My biggest regret in preparing for this marathon is that I’ve not lost more weight.  As of this morning I’m down 16.75 pounds from my starting weight of 161.5, but it looks like I’ll be running the marathon at just over 240 pounds.  That’s a lot of extra weight that I simply shouldn’t be bringing along.  But I have only myself to blame.

I plan to continue running regularly after the marathon so that I can stay in shape and continue to lose weight.  I’m hoping to weight 220 by the end of September this year.  That would be a total weight lose of 41.5 pounds in one year.

I completed three training runs so far this week:

On Tuesday I ran a comfortable six miles in an hour and 20 minutes.  On Thursday I completed my last speed run before the marathon.  I ran a quick pace of 10:43 a mile for a 10 kilometer run on the crushed rock trail at the Walker County Community Center.  Then today I completed 8.7 miles on the roads in Cloudland Canyon State Park.

Just 13 more days until I stand in the starting corral at the Country Music Marathon in Nashville, Tennessee.  I’m excited.  The anticipation is starting to set in as I draw closer to finishing this 30 year goal.

One Tuesday I ran a speed workout of 6.9 miles.  I ran 5 minute intervals at about half-marathon speed with 3.5 minutes of jogging and 1.5 minutes of walking between each interval.  I felt like it was a good workout.  I’m trying to avoid injuries this close to the marathon, so I thought this workout was just the right thing.  Overall, I finished the 6.9 miles in about 78 minutes.  It was a warm day, about 84 degrees.

The next day, Wednesday, I ran another 6.5 miles at an easy pace.  This run, like yesterday’s, was on the asphalt roads in the Chattanooga Battlefield Park.  As I’ve shared before, I really enjoy running in the park because of the scenery, the shade and the minimal amount of motor vehicle traffic.  This run, although a tad shorter than yesterday’s, was six minutes longer.  The weather today was a beautiful 74 degrees.

After taking a couple days off because of other priorities, I went back to the park for another run on Saturday.  This run was 5.3 miles at a moderate, but comfortable pace of just under 12:00 a mile.  I am hoping to run at about this pace for the marathon on April 28th.

Yesterday, Sunday, was my final long run for the marathon.  I will run some moderately long runs of 8-12 miles on each Saturday between now and the marathon, but this was the last 20+ mile run before the marathon.

I went to the Ridgeland High School track to do my run.  I’m trying to follow the doctor’s advice about running on more forgiving surfaces, especially for my long runs.  The school’s track is surfaced with recycled tires (like most school tracks these days).

My original plan was to run 22-23 miles, but as I was running I realize that that would mean completing 88-92 laps around the track.  And if I was going to run that far, why not just make it an even 100!  So I did.  I had filled several bottles of water and grabbed a couple Clif Bars and gel packets for the run.  I believe I drank nearly 100 ounces of water, 30 ounces of Gatorade (the original yellow, of course), and ate 840 calories during the run.  I also took Ibuprofen during  the run to help with the knee pain.

I fell much less knee pain than usual during this long run.  I’m not sure what helped the most, the pain killers or running on a softer surface.  Regardless, I was thrilled to finish with maybe half the pain that I felt after my last long run.  I even skipped icing the knees when I got home.  I did develop a sore toe/toe nail on my right foot from this long run.  Hopefully it doesn’t develop into anything that interferes with my running.

The 25 mile run took me five and a half hours.  I timed each split with my watch/heart monitor and was excited to see that I ran a negative split (a faster second half) by six minutes.  I felt so good after the 22nd mile that I ran the last three miles in 12:40, 10:44 and 9:25 respectively.  The average for the first 22 miles was 13:35 a mile.  I was particularly pleased with the sub 10 minute final mile.

[PhotoCredit: Lincolnian]

I arrived at the doctor’s office about 20 minutes early knowing that I would need to complete the medical history paperwork for my first visit.  As I sat waiting for my name to be called, I continued to worry that the doctor would simply reply to my “It only hurts when I run” with a simple “quit running”.  But when I finally saw the doctor and shared my problem, he had a little better advice.

