The Miles are Picking Up!

August was an incredible month of running. I ran my most miles all year - 122 miles. This was more than June and July combined - which were a bit short due to vacation and other things.

Today's long run was to be 17 or 18 miles - depending on how well I was feeling. After a pretty good night's sleep I woke up at 5 am to prepare for my run. I was out the door and running by 5:40 am.

I decided to do my run in two parts - the first a 9 mile route down my usual Lockwood Blvd but with a little extra added to get to 9 miles. I would then stop at the house for refills and then do another 8 or 9 miles. Most of the first 9 miles were done in the dark, with the daylight arriving around 1 hour into the run. After the first 9 miles, I changed shirts (I could wring out the one I had on...) and refilled water and Clif Blok supplies, grabbed my sunglasses and headed out. It was a warm morning - but there were some clouds around that helped reduce my exposure to the heat of the sun. I felt okay after 9 miles but a bit tired. I decided 18 miles might be too far.

I began to lose steam around 12 miles in and seriously considered cutting the run short, but I pushed...telling myself that I was now in mental training. My legs were feeling tired and heavy and temperature was beginning to rise. By 14 miles, I could no longer maintain my run 5 min walk 1 min routine. I walked for about 3 minutes in the middle of mile 14, then opted to run 2 minutes and walk 2 minutes. That pace did me well for the rest of the run.

I even had in my arsenal a Power Shot gel - it was some Tangerine / Orange flavor with double the caffeine. I normally don't run with caffeine, but decided to take this along for the end in case I needed the boost. I finally downed it at mile 15. And, as I expected, it was pretty nasty. However, I think it helped me through the last couple of miles.

My final time for 17 miles was 3:42:10 - a 13:03 min/mi pace - which I was surprised by given my slow finish. With all the walking, my pace never exceeded 14:31 (miles 14-15) and I finished the last mile in 12:23 min.

The stats:

17 miles
3:42:10 / 13:03 min/mile
AHR 157, MHR 174
2593 calories burned (according to Garmin)
2 packs Clif Bloks, 1 Power Gel, 64 oz of water
Ice bath afterwards

A Good Running Week!

So far a good week for running!!!

Monday was a running day off. However, my husband and I restarted the one hundred pushups program. We did the test on Sunday and this time I am starting with the middle column since I managed 10 pushups.

Tuesday I was up early for a tempo run. What a great 4 miler where I ran each successive mile faster than the previous. My splits:

Mile 1 - 11:35 min
Mile 2 - 11:06 min
Mile 3 - 10:44 min
Mile 4 - 10:11 min

It was a great run!

Today I got in 7.1 miles in 1:24:19 - the fastest 7 miler in a long time. I didn't set out to go fast. I ran comfortably, in spite of the near 100% humidity and no wind this morning. My legs felt great, I think, after a nice rolling with "The Stick" last night. I took the time to massage and roll both legs and feet. And this morning, I felt like I could fly. I am definitely going to do that again tonight after I do my pushups!!

Oh, and one more change this week. I have modified my morning protein shake with some adders, compliments of my sister. In addition to the scoop of protein and banana (mixed with rice milk), I now add: baby spinach, cucumber, avocado and carrot juice! It looks terrible but it tastes rather good. Now I am getting my veggies for breakfast! :-)

Run for the Fallen Has Completed!

If you have been listening to Phedip lately, you will know about this event that completed today.

Run for the Fallen is a group of folks who have been running across the country since Mid-June to run 1 mile for each fallen soldier in Afghanistan or Iraq - just over 4000 miles.

I started a Runner Plus challenge along the same lines.

And I am proud to announce that our challenge 55 runners ran 8637 miles for the fallen.

God Bless the men and women who are defending our freedom and God Bless their families. May we never forget the sacrifice they have made!

Where in the World is MarathonChris?

Wow, has it been 2 weeks since I have blogged??? I think all that "tweeting" makes me think I am keeping up here. As it is, Twitter keeps me so busy, I am going to have to scale back and get back to blogging again.

