It's Time for the Second Build

It's been a while...forgot to blog after my 20 miler...went pretty slow but had lots of people to run with so the time passed pretty fast. Don came from KC, Julie came from Joplin, and of course it was Debbie, Robert, and myself. Had good times and only the quads felt bad. Pretty happy all in all.

But what a wonderful recovery week I had last week with a 4, a couple of 6's, and a 12 miler for my long run. Started off the week this week with a nice 6, then got new shoes Tuesday, and wore them for the first 3 miles of my mid-week 10 miler on Wednesday and started to feel like I had pretty severe shin splints before I got back to the house. Went back in to change back into my old Nimbus' (at 370 total miles) to finish up the 7 miles I had left and all was well. What was even better was that I had Chanti back to keep me entertained so all was well. Did 6 miles today (not a fast one) and didn't do so well, started to feel like I hadn't eaten in days and had no energy. Hoping for a better run on Saturday....planning a 16 miler with Debbie, Robert, and maybe Julie.

Lost a couple of pounds last week but they are of course back this week. Had to go out of town for half the week and that is never good, a Sonic cheeseburger and Pizza Hut buffet night with the guys and I am right back where I started. Hoping I have made better choices since then but not great ones. Here's hoping it gets better cause I am not making any big life changes until I can prove to myself that 115 is attainable & maintainable again.

Memphis is only 5 long runs away...let's go for it (16, 18, 23, 15, 12, race)!!!!!!!!!

It's a Recovery Week - Yeah

Now that we have logged our 18 miler and 20 miler I am needing a recovery week. All knee pain is gone but the "splinters" in my quads are screaming at me. My 18 and 20 were slower than I wanted but trying to keep from having an injury is in the back of my mind all the time.

We did have a big group for the 20 miler...Don came from Kansas City, Julie came over from Joplin, and we of course had Debbie, Robert, and myself. I have named us The Carthage Running Club...the CRC for short...think it will catch on :-)

Switching next weeks recovery week with this weeks is probably the most exciting thing that has happened to me in a while. To know that my mid week run is only a 6 and that I have only 12 miles to run this weekend is more than exciting....it makes giddy :-P

The schedule for long runs from here on is 12, 16, 23, 15, 12, race day! And I need new shoes.

You can train too hard...believe me!!!

You could say I thought it was a good idea to sign up to do the Berryman Adventure Race during my training for the Memphis Marathon coming on Dec 1. Adventure racing is all about endurance; wouldn't it make sense that putting the 2 events together in a training schedule might work and even help.

After 2 months of training...biking and running...last weekend was the adventure race and i was really nervous but felt physically ready. The fact that we had to orienter the entire race and get our own water were very scary things, but had no problems with that. During the race all I worried over was twisting an ankle or falling off my bike and scraping myself up. After 53 miles of orienteering, mountain biking and canoing (with our bikes) I made it without any major injuries just very sore legs.

As I should have....I recovered for 2 full days and then did a 3 mile slow jog. The next day I was scheduled to complete a 10 miler and felt great (even at an 8:30 min. mile pace) until MILE 9....AHHHHH, that damn mile 9...when my IT band started to tighten up and started hurting so bad I had to stop to stretch. One would think your brain would kick in and decide to walk home from there but my competitiveness came a knocking (since I was running with Robert and I had bragged about my knees not causing me problems at all on the race) and I continued on.

Now the knee pain is back...remember long ago (see first entries) when I had to bow out of the Dallas Marathon about 2 years ago...well it was that same pain. My choice then was to try and run my long runs through the pain and that just really didn't work.

That is the decision now: there is an 18 miler schedule for this weekend.....do I run it or not. Do I run a shorter run and push on to the 20 in two Saturdays???