Week 12 - Day 2

Today The Plan called for 4 miles. It was beautiful today, sunny and about 55, and I met Tracy at the Rec Center parking lot at 8:15ish. We ran down to Old Stone Fort and the campground. My GPS kept saying “Weak GPS” because of all the trees. We over estimated AGAIN and ended up running 4.75 miles (might have even been more due to the weak signal and the fact that it has 3 out and backs) in 46:16 for an average pace of 9:44. After we finished running, I went to the pool and swam 1750 yards, 1 mile, in 37:51. It felt really good to get back into the pool.
After school I took the kids and the dog for a walk/run around the loop for their first mile of their marathon. We walked more then we ran but it was only the first time. Only 24 to go before race day!
Monthly totals for February:
Running: 159.4 miles at an average pace of 10:00 (I didn’t count the kids run)
Swimming: 2 miles at an average pace of 38:24.

Week 12 - Day 1

Today was intervals, 4 X mile. I got to the Rec Center when they opened at 5 this morning. Ran the first mile in 8:11, the second in 7:58, the third in 7:57, and the forth in 7:49. Lana got there while I was running my second and she ran the third and forth with me. Tracy also got there when I was finishing my second but she did hers on the treadmill because it hurts her knee less.

Week 11 - Day 6

It was another beautiful day. 60 degrees, very little wind, and the rain all stayed south of us. God had our backs again. I met Lana at the Rec Center parking lot at about 2:30 this afternoon. I had already decided that since I was a slacker yesterday I would go ahead and run the full 20 with her, what else would a good training partner do?. We left the parking lot and headed over to Interstate Drive, ran down past Batesville and ended up on Highway 55. From there we went to Willowbrook, did that loop then back into town. Lana’s Garmin turned itself off at mile 8 and she didn’t notice for about half a mile, now we had to depend on mine that had a low battery. While running down 55 we hit 13 miles in about 2:06, Lana commented that we were just a few minutes off of her time for the last half we did in November. At that point, I realized that a sub 4 is just not going to happen. We continued down 55 until we got to 16 miles then turned around and headed for the greenway. After Thursday’s run I was afraid of getting too far out. I was already putting in extra mileage this week and didn’t need to over do it. In the end we had to out and back it on the greenway just to make 20. Our final time was 3:14:08 for an average pace of 9:42.
My total mileage for the week was 51.5 with an average pace of 9:59.
Next week I HAVE to get back into the pool, I noticed I have only swam once this month, and back on my bike. My neighbor, Kim, told me this week she is planning on doing the Tri in May with me so I guess I better get ready for it. It will be my 3rd Tri and therefore my last beginner race, I really want to place.

Week 11 - Day 5

I knew when I didn’t set the alarm last night to get up early and run, that a run wouldn’t happen today. In order to run now, I would either have to hire a babysitter or go run inside on the track. Neither of those appeal to me, so I am just skipping. I do feel guilty about skipping but hope to make up for it tomorrow.

Week 11 - Day 4

Tracy and I ran our 20 mile run this morning. We met at All Creatures at 8:00 after getting the kids off to school. I don’t even remember everywhere we ran, but I think we covered just about every neighborhood inside the Manchester City limits then headed down Highway 41 to the Industrial Park. At 15 miles we turned around and headed back into town. We miss judged how far the clinic was from Wal-Mart and at 20 miles we were just at First Baptist Church. The run took us 3:28:12 for an average pace of 10:25. Then we walked down to my office to fill up our water bottles. Scot offered to give us a ride back to All Creatures. We jumped on that, the thought of walking 2 more miles had no appeal and running it had even less. Jeff actually drove us in Scot’s truck and we got back to our start. I am pleased with the run and even more pleased to have another long run finished. I still have a 7 and an 8 to run this week. Not sure when I will fit them in.

Week 11 - Day 3

Got to the Rec Center about 5:20 this morning and ran 3 miles on the track in 29:00 for an average pace of 9:40. The Plan called for 8 miles today but Tracy and I are going to run our 20 miler tomorrow instead of Saturday so I didn’t want to overdo it today.

Week 11 - Day 2

It was harder then ever to get up this morning. I hit snooze once then got up and almost got right back into bed. I made it to the Rec Center at about 5 after 5. I ran my 5 miles on the track in 47:35 for an average pace of 9:31.
Bryce is fine this morning and went to school. I told his teacher to call me if he got to feeling bad.