So where HAVE I been? It has been a busy couple of weeks. Let's see:


Sierra Vista, AZ - Last weekend I flew out to Tuscon, AZ and drove down to Sierra Vista to attend my brother's wedding. It was a small, family affair - but I think those are the best kind. I had a great time visiting with my brother and his new wife as well as spending some time with my dad. My dad was recently diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease - and I am just learning about the disease. If anyone has any good resources please let me know. While in AZ I did one long run on Sat morning in Sierra Vista (elevation 4600 ft). I had arrived in town on Thurs but waited until Sat to run to allow acclimation to the altitude (since I live at sea level). It was an incredible run. I ran at sun rise and felt fine while running - managing 11.23 miles. I wanted to take my iRiver but I didn't have my fuel belt and it was either bring the iRiver or a bottle of water. I opted for the water.


Tropical Storm Fay - After returning to Florida on Sun evening, I had a tropical storm to look forward to. On Mon evening I got home and my husband and I managed to squeeze in 5 miles before the weather got rainy. And did it rain!!! I kept wanting to get to the office treadmill, but I worked from home all week. No running until yesterday!


24 miles in one weekend! - This weekend called for 8 miles on Saturday and 16 miles on Sunday. Even though I didn't get much running in this week, I decided to go for it. The 8 miles on Saturday were a bit tough since I waited until 8:30 am to do them (finishing around 10:15 am). Today was the big 16 miler. I rolled out of bed at 5 am so I could get a 5:30 am start. I finished the first 8 mile loop in 1:41 - faster than Saturday's 8 miler. Then did the second 8 mile loop. At 13 miles I was really begin to wonder whether I should have gone for 16 miles. Both feet were hurting and the heat was starting to build (by now it was about 8:30 am). I pressed on for the turn around at mile 13.5. At this point, the only way to get home was to finish the run. As hot and tired as I was, I finished strong - posting my best mile (outside of the first mile) as my last mile in 12:16.

Total for today's long run:

16 miles
3:24:36 / 12:47 min/mile
AHR 152, MHR 176
2608 calories burned (according to Garmin)
4 Cliff shots, 40 oz of water and 32 oz of G2 Gatorade
10 ice bath afterwards

As much as I would like to get my long runs in the 12 min/mile range, I am giving myself a break with the heat and humidity - and the trend on my long runs is that they are getting faster each week. Check this out for August:

Aug 3 - 12.1 miles / 2:40:15 / 13:16 min/mi pace
Aug 10 - 14.0 miles / 3:03:34 / 13:07 min/mi pace
Aug 16 - 11.2 miles (elev 4600 ft) / 2:24:57 / 12:54 min/mi pace
Aug 24 - 16.0 miles / 3:24:36 / 12:47 min/mi pace

In another surprising moment of discovery - this year I am running on Saturdays as well as on Sundays in preparation for running the Goofy challenge. I was worried that the Saturday run, usually half the distance of the Sunday run, would make the Sunday run harder. In fact, no matter how bad Saturday is, the following day seems to go really well. Perhaps running the day before DOES prime the pump. Now, according to the Higdon plan, I need to be running Saturday at race pace - I haven't really been doing that. I have been taking it nice and easy. But I hope to step it up to race pace as time goes on.

Today I also signed up for the Miracle Mile 15K on September 27th. This is one of the few races I will run before my marathons.

Podcast: Not sure when I will get the next one out. I have been too busy to publish - though I have tons of files. We will see....

Run strong everyone! :-)

14 miles - Longest Run Since Disney

I ran 14 miles this morning - a distance I haven't reached since running the Disney World Marathon in January. Must be marathon training time! :-)

I wasn't sure how today's run would go. For one thing, I ran 7 miles yesterday - my first go at running Sat and Sun with Saturday's run half of the long run distance. For the last two weeks I have run on Sat, but only 4 miles - and both times - very tough runs. Yesterday's run went very well and I concluded that: a) I have reacclimated to the heat and humidity and b) I run much better when I finish before 8 am.

Today my goal was to take it nice and easy - targeting a lower heart rate for most of the run. The lower I can keep my heart rate - the better my endurance. For me, I am optimal with a heart rate lower than 155 bpm. The longer I can keep it below 150 bpm, the better. When I am tired, my heart rate rises quickly - but today was yet another good day.

