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

Interview With Myself

Thank you so much for all of your stories about favorite races!  I do plan on taking the time to sit down and reread each and every comment and get back to you in some way unless you have no link to e-mail or blog. This might take me a few days but I'll get there. It was so energizing to read all of your stories.  


I'm feeling really great with my base building.  Most of my miles have been in the range of 7:45to 8:45ish so I've been keeping them easy and just focusing on building up some mileage before I start with an official Boston plan.  I've had plenty of miles to reflect on my plan, mileage and staying injury free.  Several of you have asked questions or sebt e-mails asking about my training so I thought I'd put some things out there for people that have training questions.  This is my self-interview. Ha! This is how I am entertaining myself in my short 30 minutes of ME time today.  


How many miles did you say you wanted your peak weekly mileage to be?  80


Where did you get that number from?  I pulled it from my butt.  Seriously, it was just a number out of the sky.  It wasn't based on any research, thoughtful consideration of data, or wise understanding of training.  


What kind of mileage are you running right now?  The last few weeks have been in the 50 mile range.  Last week was 50 and the week before that was 49.  I'd like to shoot for 55 this week. Possibly 60 the next.   


Do you still think you're going to do 80 as your peak weekly mileage?  Ha!  Can I do it?  Yes, probably but it would mean that I'd probably have to slow down a bit with a lot of my mileage.  This is where I have to consider quality vs. quantity.  I'm not so sure it would be wise for me to try to hit this number AND still hit all of my quality workouts. 

What is a more realistic goal?  Taking the advice of a very wise friend who knows her stuff and combining it with my risk-taking and dreamer of a self, I'd like to think that 70 is a more solid and realistic peak weekly mileage for me. She advised 65 so I may very well follow her advice and stick with that.  We shall see.  

What does 70 peak weekly mileage mean?  This means that I will certainly NOT be running 70 miles every week of my training cycle.  The goal is to have some higher and lower weeks so that your body can absorb the training and not take on too much every week.  I plan on doing lots of LISTENING closely to my body and increasing wisely and gradually.  I might only have 2 weeks at 70.  This seems okay right now.  I will reevaluate if necessary.  


Where do you find time to workout with your motherhood duties and blog keep up and everything else?  There are definitely things that will need to be cut out of my life.  It is all about prioritizing.  My life will not always be all about training for a marathon but this is a time in my life that I'm going to dedicate to training hard for a marathon.  To some, this might seem silly but it is important to me and I'm willing to put other things on the side for a few months.  We recently purchased a treadmill and this will help tremendously with the time issue.  I will most likely have to get my lazy bum out of bed early on some days and find time to fit in around quiet time/nap time when my oldest is at school.  It is possible to fit in the mileage that you want and still be a great mom, wife and friend.  However, it just takes knowing what you want and making the time for the things that are MOST important.  Not everyone will understand but really, you can't please everyone.  


What kinds of thinks will you have to cut out if you are going to be serious with mileage, training, and self-care?  Reading my book club book, seeing friends as often, staying up late, responding to comments, facebook, e-mail, reading blogs and probably a few other things. When I start worrying about not getting to everyone and not being able to be there for everyone all of the time I will consult the Dr. Suess: "Be who you are and say what you feel, because those you mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind."  Of course this is all within reason.  Obviously I will still take time for those that I love but my friends will hopefully understand when I am just not up for going out and staying up too late or when I have to bail on a social engagement like book club or girls' night out.    


What things are most important to you to maintain during training?  The quality time with my kids and my husband, self reflection time, eating healthy, and spiritual time. 


What are you most excited for with this upcoming Marathon training?  I'm so very excited to take my training to a new level of commitment.  I'm looking forward to seeing what I can do with this one body and one life that I have when I give 100%.  Now is as good of a time as any!  Bring it!  My main goal is to improve and feel STONG!  I'm also excited to be training at the same time as some very dear and wise friends who I continue to learn from every single day!  I'm excited to encourage and be encouraged. Inspire and be inspired.  You girls know who you are!  


My quiet time is officially over and this means that self-interview time is up.  Hope I answered some of your questions that you've e-mailed me with.  


Happy Monday!
Amanda

"Real" Mail, Running Talk, and Penis Awareness

I love it when I get "REAL" mail in my mail box these days.  

Not Junk. Not Advertisements. Or Bills.  

Hand written letters from friends (those are rare),

Cards,

Baby Announcements,

Wedding Invitations (this season in our life is slowing way down),

A new book from Amazon,

and

things like this:

I was so excited to open this confirmation today!  Huge smiles on my face.  Just got me really revved up for training again.  I'm excited to have the next few months to just do some base running, strength training, and soaking up plenty of time with nothing on the racing agenda.  Then come January, I'm super excited to have a focus and see where these legs will take me.  And what makes it even more exciting is that I will have close friends training for Boston at the same time!  Having virtual training partners will be so motivating. 


It will also be nice to be training at the same time as my husband.  As hard as it will be with time management and training around family time, I think it will be motivating for us to be able to share a common goal.  Another bonus to training together is that it will mean that we will both want to have earlier bedtimes so nobody feels guilty for being too pooped to party!  We will understand each other. Even when we turn each other down on sex!  Nobody gets hurt feelings.  Win. Win!


A few clarifications from my running post earlier:

• 45 miles a week is not an "easy" week for me as some inferred. I have been LAZY this summer but last week was not one of my lazy weeks...sorry if I made it sound that way.  45 miles is especially not easy in regards to finding TIME..this is the biggest thing.   Ha!  I barely ran 50 miles a week during marathon training.  This next time around I hope to do more mile and less structured speed work/tempos.  
• Half of my mileage from last week was probably jogger stroller miles.  Not sure if this is a benefit or detriment to training.
• A 1:35 half marathon in a couple of weeks would not be "settling" for me.  I would be very pleased with this time and it won't be "easy".  I have not been putting in the miles nor the quality workouts that I would need to run much faster right now.  I might not even run a 1:35...that was just a number I put out there based on my last 10k time (according to my target pace level that Matt Fitzgerald has for me).  

Motherhood Moments:

• Binkies!  Do your kids have a binky? All of my kids have had one and they have all been quite attached to it.  My 2 year old son is the worst.  He wants his binkies allllll day long! We limit them to bedtime or nap but he is always trying to sneak them out of his room.  He will go to great lengths to "capture" his binks.  Even at the risk of injury.  I'll go in his room sometimes and catch him standing on stacks for books on a chair on his play kitchen just to get to his dresser to get his stupid binkies.  Kid doesn't take NO for an answer!!
• Boys and their penis!  What is up with men and their penises and their need to talk about it?  Tonight, as my son was using the toilet, he yelled from the bathroom for all of us to hear: "Look at my penis!! Woah, that's a big penis!!"  I promise you that this type of talk is not modeled at home. My husband doesn't go around talking about his penis (in front of the kids) and I...well, I don't have a penis, nor do I pretend to have one.  I have to say that I'm thankful that my son has a healthy does of self confidence!  

1.  Jogger stroller running?  Helpful to training or not as good?  I don't have a choice sometimes but I feel like it makes it harder to have good form and really get into a good rhythm with my running.  Definitely makes key workouts harder or darn near impossible for me.  I've only done a few tempo runs with my jogger stroller but I prefer to do them solo!  I think there are pros and cons to jogger stroller running.  

2.  Moms (and Dads), did your kids use a binky/paci??

3.  Do you get "real" mail very often?  Letters, cards, gifts, you know, good ol' snail mail??  

Amanda