week 3 of the plan

Well, I'm into week 3 of my half-marathon plan, but a few changes....  My achilles tendonitis is back again, and I am walking all my mileage.  and due to the achilles, I've decided to not do Grete's Great Gallop in October.  Nor will I be doing the Green Mountain Half the week after that.

Instead, I'm registered for the NYRR Ted Corbitt 15k in December - that gives me 2 more months to recover from/deal with the achilles problem, and 2 more months to very slowly build my mileage to 15k instead of a half distance.  Probably a better and wiser choice.  What a concept!

A December race also gives me 2 additional months to work on taking off some of the extra weight I'm carrying around.  I rejoined WW last weekend and am going to meetings, not just doing the online program.  I don't participate much in the meeting, but going to the Saturday a.m. meeting gets my head in the game for the weekend.  I go to the meeting, then go straight to the gym on my way home.  A healthy and active Saturday morning, and it also gets me up and going way earlier on a Saturday than I normally would be.

Official day 1 of fall half training

I'm using the NYRR Virtual Trainer program for my fall half, which is on October 5th, and today is day one of the 10-week training program.

I love this product from NYRR.  I input my recent training history, how many days a week I'm running, current long run distance, recent race result, fitness level (i.e. height and weight) and injury history, and then it spews out a training program tailored to me, complete with training paces for the different types of runs I'll be doing.

So today, I have 3 miles Regular Run.  I guess that would equate to general aerobic miles in other plans.

NRR (not running related)

So, I had the pleasure of catching Ryan Adams at the Flynn on Wednesday.  My mini-review below...

What can I say but: f’ing a-mazing.  He does like the f word, and used it quite liberally in his between song banter.  :-)  He was hysterical, actually.  A few jokes poking fun at Burlington (well-deserved), a riff on roosters smoking ciggies in the alley next to the vegan restaurant he went to for dinner.  Etc.

He and the band were amazing – tight but relaxed at the same time, if that makes sense. A few songs beautiful enough to put a lump in my throat - Sweet Carolina in particular.  He and his guitarist had beautiful harmony going on that one.  Dirty Rain also gorgeous.  And I've got a hankering to go buy everything of his that I don’t already own.  :-)

Set list is below, along with one of my crappy photos from the show.

July already?

Dang, July already, huh?  I would normally be stressing already about my marathon training - oh, how I hate those long runs - but since sanity prevailed this year and I'm not training for a fall marathon, my training distances will be completely manageable.  WOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!  Seriously, in case you didn't hear that, WOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!  ;-)

So, anyways, I'm planning on either Grete's Great Gallop half on October 5th in NYC, or Green Mountain Half on October 12th in VT, for my fall Fred's Team race.  Or NYRR Ted Corbitt 15k in December.  In my thought process:
* I'm not registered for Grete's yet, so might just save my $$ and go with Green Mountain Half which I registered for ages ago.
* On the other hand, Grete's is a Fred's Team/MSKCC race and we'll have lots of runners out there on race day, so that would be fun.  And a half in Central Park in early October is always wonderful - I've done this race many a time and it's always been perfect.
* The other thought is that going with Ted Corbitt 15k in December gives me more time to take some weight off, and build my mileage more slowly.  My achilles is STILL a problem, and not helped at all by the extra weight I'm lugging around.

Current training is a few 3s during the week, and a 5-miler on the weekend.  Clearly need to start moving that long run up a bit.  And I'm doing run/walk intervals - run 2 minutes, walk 2 minutes, repeat until done.  I'll shift that to more running as my fitness improves, but no need to rush on that.

Not feeling it

I've not been feeling the love with running lately.  In fact, hmmph, if I wasn't signed up for so many races for 2014, I'd switch down to walking all the time.  However, I'm doing 14 races in 2014, so will keep at the run/walk scenario.

Race #2 is tomorrow, the 9/11 Memorial Run/Walk 5k.  I'm participating as what they call a Global Runner, i.e. I won't be in NYC for the race itself, but will wear a t-shirt from the race and do a 5k here where I live.  It's a way to run in solidarity with others.

And speaking of solidarity, HOW ABOUT THE BOSTON MARATHON!!  35000 strong joyful runners on the streets leading to Boston.  And wow, MEB was amazing, winning at age 38 with a new PR!  And Shalane ran a gutsy race, ending up with a PR as well!  That might have been my least productive day at the office - EVER.  Between streaming the last hour of the elite's race, and then tracking the 16 friends I had running, well, not much work got done.  :-)

And on an unrelated not, every time I use it, I learn the lesson that I have no idea how to use my Garmin.

Outside exercise, woohoo!

So rather than get myself to the gym today, I put on the long running pants and a soft shell fleece and went outside.  40f might not sound warm to some of you, but given our recent weather, and given the snow that's coming tonight, I figured best to take advantage of fairly clear streets and warm weather today.  :-)

I did pretty much a figure-8 of my neighborhood and finished up at 2.14 miles.  This was walking, not running.  I was so happy to get my legs moving and work up a sweat!

Tomorrow, since we'll have snow on the streets again, I'll hit the gym and use the TM (treadmill), run/walk combo.

I'm back!

As usual, I’m starting this blog post with words to the effect of “Wow, I haven’t  posted here in a while.”  And it’s true.  Does anyone else find they’re trying to connect in too many places and can’t keep up with all of them, i.e.  blog, facebook, running forums, daily mile, etc.  Anyways, my plan is to use this as my training journal, which should have me checking in here at least 4 days a week going forward.  :-)

So having said all that, I haven’t run in weeks!  I’ve had a whopper of a cold the last 2 weeks, and am finally back to about 90% healthy, so plan on getting out there tomorrow for 3-4 miles (and by out there, I mean the TM at the gym).  And again on Sunday, also TM at the gym.  Since we’re getting snow AGAIN tomorrow night, 5”-10”.  Seriously, enough already.

On a semi-related note, I just made my appointment to have my snow tires taken off for the season – on May 17^th.  Winter should be over by then.