We've finally made it through the holidays relatively unscathed. The kids had a blast, and mom and dad had a great time soaking it in and enjoying it. Now back to work. The real good news from the last week and a half has been the lack of knee pain. The lessons learned from the last week have been to never drink heavily the night before a long run.
After taking some extended time off two weeks ago to try to get the knee back to square, and a slow build up last week, I was able to pull of a 10 mile run with a friend of mine as well as a full week off maintenance runs and speed work this week with very little knee pain. I was a little frustrated after my 10 miler last Saturday because the knee was sore during the run, and on the ride back home in the car, I felt it lock right up and hurt pretty bad. I had to run into the grocery store and I must have looked like a real treat hobbling through the store, barely able to put pressure on the knee. I was feeling pretty depressed at this point because I'm thinking this training may not work the way I want and the marathon may be in jeopardy. Then I came home, stretched a little more and took a shower. By the time I came out of the shower, the knee was fine and I haven't looked back sense.
Tomorrow I have 12 miles scheduled, that I may try to stretch to 13.1 depending on how I'm feeling. Going to try to eat well today and see how it goes!
Friday, December 30, 2011
Monday, December 19, 2011
David's Story
Just in case I was thinking it was too cold to train this week. This is why those that have supported me in this journey have and will continue to help make happen.
Saturday, December 17, 2011
12 Mile Day
After a good week of maintenance and speed work, I had a 12 mile run to get in today. This was my first long run with my new Garmin GPS and heart rate monitor. It is really nice to have to keep an eye on where my heart rate is so I'm not putting too much stress on my heart. As it relates to that I spoke for about ten minutes yesterday with my cardiologist to just get the okay from him. He not only gave me the okay, but invited me to a half marathon with him up in New Hampshire.
The tough part about the run today wasn't the run, but more the fact that Brady didn't care that I had just run 12 miles and ran me ragged after the fact.
Right now I'm dealing with some minor ached and pains that I'm holing out hope don't turn into anything serious. I've had both of the outside of my big toes feel like they are sprained or bruised for about 4 weeks now and they don't seem to be getting any better. Now for the last week I've had pain on the top of my right knee cap that doesn't seem to restrict me in any way but it's just a pain. Going to have to seek out some opinions this week to see what my best options are at this point.
The tough part about the run today wasn't the run, but more the fact that Brady didn't care that I had just run 12 miles and ran me ragged after the fact.
Right now I'm dealing with some minor ached and pains that I'm holing out hope don't turn into anything serious. I've had both of the outside of my big toes feel like they are sprained or bruised for about 4 weeks now and they don't seem to be getting any better. Now for the last week I've had pain on the top of my right knee cap that doesn't seem to restrict me in any way but it's just a pain. Going to have to seek out some opinions this week to see what my best options are at this point.
Saturday, December 10, 2011
Long Run Day
Today was my 7th long run in training toward a race goal. This originally started as a reluctant agreement to run the Hampton Beach Half Marathon with a friend of mine and has turned into this. A chance to do something few have attempted and a chance to, with the help of friends and family, to make a difference with such a great cause.
Today's long run was an attempt to work on some strategy. One of the things I've been doing is coming out of the gate too fast and I spend the rest of my long runs recovering and feeling like I'm struggling the whole way. I don't have my new GPS watch yet, so I was just timing the overall run, but I was very deliberate in my first mile and a half plus to run at a very slow pace almost 9.5 plus minutes to give my body time to warm up and get into a groove. This was a major change from last week where my first mile was at about an 8:30 pace.
One of the big pick ups from my reading about running this week is that even world class marathoners only run about 15 to 20% of their miles per week max at race pace. Since my goal at this point is to run at a under 4 hours my race pace is going to be just under 9 mines a mile. So my long runs should be at about a 9:20 to 9:30 pace with a focus on just adding miles on these days. With my deliberate slow start, I felt very good through the whole run with only a little bit of knee flare up and muscle cramping but nothing major at all. I felt so good that I kicked it up into a higher gear with about a mile plus to go and finished very string with a total 11 mile pace of under 9 minutes a mile. I still have a lot of learning and a long way to go to get through the half marathon in February and the Boston rave in April but I feel good and strong and am excited about the future.
Now I need to spend some time getting my fund raising campaign up and running to reach my goal.
Today's long run was an attempt to work on some strategy. One of the things I've been doing is coming out of the gate too fast and I spend the rest of my long runs recovering and feeling like I'm struggling the whole way. I don't have my new GPS watch yet, so I was just timing the overall run, but I was very deliberate in my first mile and a half plus to run at a very slow pace almost 9.5 plus minutes to give my body time to warm up and get into a groove. This was a major change from last week where my first mile was at about an 8:30 pace.
One of the big pick ups from my reading about running this week is that even world class marathoners only run about 15 to 20% of their miles per week max at race pace. Since my goal at this point is to run at a under 4 hours my race pace is going to be just under 9 mines a mile. So my long runs should be at about a 9:20 to 9:30 pace with a focus on just adding miles on these days. With my deliberate slow start, I felt very good through the whole run with only a little bit of knee flare up and muscle cramping but nothing major at all. I felt so good that I kicked it up into a higher gear with about a mile plus to go and finished very string with a total 11 mile pace of under 9 minutes a mile. I still have a lot of learning and a long way to go to get through the half marathon in February and the Boston rave in April but I feel good and strong and am excited about the future.
Now I need to spend some time getting my fund raising campaign up and running to reach my goal.
Monday, December 5, 2011
Monday Mornings
I had my long run this weekend. After waking up early on a relatively warm Saturday, I received a text message from Chris Fuller telling me to swing by his shop to use his heart monitor and GPS on my run. Again, learning on the fly here, I obliged and grabbed it. Especially given my history of heart issues and surgery, after using it, it is going to be an investment that I make for this training and marathon to make sure that I don't overextend myself into a dangerous area.
For the run itself I really didn't feel so hot the whole run but the beauty of the heart monitor is that it keeps my pace right there on the watch. After feeling pretty bad about 4 miles in, I decided to back off and only go 9 miles rather than the planned 11. After looking down with about a mile and a half I saw my average pace go all the way down to 9:01 and I said to myself that there was no way I was going to finish with a pace above 9 minutes. I was able to really dig in the last half mile and bring my average pace down to about 8:58 which was at least a good way to finish, even though I didn't feel well.
Today I got up early and with the still great weather for a December did a 3 plus mile run of interval training which was quite the way to start my week. Those are the kind of workouts that are a killer but I need to do to get better and faster come marathon time.
For the run itself I really didn't feel so hot the whole run but the beauty of the heart monitor is that it keeps my pace right there on the watch. After feeling pretty bad about 4 miles in, I decided to back off and only go 9 miles rather than the planned 11. After looking down with about a mile and a half I saw my average pace go all the way down to 9:01 and I said to myself that there was no way I was going to finish with a pace above 9 minutes. I was able to really dig in the last half mile and bring my average pace down to about 8:58 which was at least a good way to finish, even though I didn't feel well.
Today I got up early and with the still great weather for a December did a 3 plus mile run of interval training which was quite the way to start my week. Those are the kind of workouts that are a killer but I need to do to get better and faster come marathon time.
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