The first month of the new year isn’t over yet and I’ve already revised my goals. New goal is to run 100 miles a month.
I’m off to a good start passing my 100th mile this month today on a nice 7 mile run and I still have 5 days to go.
I’ve been running pretty consistently for the last 6 months now, slowing ramping up the mileage.
I went from 36 miles total in September to about 100+ this month.
If I can keep up the 100+ miles a month for the rest of the year, it’ll make me happy.
I’ve never made new year resolutions before. I never saw the point, if you want to change yourself, why wait until the new year. I understand why people do it though, it gives them a point of reference that’s easier than picking some arbitrary date though I also believe that’s why most new year resolutions fail. If you really wanted to change, you probably would have done it already or started on that path. Waiting until the new year is just procrastinating.
Having said that, I do have some goals for the new year, all running related.
I’d like to run 600-1000 miles this year and I’d like to run a marathon.
Broke the double digit barrier today with a 10 mile run. The run felt great, but I felt awful about 30-45 minutes after the run. I think I need to start fueling on my long runs. I was feeling light headed and nauseated after my run until I ate something. Then I felt fine again.
My long runs have been feeling great, after about 5-6 miles, it feels like I’m on autopilot.
My legs feel good, I run slow enough to keep my heart rate down and I finish my runs feeling good except for the light headed thing but I think that’s just because I’m low on blood sugar.
Ran my longest run to date today. 8.33 miles to be exact.
Ran a route that had a steep climb in the first couple of miles as well and that was pretty taxing.
I got stopped at a bunch of lights so that helped me rest up a little bit.
I’m hoping that I’ll be posting quite a few more of these longest runs posts in the next 2 months as we come up to the half marathon I’m planning on running.
My iliotibial band issues have completely disappeared. I think the combination of stretching and not pushing myself so quickly has helped.
I’ve been running quite a bit and doing mainly slow long runs.
I’m working up to a decent base now and I’m going to start increasing my runs to 4x a week.
I’m also going to start pushing myself on some runs to build up some speed. I’ve been naturally getting faster just from the increased mileage but I think some faster short runs won’t hurt.
It’s also amazing how much easier running has become.
If you told me two months ago, I would be doing 5 mile easy runs during the week, I wouldn’t have believed it.
What was hard for me was breaking through the 3 mile psychological barrier I had in my head. I always had this idea in my head that 3 miles were long runs, but you go past them enough and 3 mile runs become easy runs.
I have a long run schedule this weekend, it’ll be my longest run ever. I’m aiming for at least 7 or 8 if I’m feeling good. My longest run to date has been 6.25 miles so this would be a milestone. Then it’ll be on to double digit runs next which would be a big milestone.
The runs have been going well. I haven’t had any ITB issues since I’ve started stretching before every run. I did 5 miles on Saturday at a S L O W pace and it felt great. Nice and easy run and I could have definitely gone further at that pace.
I think the slow running works well for me right now until I build up some decent mileage, then I’ll work on my speed.
I signed up for a half marathon that’s happening on Feb. 3rd, Super Bowl Sunday.
Now I really have to train.
Did the Nike 5 mile run about a month ago and it was pretty fun, I’ve been dealing with ITB issues but I think I have that taken care of.
Now, it’s just a matter of doing the runs and not over training. I have a 3x a week plan that I’m going to follow.
Progress reports to follow..
My calf cramped last night while I was sleeping and it woke me up.
It’s been feeling tight all day, so I finally did some research and these are notes to myself so I can look them up later.
What has helped so far.
Massaging the calf muscle hard, it’s painful but it has worked really well.
There are two muscles in the calf, the gastrocneimus (“gastroc” for short) and the soleus.
The normal flat foot, bent ankle, leg straight back and leaning forward stretch stretches the gastroc.
To stretch the soleus, it’s the same stretch but with a bent knee.
The soleus stretch has also helped a lot.
Summarized from this article.
http://www.ezpromotes.com/running-calf-cramps/running-calf-cramps-article4.html
I was going to do 5 miles today but I’m going to take the day off and let my calf relax.
I’ve been trying to go to the gym but work gets in the way a lot of times.
That being said, I managed to go twice this week already, I’m slow but just being there counts for something right?
I weighed myself before my run tonight and then weighed myself after.
I lost 2lbs! from my run, must have been all that water I drank all day. Amazing..
