Marathon Training: Week 7

Alright, another week down and another week to blog. Thanks so much for the feedback on the blog last week, I am so happy to hear about so many readers.

I got a question last week about the Saturday morning running group. I am a member of a group called USA Fit Team Spirit (no joke), and there are probably about 30 of us who run every Saturday morning at 7 am. You can learn more about this group here: http://www.usafitteamspirit.com/. I have also seen an even larger (and cheaper) running group in Atlanta called the Chattahoochee Road Runners http://www.crrclub.com/gtd.html. These groups are a great way to get a good Saturday run in. Otherwise, I am not sure if I could do it.

On to this week. As you all know, I have been battling shin pain for the last few weeks. This week I have made a few changes to combat this issue.

1. I am moving (at least temporarily) my Tuesday run to Monday. This way I don't have to run 3 days in a row.
2. I have made an effort to shorten my stride and make sure I am landing on the front of my feet rather than my heel.

I did the 3 miles on Monday night which was fine. Leslie and I had plans for the rest of the week so getting my runs in was going to be tough. I got up early Wednesday, and ran 6 miles with the shorter stride. Combined with the rest day on Tuesday, I was really encouraged about how good I felt. But, I felt like I ran a little slow.

After having some friends over late, there was no way I was getting up early Thursday morning to run. To make things even more difficult, Leslie and I went to Medieval Times with our friends Chris and Kristin Heiden. I can't say too much for the food there, and I knew that in order to really enjoy the experince, I was going to have to include some beer. But I still needed to run my 3 miles that night. If you have been reading the last two weeks you will notice I haven't been too good about finishing the Thursday run. As much as I didn't want to do the post-beer run, I don't want this to turn into a habit, so I took off a little bit tipsy. No records were set, but I was back on my training schedule of making all my runs.

Now my only concern was the 12 miler on Saturday. Saturday's are generally pretty good to me so I wasn't too concerned about my shins, but would I have the cardio strength to finish 12 miles? My longest run up to now has been 10 miles, so there were a lot of question marks. This week the group took off from the Carter Center and ran through downtown Atlanta, it is a hilly course with some interesting people watching along the way.

I was really pleased with the run, the first 8 miles went great. Mile 8 was a little tough but I powered through. I got some sort of second wind at mile 9 or 10. I was running so well that I dropped our group coach right before the last water stop. I was a little concerned at this point that I was running out of energy to burn, so I drank 2 extra cups of Powerade. Huge mistake. I felt like a swollen up leech trying to finish the run. I also got a stitch right behind my rib cage. I did suffer through the final 2 miles, but it wasn't fun. After about a mile and a half I got my stride back and was able to finish the last half mile pretty good. I did it, 12 miles!

Now I need to take what I learned an apply it to next week's training. I have 13 miles next Saturday, but I wont have the luxury of running with the group. Leslie and I will be visiting family in North Carolina. I expect this to make it a little bit tougher, so wish me luck.

Thanks again for the read!