Tapping the Rockies???

So, it looks like BadgerGirl may no longer be running in America's dairyland come late summer. There is a good chance that I will be attending graduate school in Boulder. I'd be moving there sight unseen, but it seems like a great place! Wish me luck! More details to follow...

Jen

This Week in Training

Hello!

Here's a quick summary of my training for the week. It was a good week of training, but nothing too exciting.

M: 4 mile walk with the dog
T: 9 miles with 10 x 100 m strides
W: 5 mile recovery run + 3 mile dog walk
R: 10 mile general aerobic run
F: Rest
Sa: I skipped my 5 mile recovery run and went ice skating for 90 minutes instead. I guess I was inspired by the Olympics!
Su: 17 mile long run. There was a Garmin snafu that prevented all of my data from being recorded, but the 14 miles of it that I got were at a 8:35 min/mile average. Not bad at all.
My right calf and both achilles tendons were slightly sore from the ice skating, but it didn't
seem to hurt me too much. I guess I went a little too Apolo Ohno.

A solid week overall, although I feel a bit guilty over skipping Saturday's run. There's no real reason I couldn't do it. Oh well. It was just a recovery run and I went into today's long run well rested. The ice skating was also quite fun, despite the soreness I have today. It was surprisingly busy. A youth hockey tournament was wrapping up when we got there. I knew that hockey was big around here, but I guess I didn't quite understand the scope of it all. There were lots of people there for the public skate as well. It was nice to see people doing something active and supporting a local business. One kid there was way more interested in sliding into the wall and eating ice shavings than actually skating!

I guess that's about it on the training front. Next weekend I plan to do a local 5k on Saturday and then my 18 miler on Sunday. It is the last week of building before a cutback week. I think I will be looking forward to the cutback week, which I think is a key sign that I am training hard enough. You should always be mentally and physically tired enough to welcome a cutback week or taper, but not so exhausted that you couldn't go on.

This was a great weekend, but, like all the others, was too short. I'll definitely have a case of the Mondays...

Happy Running!

Jen

This Week in Training & My Awesome Long Run

Hello!

Time for the weekly training summary. It will be a bit brief-primarily because I didn't take a watch on most of my runs and am just lazy! ;) If I can remember my old Buckeye Outdoors login information, I will try to start posting on there again.

M: 15 mile long run (displaced due to my fall & done on the treadmill because I was skeered.)
T: Rest + 4 mile dog walk
W: 9 miles with 3 x 5 minutes @ 8:00 mpm pace
R: 5 mile recovery run + 3 mile dog walk
F: Rest
Sa: 5 mile recovery run
Su: 16 mile long run @ 8:21 mpm average pace

My long run today was AWESOME!!! It was probably run a bit too fast since it was even faster than my desired marathon pace. But, I like to do my long runs by feel and as long as I get my rest days and recovery runs in this week I think I'll be okay. I had to slow myself down at several points. I was getting tired the final 1.5 miles, but that's too be expected. I felt strong throughout.

Lots of times in training I am not very good with my fueling. For some reason on training runs I tend to try to avoid taking my gels. That is something that I am committed to improving this training cycle. Today I took gels and water at miles 4, 8 and 12. It worked well and I didn't have any stomach issues. This run was a great way to end a week that started pretty badly. Yahoo!!!

In other news, I found out this week that I have been accepted to 2 graduate schools! I'm going to wait until things are more settled to elaborate, but it looks like I will be moving West at the end of the summer! I'll always be BadgerGirl, but I will no longer be training in America's Dairyland.

Happy Running!

Jen

Product Review: YakTrax

Hello!

After my attempted long run that ended in a head injury last week, I decided that I needed to do something. So I headed to my local running store to pick up some YakTrax. I had heard about them, but had never tried them. For those who don't know, YakTrax are cleats made of rubber and metal coils that you stretch over the bottom of your shoes. They give you extra traction on snow and ice.

My opinion of these is mixed, although my expectations were probably a bit too high. They do work great on packed snow and "crunchy" ice, which is basically what they are made for. Unfortunately, they do not work well on the very, very slick ice that caused my fall. In reality, it was probably unreasonable for me to expect this. I have used them on a few walks and a few runs so far. On dry pavement portions of the route, they don't cause any problem. It just sounds like you are walking/running on gravel. During the walks, I didn't notice any foot pains or difference in how my feet felt at all. During the runs, several miles in my feet seemed to get a bit sore/tired. It was nothing too significant though, so when the conditions warrant, I won't hesitate to use them. I would probably avoid using them during long runs because the foot pain would probably get much worse. I also thought that wearing them caused me to heel strike a bit more than usual (I'm typically more of a mid-foot striker).

Another cool thing is that the YakTrax are made of ~70% (I don't have the package anymore and I can't remember the exact number) recycled materials. I love to see this because what's the use recycling if no one is using the recycled material?

Bottom line: A good product, but don't expect miracles.

Happy Running!

