First Day of Marathon Training

and I only ran 20 minutes.

Truth is, I ran yesterday for 60 min and did plyometric AND I have 16 weeks of this type of training. I usually go out of the gate pretty hard and then want to just give up a couple weeks down the road so I'm going to ease into it.

Here is my plan for my running:

• Sunday - Long Run
• Monday -  short base training run. Think about cadence with a low zone three heart rate.
• Tuesday AM - weights
• Tuesday - run during the Tuesday night spin class - I usually run about 15-20 before class as a warm-up
• Wednesday - SPRINT DAY! 
• Thursday AM - weights
• Thursday - 15-20 min warm-up before Thursday spin class
• Friday - break
• Saturday - run during spin class

The hard part about this schedule is that I'm still spinning 3 days a week and swimming 2-3 days a week. Somewhere I need to sleep! Hopefully I can keep this schedule up but once I get into a routine it won't be too hard.

Oh, I didn't mention. The marathon I'm going to do is the New Orleans Rock and Roll Marathon on March 4.

Hi - It's me!

It took me three websites to find my own site. Guess I really don't want people to read my blog.

Ok...what's been going on since February...um. I did this little thing called an IRONMAN. I would have to say it was the best day of my life and will stay up there for quite sometime. 22 hours before the gun went off on my first IM I signed up for my second Ironman. When I got to the counter I told the guy "I don't know why I'm here...I haven't even done my first one." He smiled and said, "you must've had a great training year." Yep I did and that is what brought me to that table. I knew when I singed up for my first on that it wasn't that I was signing up for that one day event. That I was signing up for the 365 days of training, sacrifice, lighter wallet. That day was just the finally of the fireworks display. And, boy was it a good ending!

I did the St. Louis marathon on April 10th in 80 degree weather with 80% humidity (end of July type of weather) with a disappointing 5 hours 15 minute time. There was a laundry list of things I did wrong - walking too much the days following, wasn't ready for that type of temp, let the mass crowd of people play on me mentally, etc

I turned my attention to triathlons and did my first one at Liberty. It was great - so many people came out to watch, do the event it was like going to class but with swimming. The swim I survived but realized I would have to work on my citing, the bike - that was my training ground I was ready for this one - I went full out, looked bad ass and didn't let one person pass me. The run - I couldn't breath for 6 miles so it was just a hour sufferfest. But I finished my first Triathlon and was an official Triathlete!

I followed that one up with Wiconia -  did much better on the swim, put down a solid bike - again no one passed me - and survived the run. I did pretty well in my age group and even beat a girl that I knew from bike racing by two minutes overall.

That same girl said something to a friend of mine about the next race, Minniman, so I knew that I had some beef with her - She was going down! The swim was short by solid. I was gaining confidence and even ruffled a few feathers while I was swimming. The bike I ended up having the best split out of all the age group women even beating 2 out of the 7 elite women including the girl I had beef with, the run I held steady but had to deal with stomach cramps for about 10 seconds. I tried to run this one girl down which I found out later was in my age group and beat me by 5 seconds. Didn't matter - I still got 3rd in my age group.

I did a half marathon on a whim - Red White and Boom and PR-ed with a 2:02 time. I was kind-of upset at the time because I really wanted under 2 but the heat got to me at 7am. (race started at 6am)

Few weeks later I did the Insane Terrain 200k bike ride with 13k of climbing. It was a great day. I had a blast. I heard about the last 2 miles and how hard it was but unless you do it you don't know how Fucking hard it really was - no on told me about the 6 false flats just that it was 2 big climbs. Really? It was one big climb. Although it was just a bike ride it took me about a week to recover from this event it was so taxing on my body.

At the end of July I did my final race before IM - Chisago half. This was the test. Finish with a smile under 6 hours. And that's what I did - 5:47. The swim was so foggy you couldn't see the next buoy, the bike was ok but I held back and the run went better then expected. Even spectators said I look good - and surprisingly I felt good!

Two weeks later I went out to Madison and checked out the course for the first time. After tackling the entire course and running half the course I knew I was ready.

I'll post the entire story about my IM day hopefully soon but I worn you it will be long. As for my next few post it will be my blog of my training for this year.  Hopefully I can keep it up - it is hard when your working and training about 60+ hours a week.

