Tag Archives: Marathon training

September 19, 2014 · 8:11 am

Hamptons Marathon Training – Week 18

Sunday 9/14

4 mi @ ~9/mi

A nice shake out run after yesterday. It’s amazing how good you feel the day after when your weekend long run is 12 miles 🙂

Monday 9/15

rest

Tuesday 9/16

3 mi @ 8:22/mi — a great feeling evening run 🙂 Taper = love.

Wednesday 9/17

Rest

Thursday 9/18

4 mi @ 8:08/mi
Dr. Trot made an embarrassing, bad, rookie mistake tonight 😦 The noises echoing inside of her head as she started off on her little, easy, 4 mi, 5th-to-last training run sounded something like this…

“Man, the legs feel fresh tonight! Yes, yes they do, what a great feeling! And it’s so nice and cool out! Yeah, this is the best running weather ever! Feeling great and perfect weather is a rare combo to come by, but you can run so fast when it happens! I wonder how quickly I could do this little 4 mile run. I know that I’m not supposed to run hard these last few weeks, I really don’t want to injure myself for the marathon. But come on, I’ve been doing this for so long…and it’s just 4 miles…and it’s such a nice night…and I SO feel like running fast…

And so we were off…running <8 min miles like an idiot for the first two miles. And then, upon slowing at the turn around point — BAMB!!

All of a sudden there was this strange, stabby pain at the inside-top of my left knee. DAMN IT!!

The conversation in my head continued again at this point, but very little to zero of that content is approprate for this family-friendly blog so I will leave it up to you to fill in the blanks.

It wasn’t so bad that I couldn’t run, but it wasn’t normal. And that in itself is bad just over one week before a marathon. Anyway, I turned around, and hobbled home at a much more reasonable pace, taking little stretch + curse-myself-out breaks along the way.

Lesson learned.

Friday 9/19

rest

The knee is still sore. Dr. Trot is an idiot.

Also, PhD defense day for my buddy Dr. First! Congrats!

Congats Dr. First!

Saturday 9/20

8 mi @ 9:40 /mi (with Dr. T2)

It was a pefect, cool, beautiful morning for a run with my newest running buddy. Unfortuntely, I woke up feeling like I’d been eating sand paper all night and like the temperature was fluxtuatingn +/- 5F every 10 min or so. Great, just great. First, I go and run too hard a week before the marathon like a big rookie idiot and eff up the knee that I kind of need for the race, and then I come down with a cold/virus two days later!!!

P.S. By “great” I mean VERY NOT COOL!! 😦

Now, I wasn’t feeling bed-bound horrible so it was out the door for our 8 mi at 8 am in the beautiful fall day. I had high hopes that the workout and the elevated body temperature would actually help me head off whatever this is. (Not totally unreasonable…right…?) The good news is that the knee feels essentially back to normal. Yay! Thank god! The bad news however, is that I felt no better after the run and proceeded to deteriorate through out the day 😦

Something has been going around at work and with my friends — a pesky little two day bug that makes you eat sand paper and enjoy irradic environmental conditions. Hopefully this little pest is all that I’m dealing with here too! Either way, operation “GET BETTER NOW” has been initiated — lots of RnR, water, citrus, soup and hot tea with brandy, lemon and honey. And finger crossing.

Total: 19 miles

So. Yeah. A bad week.^2

1. Dumbass Thursday.

2. Sickward Saturday.

That being said, lets focus on the positive for now. 🙂 Which is: I’m SUPER excited about next weekend 🙂

The first out of town team member gets into town on Wed. night, which means I have effectively a 3 day week! (Don’t tell my boss 😉 We will leave for Long Island on Friday morning/afternoon to try and make it out to the Hamptons at a reasonable time and meet up with the rest of the team. Hopefully Friday night won’t be too much of a scramble to get everything pulled together for Saturday morning. I’m actually quite interested to see how I’ll feel about this Saturday (vs. Sunday) marathon business.

Then yeah, the run is first thing on Saturday morning and then the recovery party is planned for Saturday afternoon – Sunday! 🙂 We’ll all depart Sunday afternoon, but (like the good post-doc that I am) I’ll be playing hookey on Mon and Tues, going on a post-run, 2-day, Long Island adventure with teammate M before heading back to reality. 🙂

So, I have one week to not make any more bonehead decisions and to kick this sandpaper throat.

Hamptons Marathon Training – Week 17

Sunday 9/7

6 mi @ 9:45ish
Another great early morning run with Dr. T2. In SUCH different weather though! Not that I’m complaining (no, no, not at all) but sooo much cooler and practically no humidity!! Where were you yesterday?!?! Also, it’s incredible what a difference it makes to have a buddy waiting for you to get your ass up and out the door on tired legs. I can only imagine how infinitely many more times I would have hit the snooze button if I had to get out and get the miles in alone. Thanks for making this morning happen Dr. T2!

Monday 9/8

Yummy!

Much needed (and deserved…IMHO 😉 rest
+ equally important kitty cat cookie baking…

Tuesday 9/9

4.75 mi @ 8:50/mi
It’s crazy how good a <5mi run in low humidity feels 🙂 I’ll take it! Any day.

Wednesday 9/10

rest…see above 🙂
+ working late at home to the dismay of Princess Pheona…

Thursday 9/11

6 mi @ 8:49/mi
Again, such a “short” run in cool temps and dry air felt fantastic! Just call me Dr. Broken Record…

Friday 9/12

rest

Saturday 9/13

12 mi @ ~9:45ish/mi
Just to be consistent with the broken record theme…this was another fantastic cool, early morning, team-effort, stimulating-conversation-filled run with Dr. T2. It was a perfect way to start the weekend and taper!!

