Lisa: Training, Weeks 9-12

I have not given up on the marathon training, or on blogging--I promise. But it has been a bit of a bumpy road.

4/11/06
Sarah and I ran four miles at Sugarhouse Park.

4/12/06
Sarah and I were supposed to run 7 miles along Highland Drive, starting at my house, but she fell asleep downstairs in the cave bedroom, I fell asleep on the upstairs couch, and Blake fell asleep on the downstairs couch. There was no functional, alarm-regulated sleep to be had by anyone. Ugh. Once we woke up, we ran as far as we could along Highland while still getting to work on time. It ended up being about five and a half miles.

4/14/06
We may or may not have run four miles at Sugarhouse Park on Friday. Neither Sarah nor I has any recollection of this, but it is on the schedule and I choose to believe that we went.

4/15/06
On Saturday morning, Sarah and I ran from the church on Holladay Boulevard to the end of the marathon route, which makes fourteen miles. Running on Saturday morning instead of Sunday night was good, but I think we both felt pretty crappy by the end. The crappiness was compounded by the fact that we figured out several days later that we should have checked the calendar, because instead of going 12, 13, and then 14 miles, we were supposed to have done 12, 14, and then 16. DOUBLE UGH.
For our carb-rich treat, we had Jamba Juices and bagel sandwiches from Einsteins. Delicious, but I felt a bit sick afterward.

4/20/06
We ran five miles at Sugarhouse Park, which is three and a half times around. We haven't figured out a better five-mile route to run regularly, so for now we are just walking across the center of the park back to the car once we finish the last half-lap.

For the rest of week 10, we decided to take a break. We were both busy, but more importantly I think we were feeling pretty burned out and discouraged. We were hoping that if we took a few runs off, we would return for week 11 rested, rejuvenated, and recommitted.

4/25/06
On our first day back on schedule, Sarah and I ran our five miles at Sugarhouse Park.

4/27/06
On Thursday night, we ran eight miles along the marathon route, starting at the beginning and finishing up at La Puente. I felt great! At the beginning, the running felt natural and easy, and I felt like I was really able to push the pace for the first time in a while. It was a great confidence builder to have a good longish run again--I think this was one of my top two runs, along with the five-miler on March 10.
129 lbs, 27% body fat

4/28/06
Just like that run on March 10, we followed the great evening run with a short run the very next morning, which is a bad idea. We knew what we were getting into this time, but because of scheduling issues this was the best plan we could come up with. Anyway, we were supposed to go five miles at Sugarhouse, but since I felt like I had about five tiny, simultaneous sideaches and a broken knee, I only made it 2.8.

4/29/06
On Saturday morning Sarah and I ran sixteen miles (back on schedule!) from La Puente to 9th South and State Street. We decided in advance--before Thursday's run, actually--to incorporate some walking in a structured way. We walk two minutes after every two miles. This worked out great, because the two-mile chunks seemed really manageable, especially when compared to the entire run. We were still running by the time we got to the car! Unfortunately it took us about four hours to run the sixteen miles, which seems really slow. I felt that we were keeping a pretty good pace, though, so I'm not going to worry about it too much.
For our carb-rich treat we had fresh raspberry shakes from Shivers. Yum!

5/3/06
To start off week 12, I ran five miles at Sugarhouse, which took about an hour and five minutes. My hair was too unbelievably hideous to be photographically archived, so instead you get to see one of the beautiful trees that was in blossom along the loop.