26.2 miles

My first race after the Boston Marathon is coming up in not even two hours!

It's only two miles long, so that should be ok. I also lost some weight which will probably help me and did all those track workouts, strides and hills this week but not very many miles. I feel fast and strong. We'll see how it goes. I'd like to run something between 12 and 13 minutes, but if I could beat the 12 minutes I'd be really happy. I don't know who else is going to be there, most likely some fast high school kids so I won't win. But I could win my age group. 

Fri 5/2/08	7.38 Miles	00:53:26 7:14 / M	Running: Distance Rockledge High School Track
	125.222565	141 180
Fri 5/2/08	1.71 Miles	00:29:29 17:14 / M	Jogging: Cool-Down Neighborhood
		164 180
Fri 5/2/08	9.35 Miles	00:35:29 15.81 Mph	Cycling: Transportation Cocoa YMCA
		137 157	going to stretching & weight training at the YMCA
Fri 5/2/08	0.43 Miles	00:05:07 11:53 / M	Adaptive Motion Trainer: Warm-Up Cocoa YMCA

Thu 5/1/08	6.61 Miles	00:51:29 7:47 / M	Running: Hills Crooked Mile Road
	126.104414	175 188
Thu 5/1/08	0.95 Miles	00:15:45 16:34 / M	Jogging: Cool-Down Crooked Mile Road
		134 168	morning & evening
Thu 5/1/08	4.84 Miles	01:38:12 20:17 / M	Walking: Recreation Cocoa Beach
		95 126
Thu 5/1/08	1.55 Miles	00:32:17 1:11 / 100yd	Horseback Riding: Training Arena
		92 128
Thu 5/1/08	1800.00 Meters	00:46:07 2:33 / 100m	Swimming: Distance Cocoa YMCA
Thu 5/1/08	1.42 Miles	00:10:02 7:03 / M	Running: Recovery Clearlake

Wed 4/30/08	1.26 Miles	00:10:01 7:56 / M	Running: Recovery Neighborhood
	128.749961	129 163
Wed 4/30/08	0.58 Miles	00:06:20 10:55 / M	Jogging: Cool-Down Satellite Road
		159 173
Wed 4/30/08	9.63 Miles	00:40:51 14.14 Mph	Cycling: Training Starbucks
Wed 4/30/08	8.04 Miles	01:00:20 7:30 / M	Running: Distance Satellite Road
		163 183	50min, 10x150
Wed 4/30/08	5.97 Miles	02:18:06 23:07 / M	Walking: Recreation Florida Trail
		109 155
Wed 4/30/08	3.16 Miles	00:53:01 16:46 / M	Horseback Riding: Recreation Tosohatchee State Reserve
		89 117

Jon and I wanted to run together in the evening so I did all different kind of stuff during the day - including my first strength training session.

 When he finally came home we jumped on our bikes and rode to the High School track, but there was some official event going on so we had to go to the Middle School track instead that was as crowded with walkers as usual. We cut the warm-up short and did only 800m, because by the time we got to the track we had already ridden 6 miles.

The plan asked for 8x400m with 400m recovery which I planned on doing at my new marathon goal pace: I'd like to run 3:09 at the Arizona Rock'n'Roll Marathon in January. This work-out was probably more beneficial psychologically than anything else, but I thought I better get used to that pace as soon as possible without overdoing it. I'm still recovering from Boston!

 Jon is training for his fitness test, a 1.5 mile run, that he has to take in May or June and wanted to run his 400s faster. Unfortunately his calf cramped bad at the fourth repeat and he had to stop running completely for that day.

I didn't run quite slow enough, but pretty close to my projected 1:47 repeats. I did 1:40, 1:44, 1:43, 1:44, 1:45, 1:45, 1:43 and at the last one I couldn't resist any longer and ran it in 1:30. This last one was harder than I thought but a lot of fun to run. I think it's a good idea to do those short repeats at a slow pace as long as I'm recovering. For some reason I like running on the track a lot right now and doing short intervals at marathon pace satisfies me more than just running 4 or 5 miles continuously (which I still do, but not every day).

I finished my run with 800m cool-down, we rode home slowly (Jon's calf still hurt but he could ride his bike) and went out for dinner to eat some really nasty fast food. We usually eat healthy, so we thought some very occasional Popeye's and Dairy Queen wouldn't hurt.

One week after the Boston Marathon my quads are almost back to normal, but I still feel them a little bit and running 6 miles isn't as easy as it was before the marathon.

Anyway, I was really exited and happy about doing my first easy track work-out this morning, even though I tried to run the four 200s and one 400 not much faster than marathon pace.

I found a high school track training program on the internet and started it today. This was my first run on the new program:

jogging easy 800m
5x100, slow w/ high knees, kick butts, skipping
10xstraightaway, long stride
4x200, walk recovery
400 hard
30min relaxed, stretch

The last 30 minutes were long, longer than they felt before the marathon, but running laps didn't really help time go by either. I didn't want to go too far away from the track because my bike and all my stuff was sitting there on the side of the high school track and I didn't want to leave it unattended for too long.

Nice thing about this track is the grass all around it. I ran all the 5x100s and most of the 30 min. on soft surface, which sure was good for my shin splints.

Sun 4/27/08	6.00 Miles	00:50:55 8:29 / M	Running: Distance Rockledge Park
	127.868112		2 laps in the park
Sun 4/27/08	0.61 Miles	00:06:43 11:00 / M	Jogging: Cool-Down Neighborhood
Sun 4/27/08	6.52 Miles	03:02:17 1:35 / 100yd	Kayaking: Recreation Thousand Islands