it’s times like now I wish I had central air as I WOULD sleep in my running clothes) and head out the door.

Same set-up as Monday – 4:30/1 with 1:30 running tacked on to equal 40 minutes, plus 5 minutes each of warm-up and cool-down. And it still felt good! Hooray!!! Managed a tiny bit more this run – 3.74 miles! I’ve gotta say – having these good runs after the great one on Sunday is building my confidence.

I work tonight until at least 8:30…I’ve got a call-in until 11, but we’ll see if they take it or not. I’m trying not to hope too badly for “not” because it seems the more you want them to say “no” the more likely you are to hear “yes”. But extra sleep would be nice!

Training mileage: 23.7
Weight: 177.4

Chicago Marathon Week 2 Day 2

Today was supposed to be XT.

Note I said “supposed”.

I had the best of intentions, but my body decided that it wanted rest a little more.

I suspected it might be a possibility as I was getting in bed at around 1am. Definitely later than it should have been, even for getting off from the store at 11pm. I was about 9 minutes late clocking out, and then as I got to one subway line, I realized that it was likely not going to be running due to construction, so I went back to wait for another, which took a while. So the trip home took much longer than intended.

When the clock went off, I did sit up and ponder for a few moments, but ultimately I decided it was better to listen to my body – especially early on in the training. No point in wearing myself out too much too soon! So I reset the clock for another hour and felt much better. I’ll probably try to get some XT in on Sunday to keep the hours all straight. But we’ll see how the week goes.

As far as weight, only down 0.6 pounds this week, but that’s ok. It’s not a sprint, and a loss is a loss.

Training mileage: 19.95
Weight: 177.4