December, done!

Well, I think tomorrow will be a rest day, so I'm now all done with 2014 running!  

At the beginning of this year, I would not have predicted I would have had such a great year of growth.  I made plans, I stuck to plans, I achieved more than I hoped I would. Before I get to 2014 stuff, here is the quick recap of December. 

Goals for the month included a) resume/maintain base mileage of around 40 miles per week b) more hills c) more speed.  I think I've done a great job on 2 of the 3 (weekly base and hills) and a decent job with speed work, thanks to starting up indoor track work at the Reggie Lewis track.

My focus has been more on weekly elevation totals, thanks to two new regular runs.  The first is a weekly session of hill repeats near my house.  Second, I've been out in the blue hills every weekend this month for either trail running, or using that area as a long destination run.

Here are the weekly elevation results from Strava showing the effort of the last 4 weeks.


I really love the long run out through Milton, which you can see below.








The first 5 miles are a slow and steady climb (plenty of rolling hills on the way) up to the State Police Barrack trail head, which follows a steep hill with a mile and half of trail running before I hit the summit road for the actual Blue Hill.  From there, it's about a 8/10 of a mile on a sharp incline, reaching the summit at 620 feet.  The rest of the run is straight downhill and then I do my best to maintain a pace close to 7:30 for the final (very flat) 5 miles of the run.  My plan would be to treat this run like Steve Way's Purbeck run, and create extensions (or double summit road climbs) on the flats where I'll do either a steady run or maybe some interval work.   Conditions permitting, I also hope to head out to the Blue Hills once every 2 or 3 weeks for training that consists solely of trail running.

December Miles: 170
Elevation: 7,200 ft (Note: Strava says 6,800, but they always screw me, especially on my PJP tempo run)

Rest Days: 7
Pace: 8:08

The 170 miles was as planned, and up considerably from the 120 mile average that I put in between Boston and the Philly training. 

When looking at the trailing 12 months, I'm up to 1,841 miles.  So now I'm starting to comp months that where fairly high mileage, so the month-over-month increases are back down under 10% for the last two months.

So, thanks to healthy legs and fantastic weather, I've been able to still get out and put my work in.  Here are some of my favorite runs from the month:

• (FHR) Ponkapaug to Blue Hill summit
• (FHR) Progression w/ 3 miles at 7:30 pace, 3 miles at 7 min pace, 3 miles at 6:30 pace. 
• Solo 2x3 miles tempo run in PJP
• Solo Xmas day run including my now regular 8xEllison hill reps
• Solo Blue Hill destination long run

And that doesn't even include any of the track workouts (indoor track workouts don't really register with a GPS watch though.)

So, I'm excited and pleased that everything went nearly exactly as I drew it up coming out of the Philly marathon.  My only regret is that a) I did not keep up with my core this month and b) my eating discipline over the last few weeks has been terrible.  The first few weeks of the month I was holding my weight down under 174, but the last two weeks it has been back up to 179...and this week in Wisconsin is doing me no favors!

January will be a get-back-to-real-work month for me, especially considering the 2015 goals I have outlined for myself...

November, done.

2014 miles:1,671
Trailing 365-day miles: 1,779

(Click either graph to enlarge)

The two 16 week training periods (Boston & Philly) are color coded to correspond with one another.

Notes: 1) Aug 13-Oct 13, I injured my hamstring and was spending some time at the gym on the elliptical. 2) after the Brooklyn 1/2 in late May, I began doing speed work, and I had to manage myself through greater soreness over the summer months as my body adjusted, which meant replacing many easy runs with gym work.

I'm always keeping an eye on how many miles I've run over the trailing 12 months.  My gut (and I think I've read this somewhere, but I can't specifically remember) tells me that monthly increases in the 5%-10% range are healthy, and anything higher than 10% might be pushing too hard.  So, I graphed it. 

Mile increases have been comfortable and steady.  Jul-Sep shows growth that is certainly pushing my above the 10% tolerance, but then when I look above at the limited miles I was running in Q3 2013, I'm not very surprised that the % growth for the trailing 12 is a bit higher than I would like.  I have been able to navigate those waters fine, so far, but I've already begun charting this for the Spring training cycle and because I'll be comping decent sized months during the Boston training, the growth should be very close/under the manageable 5% threshold.

Next update from me likely won't come until the end of December.  The plan for the next few weeks is to maintain a base of just 30-40 miles per week, but since I won't really be doing intense long runs on the weekend, I'll look to add a speed day early in the week, as well as participate in additional FHR runs: Tempo Tuesday, Hill/Speed Thursdays, and some medium runs at sub-8 min pace on the weekend.  I would also like to get out for Blue Hill repeats and hopefully some trail running on 1 or 2 occasions this month, conditions permitting.  Basically, less miles per week, but more speed and hill work, and mixing it up a bit with trails, more hills, and possibly some elliptical sessions as well.

