Every Mile Earned

Here's a little preview of what's finally coming together, a brief training update, a little chat on our upcoming weekend of 4 races at RWF and the party with our phone friends! To listen to our chat, click HERE RWF and Half Marathon 2015

I have a little over 6 weeks to my 1st half marathon this year. I'm running the Scranton marathon with a team at work. Until this week, I haven't had very high mileage weeks, or very consistent running for that matter. So I sat down last weekend and worked out the next 6+ weeks of running. (worked on getting my half & marathon medals hung up too) This medal holder is for only marathon and half marathon medals. All my others are on a different display.  Last Sunday , Hill Dynamo and I ran 6 miles in the town next to us. We needed a change of scenery. It was in the high 40's which was wonderful, especially because we had wet feet by the time we were done. The sidewalks still had a lot of snow or big puddles from melted snow. We always have fun when running together, even when it sucks. I stopped for what felt like a million times because my legs and hips were bothering me.  I had to keep stretching but we got the miles done. It was a gloomy day but the co...

Ok, so not really. I don't know why I thought having a Peep would be a good idea right before a run but it wasn't.  It left me with side cramps and stomach pain! After running 3 miles in October, two in November and 7 in December, it's been nice having the running bug hit me again.  I needed that break, physically and emotionally.  This is my official, Welcome Back To My Training month. I only had 31 miles in January and so far 29  for February but I'm pretty happy with them. 2015 was my best year ever and I started that year out with barely any miles! I'm hoping on to hope, with a death grip, that this is going to be a good year for running. Tonight was tough. I'm tired. Less than 6 hours of sleep. I'm a gal who needs a solid 7.5 hours to feel good. That's not been happening lately.  I also made the mistake of wearing sneakers instead of my Vibrams. They felt very heavy on my legs on the hills.  I had very little food today. I had a million excuses...

What do you do when it's February, almost 60°, with a crystal clear blue sky and you were up, on and off, all night with either a stomach bug or bad food??  Why run, of course!!!   I had a really rough start to the morning but when I stepped out of church and felt that sun, I knew there wasn't any sick feeling or due assignments that were going to keep me away from the road. Just a short run. That's all I wanted. Some movement in the blessed sun!  Even though it was short, I had lots of thoughts today..... Mile 1  * The first hill was torture, I wanted to walk but didn't. I haven't run hills in months. I look up the hill and I don't remember it looking so steep. * One step, then the next, it's how I make it up hills.  Yep, it's sharpie time again. I can't explain writing on myself helps to motivate me, yet it does.  *Step. Visceral pleura. Step. Cubital region. Step. Adipose connective tissue. Step. Atomic mass. ...

I haven't updated in awhile. There's not a lot to update but I like to have this as a log for myself, too. I'm terrible with writing down anything about how I feel during training or a race, it all goes here or it's lost forever.  My training has really suffered this winter and we had a mild winter! It's very frustrating to me that I allowed myself to hide curled up under my blanket all winter instead of out doing what needs to be done. I'll fully feel that lack of training commitment in my marathon in just over a month.  I have a half marathon coming up and even that I don't feel as prepared for as last year and last year I had less miles going into the same race. I know some of my mental issue is that I'm comparing myself to my PR half last September and I'm just not in that shape.  I'm also a bit bummed that I realized that for my full at the end of May, I just have to treat it like a really long run and go easy at it. I don't want to comp...

Today I did a workout I haven't done in 8 months.  It was hard. I thought the hills were going to make my wobbly, tired legs collapse but I did them.  Since I'm starting from scratch with this workout, I only did 4 hill repeats but then the recovery miles afterwards are what I was super excited about. Each one was a progressively faster.  Not as fast as last year but a winter of minimal running and weight gain have really slowed me down.  It's frustrating but it's all my own fault. All I can do is move forward to getting back where I was last year. The other fantastic part about today's run was hearing the red wing black birds while I was running.  Spring is coming and with it better running weather. I love to run in the heat and I can't wait to start training in some hot afternoon sun. Our RRCA class is coming up. I'm really excited that after almost 2 years, this dream is finally so close to fruition! We have our business name picked out but have not y...

This past week has been a full week of training. I'm exhausted but mostly happy with how the week went. I did the first strength workout that Drill Sergeant has designed for me. He's been letting me use my own favorite workouts but this week he replaced one of mine with one he designed for me.  I really liked it.  It gave me a chance to see that I was a little stronger than I thought. The workout had a few sets and push ups are part of each set. I've never been able to do them but I've been working on them in my other workouts.  I always do them on my knees but Tuesday I decided to try at least a few off my knees. I did 3-4 of each set that way, till I hit the last set.  I was able to do ALL 10 off my knees. I didn't do them fast but I did them.  That was probably the high point of my training week.   I also had my second timed mile last week.  It was rough. My leg cramped on me, I couldn't get my breathing under control, my splits weren't want...

This has been a good week. A week of hard workouts. A week of some good decisions. Drill Sargeant decided to keep me on his team and I decided to keep him as my coach. I can't believe it's really been four weeks of our trial period together. I like the workouts he's scheduled for me. They are not workouts I'd do on my own or a schedule I'd have the discipline to follow. And there is the accountability that I need to make sure I actually do the workouts. Yesterday was my long run. 10 miles and I was able to sustain an average 9:30 pace. As I was running, I was falling behind the pace I wanted to keep, and in my minds eye, I could see Drill Sergeant yelling at me to "Suck it up Buttercup" and telling me not to quit. I'm sure if he'd been there, it would have been something like that. It was just what I needed at the time. It's also why I've decided his blog name is Drill Sergeant. This is how I view my running coach when I'm stru...

For the last three weeks I have been running about 6 days a week. I know I've said it before, but I'll say it again, this is new to me. My mileage hasn't increased that much, maybe 5-7 miles a week but the quality of my runs has increased 100%!  I feel better, stronger, more fluid, less swelling and less stiffness.  Working with a coach is the most exciting thing to come along in my running since I hit a sub 30 5k.  He's helped me to define goals and visualize myself achieving them. Normally I just hope to hit some goal with poor training and minimal running. I had a good week of running, which I was surprised because of my race last weekend.  My weight workout on Tuesday was rough but the rest of the week was about what I expected.  I was also battling some sort of stomach bug. My energy was low and early in the week, when I'd eat, I'd get extremely dizzy. I'm glad it only stuck around a couple days.  I was very pleased with my workout on Wednesday...

My 1st week of marathon training has started.  I'm not actually running a marathon in the fall. I'm running Runner's World Half Marathon and Festival, which is 4 races over three days for a total of 26.2 miles. A few weeks ago I was so frustrated, with about 5 different marathon plans sitting in front of me. I knew a cookie cutter plan wasn't for me. I knew from previous experience, I wouldn't follow one the way I should. I decided I was going to create my own plan.  I was still lost though because there are so many running workout you can add to a plan; track runs, hills, repeats, long runs, race pace, fartleks, cross training. I was feeling the pressure of putting together a plan that I would actually follow too.  I love to have a schedule but I'm not good on the follow through. I think I can skip a day and make it up later. I slacked off on my half marathon training and even though I had a race I enjoyed, I didn't race that run at all.  I had about 2 m...