Each week, I like to do a review of my training. I admit, it’s primarily for my benefit, so I can go back later and see how my training was going for a given week, but hopefully I can make it interesting enough for other people to read.
I’ve always used Monday-Sunday to measure my weeks. It works pretty well, since I usually end up with a long run on Saturday and a rest day on Sunday.
Weight Check: I do keep track of my weight, and typically do an official weigh-in on Sunday morning. This week, I’m at 169.8, which is down 1.2 pounds from last week. For the record, I’m 5′ 8″, so anything over 164 is overweight. I put on some weight while I was recovering from my injury, and got all the way up to 175 at one point, but I’ve worked my way back down, partly through more running, and partly through less Mountain Dew. This past week, I only had one can of Mountain Dew on Monday, and that’s it. In the past, I’ve had three 20 ounce bottles in a day on multiple days, so I did pretty well this week. The rest of the week, I managed to avoid junk food for the most part, except for some birthday cake for one of my co-workers.
I’m not too concerned about my weight. Being about 5 pounds overweight isn’t a huge deal, plus I’d guess that a good portion of my extra weight is in my legs, which is generally less harmful than extra weight above the waist. Still, losing a couple of more pounds will help my running, and if I’m not gaining weight, it usually means I’m not eating a lot of junk, and that’s a good thing.
This Week’s Runs
Monday – 4.11 miles
Tuesday – 4.11 miles
Wednesday – 4.11 miles
Friday – 4.11 miles
Saturday – 10.01 miles
Total: 26.45 miles
Monday, Tuesday, and Friday were in my neighborhood. Monday’s weather was barely tolerable, and it just got worse as the week went on. Wednesday was a treadmill run. It was mentally excruciating, just like any other treadmill run, but the climate control was nice. Saturday, well, I talked about that a little in my post yesterday. The weather was brutal, easily the hottest temperatures I’ve run in this year, with plenty of humidity thrown in. I walked a whole bunch in the last few miles, but I made it to the end.
I guess I should explain why I ended all my runs with an extra .01. Back when I first started running, I used an app called Runkeeper. On some of my early runs, I noticed that sometimes if I stopped on an exact number of miles, say 4.00, when I would look up the run later, it would show up as 3.99. I have no idea if that was an issue with Runkeeper, or with my phone at the time, but I got into the habit of added .01 to all of my runs. Now I have a Garmin Forerunner 220 to track my runs, and I’ve never had any issues with the mileage changing, but I still add .01 most of the time. Everybody has quirks, mine are .01 miles and pictures of my car key.
Looking ahead to next week, if anything it’s going to get hotter. This is my last week before I start my training plan for the New York City Marathon. I’m hoping to get up to around 29 miles this week, and in theory, I’d like to get an 11 mile long run next weekend, but again, I’ve seen the forecast, and considering how tough 10 miles was, I’m not sure how I’ll do it in conditions that are at least as hot, if not hotter. We’ll see how the week goes.