Protein shakes are a thing of the past

I need to hang out with ultra runners more often. I guess chocolate milk and potato chips are the key for recovery. Unfortunately it isn't as sweet as it sounds it's the $.99 bag not the $3.99 bag and only 8 oz of milk not a gallon. I know...Damn! Than why the hell are they doing all that running for in the first place. Their burning like a bigillion calories? Go for the $3.99 bag!

I've been asking everyone their secret for nutrition. Some are straight laced with their nutrition while other make you wonder. Just the other day I went out for a 12 mile run with a couple of ultra runners who was training to do a 100 mile event in June. Along the way we met up with my/our friend Colin. I've mentioned Colin before but let me tell you about him. He's a personal trainer, used to lift quite a bit - you might say if you saw his photos he was competing in a few bodybuilding competitions. At about 5'-6"(ish), 200 pounds and 5% body fat you might say the same. He started to get intro running then triathlons and just recently the Ironman. Since the Ironman he has lost 50 pounds - keeping the 5% body fat ratio, has picked up his run and his cycling. Yet what get's me is that that day when we met up with him to run he was not eating a Cliff bar but a doughnut!

I don't recommend eating a doughnut or would do it myself before I ran since with my luck I would gain weight then loose weight. Although, if you think about it it's carbs, sugars, calories needed to burn and you'd probably be on such a sugar high that you would run faster and burn it off within a few miles. All that said, I'll stick to my 100 calorie Gu packs.

New Chapter

I'm days away from turning the page on my current chapter of life. I've decided to leave my job and move on to another company (doing the same thing). I'm scared yet excited at the same time. I'm going to miss the people I come to laugh with but when you're constantly in a state of chaos with no end in sight with no compensation it's hard to stay. I'll continue to stay in touch with those people I enjoy. In my industry the average person stays only two years so that pretty much means I'll probably work with them again sometime in the near future.

Just like a book turning the page to find out what happens next it's exciting. What will happen? Will it turn out or will it go horribly wrong? I guess that's the lure to keep reading and to stay up until 4am to find out what's next. Have you ever read the book "Who Moved My Cheese?" If not you should. It's a quick read that tells the story about these two mice. One mouse goes to the same place everyday to get food while the other mouse goes to a different location everyday. One day the mouse that goes to the same place went to get food and found out it wasn't there anymore and didn't know what to do while the other one just kept moving and found food in another location. The moral of the story is to be ready for change. If your ready it won't be as surprising when it happens.

In training you learn that you have to be ready for anything thrown at you. I've been thrown a lot of curve balls in the short 10 years of my career. I hope now I have control of the ball and can dodge the wild balls better then I have in the past.

This is Hard!

Yes the workout is hard but I mean keeping up with this blog. It's now 11pm and I'm supose to be at the gym at 5am to meet my good friend Joe for spin class. Not that I normally go to the class anymore but because he has kicked cancer in the A$$ and is making a comeback tomorrow - or should I say, 30 minutes before class actually starts - I couldn't miss it!  He doesn't have the doctors approval yet to be in class - until next month but Joe is determined and I need to keep determination around me at all times!

My training is going great! I'm finally seeing glimmers of light. I stopped trying to keep up with everyone else so I dropped it down and now have been making progress.

A few months ago running on the treadmill at 5.8 mph was hard (I know, some of you are thinking that's your trot but you have to start somewhere!) and during my long run this past weekend I was holding 6.8!! I just watched the Biggest Loser and this one girl was sprinting at 8.5 - I bet I can do that but I'm going to have to mentally push myself to hold that number.

I'm currently working on training for my Marathon in April. All of my milage has been on the treadmill but I've found some great friends that will join me for at least half of it and check on me while I finish up. I've been asked several times what my goal is for this marathon. What I've learned is that yes it's great to have a goal but if you push yourself as hard as you can and leave everything out there - a time isn't as important. My goal is to SHADER my previous marathon time -  so far I'm on track to do so. By how much? How about a lot?

Cycling I've been able to be at a cadence of 90 and hold it while having a conversation. I pushed myself this past Tuesday and touched 130! My endurance wattage was siting at 160. Last weekend I pushed it to 170 and felt pretty good. The last half hour I jumped up to 180. I still felt good but I'll hold 170 for this upcoming weekend.

