Help me out!

The marathon is coming up quick and I need to raise more money for Rock for Reading to reach my goal!

Help me out by donating here: http://www.active.com/donate/rockandread/2011TGorich

Thank you!

The Taper

Everything's going well... I've been trying to run at race pace (around 9 minutes) or a little faster. It's easy, of course, for short runs, but a little tougher to maintain for long runs. I did fine yesterday morning, though, on my 12-miler. I think I finished with a pace of 9:30... That was tough, though, because I think my legs were still fatigued from the 20-miler. It was weird. Luckily for the marathon I'll be all rested up after this taper.

Just peaked!

Oh dear! So all my training so far led up to this day... And it's all short-distance from here (until, of course, Marathon Day). That in itself is kind of intimidating... like am I really going to be able to run 26 miles satisfactorily when I had only run a maximum of 20 miles, and 3 weeks prior at that? Well, we'll see when we get there.

So the deets. The run went really well! I ran from my apartment north to Green Tree. Yes, in Fox Point. I ran to Fox Point today. What was I thinking? Anyway, then I took it south to Lakeshore State Park and back up to Lafayette and back to my apartment. The only tough part was the beginning, really, because after I passed Capitol going north, there were no more bubblers until I returned to Capitol, meaning I had to go 8 miles or something without any water. Well, it was okay.

I love taking energy gels. I feel like some sort of space traveler or African refugee or something. Is that insensitive? Sorry. My brain is a little messed up right now. Speaking of which, I'm pretty sure I wasn't even in my body for about half this run today... it was really weird.

My legs are so stiff right now. I don't feel like cooking, so it's good luck that I have so much leftover pizza.

I have this song stuck in my head:

Okay, now it's time to go outside (nice and fresco) and watch the Al's Run runners.

Pace: 10:03

Slowing Down?

So this is weird. For the past week I've been running 5 miles a day. This weekend is my peak 20-miler.

Anyway, somehow I've gotten slower, it seems. No matter how hard I try, I can't seem to break 40 minutes in my 5-mile runs anymore. This is bizarre, considering back in April I ran it in 39:30, and I thought I would have gotten faster. No idea.

I'm not getting tripped-up on it, though, because speed doesn't matter as much for me at marathon distance.

I don't have a stress fracture!

I've been distraught for the past few days because I thought I might have a stress fracture. That would, of course, mean I wouldn't be able to run the marathon.

But my foot felt a lot better yesterday, and almost totally fine today. I was able to do my 5-mile run this morning. I have concluded that it was some sort of irritation caused by the brand new (not broken-in) shoes I used on my 19-mile run this weekend. Good thing they were at least the same model I've been using for my long runs.... if that weren't the case, things could have been worse.

Speaking of my run this morning... I guess it was 5.1 miles, but I ran inexplicably slow. Absolutely weird; I felt like I was cruising, it was great and I thought I was going to make great time... But I ended up around 42 minutes. Not horrible, but not what I expected.

The past few days have been great... Waking up at 6 a.m. to run. Being outside at sunrise is incredible, and now that's not only relegated to my weekend long runs.

Pace: 8:14

19 Miles

Ran 19 miles yesterday.... It was a little harder than the 18 miles I did two weeks ago, but it still went really well. I guess I wish I went a little bit faster, but Hal Higdon says I shouldn't worry about that for my long training runs. The only bad part was the hill up Water Tower to North Ave.... After running 18.something miles, that's brutal.

Training is going super well overall.... I can't believe that in two weeks I have my peak and then all of a sudden it's taper time. I feel like I've been doing this forever, but at the same time, not long at all. But I guess I get that feeling from a lot of things.

Oh, and I wrote this on my shiny new iPad... I like this thing.

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Pace: 9:38

Ahoy!

Sorry for the lack of updates... I was up north with my family last week, and then this week I've been putting myself back together.

Last week was a nice break, even in running. Rather than worrying about my distances, I ran for time. I was prescribed to run 5 miles on Tuesday, 8 on Wed, 5 on Thurs and 13 on Saturday. Instead, I ran for 40 minutes on Tues and Thurs, 1:15 on Wed and 2:05 on Saturday. These are times I felt would make sure I was running sufficient mileage even if I was having a slow day. I ended up running short of all those times because I ran for half the prescribed time before turning around and following the same route home... and I was concentrating on making the second half of my run faster than the first half.

Anyhow, this week came around... I have 5 miles Tues, Wed and Thurs in preparation for the long 19-miler this Saturday morning. Tuesday went fine, but yesterday was pretty awful. I wasn't feeling very well and I just wasn't into running, so I took it really slow.

And tonight, rather than running, I'm biking to Bayshore to pick up an iPad (yes, I know) and then biking again later on an adventure. Yippee!