Running around Rend Lake

Well, I figured out my headache from yesterday. It was a caffiene headache. Didn't have anything but water all day Saturday at the Air Show and then woke up Sunday with a headache. After 5 Advil (2 pills, then 3 pills later) wasn't doing anything, had a Mt. Dew on the way to St. Louis and that seemed to do the trick! Was able to attend the Cubs game at Cardinals without a headache! And what a great game it was! Another close scoring game that this one went into extra innings and top of 11th, Cubs managed a 3 run home run which made it 6-3 and we held on to the that and won the game! Good thing I took today off after all!

And so I slept in quite a lot this morning since we got back around 1am. Finally headed out there to Rend Lake around 10am. As you can see below, the difficulty is 4.2 out of 5. And then when I started the humidity was 92% and a temperature of 67 degrees. So the below numbers were after the run ended. But it didn't matter cause 67 degrees and 92% is pretty much the same as 81 degrees and 69% humidity. All I know is that I was soaking wet well before I was done and I didn't even dump any water over my head.

I saw loads of wildlife; 2 fawns that the spots were slowly fading away. 3 groups of turkeys, one was on the pavement path that I was running on. About 10 of them went right and 1 went left, soon they realised that the one went and the others quickly turned around and crossed over the path again to meet up with that one. I thought it was weird, usually majority rules but this one that went left must have been the leader. Lots of spiders on the path, wully bullys, hawks, and even a nice gnat flew into my eye on the first .1 mile. That HURT bad. Took me a minute to get that thing out of my eye.

I did walk a lot towards the end but that was because of the hills and heat. The sun had started coming out and was warming things up quite a bit. I can only hope that Milwaukee doesn't have any humidity for their marathon otherwise I'm toast. My miles weren't that far apart in times so I guess that's good. I did pause for a bathroom break in mile 8 so that's why there's a 2 minute gap.

After the run, I went down towards Rend Lake to get into the lake. But unfortunately, since I wasn't at a beach it was muddy and my shoes were laden with mud pretty quickly. But I got down to the shoreline and dumped water on my arms, shoulders, head and my legs (which also got my shoes & socks wet). Felt soooo good.

Speaking of shoes; I wore my old shoes on this run. No burning feet. So yea, I think I'm going to take my shoes back up to the store that I bought them from and ask them if they are in fact narrow cause I know for a fact I ordered a narrow. I hope they can tell cause the info under the tongue doesn't say anything about it being narrow (like a width size or anything.)

Now my brother and I will be going out on a Harley ride and then hitting up my favourite Mexican restaurant and will be eating my 1300 calories that I burned back!

Activity Route: -- Elev. Avg: 432 ft Location: Valier, IL Elev. Gain: -4 ft Date: 09/21/09 Up/Downhill: [+688/-692] Time: 10:19 AM Difficulty: 4.2 / 5.0 Weather: Partly Cloudy 81 F temp; 69% humidity 85 F heat index; winds S 12 Performance Distance: 12.25 miles Time: 2:01:07 Speed: 6.1 mph Pace: 9' 53 /mi Calories: 1308 Map Elevation (ft) Pace (min/mile) Splits Mile Pace (min/mile) Speed (mph) Elevation Gain actual +/- avg actual +/- avg 1 9' 28 -0' 25 6.3 +0.3 +6 ft 2 9' 24 -0' 29 6.4 +0.3 -13 ft 3 9' 39 -0' 14 6.2 +0.1 +43 ft 4 9' 47 -0' 06 6.1 +0.1 -23 ft 5 9' 26 -0' 27 6.3 +0.3 0 ft 6 9' 37 -0' 16 6.2 +0.2 -13 ft 7 10' 03 +0' 10 6.0 -0.1 +10 ft 8 12' 10 +2' 17 4.9 -1.1 0 ft 9 9' 29 -0' 24 6.3 +0.2 +4 ft 10 10' 05 +0' 12 6.0 -0.1 +10 ft 11 9' 51 -0' 02 6.1 +0.0 -3 ft 12 10' 10 +0' 17 5.9 -0.2 -3 ft end 8' 48 -1' 05 6.8 +0.7 -16 ft Versus average of 9' 53 min/mile

Posted from bimactive.com

Categories: 12 miles, Rend Lake, southern illinois

Falling behind?