Swimming is a little bit slower. There is so much to think about. This has been my off week so my goal in the next couple of weeks is to hit the pool as many mornings as I can. Some mornings are harder then others to roll out of bed and jump into a cold pool. Once your in it's fine but it's getting in and moving which is the hardest part. I'll get there. I just need to finish 2.4 mile swim in under 2 hours and 20 minutes in September.

I Love Intervals. I Love Intervals.

If you keep saying that will it come true? I hope it does. Dang. The first one or two are great but when you get to number 10-15 it hurts so bad your ready to die. You have to keep telling yourself it's going to be over but who am I kidding...it seems like it will never happen!

Today was the OFFICIAL start to my marathon training (St. Louis Marathon on April 10th). I'm so ill prepared this time. I don't have a solid plan. I don't know how many miles I should be doing but I know I'm going to have three days of solid running. Day 1. Tempo running 4-6 miles moving my speed up towards the end of the run. Day 2 Speed workout/Intervals. Day 3 Long run. Day 1 and 2 will be Monday and Wednesday but Day 3 will have to be either Friday or Sunday. Friday seems like a logical day but I'll blow it for Jonny's class and suffer during Saturday's 4 hour toucher session. So...Sunday it is...lord help me!

I have the week off, the only perk to my job is having this week off, so I went to the gym not once but twice. The first time I ran for about 40 minutes. Instead of staying at a comfort level I kept inching up the speed finally sitting at a 7 mph for the last 5 minutes. While I look around I check out what others are at. It seems 7 mph is the average norm but for me that's freaking fast. I hope someday 7mph is my norm. For now I hover around 6mph (which is a 10 minute mile). I spent the next hour working on core and leg presses.

Round two I met my friend Colin at another gym. I was going to run again but this time I was going to do intervals. Taking a shower, eating and a little nap between the workouts made it feel like a day has gone by since my last workout so I was ready to go again on the treadmill. I started with a 5 minute warm up inching myself up to my norm of 6mph. Than for the next 20 minutes I did sprint intervals 2 minutes on/1 minute off at 7mph. Towards the end I was up to 7.4 which by my standards is holy crap that's fast. I felt good, was still breathing but I was praying I wasn't going to have a Biggest Loser moment and fly off the treadmill. Thank god I didn't.

We ended the workout on the rowing machine and although I had someone to talk to the rowing machine was still boring.

Merry Christmas!

I packed up my ninja gear (winter running clothes) and headed north to Grand Forks to hang out with the parents. After declaring that I will be going for a run everyday, I got my my stuff on and headed out onto the familiar roads from my childhood. I wasn't trying to go fast I was trying to take in all the flood of memories I had going down this road or that road. Going on a long bike ride with my Dad to my Grandmas house which was on the other side of town or just going to school.

I headed west to the river down the street that was "were all the rich people lived" to downtown, hung a left at the church and started to head home. On my way, I found myself close to my old elementary school. The playground was a little different but I couldn't resist I ran over to the swings and swan for about 5 minutes. I didn't want to stay too long since I was 2/3 into my run and I was already sweaty. Key to winter running is not to slow or to stop because you'll get too cold being wet - best to keep moving. So, while I was swinging I was listening to this upbeat song on my headphones. The height of my swing was pretty high and there wasn't a sole in sight - so I thought. I yelled, "oh my god this is sooo much fun!" Right after I yelled I turned around and saw a couple getting into their car behind me. I shrugged my shoulders and said to myself oh well, they are missing out!

I jumped off the swings like we used to and took off running.

The next day wasn't such a great run because in Western ND when there is wind, which there is always wind, but when there is a strong wind there is no where to hid it's so flat. My run which was the same route except I ran past my Jr. High School this time, was a bit bitter and a little more difficult.

Over the holiday I had a conversation with my family about the Ironman and coming to see me complete the event. I don't think it matters how many times I come out and bluntly tell them how important this Ironman means to me and how much work I'm going to be putting into my training that they will understand or even care about this event. To be honest, although it would mean the world to me they were there, which I have said to them, that I would want them there I would rather have my good friends who understand how much it takes mentally, physically, emotionally and financially to do such an event be cheering me on and to be there at the end when I cross the finish line. Sometimes you do things others don't understand and are grateful for those that do.