I just completed my second consecutive 40-mile week (I start my week on a Sunday and I rest on Saturday’s so today was my last running day for the week) and my knee has not bothered me at all for the entire 2 weeks.

Every mile I’ve run, I have been waiting for my knee pain to show up, but it never did…..it must be a miracle!

I was dragging a bit on today’s run as the volume is starting to catch up to me.  I think I’m right at the brink of what I can currently handle.  Luckily next week will be an easy week with just 30 miles. Who would have thought I would ever say a 30-mile week is an easy week .  I plan to run one less day and cut back on the last day that I do run as I do a mini-taper before my 5K on April 1st.

My goal was to run at least one 40-mile for March and I managed to do 2.  I also did it without any knee pain.  I’m starting to feel good as I approach the start of my marathon training plan.  I’d like to pull off one 45-mile week in early April and get a good rest week just fore I star my marathon training on April 22.

Posted by derek as Training, Injury at 7:46 AM PDT

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Today’s long run was another 12-mile run.  For the first time, I did it under 2 hours….just barely.  I took 1:59 for an average pace of 9:55 min/mile.  It feels great to to be seeing this kind of progress.  On my previous runs, I would be dragging in the last 2 miles, usually running them in the 11-12 min/mile range.  Today I was able to keep a mostly consistent pace.

My knee is still holding up.  I felt a very slight soreness, but it was less sore than other parts of my body during the run so I’m not worried about it.  I think I’m just paying much more attention to my knee because of my past problems.

I’m looking forward to another great running week this week!

Posted by derek as Training at 10:09 AM PDT

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This week has got to the best best week I’ve ever had when it comes to running. Everything just came together and it feels great.

I love milestones, and as a newbie, it’s easy to hit those milestones. This week I hit the following milestones:

• Ran my first 40-mile week

• Crossed 300 miles for the year

• Did my first speed workout

The above milestones each contributed to this being the Perfect Running Week, but here some other things that contributed too:

• I had absolutely no knee pain for the entire 40 miles. I kept waiting for it to come back, but it never did.

• I wasn’t tired on my last run today. In the past, I would be dragging by the end of week.

• Today’s 7-mile run felt better that other 7-miles runs I did on the other days of the week. I can truly procliam I ran an “easy-7” today!

• I switched my running back to the morning, getting up at 5:30am and it really is a much better way to start the day off knowing I ran 7 miles.

• The weather has been what I consider perfect running weather….in the 50’s

My plan is to run the same 40-miles next, doing a 12-mile long run and four 7-mile days. Wouldn’t it be great if I can string together a bunch of consecutive Perfect Running Weeks! That would be the ideal way to transition into my official marathon trainign at the end of April.

Posted by derek as Training at 7:01 AM PDT

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Today was my first speed workout.  My intention was to do a 6-7 mile lactate threshold run.  For this, I would run 2 miles at a slow pace (10:00 min/mile) and then run 3 miles at lactate threshold pace.  I don’t know what that is for me, so I decided to use 9:00 min/mile.  This would then be followed by a 1-2 mile recovery.

It started well, but once I started the fatser pace, it was tough.  I was only able to hold it for about 0.75 miles.

I then decided to switch to strideouts.  Based on Pfitzinger’s plans, these Aerobic + Speed workouts are easy runs with 10×100m strides with a 100-200m rest between.  Since I wasn’t on a track, I decided to use my GPS to meausre the distance and so I used 0.1 miles (160m) as my strideout distance and then I walked for 160m for rest.  I did 12 repetitions and I enjoyed them a lot!

What I enjoyed was I got to run fast.  I got up to 6:30 min/mile pace on my strides and then the rest allowed me to recover before the next one.

I’m going to see how I feel by Thursday, but if I’m recovered, then I think I’m going to do 2 speed workouts a week and I’ll stick to these strideouts for the next several weeks.

Posted by derek as Training at 8:32 AM PDT

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Every run I’ve done for the year up until now has involved some level of pain in my right knee.  Recently it has been very mild and would tend to only show up after 3-4 miles and go away a couple miles later.  Nothing serious and nothing that caused my to abandon any runs.

For the first time today, I did a run, and a long 12-mile run at that, without any knee pain nor discomfort at all.  It was great!  I think my week off with no running has certainly helped.  I can’t wait to see how long this will last.

Now my left foot is a different story .  At about mile 8, it started to feel as though my laces were too tight.  I ended up loosening them 3-4 times through the end of my run.  My foot also started to feel as though it was going to cramp.  I was able to finish my long run anyway.  I was sure my foot was swollen, but when I got home and took off my shoe, it looked fine.

This was only my 3rd 12-mile long run and I was able to do it a bit faster than my previous runs, taking 2 hrs 2 mins. Just a bit slower than a 10 min/mile pace.

Posted by derek as Training at 6:07 PM PDT

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