10 Weeks to Chicago..

10 weeks to Chicago...almost halfway through the 18 weeks of Hanson's training.

30 cents a mile

Running 6 days a week and cranking the miles....they mount up.  If I replace my shoes after 300 miles they are only lasting 6 weeks.  At $90 a pair that's  30 cents a mile....I can remember when a gallon of gasoline costs less than that. ;)

Here's an illustration of how crazy this year is...a table of my yearly mileage
including partial results for 2014:

Year by year summary:

Date	Runs	Miles	Pace	BPM	YPB
2008-01-01 Tue	61	357.4	10:24	118.2	1.463
2009-01-01 Thu	173	1269.3	10:46	122.0	1.470
2010-01-01 Fri	147	1117.1	10:06	122.6	1.473
2011-01-01 Sat	180	1129.0	10:11	124.0	1.436
2012-01-01 Sun	170	1163.3	9:48	125.8	1.454
2013-01-01 Tue	191	1414.4	9:36	124.8	1.492
2014-01-01 Wed	149	1186.2	9:48	119.0	1.534
Summary	1071	7636.8	10:03	122.9	1.477

In only another month or two I'll have run more miles than in any previous year. 

No injuries per se

I still seem to be dodging any show-stopper injuries.  The "inside of left knee" tendon soreness has been going away. I wrapped it and held the wrap on by pulling my calf sleeve up over it and that seemed to stabilize it enough to get ahead on recovery. For the last couple of runs I've stopped taping.

I found some huge trigger points in my left calf ....on the inside near the bone that the foam roller was not getting at. I suspect these muscles are near where the tendon terminates. So perhaps this why it happened?  

I got out the "stick" and have been working it...must pay attention!

New desk

Helping me survive these huge miles is my (new) electrically adjustable desk at work. I normally get up and walk around every 30 min or so and feel stiff when doing so, but now I can work for several hours a day in a standing position..which keeps my  legs and back from stiffening up.

I can't stand all day long though, so it's nice to be able to plunk down and sit in a decent chair for a bit too.  By the end of the day I feel like I've gotten ahead on my recovery a tad.

This week:

Date	Runs	Miles	Pace	BPM	YPB
2014-07-28 Mon	1	6.2	10:31	0.0	0.000
2014-07-29 Tue	1	8.1	9:44	121.6	1.519
2014-07-31 Thu	1	10.0	9:24	122.4	1.549
2014-08-01 Fri	1	6.2	10:29	0.0	0.000
2014-08-02 Sat	1	10.1	9:53	117.4	1.525
2014-08-03 Sun	1	10.3	9:21	121.1	1.555
Summary	6	50.9	9:48	120.5	1.538

This week was a touch easier than last week: 50 miles, not 55, because no long run. Next week we have a 15 miler and 2 weeks after that we start the 3 x 16 mile long runs before the race. 

The long and short of Hansons

The "short" long run seems to be the most controversial part of Hansons marathon training. I have to admit I plan to cheat a bit and stretch out the time to 3 hours, which at my Hanson's long run pace of 9:30m/m will  get me about 19 miles. 

But (shhh) I also plan some fast-finish miles @ MP, probably only 3 miles on the first long run and more like 8-10 on the last long run and that will get me up to 20+.  That will only be about 31% of my weekly miles (63 for that week), a bit higher than they recommend but not the typical 40% you get with a 20 miler in a 50 mile week. 

My only risk is injury or not hitting my strength run paces (MP - 10s/mile) on the following Tuesday. If I can't hit the numbers that will tell me it's too much and I will back off.

Kick butt!

I am determined to push myself harder than ever to hit this goal: I'm so close to the BQ limit after years of marathons....there are no easy improvements now.  I need another 2-3%  of fitness and this is the only way to get it.

Even though I am running on tired legs all the time there are still days were I feel full of energy (relatively speaking).  This Sunday for my 10 miler I felt pretty good and did 2 miles of MP running at the end.

I have learned that with tired legs I need about two miles to really warm up. Before that I have to force any faster paces..after about 20 minutes the legs are stretched out and the same pace becomes easy..it's quite amazing.

My weight is still consistently below 168..amazing...not sure why totally.  My morning HRs are totally normal therefore I don't think I'm into any overtraining.  Sleep is super essential. After a hard day I can sleep like a brick for 10 hours...paradoxically also not a sign of overtraining.

Goals

Goals are part of what makes running fun for me. Just running itself is plenty rewarding but the spice of having a goal to shoot for and see if you can make it happen is a challenge that I enjoy. 

The road marathon is such a bugger because achieving a specific time chosen in advance is fraught with so many things that can go wrong. Especially if the time you pick is known to be at the limit of what you can (or might) be able to do.

Besides picking a realistic goal (how do you do that?) and training to achieve it properly (ditto), everything has to go very close to perfectly on race day.  More times than not we don't seem to get it right... but hey, if it was easy it wouldn't be nearly as rewarding when it all magically happens.

Onward....gradually the effort levels  are ratcheting up...