Friday, February 14, 2020

Week 9 of Training Already!!!

Boston training continues and I've been fairly consistent. Taji 100 helps with that, as I really need all the miles I can get.
Training Chart.  Green = miles completed; Blue =  more miles than planned; Red = Did not do; Yellow = Less miles than planned; Pink = Cross Training

This week I crossed the 50 mile mark before the 14th, which puts me in a great place to finish early.

Screen capture of my Taji 100 total miles of 57.97. 
Plus I've earned a few achievements.

Screen capture of my Taji 100 achievement badges. 
Today I'll walk a mile or two, but otherwise rest. Tomorrow I'll run 10 miles between treadmill and indoor track.

Taji 100 - 2020 - Week 1

Taji 100 has begun.  The mission to walk, run, elliptical 100 miles in the month of February.

I have a few personal goals this year as well.
1) To walk at least 1 mile every day of the challenge
2) To complete the challenge by Feb 24th.

Week 1

Saturday: Ran 10 mile long run for my marathon training. Had planned on 12 but left the house late and had to make bathroom stop at the 3 mile mark. Hit a wall around 6 miles and was getting super annoyed at all the crosswalks with lights. On a happy note, that completes Amherst St/101A in Nashua for my Run All the Roads in Nashua. I need to do some more focus in fueling while running. My basal metabolism has increased and I spent most of this run hungry expect for the mile and a half trying to find a bathroom and the 15 mins after I ate a gu. The Clif bloks didn't do anything to take the edge off the hunger.


Sunday: Ran Freeze Your Buns 5k, which my watch says is just short of a 5k, so I missed out on the badge. Good race, didn't push myself but my legs were tired and my son hasn't been running, so his legs were not up for pushing it. He alternated between he doesn't want to be last and he doesn't mind being last when I pointed out that if he kept walking he'd be last.

Monday: This is a rest day according to my training plan. That didn't stop me from getting miles. I walked 0.75 miles with my husband during our afternoon shift. After work I went to Fleet Feet to participate in Winter Warriors and walked another 3.1 with one of my favorite running friends.

Tuesday: An actual training day. Plan was for 3 on the schedule. Snuck out for an hour at work for a 3.5 mile loop of hills.

Wednesday: Mid week long run day for marathon training.  Plan was for 6 and I ran 6.11 miles. I forgot to stop my garmin when I got to the chiropractor for my weekly adjustment, which messed up the avg mile pace.  First mile was 12:36 and last mile was 10:24, so I'm thinking I may be taking it too easy on myself when I run.

Thursday: Snow, and slush and muck on the roads convinced me a lunchtime run on the track at the Y was a much better plan than waiting for it to freeze into a sheet of ice to run on during Winter Warriors. Bumped into another Strider, running on the treadmill. She reminded me that this weather is one of the challenges of training for Boston and a few indoor runs are not a bad idea to be comfortable running in the heat because who knows what the weather will be the day of the marathon.

This blog post is incomplete, but I'm posting it anyway. Next post will have some updates in pictures. I'm pretty sure Friday was two half mile walks due to mismanagement of free time and desire to hibernate.





Monday, February 3, 2020

January Wrap Up

Marathon training continues.

Over the month I have run a few 5ks, Freeze Your Buns, Snowflake Shuffle and Fudgesicle.

Here is the training update. I've had some struggles with the Wednesday run getting longer, but I'm working to find solutions to that. I realized this week as I was running that in a month it will be warmer than it is colder. There is something about the 30 degree temperature line. Above that temp is far easier to run, than below. In four weeks we'll be over 30 more than we'll be under it.

Green = complete, yellow = less than desired miles, blue = more than planned miles
red= skipped, pink = cross training
Cross training has started to take a hit, and I need to get back to that. Find some routine of body weight strength I can do. My pace is slowly improving, I am able to run further without walk breaks, and when I'm having a heavy legs struggle run, I'm running at my fast pace for last fall. The consistency is helping, along with the strength work I started in November.

The biggest challenge has honestly been finding time, which was the challenge last time as well. Saturday I ran from home to the Westwood branch of the Nashua YMCA and meet up with my family there. Sunday morning I ran Freeze Your Buns to complete the needed miles.

I'm starting to plan out my 2020 race schedule. The two big anchor races at the moment are Boston Marathon and Mt Washington. Eastern States is a secondary now that Boston is confirmed. Other races will be all the mountains leading up to Mt Washington, and I might just do one more after to get Goat status again. I'm hoping to complete the New Hampshire Grand Prix and possibly the USATF All Terrain Runner series. My fall running schedule will need some fluidity to accommodate my youngest running cross country.

Now onto February and striving towards completing Taji 100!