As I mentioned last week, you best stay tuned for the many great things to come during the adventures of Dr.T^2. I am going to ~~uncharacteristically~~ stick to my word by sharing Wait But Why with you just one short week later. By the back-end of our run Dr. T2 and I had managed to blabber ourselves into a political conversation, dissecting what’s going on in the world right now (yes, we already know that we are super cool…but thanks for the reminder:) and Dr. T2 off-handedly mentioned “this great blog…but not a blog that I like to read…they post one really well researched/written article every Tuesday-ish on a wide variety of different topics…you should read the one from this week, it was on ISIS!!” From Muhammad to ISIS: Iraq’s Full Story is the story, and it is really good! Well research and objectively written, it really helped clarify my hazy understanding of what’s going on and why in the Middle East right now. In the (not-unlikely) case that you have a better understanding of these topics than the lives-under-a-chemical-engineering-rock-sometimes-Dr.T, check out some of the other articles that are included in the archives or the shed. Like I said, the articles are well written and the topics are super broad — there is sure to be something there for you ~~to kill time reading at work~~ 🙂 You’re welcome!

Total: 28.75 miles

~~As usual~~ I have very little to report ~~that you will find even remotely interesting.~~ Running felt good all week thanks to the weather and Dr. T2! As The Hampton’s Marathon gets closer I’m getting more and more excited for the race and our little runner’s club weekend reunion! I’m just keeping the fingers crossed that this continues for the next two short weeks!! 🙂

Hamptons Marathon Training – Week 15

Sunday 8/24

rest

So, as it turns out, last week’s move + yesterday’s ~18 miles takes a lot out of a person! I totally felt like I’d been hit by a truck today so no run for Dr. Trot today. Never mind that I’m not super stoked about the cold post-run shower that’d I’d get to enjoy…

Monday 8/25

rest

Yay! We got power and gas today! To celebrate these new-found luxaries, the run got skipped for unpacking and furniture moving alternatives. There were some key finds that will make the next few days go much more smoothly…

Unpacking treasures!

Tuesday 8/26

9.3 mi @ 9:14/mi

SOOOO….someone has been on very bad behavior over the last few days…

Beetle Shaming.

This someone began making the most horrific of growling noises shortly before we moved (great timing of course) — as if she was having an identity crisis and putting forth her very best efforts to masquerade as a Mac truck in San Francisco. She was doing such a good job that today we finally had to make a trip to the Union Line Garage today for a consult.

(P.S. These guys are AWESOME. They will give you a ride to/from work, pick up the car from work if that’s easier for you, give you a courtesey vehicle, etc… I suggested that they give massive, unjustified discounts to poor post-doc customers, but for some reason they weren’t super receptive to this idea. Strange, eh? This is honestly my one and only complatint though. They are seriously fantastic!)

Anyway, as it turns out, this (aforementioned) poor postdoc will be shelling out (a hell of a lot more than) a pretty penny for 1) a box of new precious metals and 2) a pair of new tail feathers in order to transform this tempermental beast back into the sweet purring Beetle that she’s supposed to be. (And to keep from single-handedly poluting the sweet NJ air at a rate comparable to the city of Newark, but never mind…)

Damn it.

Now as bad/frustrating/expensive/inconvenient as this ~~little~~ Beetle sized predicament is going to be, it all became SO MUCH WORSE when I got out of the car (dropped off back at work by a gentleman from the ULG…of course) and realized that I had left my cell phone (GPS on, eating up my data package at 100 mb/hr :-() hooked onto the dashboard of The Beetle at the garage!

DAMN IT!!

SOOOOO, today’s run was after work and it also doubled as a cell phone + courtesey vehicle retrival mission. Aside from being WAY pissed off about the whole situation, it was actually a rather nice run through country roads and rolling hills. One that I’ll have to keep in mind for future out-n-backs that need to be a bit longer and for when I get (even more) sick of runnign the same loops through town (and am 99.9% less fired up about shitty life issues.)

Wednesday 8/27

rest…

…and driving around in this beast of a NJ-soccer-mom-wannabe-Exxon-stockholder-wagon…

The Beetle replacement! Close, right?

Thursday 8/28

5 mi @ who knows…per the more pressing issue of the week…

Today started out damn expensive for The Beetle mama. (See above.) As I pulled up to the ULG this morning the little parasite was waiting, good as ~~new~~ you can be for a 13 yr old Beetle. When I went in to sell my extra kidney pay the bill the other patrons waiting in the office had front row seats to the following theatrical performance…

ULG: So, she’s all ready to go!

Dr. T: grumble grumble grumble

ULG: We gave her a complementary wash and wax, inflated her tires and included a complementary 36 month warantee + roadside assistance package — just call this phone number if you ever have any trouble and we’ll take care of them for you. Oh, and we left some breath mints in the car.

Dr. T: Thank you and thank you and wow, that’s actually quite nice, and excuse me?!?!

ULG: hehehe

Dr. T: Actually, did you vaccume her too? She could really use a good vaccuming, if you didn’t notice…

ULG: Honey. It’s vaccuming that thing is going to take at least another few $xxxx repairs!

Dr. T: 😮

ULG: And your antenna is broken.

Dr. T: 😮 😮

ULG: Have a great day!!

Friday 8/29

8.5 mi @ 9:30ish/mi

A warm afternoon run that, all things considered, felt pretty good.

Saturday 8/30

rest

Total: 22.8 miles

Not great. Nope, not at all. It’s been a rough week though. From more ends than I care to think about. So, better luck next week Dr. Trot, better luck next week.