Week 11 - Day 1

Despite that lack of sleep I got last night I still attempted hills today. At about 3:30 I drove over to jail hill. I ran down and up 6 times for a total of 3.51 miles in 35:45. I did not run up as fast as I was suppose to but I just didn’t have it in me today, just glad I did anything.

Ski trip

What started out as a normal trip soon turned out to be a series of unfortunate events.

• We got snow Friday night and were unable to get the van out Saturday morning. Luckily 3 of the 5 families staying within walking distance had 4 wheel drive, so we were able to get to the resort.
• Saturday was the busiest day they had had all season so ski camp was full and I was unable to get Casey in her age group. They would not allow her in the 7 and 8 year old group that I had signed her up for online.
• Ski camp started half an hour late.
• The skis they gave me turned out to have a broken binding so I had to go back to ski rental and get a new set.
• Ronnie did not get to ski at all on Saturday and I only got to do 2 short runs before picking up Bryce then another run with him to see what he learned at camp.
• There wasn't enough hot water at the condo for us to shower.
• That evening I put all the wet ski clothing in the dryer. When I was getting Casey dressed the next morning, we discovered her ski pants had melted in the dryer. She worn them anyway and by the end of the day there was a big hole in the seat .
• Sunday was a bright, sunny day and the snow had melted on most of the streets. After several tries, we were able to get the van out to go eat. While we were at the restaurant it started to snow. We decided that we needed to leave right away. We drove all night, at times only going about 30mph, and got home at 3:30 am.
• I unpacked the car this afternoon and did a load of laundry only to have the septic tank back up. We had to have someone come out and pump it out.
• Bryce was laying around this afternoon and told me his cheeks felt hot. Sure enough I felt him and he was HOT. Took his temperature and it was 102. Tried to give him some chewable medicine but he just threw that up on me.

Despite all the unfortunate events we still enjoyed the trip. The kids loved skiing and I can’t wait to be able to take them out west.

Week 10 Day 5

This is a record for me, I ran at 5 am five times this week. I got up this morning and looked out the window, it was dark so couldn’t tell if it was still raining. Got dressed to run outside but grabbed a tank, just in case. Backing out of the garage, I discovered it was in fact still raining. On the way to the Rec Center Lana called, she is sick. We leave for the ski trip this afternoon so I am praying she recovers quickly. Tracy never called back last night so I wasn’t sure if she was coming. I decided I was not up for a wet run so went inside to do my 10 miles on the track. Uggggg!!! Tracy got there when I was about a half a mile into my run and ran 8 with me. I had to finish up the last mile and a half thinking about everything I have to get done before we leave and depend on entertainment from the senior crowd. I had a man tell me that I had lapped him 28 times and he was going to trip me on the 30th. I ran the 10 miles in 1:44:35 for a slow pace of 10:28. This week’s total mileage is 36 with an average pace of 10:11. I am disappointed in the pace but glad that I got 5 runs in with everything that is going on. Next week is going to be another difficult week to squeeze everything in because we won’t get back until Monday evening and we have a long run of 20 miles.

Week 10 Day 4

This was my forth day in a row to run at 5 am. Usually I only run that early on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, but the snow day and the up coming ski trip have messed up my whole schedule. This morning it was very hard to make myself get out of bed when that alarm went off and I came really close to skipping. I made it to the Rec Center at 5 and ran my 5 miles, 60 laps, on the track in 46:52, averaged 9:22 min/mile pace. I am a lot happier with my pace today but the run was very boring and I don’t know why I ran inside turned out that it was 55 degrees and not raining as predicted. Lana was a no show so this was the first run all week that I had to do entirely by myself. Oh well, it is done and all I have left for this week is 10 miles. I plan to run it in the morning. The kids have a short day at school and we hope to be able to hit the road at 1:00.

