Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Marathon Training Weeks 8 & 9

WOW! Okay, so life took over after Week 7 and I failed in being able to keep the blog up-to-date. As the mileage for training peaked, other activities in my daily and weekly schedule suffered and got pushed aside. It still amazes me, as I look back on it, how I was able to keep my "normal life" going (to a certain extent) AND train for a marathon.

I know a lot of you really want to know about how the race went and how I felt during this last week, after the race. So I am cramming the last 4 weeks of training into two blog posts so that I can get to the good stuff! Here's a condensed version of what happened in my life with training.

Week 8: Total Weekly Mileage 25.67
Sunday 10/30/11 - Short, recovery run after our peek run of 16 miles last week. Schedule had me down for 6 miles - we did 6.52 miles. It was nice to have a shorter run morning because it allowed me to be home most of the day to prep for Halloween. I had a bunch of prep work to do for both kids' classrooms and for the house.

Monday 10/31/11 - Halloween Day! Super fun day BUT incredibly busy. Had celebrations in both kids' classes so when I dropped them off in the morning I was pretty much at school all day long. We got home from school at 3:30pm, had a little bit of resting time, ate dinner at 4:30pm so we could start visiting family at 5pm and meet up with friends to trick-or-treat starting at 6pm. This was the first year that the kids did real trick-or-treating and it was so fun to watch them. Jazper would come back down the path from each front door, holding up his basket and say "Momma, they gave me more candy!" Seriously one of those precious moments that you will remember forever.


Tuesday 11/1/11 - BAD DAY! Started out with the car not starting. Cathy, bless her heart, met me at the kids' school and we ran from there. We did 4.06 miles at a nice average pace of 10:02. After our run, the car started and she followed me to the gas station and waited for me to fill up to be sure the car started again. It did, barely, and I headed down to the dealership so they could see what was wrong. After being there for an hour, it was only the battery, thank goodness! I was able to make it out of there on time to go get an oil change as well. Got done with the oil change just in time to make it to work in Sevannah's classroom. Talk about a stressful morning! Then that afternoon there was the tantrum of the century from Jazper. I literally ahd to pull over onto the side of the road and sit there for 20 minutes until he stopped screaming and I could drive again. This was not a good day; one I wish to never repeat.

Wednesday 11/2/11 - Rough morning; didn't sleep well and just felt lethargic. I had to talk myself into running and didn't get to that point until noon. The schedule had me running a total of 8 miles so I split it into two runs. When I made it out at noon for the first run I did 4.25 miles at a nice pace of 10:04. Got back home just in time for Jazper to be dropped off by carpool. He and I ate lunch and then I headed off to work. After work, I drove straight to our evening run location to meet up with Cathy and Jennifer. We did 5.85 miles in the dark. We ran for about 20 minutes and then did 6 x 3 minutes pickups with 1 minute recovery at slow jog; then ran the rest of the way home. I felt a lot better after both runs. It still amazes me how running can rid me of a bad mood!

Thursday 11/3/11 - Cathy and I needed to do a 5 mile tempo run. I met her at her house and we headed out. We had a nice, slow first mile, then picked up the speed for miles 2, 3 and 4; slowed back down for mile 5. Mile 4 was a really fast mile for us (8:31 pace!) It was really cold this morning so we had oatmeal and coffee after we stretched. After that, I changed into some dry clothes and headed to my client. When I was done with my client it was time to pick up the kids from school. There had been some issues with my paychecks from my job at the hospital, so the kids and I drove over to St Helena to pick up my check. Seriously long day! Was so tired by the end.

Friday 11/4/11 - Right now, I do not even remember what I did on this morning. I didn't make any notes either. Oh well! I do know that when I picked the kids up from school I had 3 large bags of laundry from Jazper's kindergarten class that I had to take home and wash. OH! And the chicken pox and lice were in both kids' classrooms. Ya - this was a fun end to the week. The kids had been vaccinated for chicken pox but you can apparently still get a mild case. So we were on high alert, checking the kids for both chicken pox and lice. (Luckily, we didn't get either one -hooray!!) After dropping the kids at my mother-in-laws, I headed to work. After work, I got home and immediately turned around to leave again, with Sevannah, for her classes Lantern Walk. It was cold but really pretty!

Saturday 11/5/11 - James had to work all day, so I had both kids with me at Outdoor Family Fitness class. This proved to be a challenge today. I was tired and cranky, and Jazper wanted to be with Daddy. So we struggled to get through the morning. After class, we went home and I proceeded to work on getting the 5 loads of kindergarten laundry washed, dried and folded. The kids we're counting money while I was doing laundry and Jazper wanted to know what he could buy with his money. He had less than $2.00 in coins so I told him he had enough money to pay for his own hot chocolate at Starbucks. So guess where we ended up next? You guessed it - Starbucks - so the kids could pay for their own hot chocolates. It was a fun to see them order their own drinks, tell the lady their names for their cups and count out the coins.


