Jump to content

Exercise and Fitness - Marathon edition

zelticgar

By zelticgar,
in General Chatter

Recommended Posts

Whitestripe Council Member

Whitestripe

Posted
Posted

I can't swim worth a damn and there's no way to improve without looking like a tit first.

My form probably sucks. Every now and again the swim coach will wander onto the pool deck during faculty lap swim and give pointers. I try my best to ignore him... as I am sure that he'd have a lot to say to me. Last week, the kids were out of school and asked if they could go to the pool. It's the same pool they use for swim club. I told them that it was "serious exercise swim" not "mess around in the water" swim. They happily did laps and practiced flip turns for 45 minutes. (I had to help my daughter a bit as she is just 6 and hasn't quite perfected her freestyle stroke yet)

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Starkess Council Member

Starkess

Posted
Posted

Thanks for the good thoughts, everyone! Hopefully I will have good news to report next Sunday. :) My goal time is 2 hours and 20 minutes, that has to be doable...right?

I am looking forward to getting back into swimming as the weather warms up. It's one of my favorite workouts, except for the fact that it kills my skin! I get dry skin normally, so chlorine really throws it out of whack.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Mr. X Council Member

Mr. X

Posted
Posted

Thanks for the good thoughts, everyone! Hopefully I will have good news to report next Sunday. :) My goal time is 2 hours and 20 minutes, that has to be doable...right?

Absolutely doable. Enjoy the run and have a good race!

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Eponine Council Member

Eponine

Posted
Posted

I am planning to ramp up the distance on my shorter runs so I'll net about 50 miles a week and swim distance on my off days. Can anyone tell me if this a is realistic approach?

Do as the Hansons and run back to back medium long runs. If you're capable currently of doing 13-14 without trouble, do 10/14 or 14/10.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
baxus Council Member

baxus

Posted
Posted

I can't swim worth a damn and there's no way to improve without looking like a tit first.

wy would that stop you from doing it?

go to the pool, pay attention only to your technique at first and you'll stop "looking like a tit" sooner than you imagine.

Thanks for the good thoughts, everyone! Hopefully I will have good news to report next Sunday. :) My goal time is 2 hours and 20 minutes, that has to be doable...right?

2h20min should not be a problem, provided your training went well.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
zelticgar Council Member

zelticgar

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Eponine,

Mid range distance was the plan but i scrapped it. I went out on Saturday with a plan to run 13 but I stretched to 16. I felt great so I figured I would add a few at the end. I'm going to do 16 or 17 this weekend and the following two weeks. I figure three or four weeks of 45 miles with a long run will be fine for prep. have really slowed my pace down on my long runs which I think helps avoid injury.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Eponine Council Member

Eponine

Posted
Posted
I went out on Saturday with a plan to run 13 but I stretched to 16.

You're lucky, I've always put off the marathon and maxed out at halfs because I have trouble going past 14. I can run a solid 12-13 training run every weekend, and I've done 65-70 mpw that way, but hit the wall at 14 and the few times I've done more than that, dragged the entire way past 14.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
danro Council Member

danro

Posted
Posted

The trails in the woods are still covered with snow and ice. But thanks to me finally buying a pair of icebugs I'm only 13 seconds per kilometer slower than at my peak from last year. And it's still early in the season,

It's a good thing I signed up to that 18 km trail race later this spring. It scared me into finally spending on shoes I can run in during the about 60% of the year the Swedish climate hates me and wants me to die.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
JohnWitch Sellsword

JohnWitch

Posted
Posted
You're lucky, I've always put off the marathon and maxed out at halfs because I have trouble going past 14. I can run a solid 12-13 training run every weekend, and I've done 65-70 mpw that way, but hit the wall at 14 and the few times I've done more than that, dragged the entire way past 14.

Don't beat yourself about it. That's great.