Jesse: Training for Chicago Marathon, week after mine. He just ran 16 miles on Saturday. He's way faster than me.
Jen: Training for Chicago Marathon, week after mine. She ran 14 miles today. Using Hal's Intermediate Training plan. She's way faster than me.
Kim: Training for Kansas City Marathon. Using Hal's Intermediate Training plan. She ran 12 miles last Sun July 19. She's way faster than me.
Dana: Training for Milwaukee Lakefront Marathon. Using Ran 16 miles Sat, July 18. She's way faster than me.

Those are all the blog folks I know that are training for a marathon this fall. Most of them are ahead of me in mileage. I am following a Runner's World training plan because Hal didn't do it for me in my first marathon. I think I ran too much. Four days a week is too much. Anyway, so my plan has me doing this:

June 28 - Plan: 9 miles | Actual: 8.7 miles
July 5 - Plan: 10 miles | Actual: None
July 11 - Plan: 5 miles | Actual: 10 miles
July 18 - Plan: 12 miles | Actual: 6 miles
July 25 - Plan: 14 miles | Actual: (July 26) 12 miles
Aug 1 - Plan: 16 miles
Aug 8 - Plan: 5 miles
Aug 15 - Plan: 18 miles
Aug 22 - Plan: 20 miles
Aug 29 - Plan: 16 miles
Sept 5 - Plan: 6 miles
Sept 12 - Plan: 20 miles
Sept 19 - Plan: 12 miles (TAPER)
Sept 26 - Plan: 8 miles
Oct 4 - Race 26.2

Those plans were thrown out the window when I didn't run at all on July 5 and then became sick for a few days and I couldn't get in my long run on July 18 and only did 6 miles. I can't jump from 12 to 16 next week. There's no way possible to do that; both physically and mentally.

What am I to do? Luckily, this training plan has me running 20 miles twice, so I could always cut that down and just do one which worked out for me earlier this year.

So looks like new plan will be still to follow the progressiveness of it but just push the weeks back.

July 26 - 12 miles
Aug 1 - 14 miles
Aug 8 - Will be in Madison. No run, a ride instead of 50 miles (if no ride than I will run 16 miles somehow)
Aug 15 - 6 miles -- need a rest after 3 weeks of buildup weeks
Aug 22 - Corn Fest 10k Race. Need to get in 18 miles here all before working Corn Fest (I'm officially crazy)
Aug 29 - Will run on Sun Aug 30 cause of plans on that Friday night. 20 miles
Sept 5 - Be in Madison again. 16 miles.
Sept 12 - 6 miles
Sept 19 - 12 miles (TAPER begins)
Sept 26 - 8 miles
Oct 4 - Race 26.2

I'm kinda worried about having a 6 mile the week before my real taper begins. It should be another 20 miles but I don't want to do a 20-16-20! That would be tough! Maybe a 20-16-14? But then on Marathon Day it would be 5 weeks since I did any mileage of significance. That would be like a major taper.

Even with these changes, I'm still having some issues with getting in all the mileage I need. Plans & life is getting in the way. Just hope no more sickness comes up. That would really throw a wrench in my plans.

So, got any suggestions to help me with my dilemma?

**EDIT**
Forgot to mention anything about my 12 mile run today. I wore my compression shorts and HOW DID I RUN WITHOUT THESE??? They are fantastic!! Like a second skin and didn't ride up and I didn't have any body image issues wearing them! I had about 4 Shot Bloks and nearly all of the water in my bottle. I actually started earlier than I thought I could; 6:45am so that was awesome even though I went to sleep around 1am and woke at 6am. Came across some runners and 1 really friendly biker, which is totally unusual! I used my iPod which is good since running on the Great Western Trail is incredibly boring, flat, straight and blah. I came in faster than I had anticipated; about 3 minutes which worked out to be 15 seconds per mile.