Week 10 Day 3

Got a Heat Wave today. It was 41 degrees at 5am, which is a lot better then what we have been running in. I convinced Lana to run with me outside by changing my plan and going ahead and running my other 8 miler instead of the 5. Not only did I change my distance plan but I also agreed to the Interstate Road route. There are two bridges over the interstate that we have to run over on that route and I am not fond of running on bridges. Today was the third time for that route and I must say it is getting easier. The reason I was only going to do 5 today is because I have to work today, so when Lana agreed to run with me I told her I had to START at 5. I am very proud of her, she was there and ready to run very close to 5 maybe a minute or two after. We ran the 8 miles in 1:19:57. My pace has been really slow this week for all my runs. Don’t know why, doesn’t feel like I am running any slower. Maybe that speed training on Mondays is doing some good after all and should not have been skipped. After we ran, I rushed home to get ready for work and get the kids off to school. My kids did me a BIG favor this morning. They decided to have lunch trays at school. It is pizza today. This is the first time for either one of them to eat school lunch. I packed them each two snacks in their backpacks just in case.

Week 10 Day 2

I don't know if it is just that I don't usually run at 5 am on Tuesdays or if the snow kept people in yesterday morning so they had to make it up today but the track at the rec center had more people then usual for that time of day and these people were not as trained to stay out of that far outside lane. I had run about a mile and a half when Lana got there. So I got to run my last 3 and a half miles with her. Made the time go by faster and the run less painful. She was doing 8 today but I only had time for 5. I did my 5 in 49:55 for a pace of 9:59. It is suppose to get nice today so I am hoping to be able to run another 5 miles outside tomorrow morning at 5am anyone want to join me???

Week 10 Day 1

According to the schedule today was suppose to be 6x880, but knowing that I have to skip a run this week I decided to run one of the 5 miler today. Got up at 4:45am to go to the Rec Center and discovered it had snowed. I went on to run since I was already up and dressed. Got there when they opened at 5 and found out that schools are closed. I decided to take advantage of the extra time and ran one of the 8 milers instead. Tracy showed up after I had run about two and a half miles and she ran 5 with me. We ran a nice slow pace and I finished my 8 miles in 1:25:03 average pace of 10:37. I did a few crunches after my run but it was more of a social thing then for exercise.

I am going for it

Today was the final run of week 9. 18 miles. It snowed last night and was still snowing at 8 am when we were trying to make the decision on where to run. Brave the elements OR the boredom. Run outside or run at the rec center. Tracy’s babysitter backed out on her because she wasn’t allowed to drive in the snow. Lana and I decided to go for the outside run and left Tracy high and dry (sorry Tracy, we are such bad training partners). We started at the Admin Center and ran 9 miles to Tullahoma and then back. We ran the 18 miles in 3:02:28 for an average pace of 10:09. When we got to the half way point Lana wasn’t feeling so good, gee could it have anything to do with the fact that she dressed to run in the Artic. We walked for 0.25 miles while she removed layers of clothing. After striping on the Highway, she felt much better and the run was uneventful. JT showed up at about mile 16 and took our picture. I will post it once Lana sends me a copy.
Six hours after the run I am feeling good. I had to take the kids to a birthday party as soon as I got done running then to the Pinewood Derby (Bryce got second place in his den), so I haven’t had any recovery time or time to realize that my legs hurt.
Tomorrow is my off day and I plan to enjoy every second of it. Next week is going to have to be modified because we are going snow skiing. I am going to have to skip a run and am thinking it is going to be the 880’s. I would rather run my two 5, two 8 and the 10. Speed training on Mondays is my least favorite part of this whole program.

How I got here

Last year while running the CM half Marathon, Lana said at about mile 11 "I bet we will be running the full next year" I told her she was crazy, I would never run the full, no time to train and lack of desire. Well here I am, just completed week 9 of a 20 week program to run the full marathon. When we started this train Lana created a blog and told me to create one also to track our progress. I still wasn’t sold on the idea of doing the full and didn’t want to create a blog only to quit and drop back to the half. I told myself then that if I could make it to the 18 mile point I was doing the full. I may be crawling across that finish line but after doing all this running I AM going to finish.
I am training with Lana and Tracy. Ronnie and Gary are also training for the full. Bryce and Casey are doing the kids marathon where they run 25.2 miles in the 5 weeks before the race and finish the last mile on race day. Dawn (I owe you big!!!) is coming up from Memphis with her kids who will also run the kids race and she will keep my kids while Ronnie and I run our race. I won’t be able to watch my kids cross the finish line so I am counting on pictures.