Outdoor Addict » 1/2 Marathon Training

We are not joggers…..

mike — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 02:05:10 +0000

We are not joggers. That is Pearl Izumi’s ad campaign for their running gear. Tonight I have decided that I am not a jogger….or a runner or anything of the sort. I have decided that at this point in time, I am dropping the half marathon training plan for now. The main reason….simple, there is WAY too much good biking to be done. I have a cyclocross race tomorrow and I haven’t ridden a bike in quite some time because I have been busy running. Not that there is anything wrong with running, but for me, my major concentration is biking. I started running for the sole purpose to train for an adventure race that is March 1st. I have plenty of time once the bike off season come to start to train for that. So for now, I am putting the running shoes down and picking back up the cycling shoes. This is the best time of the year, in my opinion, for mountain biking. It is much cooler, the sweat isn’t pouring off of me the entire time, and now I can do a 2 hour night ride and still be home by 7:30pm. How great is that?!?!

Tomorrow is my the first Cyclocross race of the series and I am ready to go. After some major issues building my bike last night, broken rear dérailleur, but now things are all built and ready to go. I am ready for the race. Hopefully my lack of training won’t be an issue.

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Unscheduled rest day

mike — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 02:32:20 +0000

I did nothing today and for some strange reason, I am ok with that. OK, its not that I did nothing, I just didn’t run. I came home from work, did a little cleaning up around the house and started the build on my cross bike for this weekend. I am not 100% done with it because first I had to tear down my old cross bike, clean the parts and then start the build. Of course, I don’t have all the parts I need, but I do have 3 days until my race to get it all sorted out. Something makes me think that I will be building back up the Trek to run this weekend. How wonderful.

I did want to run today, but I had a wicked headache. I guess that is the difference between me riding the bike and running. Even with a headache, I would have gone for a ride if I didn’t have things to do. I just couldn’t get myself out to run for 4 miles. I think it is almost a lack of motivation. I have been in this program for 4 weeks and I am a tad less excited about it than I was when I started. Running a half marathon just for “doing it” sometimes isn’t as good motivation as beating someone as I am running a half marathon. I need some sort of race to put on my schedule to get me in the right frame set for this.

On that note, I am looking at The Frigid Infliction adventure race. Somethings I need to work out first is 1)at least one partner for the race (which I believe I have but we must first work out the details) and 2)I need to clear things on my schedule first before I drop XX amount of money on a race for me not to attend. This adventure race would be a good starting point for me to try others. I looked into doing it last year, but things just didn’t work out with it. Seems very interesting. The starting gun goes off at 5:18am and the average race time is 10 hours. That seems like one heck of a day to me….

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Long Weekend

mike — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 01:44:38 +0000

This weekend we took a little trip up to Bar Harbor for the weekend for a friends wedding. It certainly was a nice time to go visit. Sure, the ride sucked because of TONS of people heading in the same direction, but once we were there, it was quite nice. Friday was used up driving and the rehearsal dinner, Saturday the wedding, Sunday did some of the tourist thing, and Monday I did the drive back home.

I did manage to get a nice ride in on Saturday morning. Got out for about 2 hours for 36 miles including the climb of Cadillac. I used to do it in less than 20 minutes, but this weekend was over 25. I guess when I don’t do hill climb repeats a couple times a week you get rusty on them.

Tonight I did get out for a 5 mile run. The stats are 5.2 miles in 51 minutes with an average pace of 9:51. I felt fine during the run and it was a tad bit faster than the last time I ran it. I am shifting my week around because of my bike racing this weekend. There is no way I can completely bury myself on a bike for an hour and then come home and do the long run of the week.

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Struggling with some things…

mike — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 02:29:07 +0000

Today’s plan was for 3.5 miles. I felt good, but according to my pace, not as good as I have been in past runs. I am fine with that. I am still in the beginning of my training. The stats are 3.73 miles in 33.30 min with a pace of 8.58 min/mile. I just have to keep in mind to push myself that little bit harder. I think for next week I need to change my music. It seems that when I have techno playing, I slow down. When the angry music is playing, it seems as if the miles just fly by. Seems as if I need to load up the most angry music I can find. The more screaming, the faster I will go….at least that is my current plan.

Something else I will need to work on is my weight. I seem to have a hard time controlling it. I have no self control. Kelly loves to bake and I love to eat. It SEEMED like a match made in heaven. Well its not. I try to stick to a diet, then one day, I just unload all of my hunger on anything I can get my hands on. I must admit, I do feel guilty. Every night when I go to sleep, I think of what a pro athlete said to us last year at the Ironman World Champs in Hawaii. Tim Deboom said that in the beginning in his season, he goes to bed so hungry every night that he has a headache. I honestly don’t think I have ever been that hungry, but maybe its worth a shot. Eat a few small meals a day, exercise the rest, and somehow get Kelly to stop baking…

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Back to the road bike

mike — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 13:30:31 +0000

Last night was a cross training session so I grabbed the road bike and went out. After about 10 minutes on the bike, I was sick of riding. No idea why. For years, I chose the road bike over the mountain bike but I think with all the mountain bike training I did for the 24 hour race, things might have changed. The legs felt good, the energy and stamina was there, it was just the mind that didn’t to keep pedaling it. This weekend I am heading up to Bar Harbor for a friends wedding and I am taking the road bike to ride with people. Hopefully, this weekend will be different. Maybe it was the social interaction that I was missing. Either way, I did about 16 miles in 50ish minutes. Not a bad showing considering I really didn’t want to be on the bike..

