Monday Mileage Report

My first week back on a full training schedule!

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday	Total
7 3.2 mi walk	8 3.2 mi@11:03 30 min strength	9 5 mi@11:56	10 45 min spinning 30 min strength	11 Rest	12 ~ 3.5 mi@~10:00 ~ 1.1 mi walk	13 8 mi@12:14	20 mi

It was a solid week.  I got all my workouts in, and so far nothing seems to have broken.  To ease into the schedule, I substituted spinning for what would have been a short, easy run on Thursday.  The spin class turned out to be absolutely brutal, but I think it was probably still good to give my legs a break from running.

This was my first weekend on the new schedule, which pushes long runs back to Sunday and adds a run on Saturday with every other one done at marathon pace.  This Saturday was supposed to be 5 miles at marathon pace.  I went out a little too fast (9:40 first mile) but I felt good so I kept it up around 10 min pace for the next 2 miles or so.  Unfortunately my stomach started acting up about 3.5 miles in (shouldn't have been surprising given what I ate and drank on Friday night), so I ended up walking back and cutting the run a bit short.  Aside from the stomach issues, I learned that my target marathon pace (10:45) is pretty hard for me to hit consistently.  I either think "I need to keep the pace up" and end up running around 10 minute miles, or "nice and slow" and end up running between 11 and 12 minute miles.  I'll have to work on that ...

Despite cutting Saturday's run a little short, my legs were pretty dead a few miles into the long run on Sunday.  Eight miles felt tough, even going nice and slow and taking short walk breaks for water about every mile (on long runs I practice walking through aid stations to make it feel more like an actual race).

Here's what's on the schedule for this week:

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday	Total
14 Cross	15 PT appt GA: 3 mi	16 MSD: 5 mi	17 Cross Strength	18 Rest	19 GA: 5 mi PT exercises	20 3/1: 9 mi	22 mi

Now that I've got a training plan locked down, I'm turning my attention back to nutrition, especially given the stomach problems I've been having lately.  On the advice of an awesome runner friend, I got Racing Weight by Matt Fitzgerald, so I'll also be trying to incorporate some tips from that over the next few weeks.