I knew I was looking at about 3 hours on the road. I had to balance my desire to finish before 8 am with running in the dark for too long. I don't like to run when it is really dark....people who drive through my neighborhood sometimes think that breaking bottles on the sidewalks must be cool. Darkness makes it hard to see hazards on the sidewalk. Fortunately, the city of Oviedo and/or my homeowner's association have seen fit to fix the street lights so that they were well lit. Add to that the fact that they have stopped running the sprinklers during my morning runs and running early isn't so bad.

I decided I would target getting out on the road around 5:30 am. I would run 8 miles, then stop at the house to refill my water bottles before doing another 6 miles. I should finish in about 3 hours.

The alarm went off at 5:10 am. I am NOT a morning person and had just gotten up yesterday at 5:45 am. However, I needed to get an early start - so I got up and got ready. By 5:30 am I was outside waiting for my Garmin to catch the satellites. It was quite dark but the skies were clear and there were lots of stars to decorate the sky. It was probably around 74 deg F and the humidity was high, as was usual for morning runs.

At 5:33 am I was on my way. My starting heart rate was in the 70's - a good starting rate. As I made my way through the dark through my first couple of miles I felt pretty good....heart rate was comfortably in the mid 140's. I cranked up the latest Phedip episode and plugged on.

One thing I DO like about the early runs is watching the sky begin to lighten and eventually the sun to rise. By 6:15 am, it was light outside - making me feel a little safer running through my neighborhood. By 7:15 am, as I was running by the elementary school about a mile from my house and my water stop, a bright orange ball of a sun was coming up on the horizon - the heat was about to really get going.

At 1 hour 43 min - 7.9 miles into my run I was at my house, refilling my water and Gatorade with a quick pit stop. Hard to believe I had to pee, but I guess I was hydrating well. I headed back out for the last 6 miles.

Things were warming up but I still felt pretty good. I didn't start to "feel" it until sometime after mile 10. My body was now letting me know this run thing was getting a bit long. I pressed on. This last 6 miles was an out and back, and I was due to make my turn at about mile 12.

At 11.99 miles, I turned around and started heading back. I kept wanting to speed up but held back a bit....about 2.5 miles from the house I gave myself permission to pick up the pace if I wanted...allowing my heart rate to rise out of my nice aerobic pace. I kept my AHR below 160 for the first 11 miles or so....really good!

About the time I was to hit 12 miles I looked at the Garmin....it said 10.59 miles!!!! Hey, how could I DECREASE in miles. Somewhere during mile 11 (probably right when I turned) I lost 1.5 miles on the Garmin. I knew how far I was going, so I figured I would calculate the correct pace later.

The last couple of miles were pretty hard - as they should be on the really long runs. I tried to maintain a decent pace, and actually finished my last mile just 1 second slower than my fastest mile on the run at 12:46 min. I wanted to try to finish in under 3 hours but didn't have the gas to do it. I finished the 14 miles in 3 hours 3 min and 34 sec. My final average pace was 13:07 min/mi - faster than the pace for last week's 12 miler! :-) This a good pace given the heat and humidity. The temp at my finish was 78 deg, but felt like 82 deg with the 74% humidity.

As much as I tried to prepare for chafing, I got a pretty good burn where my heart rate monitor strap runs across my chest (just in the middle). Body Glide is not working for that spot. Otherwise, I survived the run pretty unscathed and extremely hungry! Last night I didn't have much of a dinner - this morning after the run I had to have some calories: ham and egg omelet, bowl of fruit and english muffin along with a cup of hot tea. Mmmmmm...much better than Clif Shots!

A long - long run story - but a happy ending.

14 miles
3:03:34 / 13:07 min/mile
AHR 152, MHR 177 (last then of mile)
2129 calories burned (according to Garmin)
5 Cliff shots, 40 oz of water and 18 oz of G2 Gatorade
2 - 8 hour Tylenol before the run (for foot pain and possibly legs)

Off to take the kids to the pool!