Week 1-9: 181.97 miles – 25:35:21 (8:26/mile)
Week 10: 31.78 miles – 4:30:08 (8:30/mile) | Last run: 14.47 miles – 1:56:09 (8:02/mile) @ Avg. HR = 162
It has been both an amazing and frustrating marathon training season the past 10 weeks + the 10 pre-training weeks. On the one hand, I feel like I’m in the best shape I’ve been in since I picked up running consistently again in my mid-20’s. On the other hand, I’ve been plagued with various running injuries that just won’t seem to go away. Shortly after my first entry, I had slight bout of tendonitis which went away after about 10 days of rest. However then I got hit with bursitis in my left foot and a potential knee injury, either way, I’m hoping that in the next few weeks everything holds up okay since I’m ramping up to averaging 32 miles a week for the next 5 weeks before tapering begins.
I bought the Garmin Heart Rate Monitor strap a few weeks ago and have been using it for all my runs and it’s pretty cool to use. I read Peter Pfitzinger’s Advanced Marathoning book while I was in Iceland a few weeks ago and I’ve been following the heart rate table as best as I can for my 4 runs: Recovery, Aerobic, Tempo, Long Run. It’s definitely interesting to see how my heart responds to the different temperatures and paces that I run at. I must admit that running 11 minute miles on Recovery runs when I’m used to running 7 to 8 minute miles on normal runs isn’t pleasant but I’m standing by this Heart Rate Monitor training regimen.
Overall, while it has definitely been a frustrating season with these nagging injuries, I must admit I haven’t enjoyed running more than I am enjoying it now. I love running in the early morning and the city of Chicago is just an amazing city to run in. I’m also starting to get into biking and I’m definitely thinking about doing a triathlon in the near future. I think this winter I’m going to start swimming and maybe do my first tri sometime next year.