I felt kinda silly because the pain isn’t something that lasts long or occurs outside of long hikes or runs.  And the medical exam didn’t reveal any pain or knee problems for the doctor.  But he seemed to understand the issue and recommended the following:  1) continue taking the walking breaks during my long runs as that seems to be helping, 2) don’t do my long runs on the Tennessee Riverwalk or other concrete surfaces (instead run on a local school track), 3) do stretches before and after all of my runs to stretch my Iliotibial band.

I’ve never been much for stretching, so that will take some getting used to.  But the doctor seemed to think that the stretches would do the most to alleviate my problem.  So stretching it is.

[PhotoCredit:Maigh]

Because of scheduling issues I didn’t find time to run during the next couple of days.  So I didn’t run again until yesterday (Friday).  I ran 7k (4.3 miles) at the Walker County Community Center.  This is the crushed rock trail of one kilometer in length.  I enjoy running at the Community Center because the trail is comfortable and there are a couple moderate hills that give me some variety and extra training.  I always run a little slower here because of the surface.  I finished the run in 55:38.

I completed my run in just under five hours on the Tennessee Riverwalk in Chattanooga.  I enjoyed most of the run as it was a beautiful day of about 76 degrees.  And, if you’ve read any of my other posts, you know how much I enjoy the scenery on the Riverwalk.

The only real challenge was the knee pain that became much worse for the last four miles.  As usual, I started feeling the pain after a couple hours of running.  I swallowed three Ibuprofen and things seemed okay for more than an hour.  I took walk breaks for two minutes after every ten minutes of running.  But after my walk break at the 18 mile marker, I found it quite painful to start running again.  So I decided not to take any more walk breaks as the pain of starting to run again was too much.

I have only completed one other run of over 20 miles in my lifetime.  That was about 10 years ago.  But this run was more than a mile longer than that run years ago.

I feel ready for the marathon on April 28th.  I will do a 10-12 mile run this next weekend and one more 20+ run the weekend following.  After that I will start my taper for the marathon.

[PhotoCredit: WallyGobetz]

The good thing is that I was running on the 1/3 mile loop at the church.  This means I was not far from the truck when the down pour started.  I got in three miles of running, and at a pretty decent pace.  My 11:36 per mile pace is about two minutes faster than my typical training runs.  I was using the heart monitor and was still able to run at this pace without exceeding my heart rate zone.  I’m finally feeling like I’m gaining a little speed.  Final run was three miles in 34:45.

Today is my long run, somewhere between 21-22 miles.  I have a refueling plan involving gels, a Clif Bar and Gatorade.  I need to test this before the marathon.  I figure that I need about 160-200 calories for every hour I am running.  So a six hour marathon will require 1000-1200 calories.  Today I am planning on a five hour run, so I need at least a 800 calories.

Yesterday’s Run

Yesterday I went to the Chickamauga Battlefield to do some speed training and to get in about six miles of running.  I was thinking about doing some fartlek training, but decided to modify it a bit by running 50% of my training time at a faster tempo pace.  I set my HRM to 80% – 88% of my maximum heart rate.  My training run was 3 minutes of easy running, 5.5 minutes of fast tempo running then 1.5 minutes of walking….rinse and repeat.  I ran a somewhat flat route in the park with only a few gentle hills.  The tempo runs felt great.

After an hour and sixteen minutes I finished the run of 6.6 miles.  During the 1.5 mile walk back to my truck, my calves felt a little tight, but not painful.  I’m still a little worried about the calf pain as it seems that at any moment I could pull or tear a muscle.  I’m trying to be careful to not push so hard that I injure myself.

My average heart rate for the run was 150 with just over 40 minutes in my targeted heart rate range.

Today’s Run

I woke up this morning feeling great after yesterday’s run.  The weather is cloudy, but nice.  It’s supposed to be stormy this afternoon and evening, so I decided to get my run in before noon.

I left my heart rate monitor at home because I felt that I just wanted to run without worrying about staying in an predetermined heart rate zone.  I knew that this would probably result in a faster pace than normal, but I was looking forward to a somewhat quicker run. I reminded myself that running is supposed to be fun, so off I went.

