1200 in 2011

Saturday, March 26, 2011

Weeks 10&11 (Getting Ahead and Tapering)

I swear I've been trying to write this blog for close to a week, but time has seemed to get away from really quickly recently. Still, I'm here now, and I've got some recapping to do. If Week 9 was for catching up, then Week 10 was all about getting ahead. I knew that in preparation for my marathon (it's tomorrow, 27 March, by the way), that I would need to get some serious miles in. I was hoping to do a 20-mile run or so over the weekend, but I had to settle for 17 miles. Still, it was the farthest distance I've run since I ran the AF Marathon in Sep of 2008, so I was glad I got the distance in. It gave me some confidence that I would be able to actually finish the marathon (though I won't be setting any records while doing it). I also ran with a Camelbak during the race which I won't do during the marathon, but it helped keep me hydrated, and was probably the only reason I was able to do that distance. Overall, I logged more miles in Week 10 than I have in any previous week. The 17-miler helped, but I had 4 other runs that week that were greater than 7 miles, which I felt was adequate leading up to the two-week countdown for the marathon.

The Totals for Week 10 are:
Total Runs Logged: 6
Total Miles: 53.3
Total Time Spent Running: 6 hours, 57 minutes, 3 seconds
Average Pace: 7:49 (min/mile)

I'll do the "as of total" shortly

As for Week 11, I classified it as a tapering week, which if you don't know is when you start cutting back on your running leading up to a race. It is to ensure you aren't over-trained and injury-prone. The reduced running gives your legs, joints, and back a little rest and recovery time which helps lead to improved race-day performance. Truth be told, it was still a decent week of running, and I would have likely hit my 25-mile goal, but Friday after my run, I started feeling really sick, and didn't feel better until the following Monday. I will take that as a sign that my body did not want me to run, and so I didn't. Most of my runs were fairly short this week with the exception of a 9-miler on Wednesday morning. I definitely noticed a slower pace. I'm not sure if that was a result of my bug coming on, the weather, or if my body was just tired from the previous week. The slower pace probably helped, since I won't be going super fast through the marathon, and the slower pace was closer to my goal marathon pace (though that will probably be even slower than I had hoped).

The overall totals for Week 11:
Total Runs Logged: 6
Total Miles: 22.9
Total Time Spent Running: 2:56:44
Average Pace: 7:43 (min/mile)

At the end of Week 11 my new "As Of" totals are:
Total Runs Logged: 55
Total Miles: 341.1
Total Time Spent Running: 43 hours, 5 minutes, 50 seconds
Average Pace: 7:35 (min/mile)

Coming up very soon, I'll be talking about what I did today (26 March). I'll give you a hint if you haven't checked Facebook, it definitely wasn't resting, and probably not the smartest thing to do before a major race. That being said, it was EXTREME!!

Tomorrow's the marathon...I'll be blogging about that (and Week 12's running) very soon.

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