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5 miles and still going strong..

mike — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 13:32:48 +0000

Last night I went for the longest scheduled run in this training program, 5 miles. I wasn’t really looking forward to it. It has been a couple days since I have done anything, it was cold, it looked like rain and I just wasn’t “feeling it”. Either way, I went out and did what needed to be done. Because of some sore knees I decided to run some trails plus pavement. I did the local power lines and the pace definitely showed it. It wasn’t a constant up constant down, but always changing. That plus eroded soil, big rocks and some downed trees changed my pace up a bit. Once I hit the road again, everything was smooth sailing. I felt so good in fact, I decided to do some hills in the workout. I could have easily went the flat route, but I figured the hills will make me stronger in the long run. The stats are 5.25 miles, in 56.15 minutes with a pace of 10.41 min/mile. Like I said before, the time is slower but I am happy with this. My mental status of running is beginning to change a little. As the mile marker was clicking over 5 miles, the body said “Stop….there is no need to go further,” but the mind was much stronger. It make me keep pushing. I felt as if I could have run another 2 miles, but I didn’t. I knew the benefits of the program and how I should try try to stick to it and thats what I did.

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Back home from Vegas

mike — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 19:01:28 +0000

Well, I am back from Vegas and I must say thank goodness. Vegas is an alright town to be in, but it really is no fun when you have to work the entire time. From 6 am until about 9pm, I am under the Michelin corporation umbrella and am always busy with them between breakfast, show time, lunch, dinner, meetings and that sort of things. It certainly wears someone out, that’s for sure. I did manage to keep up with my running schedule, except for the last 2 days as 1) of them I was just too tired and couldn’t wake up at 430 am to head out and run and 2)I was back on the east coast in Boston helping someone move. I do feel alright about all my efforts made. I did after all, wake up at 5 most mornings and go for a jog on the Vegas strip. There is something strange about that. Although it is a good guessing game to see who is just ending their night and who is just beginning their day.

As far as the run today, since I missed the long run of the week, I have decided to do that this evening. This morning looked like it was going to rain, but it seems to have cleared up a bit. That puts a small smile on my face. The distance however, is 5 miles, the longest I have every tried to run at one stretch without stopping. That takes the smile right off my face. I am also switching to some trail running as my knees are killing me. That will most likely change my times up, but I am alright with that as I won’t have to ice everything down later tonight.

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The ol swap-er-roo

mike — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 01:17:28 +0000

First of all, I must say I am getting sick of Jo Pa and PSU football already. OK, I am not sick of it, but Penn State really does need to get a quarterback. Anthony Morelli just isn’t getting the job done. After 2 years of him blowing game after game, you think something would be done, but nope, they keep sticking him in the game and he keeps loosing it for them. Makes me sick to my stomach to see some of the games.

Onto the training. Yesterday was a scheduled rest day, and today originally had planned for a 40 minute cross training session. The beauty of the plan is that things can be changed and that is what I did. I traded tomorrow’s 4 mile run for todays 40 minute cross and hopefully tomorrow morning I can get in a quick bike ride before I head out for Interbike. At least that is the plan, but either way, I got the long run in for the week and that is the most important to me. Here are the stats: 4.319 miles in 38:55 with a 8:55 pace. This week while in Las Vegas is going to be tough for me to keep this plan up, but I plan on doing the best I can and waking up early enough in the morning and hitting the treadmill. Some people may laugh that I say I want to get up early, but with the whole time difference, I am usually up at 5am anyway. Posts might be limited but I will do what I can.

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Another 3 miler checked off the list

mike — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 02:17:54 +0000

Tonight after work, I headed down to Olympia sports and picked myself up a new pair of running shoes. I am now the proud owner of some Asics Gel-Nimbus VIIII. I laced em up, put them on and went out on the run. Seemed like the normal run, nothing to special except for the fact that the batteries in my GPS were dead and I was on the sole recordings of my Nike+Ipod jobber. I must say it was a tad off. I think I have to recalibrate it. Tonight’s run is exactly the same run I do every 3 mile workout and it was about .8 of a mile off over 3 miles from the last time I ran the same exact route. Good thing I have run it a couple of times and know the distance. The distance was, or at least should have been, 3.6 miles in 30:38 minutes with a pace of, according to some pace finders, 8:30 minute/mile. That is more than 2 minutes off the last time I ran the same route. I feel that with more running, my stride has become a bit longer and it is now off track a little. I can really feel the stride becoming longer on some of the downhills that I run. Sure, runners should have a constant stride, but on a downhill, I like to stretch things out. So far seems as if the shoes are working well for me. Currently being shipped is my new pair of custom moldable footbeds. I can’t wait to get them, mold them up, and give them a shot. I can feel that the current soles in those shoes are the weak point of them.

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Cross Training

mike — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 01:53:47 +0000

Today’s training plan called for either a 2 mile run or cross training. Since I am entering some cyclocross races in the upcoming weeks, it is crucial that I still ride the bike, so that is what I did. A group of 4 got together and decided to shuttle the Red Tail Trail. I have always had an issue with driving my jeep to the top of a hill just to “coast” down it, but then again, I’m certainly more of a cross country rider and not much of a downhiller. Sure, I like to go downhill as much as the next person, but I enjoy a more “pedally” ride. I will still do it from time to time, but isn’t my favorite trail in the area. It took about 1.5 hours to do a normal 40 minute run as we had a new rider with us, not that I am complaining about it as we were once all beginners. However, I did get a ride in that made me do a little work and I think that is the point of the cross training…

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