Difficult run today (5.6 Miles), my right foot fell asleep after the first mile straight through until the last half! I finally had to stretch out my legs for a minute and then the foot was fine for the remainder of the run. My stomach was bothering me as well and I had some difficulty getting into a good rhythm, but the pain in my right knee from my last long run wasn’t a problem.
Despite these annoyances, the weather was great. In fact the weather has been incredible basically ALL summer long here in Pittsburgh, perfect temperatures for running (mid 60’s to 70’s) and usually nice cool breezes. The routes I’ve been doing along the rivers are very scenic and usually packed with people. This particular run passes by Red Fin Blues, a cool bar on Washington’s Landing (good place for a bite and beer), and you get close enough to downtown to see PNC Park, the Convention Center and the great Pittsburgh skyline.
Filed under: 2008 NYC Marathon Training | Tags: Cross Training, Heart Rate, Miles, New York Marathon
Today’s long run can be summed up in one word, ‘bonk’. My right knee started acting up an hour into the run and proceeded to nag me for the next hour until I called it quits. It was especially bad on the downhills. Again, my buddy Jeff hooked it up with a great route through the South Side & East End of Pittsburgh, but I ended up completing only 14 miles of 20. Not a great run, but the simple fact that I was up at 7 on a Sunday and pushed myself for 2 hours is a good sign.
I’ve been reading that for the long runs, you shouldn’t exceed 80% of the race day goal, which was definitely not the case on Sunday. I was out of the gate maintaining an 8 minute mile pace and then continued to push it with Jeff. In retrospect, here’s what went wrong last week; I missed a short run (3 miles, but important nonetheless), I took 3 days off before attempting the long run (never again!), I only did limited stretching (no yoga either) and partied a bit much on Friday night. Finally, I’m simply not keeping up with the core training. Lessons learned… Also, the battery went dead on my heart rate monitor so there was some lost data there (not a big deal though).
On a positive note, I ran almost 30 miles so the week wasn’t a total wash. Also, Wendy and I caught a sweet 13 mile bike ride on Saturday so I was able to get some cross training completed.
I had a chance to review the course for NYC’s Marathon and it gave me some ideas about how I should approach the training strategically. The Marathon starts on the Verrazano Bridge with about a 1 mile climb up 150 feet. Training in Pittsburgh definitely has it’s benefits in this sense as the hills are plentiful and typically higher and steeper than what Verrazano will throw at me. Also, there are some hills at the end of the race in Central Park, so I need to focus on crushing it for the last 2-4 miles of every long run. Really want to finish this race strong and recover quickly.
Filed under: 2008 NYC Marathon Training | Tags: Heart Rate, Miles, Pittsburgh
Finished up another week with a solid long run last Sunday, 18 milesalongside the rivers of Pittsburgh with my good friend Jeff Babich. I met up with Jeff right about mile 4 on the South Side and we completed the run together (he was only looking to do about 14). It was slow going at first, legs felt like jelly, but half-way through I got a second wind and was able to muscle through it. Thanks for mapping out the run and making it happen Jeff!
So I finished up with 37.5 miles for the week (a mile and a half over the goal of 36) and had a great 15 mile bike ride with my lovely lady friend Wendy that filled my cross-training quota for the week. I was also able to catch 3 baseball games at PNC Park in the New York Mets vs. Pittsburgh Pirates series. This is not a Mets baseball blog, so I won’t go off on too much of a tangent, but suffice to say the Met’s looked great in 3 of 4 games. Once again it was the wobbly bull pen that gave up a 2 run lead late in the fourth game on Monday and that led to the only loss, but after a 6 game winning streak, I can’t complain.
One of my new favorite aspects of PNC Park this year is the Water Taxi. For 6 bucks you get a round trip ticket from my apartment building right to the game. Here’s a pic of the inside with some fellow Mets fans…
For this week it’s 40 miles with a long run of 20 on Sunday. I feel as if I’m not being challenged enough though and may push it further. In the past I may have over-trained so I want to avoid that, but so far, I’ve run further than I had planned for 2 weeks in a row…
I’ve been tracking my heart rate with all of my runs and my recovery times have been improving. I’ll typically end my runs with a HR of 180 or so, and within 2 minutes it will drop about 40 bpm (beats per minute). When I started building a base back in March, the recovery would be roughly 20-25 bpm. In general I’m maintaining an average heart rate of about 170. Still researching what my target heart rate should be for race day, so more to come on this topic.
Filed under: 2008 NYC Marathon Training | Tags: Endurance, Fuel, Hydration, Miles, Pace, Pittsburgh, Yoga
Overall great week! Went a mile over the goal of 34 total miles and feeling pretty healthy. This week I’m looking at 36 miles, capping it off with a long run of 18 miles on Sunday. The New York Mets are coming to Pittsburgh on Friday, so I’ll be laying low (no travel) and should be able to have another productive week… Figure with all the beers and dogs I’ll be eating at the games, I should be good fuel-wise 
Last weeks long run was just under 17 miles (going roughly 9 minute pace). The conditions were incredible, beautiful sunny day, cool breeze whipping through, tons of people out on Pittsburgh’s rivers and I was able to manage my hydration perfectly. Actually saw a good buddy who I ran my first marathon with, Dr. Glenn Updike. Great guy, runs a fast 26.2 but apparently never stretches… Not me, I stretch like a mainiac. In fact I’ve been trying to do yoga once a week to keep the muscles even more flexible. There is a place called School House Yoga just down the street from my apartment that hooks it up.
The long run took me past the South Side Works where I was able to catch a pretty good concert the night before; American Eagle Outfitters and Anthony Kiedis pulled together Gnarls Barkley, Spoon, The Racoteurs & Bob Dylan. Missed Mr. Gnarls, but the rest of the show was decent.
An old college buddy and fellow endurance freak Chris Cahee, recently turned me onto athlinks.com which is a pretty cool site that digs up all of your past race results and provides access to tons of other athletes. There’s a really good search feature for local events as well, definitely worth a look.
Filed under: 2008 NYC Marathon Training | Tags: Cross Training, Miles, Pace
Ran 5.6 miles this morning at a pace just under 8 minutes. Labored through it, but good to get it out of the way before work…
I’ll be tracking my runs through an xls spreadsheet that I’ve published through google docs. For the rest of the week I’m looking at some cross training, the Brookline Breeze 5k on Saturday (8/09) and a 16 miler on Sunday (8/10). Target is 34 miles for the week…
Rock!