I've always wanted to run a marathon, but I think my Tyrion knees would blow up after the fifth kilometre. I practice Muay Thai, and I actually think that serious runners have it harder than us. I really admire you guys.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Starkess Council Member

Starkess

Posted
Posted

I did it!

:smug:

Had trouble sleeping last night, and combined with the time change, that meant I only got 4 hours of sleep. I was dragging pretty hard, but I stopped at Starbucks for a bagel and got an extra shot of espresso in my drink. After that, nerves were enough to keep me alert!

It was quite chilly, but I knew the forecast was nice, so I brought an old long sleeve shirt I could throw away. Funny how hard it is for me to part with my clothes--this shirt was one I bought for a quarter at a secondhand shop in high school and that I only rarely use for working out, but I still was tempted to just carry it for the rest of the race! Start time was right around sunrise, 7:18 AM, and I got corralled up at around 6:40. I was freezing my ass off, even with my shirt, and I was in wave 8, but they got the waves out smoothly with no hitches, so it was only 7:30 by the time I started.

I had to pee a few minutes before the start (damn espresso), despite having gone right when I got there less than hour earlier. So I spent the first 3 miles or so trying not to pee myself before I got to some porta potties. Had to stop and wait, which was frustrating because I had hoped to avoid wasting that time. But I felt SO much better after I peed, and I kicked it up afterwards until I was back with the pace group I'd started with. My goal was 2:20, and I had started running near the 2:10 pacer, trying to give myself a little buffer.

The first 10k or so went by so fast. The sun came fully up and it was just perfect weather. Sunny, upper 50s, very little wind. I was cruising right along, feeling great and ahead of the 2:10 pacer. I like to pick out my targets and focus on catching them, which helps me stay on pace since I don't like to run with a watch.

I had looked at the terrain map for the course, so I knew there were some hills, but I didn't really know when or where. I heard some people at the start talking about "the hill" and around mile 8 there was this super steep hill about a block long. I remembered my cross country training and leaned in to the hill, and I was able to finally pass a girl who I had targeted like 4 miles earlier but had so far been eluding me. After that was over, I was like phew! I remembered the finish was downhill, and we'd gone up a few other small hills, so I figured that was it.

I was wrong. So so wrong. The tenth mile started out at the bottom of a HUGE hill. The road wound up the hill, and I thought "Okay this sucks, but after this bend it levels out." WRONG. After the bend it just opened up and I wasn't even halfway up this fucking hill. Almost everyone I could see at this point was walking, but I said hell no and just kept leaning in and struggling up. I will admit that thinking about writing this race update helped keep me going at that point! Gods that hill sucked. There are no hills where I live, so I haven't run up a hill in ages. I went back and checked, and it was a 100 ft elevation increase over about .6 miles. That doesn't sound like that much I guess, but I thought it was never going to end!!

But at last I made it to the top. And I knew that for sure it was all downhill from there! I was hurting pretty bad at that point--my hands hand started to lose some feeling, to the point that I accidentally dropped the clif shots I'd been carrying, and my legs were getting all tingly--but once I passed the 10 mile marker and officially was on the longest run of my life, I knew I wasn't going to stop. And in to the finish line I went!

Going down the stretch to the finish line, guess who passes me but that girl I'd finally passed on the steep hill five miles before!! As soon as I saw her, I kicked into a sprint (well as close to a sprint as I could get at that point!), but that just made her sprint. She ended up finishing slightly ahead of me, which was a bit of a bummer but helped me go over the finish line strong so I can't complain.

And my final time was 2:03:42!! Much faster than I could have ever hoped for. It was all in all a pretty much perfect race!

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Whitestripe Council Member

Whitestripe

Posted
Posted

Good job, Starkess! That's a a awesome!!!

Work has finally settled down, so I am going to the pool for laps for the first time is ve my surgery. I took the kids last week, but I could not swim myself (even though I was in the water) because they had to be supervised.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
Go to topic listing
×
×
  • Create New...