Mileage--Increasing, Adjusting, and Another Looking From a Different Angle

Life lately has been mostly:

1.  Parenting

2.  Running

3.  Enjoying my kids

4.  Running

5.  Spending quality time with my husband

6.  Running

7.  Talking with God--many times while running

8.  Attempting to connect with girlfriends and family as much as possible

9.  Running, e-mailing about running, dreaming about running, loving running, and reaching new milestones with running. 

10.  Fueling my body with lots and lots of carbs and good food!  Quinoa, brown rice, Ezekiel bread, eggs, cottage cheese, peanut butter, bananas, oats...these are just some of my staples these days.  I also eat my fair share of chocolate, pizza and other goodies.  

Mileage

I've never been so good at recording my mileage in any cohesive log.  Most of my years of logging my mileage have been through scribbles in a notebook or in my book margins.  And if I try to go back now and see what I did, I understand very little of my chicken scratch.  Most of the time I can at least make out what my weekly mileage totals were but even then, it is a guessing game.  This time, I've been a bit better at recording my mileage somewhere whether it be online, via e-mail with virtual training partners, or in my running journal.  

My mileage has consistently been increasing and my workouts have (very gradually) been getting harder.  And I'm feeling pretty good.  I have to say that as my body adjusts to the added mileage, I have been feeling little aches and pains here and there but it is just my body's way of taking it all in and keeping me from getting ahead of myself.  I've been very good at listening to my body and pulling back when I need to.  Even if it means skipping a workout or taking an unplanned day off.  I felt some pain in my feet last Sunday but after taking a day off on Monday and keeping it easy on Tuesday, they felt loads better. 

This is a sample of my training from last week and this week so far.  I wrote this down today so that I could take a look at my mileage from a new angle.  It probably makes your head spin but it works for me and that's what matters!  :) 

This is how I typically record my mileage...chicken scratch right on my plan in the book! Certainly not as rewarding to go back to look at.

Here's one of my favorite staples.  We found this stuff at Costco and it so great!  Cook it with some chicken broth or vegetable broth and you are good to go!  I'm eating it right now as I type and it is good without anything else.  It is also yummy with chicken, black beans and even over spinach.  

A New Angle
A friend mentioned her weekly mileage from last Wednesday to today and it got me wondering what my mileage would look like if I also counted from last Wednesday to today instead of just counted from my typical Saturday to Friday count up.  I was expecting maybe something like 65 or 67.  Nope, since last Wednesday I've run 85 miles!  This is huge for me.  A first for sure.  The fact that I'm feeling so strong right now after 85 miles in a week makes me so happy. But also cautious.  The rest of this week will be easy miles for sure.  Especially since I have a 10k I'm racing on Sunday.  I'm mostly racing it for fun and so that I can get another good gage of where I'm at.  It is easier for me to race all out for a baseline rather than trying it on my own.  I'm still hoping for a pretty high mileage week even though I'm racing but I'm loading this week up on the front so that I can take Saturday off and keep Friday light.  


Note:  This 85 miles is only a window of my training from Wednesday to Today. The 85 was due to the fact that I ended up heavy on the end of the week last week and I'm loading up the front end of the week this week. I don't consider this my highest weekly mileage since it isn't a typical training week.  For example, my typical/normal training week starts on a Saturday and goes to Friday.  It starts with my long run as day one.  My highest weekly mileage if considering a typical Saturday to Friday counting since I started base training would be 66 miles.  I guess the 85 miles was still run in a week so really I could count that.  ??  I don't know.  It doesn't really matter I guess but I typically don't run 85 miles in a week.  My goal is to keep it around 65-70 miles for now.  


Thankful for:

• Having my husband home all week
• A happy and healthy family
• Girlfriends--the ones that I see often, the ones I've never met but love dearly, my running partners, and the far-away friends that are always there even if we don't see each other often.
• A wonderful Christmas
• My husband's heel pain is starting to get a little better and he is SLOWLY starting to run again...I miss having him to run with
• My treadmill...this is a HUGE blessing!!  I've already used it so much.
• Feeling so strong
• Virtual running inspiration
• Boston in 4 months!!  
• Reminders to savor the moments I have with my kids.  God always seems to knock me on the head when I get too one-track-minded with my running.  He works on my heart daily "Hello Amanda!  There is more to life that running!!  Your children need you to be present and active.  What other areas of your life need attention??"  He's always pretty gentle with me but I'm thankful for these reminders.  I can easily get lost in this training stuff.  But then again, if you're going to do something seriously and really give your all and be your best, it is going to take a bit of focus...lots of focus.  And that's okay.  Not everyone is going to understand but as long as I'm balancing the most important things, some other things might just have to go to the wayside.  The people worth keeping around will accept this.  This is important to me.  
• My sister-in-law and 8 month old nephew will be staying with us for 2 weeks!  I'm so excited.  This will be my first time meeting my nephew.  And my sister-in-law is from Thailand and we all end up learning thai and eating some really really delicious thai food that she insists (and I don't argue) on cooking daily.  
• Water and soap to clean this sweaty gross running girl up!  Right now.  

Happy Tuesday!  As always, I love hearing from you even if I've been so lousy at responding and commenting lately.  

1.  Any fun race or training news to share??

2.  What are you most thankful for this week??

And

3.  I'd love to hear some funny parenting stories.  Anything crazy happen in your world lately?  Funny?  2 year old boy moments? (I could fill a book with 2 year old boy stories).

Amanda