Update and training log 01/12-01/18

It's been a happy yet very busy week, low on sleep and heavy on mileage. I created my fundraising page via Firstgiving, and hopefully I will be able to raise some money and awareness of pediatric cancer. The Sue(s) and I settled on the Ben Krupnick concert benefit on March 21st. I am going to go talk to the folks at Regent Theatre here in Arlington to see about getting us a deal. Negotiation is not my natural strong suite - I am shy - but have learned to do it comfortably over the years. You have to build good negotiation skills when you are married:)

Here is the past week's daily grind...
Monday 01/12/09 - SPEED
Goal: 1600, 1200, 1000, 800, 600 meter repeats, somewhere between 6:40-6:56, with 1 mile warm up, 1 mile cool off, and 200m recovery intervals in between.
This week's speed workout was challenging because of the frigid temperatures and my stuffy nose. Nonetheless, I rocked the intervals and finished each repeat a few seconds faster than I was supposed to. My chin was frozen by the end of the run, but my face was glowing.

Tuesday: 01/13/09 - REST
This was supposed to be a swim day, per usual, but I spiked a fever and had to do a few patient calls later in the afternoon that I decided rest was better for my body - not easy for me to do, but glad I did it in retrospect, bc I felt better on Wednesday.

Wednesday 01/14/09 - BIKE
15 mile ride on an indoor bike. Pretty boring and painful - somehow a layer of skin got removed due to the friction with the bikeseat. Hopefully the bike that my friend Al will pass on to me has a better seat.

Thursday 01/15/09 - TEMPO RUN

Goal: 7 miles total, 1 mile warm up, 5@ 8:14, 1 cool off.
Actual: Since I am an overachiever, I end up doing all my runs a bit faster...This was no exception. I ran the tempo @ 8:00 and felt absolutely fine! At home I got another case of the cold weather induced urticaria and had to force myself to wear gloves for 1 hour so not to tore my thighs into pieces.

Friday 01/16/09 - SWIM
My goal was to swim the usual 1.5 miles, but ran out of time and had to stop at 1.25. This was great, as usual. I feel so calm and collected after my swims.

Saturday 01/17/09 - LONG RUN
I met up with the Sues at 8am this morning, a bit later than normal in hopes that the temperatures would rise. We had 0 degrees when I left the house, yet it did not feel that cold to me - perhaps too much excitement. I was nervous all week about this run and about my ability to do long runs, because of the episode of lightheartedness and dizziness during last week's run. Your comments helped and I realized that I need electrolytes and more nutrition. So last night I had a bigger dinner than usual - bigger meaning an extra serving of chicken, rice and steamed carrots. In the morning, besides my beloved humongous oatmeal bowl, I had a banana slathered with peanut butter and topped with salt. In addition to my water bottle, I carried a 10 oz bottle with NUUN electrolytes. During the run I took a GU. This combo was just perfect for me. I felt strong and easily maintained the 9:08 pace (again, faster than the 9:20 I was supposed to do).

Today our challenge was to introduced some hills. And boy we did. We ran on the Minute Man path from Alewife to Arlington, did 2 loops of the Fresh Pond, bought some water (bottles froze) and headed towards Belmont on the long and steep Belmont Hills, then back in Arlington on a few more hills, and finished toward Arlington Heights. My legs were burning a bit after a couple of ups and downs, but cardiovascularly I felt very strong. I could have kept going and going after the 17.5 miles I ended up running. This was by far my best long run ever. Back home I was not raiding the fridge like I did last week. Nonetheless, I was still excited to have the challenge of replacing all those 1500 or so calories I had burned:) More importantly, I managed to take a nap with my son and feel a bit more caught up in this area (I realize that I have been writing a lot about my sleep deprivation here, but really, I usually get enough sleep, it's just this past 3 weeks have been challenging bc of my son's transition to big boy bed - which failed - and everyone's colds)

Sunday 01/18/09 - SWIM
1.5 miles swim - worth dragging myself and my car through the snow!

Overall a great running week;
Run: 29.5
Swim: 3,75
Bike: 15
Next week's challenges:

1. Strength training - this has just disappeared from my life. I did not have any energy at night this week, plus we have a big house with mom around.
2. Sleep - enough said.
3. I think I still need to train my body to eat more gels during the long runs. We are running them pretty slow, so we are probably using energy from the fat stores. But come marathon day I am going to need glycogen in order to keep up the 8:35 pace, and so I will need more sugar. The good news is that the vanilla bean GU does not upset my stomach.