First day of marathon training!

Even though I have been training, today was the first day of my 18 week training plan for the Chicago Marathon. I got a book a while ago called Advanced Marathoning and I decided to try out one of the plans listed in the book. The plan I chose is the 55-70 miles/week plan and I think it should be pretty easy for me to follow. I really want to improve my marathon time by a lot and I want to finish strong in this next one, so I thought it would be a good idea to use a training plan.

Today's workout consisted of a 9 mile run with a 4 mile tempo run included in that. I wanted to do this workout outside since I hate running on the treadmill, but it rained all day today, so I was forced to go into our hot and humid basement to do my workout. Luckily, there is a TV down there, so I watched Gilmore Girls while I ran. For the workout, I decided to start with an easy mile at an 8 minute pace. That went pretty well, so once I hit 1 mile, I turned the speed to 8.6 mph (about 7:00 miles) and ran 4 miles. It was tough to get through those 4 miles, but I made it, and then I turned the speed down to an 8:00 mile pace for a mile to recover. After I was recovered a little bit, I decided to do the last 3 miles of my workout at a 7:30 pace. I was pretty tired at the end, but overall the workout was a success.

I did find that at the end of my workout, my ankle was pretty stiff and sore. I've been having a lot of problems with my posterior tibial tendon since I ran the Wisconsin Half Marathon on May 1st. It's pretty swollen on the medial side of my foot and I have a lot of pain after running and if I'm on my feet a lot. I know I should probably rest it, but it's hard to decide to do that because I don't want to lose my running fitness and I don't have too much pain when I'm actually running. I'm still trying to decide whether I should see a doctor about it or not.

A Biking Incident

I rode my bike 17.5 miles this morning! I haven't biked a whole lot, so that was pretty good for me. I did run into a problem in the first 5 minutes of riding though. My chain somehow came off, then I had to walk across a couple yards holding my bike, and I had to run in my house to see if my dad was there to help me. Unfortunately, he was working, so I had to figure it out myself. It took a couple tries and some very greasy fingers, but I got the chain back on! I almost decided to go back inside and forget about the bike ride, but I convinced myself that I needed to ride. My ride actually went pretty well. I made it through without any other problems, besides the fact that a dog almost knocked me off my bike, but I enjoyed the ride. It took me an hour and ten minutes, which is not too bad. I still need to work on my speed, but just getting time on my bike is good enough for now. I think I'll definitely be sore tomorrow though.

After some shopping and some rest at home, I headed over to the health club to go for a swim. I was excited to see that there were two open lanes today. That never happens! I swam 1000 yards straight and then did a 300 after that. I am actually starting to feel stronger in the water, so I'm a little less worried about being ready for the triathlon.

In other news, my blondies and maple pecan bars were a huge hit with my family! I'll definitely make those again!

Race Day!

This morning I woke up and went over to the Lincoln Park Zoo to run the 10K with my dad. We got there pretty early so we had time to get warmed up and relax a little bit before the start. I was pretty nervous, but when the race started, I was ready to go. I ran the first mile a little fast, so I think that affected the rest of race, but overall the race went pretty well. My time ended up being 41:14, so I didn't break 40 minutes, but I can't complain because I enjoyed the race and that is my second fasted 10K.
Here are my splits:
Mile 1: 6:09
Mile 2: 12:44 (6:35)
Mile 3: 19:20 (6:36)
Mile 4: 26:18 (6:58)
Mile 5: 33:00 (6:41)
Mile 6: 39:51 (6:51)
Mile 6.2: 41:14 (1:22)
I'm not sure that the fourth mile marker was in the correct place, but the splits are close enough. Overall, I'm pretty happy with my race. I think I was a little tired going into it because I had a tough training week and this is my fourth race in 5 weeks, so I'm glad to have a little break before my next race.

After I got home from the race, I decided it would be fun to bake a couple things, so that's exactly what I did! I made brown butter blondies and maple pecan bars. The maple pecan bars were pretty easy to make and they tasted really good! The brown butter blondies were a little harder to make because I first had to make clarified butter and from that I had to make brown butter. Clarified butter is just butter with the fat and water removed, but it's hard to make because after you melt the butter, you have to get rid of the fat and water. It took me two tries to get it right, but I think I did okay with it. After I finally finished making the clarified butter, I had to let it cook until it turned brown. I'm not sure I cooked the butter enough, but I think the blondies turned out pretty good. I haven't tried those yet though. Here are some pictures of my treats:

Restful Day

Today was a pretty good day. After an uneventful morning, I drove downtown Chicago with my dad. We went to the Lincoln Park zoo to pick up our race packets for the 10K we're doing tomorrow morning. After we got our packets, we walked around the zoo for a little bit and then drove to our apartment to get settled. After we got there, we decided to walk to Michigan Avenue to shop around a little before eating dinner. For dinner we went to Cafe Spiaggia and the food was amazing! I had a dish called Perciatelle which was thin hollow pasta with La Quercia guanciale (a type of Italian bacon), onions, garlic, basil, and Calabrian peppers. The pasta was cooked perfectly and the flavors were amazing.

The rest of my night has been pretty boring, but I'm getting nervous/excited for the race in the morning. I really want to break 40 minutes in the 10K. I just need to relax and believe in myself. I know if I can run the first 5K in under 20 minutes, I can keep up the pace for the rest of the race. I also want to try to win the race. I'm going to try to stay up front from the start and then we'll see what happens. Whatever happens, I know I'll be happy as long as I'm having fun!

My First Post!

I started off my day with a 12 mile long run. I was hoping to go a little longer, but my legs were dead after a long week of training. I was also having some pain in my ankle, so I decided to cut my run short. I completed the run in 1:30:40, which is a 7:34 pace, so I was pretty happy with that. I have a hard time doing my long runs at a slower pace then my shorter runs, but I think it'll help my marathon pace, so I'm not too worried.

After my run, I was so tired, I just ate and watched tv on the couch for a while before deciding I should do a 10 minute core workout. I also went swimming after that because I really need to start getting some swimming in before my triathlon. It's crazy how swimming just 1000 yards seems so hard to me now. I think of how I used to swim 7000+ yards a practice back in college and I'm shocked at how so much can change in just a few years. I better start getting back in shape!

Besides all my working out today, my day wasn't too exciting. I did some baking for my brother and his friends to eat during the Blackhawks game. I made some awesome lemon bars and some blueberry cheesecake bars. The lemon bars took forever to make because I had to make the filling from scratch and then they had to cool for 3 hours in the fridge, but they were definitely worth it. The blueberry cheesecake bars were also pretty good, even though I'm not a huge fan of cheesecake. I think they needed more time to set because the middle was a little bit gooey, but they still tasted good. Here are some pictures:





I'm looking forward to tomorrow because it's my rest day and I'm going downtown to pick up my packet for the 10K I'm running on Sunday! I'm really looking forward to the race because I'm going to try to break 40 minutes for the first time and to win the race. We'll see what happens!