I chose the church loop to do my run.  Since measuring the distance on Google maps, I’ve come to the conclusion that the loop distance is 1/3 mile and not the 3/8 mile that is posted on a sign at the track.  This means that I had to adjust the distance/pace of all my past runs at the church.  I determined that I would run four miles and continue with my typical 1.5 minute walk breaks every ten minutes.

After four miles I felt great and ran another mile just for fun.  I finished the five miles in just under 58 minutes.

[PhotoCredit: Air Beagle]

Running in the park usually means running in the shade of trees along the road.  The terrain is often flat or with some gently rolling hills.  And I have yet to run in the park and not see a deer or two, or on one occasion a couple dozen.  This weekend I headed over to the park for my weekend long run.

Since I ran 19 miles last weekend, I planned for 10 – 12 miles this weekend.  I decided that a run of about 2 1/2 to 3 hours would be about right.  I parked near the battlefield museum and started running on the west side of the park.  Since I knew about how long I should be running, I didn’t worry about the distance and just took any path that seemed interesting.  I figured I could measure the distance on Google Maps when I got home.  I crossed the park, ran north on the east side of the park and cut back to the west after  about two hours of running.  At one point I missed a turn I wanted to make and headed out of the park.  I turned around and found the path heading up a hill into the woods.  I had no realized from the map I was carrying that the path was really a dirt road.

I was not exactly sure where I was as the path entered the woods, and I soon found myself on the wrong path heading north.  After nearly three hours of running, I came out of the woods onto McFarland Avenue which borders the park on the north.  I ended my run and walked the mile back to my truck.  Total run time was 2:56 and I calculated the run at 12.2 miles.

[PhotoCredit: Rob Shenk]

There is a challenge to not become obsessed with the numbers and letting it drive my training.  I don’t try to beat my best time on every training run, nor do I feel bad if I miss a training goal.  But plugging the numbers into my spreadsheet after every run helps drive me to keep running.  As the miles accumulate and the weight drops, I know that I’m getting closer to my goals.  So numbers are important to my training.  (The above spreadsheet is a screenshot of my training log, in case my love for numbers needs verification.)

I’ve run three times since my last blog post, so let me give you a quick rundown on what I’ve been doing.

I’ve been trying to increase the average distance of my daily runs during the past couple of weeks.  Most of my weekly runs (not including my once a week LSDs*) had been about 4 miles.  This week I was shooting to average about 4.5 miles for each run.  I did 4.3.

On Wednesday I ran 4.3 miles at the Walker County Community Center.  This is the crushed gravel path laid out in a 1 kilometer loop.  The run was slow at just over an hour.  I took a break from running on Thursday to give my calf a rest and went back to the Community Center yesterday.  I had hoped to run six miles yesterday, but a thunderstorm burst in the afternoon cut my run short at 3.7 miles.  This run was on of my slowest in months.  I ran a 14:37 pace.

Today I decided to change the oil in the riding mower and get started on mowing our 5 acres property.  I got the main yard done, finishing a little after dark.  So my run ended up taking place on the treadmill in the garage.  I ran at a 12:30 pace for 4 miles with 1.5 minute walking breaks every 10 minutes.  It was a faster pace than my normal run, but I felt great.  Tomorrow I will do 10-12 miles at a slow pace.

At the bottom of this blog you can see the cumulative numbers for my marathon training.  But for fun I’m going to post them here for you:

Total Training Miles: 317.7
Total Training Time: 69 hr. 35 min.
Total Weight Loss: 14.75 pounds

Avg. Weekly Miles: 16.2
Avg. Run: 4.9 miles
Avg. Pace: 13:09 mile
Longest Run: 19 miles
Longest Race: 6.2 miles

…since October 1, 2011
* LSD = Long Slow Distances

I tried to compensate a little with my stride.  I found that running off my toes a little more seems to lessen the feeling.  Even sitting here now I can feel that tingling in my left calf muscle.

I think I’ll have a chat with my wife (a nurse) and see what she suggest as preventative measures.  Then I will look into making a doctor’s appointment to get an even more informed opinion.  I really want to avoid anything happening that would keep me from running the marathon.  I’ll keep you up to date as soon as I learn more.  In the meantime, all else seems right on track for being ready and conditioned for the marathon run.