October, done.

I snuck in one last run in October, giving me 214 miles for the month.

(click to enlarge)

Life since buying a Garmin watch.  Boston and Philly training periods are color-coded

As I'm feeling proud of the above graph, and for crossing the 200 mile-in-a-month mark, now seems like a nice time to recap a bit...at the beginning of 2013 I weighed myself at 218 lbs; I wasn't leading an active lifestyle;  I was 7 years removed from my last marathon, and 10 years removed from my last sub 4-hour marathon.  I knew I needed to get out and run a bit more-I needed to lose weight and get down to under 200lbs, quick.  January and February I didn't even get out to run much, and I remember going for a 6 mile run in Phoenix in February that was sllloooow.  I didn't bother to time myself, but it was rough.

I kept running a few days a week through the next couple of months, and on the third Monday in April, I was at home watching the Boston Marathon on TV with my parents and two children when the bombings happened.  The next day I was able to connect, and have dinner with, an out-of-town friend who, safely, ran and finished the marathon before the blasts.  We wanted to talk about anything besides the bombings, but I did want to hear as much as possible about his race, so he showed me the graph of his mile-by-mile progress from his phone, which I though was incredibly slick.  He told me it was easy enough with his Garmin watch, it just exports to Excel through the Garmin site.  So, right there when he mentioned exporting data to Excel, I'm sold.  I bought my first Garmin watch  and on April 24th, 2013, I ran my first run with a running watch...a 3.5 mile run at 9:23 min/mile,  I remember thinking that it seemed like it should have been at least 5 miles...I developed a love/hate relationship with that watch.  That was a Wednesday, and I didn't run again for over a week, when I did the same 3.5 mile loop and made sure to run it under 9 min/mile.

I ran a 5 mile race in May 2013 at 8 min/miles, and was
(sort-of) proud of myself, so I signed up for a 1/2 marathon in the fall with a few friends.  While I had run 7 marathons previously, I had never run any other distance aside from the 7 mile Falmouth road race, and one 5k when I lived in CA.  Falmouth Road Race in August 2013 went well, and I ran the course in a (sort-of) respectable 7:20 min/mile.  At that point I decided I would commit to running the 2014 Boston Marathon under a charity number.  I committed to raising $4,000 for charity, and I promised myself I would train at a level that would allow me to run 3:45, or faster.  I raised over $11,000 for charity and ran the course in 3:32:28, for my second fastest marathon.

Over the last 20 or so months, I've dropped 42 lbs, from 218 down to 176, and I hope to run Philly under 175 lbs.  I ran a training marathon last month in 3:41, and my goal for the Philly marathon is to finish under 3:20, at a pace of 7:37 min/mile.  That would be over 12 min faster than Boston and almost 6 minutes faster than my marathon personal best, at the 2002 Pacific Shoreline marathon (at 23 years old.)

I'm training in ways I never have before.  Combining speed workouts with hills, tempo runs, and long runs targeting specific segments at marathon pace.  For the Boston marathon, I would just wander out my front door with my shoes and a watch, and come back after running however long I thought I needed to run.

I have a new routine now.  I employ dynamic stretching before a given warmup period.  I focus heavily on muscle recovery and a post run stretching and flexibility regimen.  I take ice bath and get massages.  I focus on nutrition and sleep.  I devour training information and pay attention to data coming to me from my heart rate monitor.  Every time I walk out of the house for a run, I have a specific, mile-by-mile plan for the run.  Sometimes it works out the way I planned, sometimes it doesn't   I'm also racing strategically: this marathon training period I've run a 200 mile relay race, 5ks, a mile race, a 30k race, a marathon as a progressive run finishing at marathon pace. 

I'm energized and excited, October was a great running month for me, everything went according to plan, and now it is November.  Race month.

Halfway to Philly

8 Weeks to Philly!!  < and the blog is back on track! :) >

Thought I would take this opportunity, as I'm resting prior to running not one, but TWO races tomorrow, to update the blog on the performance vs the plan.

Through 8 weeks of training for the 2014 Boston marathon, I had run 288 miles.
Through 8 weeks of the PLAN for the 2014 Philly marathon, I planned to run 290 miles.
Through 8 weeks of actual miles for the 2014 Philly marathon, I have run 314 miles.

So far this year, I have run 1,277 miles.

Here's what life looks like since getting my Garmin.  4 month Marathon prep months are color-coded.

(click to enlarge)

Here are some graphs tracking my progress towards the Philly marathon.









 A note about weight...at the start of 2013, before I started running again, I weighed 218 lbs.  At the start of 2014 I weighted 188.  As the above chart shows, I have plateaued recently at 178, but my hope is to run the Philly marathon as close to 170 as I can get.  Realistically, knowing how I lose weight, I will probably be close to 175 for Philly.  Of note, I was slightly over 180 at the running of the 2014 Boston marathon.