Mark's Training Log: 23 more days until Grandmas

Harbor view after a 3 mile run

FromShelter Island

Today's Status: 22 Days until Grandma's marathon. Today I weighed the least (159.8) that I've ever seen on a scale since...I cannot remember. Not since the 1980s. I also just booked my transportation for NYC Marathon in November. Feeling so-so in my training and really beginning to wonder if I can drop my average speed down to 6:30/mile by this time next year. This may be wishful/magical/delusional thinking but I'm currently thinking that I need to push my V02Max up in the next cycle to be able to do that.

Currently (as I'll describe below) when I'm running at tempo/threshold speeds my HR says "threshold" but my speed says "tempo". That is, I'm running too fast, or, the wind is blowing too hard, or something else is mysteriously slows me down for the same level of effort I put out to run faster on those early/windless race mornings. Have to try am tempo.

Injury Report: I've been nursing a hamstring injury in my right leg for months. It began during some 200 repeats at the track (chasing Braden!) but then went away after stretching and mild core work. However, I neglected to continue the core work and the same condition came back a few weeks ago prior to the half marathon. Today I did some leg curls at the PAC and some other core work with the swiss ball. See if that regiment helps.

I also had a recent bout of A-flutter while running. You can see it here (click for bigger):

I was running north on a beauty of a day and just as I was running up the small hill across from the Brigantine my HR jumps as you can see a the 2 mile point in the image above. That stayed until about 5 pm that day (the run as around 2 pm).

Recent Training Summary: I'm neither happy nor unhappy with my current training. I've come to realize that I set goals that may not be age appropriate. By that I mean that while I continue to see improvement month-after-month now that i'm finally running on a regular schedule it's not at the pace that I thought I could achieve. I thought I could to the SD Half at 1:32 and I did 1:34. Thought I could do the OC half in 1:30 and did 1:32. Thought I could magically do my threshold runs at 6:45/mile and that's been impossible.

Progress is progress and probably more of a "glass half full" viewpoint would be more appropriate. If I had to do over I'd have put more early miles in and more speed earlier to get with the program in November and not February. Even for a June marathon.

Here's yesterday's tempo - a set of shots (again - click to see more)

If you can see from above, we did 4 miles at around 8:10/mile, then were SUPPOSED to do 7:30/7:10/6:50/6:30/6:50/7:10/7:30 (which is what Jessica did), but, I did 7:17/7:00/6:52/7:07/7:24/7:22/7:17. It was really hard too.