As I found during Thanksgiving, I was reminded this week that it's a lot easier to train for a marathon when you only have to go to work for 3 days (go figure). Maybe my next marathon will be after I'm retired. Actually, scratch that, I'll be happy if I can walk and be active when I'm retirement age, no need for marathons.
Christmas week
Even though I had a lot of free time, Christmas was a step-back week for me after 2 weeks of hard training. Unfortunately, I don't burn as many calories during a step-back week which led to me gaining 2 pounds. The only kind of interesting run that happened during the step-back week was a 12 mile trail run in Bakersfield with Travers. It was basically a constant 200-250 ft climb/mile for half of the run, then downhill the other half. I'm not much of a trail runner, but this was actually a great opportunity to practice downhill running (one of my weaknesses). The views were pretty neat, even though it was a bit chilly. And as an added bonus, I managed to not trip on any rocks and fall flat on my face!
Wind Wolves Preserve - near the I-5 Grapevine I think, but you know my sense of direction
To overcompensate, I then enjoyed prime rib and cheesecake.
New Year week
With the luxury of step-back week over, this past week was a tough one. I had a couple fun workouts to share:
Tuesday/track - dice workout
This is one of my favorites that our running club always does at the track workout closest to Jan 1. We roll two dice and multiply the sum by 100, and that's our interval. I had two training buddies doing this workout with me and we took turns rolling. After 7 rolls we had managed 9, 6, 9, 6, 7, 9, and 6. We noticed that 5200 m of speedwork was a little bit lower than recommended by the coach, so we literally decided to roll the dice and let fate take its course. And then this guy Jim rolled a 10.. ugh. The odds were not in our favor and that last 1000 was pretty miserable, but then everyone from track went to the brewery which kind of made up for it. It was interesting to talk more to people that I run with weekly; most of them have interesting jobs (although not ones where I could be hired), but we had never talked about anything other than running.
Saturday/long run-
Today I completed what I consider the hardest long run of the training cycle. I got it from the Asics sub- 3:30 plan. The run was a 20 mile long run, with 10 miles at 9:00/mile or easy pace, and 10 miles at 8:00/mile or marathon pace. I was actually very nervous for this run and I was worried that if I felt like death it would be indicative that I'm not ready for sub-3:30, but the run ended up going really well. The last 10 miles I managed to average 7:45 and not feel too awful doing it. Success!
This picture is actually from yesterday and not from my run, but I ran on the Bay trail so it's a close enough representation
Weekly miles - If I manage to do my slow 6 tomorrow, I'll break 50 miles for the week for the first time since 2012.
Trying to not be fat
I got the cookbook "Plenty More" for Christmas, which is a follow-up to the cookbook "Plenty" that we also have, that contains all vegetarian recipes. My target was to make a lot of salads and lose those annoying 2 pounds, but I think I somehow ended up overeating again (verdict to be determined at the gym Monday because I don't own a scale). Probably because there was so much chocolate around the house. Or because I'm still drinking too much. Anyway, the Plenty books are worth checking out- here is a snapshot from my journey de salad this week:
Salad A
Salad B
6 weeks until LA!
Those salads look good! And that dice workout sounds really interesting, I've never heard of it. Frightening, though. It sounds like you are in great shape for the marathon. I think literally everything in life would be easier if work weeks were only three days. Can we please make that a reality? I think my body is truly terrified of the holiday weight gain, because I've spent the past two Christmases puking...good times. In 2016, I'll take the weight gain, please.
ReplyDeleteWell I think weight gain is pretty much the objective of pregnancy, right? So even if you weren't sick this year you would've been all set anyway :) I know you've crossed back over from the dark (vegetarian) side, and I know it's probably hard to cook with an existing kid and incoming kid, but if you ever feel like cooking vegetarian the "Plenty" and "Plenty More" cookbooks are worth checking out! (and not all the recipes are too involved/time consuming)
DeletePS- I vote yes for 3 day work weeks.