Activity Route: -- Elev. Avg: 871 ft Location: Sycamore, IL Elev. Gain: +17 ft Date: 07/26/09 Up/Downhill: [+164/-147] Time: 06:43 AM Difficulty: 2.6 / 5.0 Weather: Fair 65 F temp; 86% humidity 65 F heat index; winds NW 12 Performance Distance: 12.00 miles Time: 1:56:47 Speed: 6.2 mph Pace: 9' 44 /mi Heart Rate: 176 bpm (Avg) Calories: 1284 249 bpm (Peak) Map Pace (min/mile) Heart Rate (bpm) Splits Mile Pace (min/mile) Speed (mph) Heart Rate Elev Gain actual +/- avg actual +/- avg 1 9' 41 -0' 03 6.2 +0.0 172 +23 ft 2 9' 44 +0' 00 6.2 -0.0 168 +7 ft 3 9' 44 +0' 00 6.2 -0.0 169 -10 ft 4 9' 58 +0' 14 6.0 -0.1 174 +9 ft 5 9' 27 -0' 17 6.3 +0.2 175 -13 ft 6 9' 36 -0' 08 6.2 +0.1 178 +4 ft 7 9' 39 -0' 05 6.2 +0.0 179 0 ft 8 9' 41 -0' 03 6.2 +0.0 179 0 ft 9 9' 57 +0' 13 6.0 -0.1 180 -3 ft 10 9' 55 +0' 11 6.0 -0.1 180 +13 ft 11 9' 46 +0' 02 6.1 -0.0 181 -10 ft 12 9' 30 -0' 14 6.3 +0.1 184 -3 ft Versus average of 9' 44 min/mile

Posted from bimactive.com

Categories: 12 miles, Great Western Trail, marathon training

My 12 mile run

I haven't run that far since my half marathon in December last year! I can't believe how fast I'm gaining mileage in this training.

I put a message on my Twitter this morning that I thought my run was not going to go well. I went to bed at 2am. My alarm went off at 6:45a. I didn't eat breakfast. I didn't have my visor. It was like 68 degrees. I started running at 10am (I slept in).

I went to Rend Lake where they have a path that goes around the lake. It was pretty nice. I went biking on it last year. I figured 2 hours of running. The path went up and down some small hills. It was really good for training for my St. Jude Marathon where they'll be some hills like those. Nothing like the ones I encountered in St. Louis, that's for sure.

I finished my run in 1:59:24. Luckily, the path had mile markers on the way starting at 0. So I knew where I was at which came in handy since by the time I was finished my Nike+ had me a whole .5 miles off! Not cool by me. I finished my HM in 2:03:01. So I was about 4 minutes shy of doing 12 miles in a 13.1 time. So I figured that if I continued on for another mile, I would only have been behind by 4 minutes. Not bad considering that I had 16 weeks of training for my HM while I've only had 7 weeks of training now.

After my run, I came back to my brothers house for an cold water bath and ate a rice and beans Lean Cuisine. It was soo good. Then a shower. Then I laid in bed reading my marathon training book and my eyes started to close. So I closed the book, laid down and closed my eyes. I was sooo tired. I laid there for a while, getting a couple text messages bothering me. Then a phone call from Brent and then I decided to get up.

My calves are a little tight. My ankles are stiff. I noticed that I have some chaffing. I wore my water belt, with two 10oz bottles one with water, one with Gatorade. I kept pulling down my tank top below the bottle but I guess I didn't do it often enough as I see that my left hip is a little rubbed raw. It hurts. Even touching it is sore.

Tonight I'm going to stand on my feet at a concert tonight in Carbondale. Lets hope that my feet and ankles will hold up! I need a rub down bad! I can't believe that I'm going to run 3 miles on Monday!

Categories: 12 miles, chafing, long run, Rend Lake, southern illinois