Week 9: Total Weekly Mileage 32.74
Sunday 11/6/11 - 18 miles!! Yes we did it! We met at Cathy W's house up in Windsor because she lives near Chalk Hill Rd and our route was to go from her place, out Chalk Hill Rd to Hwy 128 and back. This is a very challenging route. We gained over 1,000 feet in elevation - yes really! It was super fun afterwards to look at the elevation chart on my Garmin report. In fact, I'll share that with you here...Chalk Hill Out & Back by annad83 at Garmin Connect - Details After the run, Cathy W had brunch all cooked and ready for us to eat! It was so great to be able to change into dry, warm cloths, sprawl on her floor and stretch, and fill up on good yummy food. When I got home, I ice bathed and took a shower before we headed out to go shopping for a new refrigerator. Our freezer wasn't closing properly, causing the refrigerator/freezer to thaw and not function properly. Really all I wanted to do was relax and take a nap, but this was important. We had to see what kind of prices we were dealing with.

Monday 11/7/11 - Recovery day = no running. I woke up with tight hips and sore quadriceps but over all felt pretty good.

Tuesday 11/8/11 - Ran from my house with Cathy B & Leslie. Faster than we were suppose to be (as usual for our Tuesdays) but it felt good! Heart rate was a little over, and in the last mile I could feel I was pushing a little harder than I probably should have been but it was cold, we were talking, and it wasn't like it felt bad. Total distance was 3.1 miles. We chatted about marathon pace afterwards. My usual Tuesday activities took place after that - acupuncture, work in Sevannah's class, drive two different carpools (kindergarten pick up and grades pick up). Had some MAJOR drama with my parents late in the morning that pretty much ruined my day. Had people come after dinner to purchase our large oak desk and hutch that we sold on Craigs List. I was glad when this day was over!

Wednesday 11/9/11 - Woke up still feeling crappy from all the drama on Tuesday. It was a Lecture Day at the hospital so after driving carpool in the morning I went home and got ready for work. Work went pretty well. I was leaving work when I got an email from the people who bought the desk and hutch. They decided they didn't want it and wanted to return it to us. Ummm NO! You and your husband came to my house, looked over both pieces from top to bottom, had a conversation amongst yourselves and decided to buy it. You both, with James' and my help, loaded the pieces into your vehicle, handed me the money and drove off! This, on top of the family issues just about pushed me over the edge. I got to our evening run location after work in the worst mood. Thank goodness for running and my running pals! Talking over the issues with them while we ran made a world of difference. Before I knew it, I was laughing so hard it was difficult to keep running. It was a full moon and so pretty on the creek path that we turned our headlamps off for a while and ran by moonlight. Amazing! On our way back we had an encounter with a skunk, which had us all laughing so hard we were crying! This run was the perfect way to bring a really bad day to a much better end.

Thursday 11/10/11 - Cathy B and I went to the Coast Guard base to run with Teja again. It was cold and super windy!! Made the run harder but it was great! Took our phones and took pics at the bottom and top of Texas Hill.

Awesome coffee and snacks afterwards. After school that day, Jazper went home with a friend so I could take Sevannah to the orthodontist. After her appointment we met up with them for a playdate at Ragle Ranch Park. During the playdate, Jazper lost his 2nd tooth! It was a busy afternoon.

Friday 11/11/11 - Veteran's Day. The kids didn't have school so we got to sleep in and hang out at home until it was time for me to get ready to go to work. At work that afternoon I did some upper body strength training with a blue band (heavy resistance). It felt really good.

Saturday 11/12/11 - Taught Outdoor Family Fitness class. It was Full Body Day so I got to demonstrate a lot. Afterwards, I attempted to conquer the mountain of laundry that had accumulated during the week and ran a bunch of errands for Sevannah's class. As the "Class Purchaser" I get a list of items from the teachers from time to time that they need for the class and then need to get those items for them. We hit Whole Foods for a couple items, Beverly's for a few others. By the end of the day I was ready for bed and a little nervous about attempting our first 20 miler the next morning!


There you have - two weeks worth of life and training, albeit, a month late, but at least I finally got it done. The plan it to have the last weeks of training done by the end of the week so I can move on to sharing Race Day and the recovery week(s) after the race. Thank you so much for your support and patience! I do love being able to share my experience with all of you.