Jen

Uncle Pfitzy

Hi!

I promised at some point to discuss my training plan for this marathon. I am following Pete Pfitzinger's "55 miles per week or less, 24-week schedule". Actually, I missed the first week, so I'm technically doing a 23 week plan. The title "Uncle Pfitzy" comes from a running podcast that I listen to called 4 Feet Running. Nik abandoned "Uncle Higgy" (Hal Higdon) in favor of "Uncle Pfitzy" and got a huge PR. Unfortunately, Nik and Dan have decided to move on to different projects and therefore there podcast is ended. But you can still check out their blog here:

4 Feet Running

I have had Pfitzinger's book Advanced Marathoning for quite some time, but I have never completely and faithfully followed the plan. I attempted it when I trained for Austin and was running really, really fast for awhile. I ran a 17 miler at BQ pace! Unfortunately, I wasn't taking the prescribed rest and recovery days, which caused me to basically crash and burn about halfway through the program. I think it's a very solid training plan, so I've come back to it. I am taking the rest days this time.

The plan is broken into 4 "mesocycles". Mesocycle 1 is "Endurance". Mesocycle 2 is "Lactate Threshold + Endurance". Mesocycle 3 is "Race Preparation" and Mesocycle 4 is "Taper". There are some tough workouts in this program. I expect that things will get difficult later on when the program calls for 13 milers mid-week. That's a pretty long run for me to do on a work night. But, in the end, I think it is worth it to get a PR.

Hm...I thought that I had more to discuss related to the training plan specifically. But, I guess this at least gives a bit of background information to my weekly summaries.

Happy Running!

Jen

Olympics

Hello!

Just sitting around watching the Olympics. I absolutely love the Olympics and thus am glued to the TV. Not to mention that I went to school with a now two time Olympian. Tucker Fredricks is a 500m speed skater from my hometown. He placed 12th on Monday night. I'm sure that was disappointing after so many hours of training, but it is just incredible to be that level of an athlete. I can't even imagine it. Facebook was nuts and Janesvegas was sure proud!

~Jen

#@$!&* Ice!!!

Ugh. I'm not even going to bother with a day by day summary from last week. It went pretty well until I tried to run a 15 miler on Sunday night. I already wasn't setting myself up to have the best run. I normally try to do my long runs earlier, but I had been visiting my parents so I didn't get home until a bit later and then Joe was making me dinner for Valentine's day. So, I set off late, tired and with a bunch of food in my belly.

I noticed right away that it was a bit slick. It was a warm day-right around freezing. It was also snowing a bit. When I was about 1.5 miles away from my house, I did a very cartoon-esque fall. My feet flew out and I landed on the back of my head. My hat and right glove flew off. You might think that someone driving by would notice someone wearing reflective clothing and a blinky light sprawled out on the ice. Unfortunately, no one stopped to help. I have fallen several times before (on both ice and dry land, I'm ashamed to say). After some cursing and crying, I pulled myself together and started hobbling back home.

I went to the doctor today and my reflexes and optic nerves are good, so nothing is seriously wrong. Today I am pretty sore. My back, neck, head and abs hurt pretty badly. And then there's the nausea, which I'm told is fairly common with head injuries.

I did the 15 tonight on the treadmill. It was slow and awful, but it got done. At least I had the Olympics to watch. It's hard to wuss-out when you are watching world-class athletes. Tucker Fredricks, who is from my hometown and who I went to school with, competed in the 500m speed skating race. Due to a snafu with the ice machines, everything got delayed and NBC didn't show the race until a few minutes ago. It was so neat to watch!

I think I need to look into some screw shoes or YakTraks. I don't think I can run inside until the ice is gone, but I also can't crack my head on the sidewalk again.

Hopefully I'll have some cheerier news next time!

Happy Running!

Jen

This Week in Training & Miscellany

Hello!

I definitely owe a better post than just a training summary, but I think that's all I can muster for tonight.

It's been a busy weekend. It started off a bit badly when I came home from work Friday evening to a mailbox with a door missing. When we moved into our house ~2.5 years ago, our mailbox was on a post that was not properly installed and thus was very flimsy. Our neighbor's mailbox is also in our yard since they are all along one side of the street. Their mailbox was in one of those big orange buckets that you get from Home Depot with rocks and chunks of cement keeping the post upright. Yes-it was quite attractive. So, I decided that it needed to be fixed. I bought some pretty attractive, matching mailboxes and my dad built and installed the post. Perfect. Well, until one week later when I come home from work and our mailbox door is lying in the street. It had broken off. Basically, the hinge is a metal piece that has been molded into the plastic door trim. The force of the mailbox door falling open broke the plastic and thus the door fell off. Luckily the trim came in two color options, so I had 4 parts total. I replaced it with the other color and moved on. Eventually, ours broke again. Now, I should have been more proactive in obtaining new mailboxes or contacting the manufacturer, but my mailbox is not really my number one priority most of the time. It became my number one priority this past Friday, however. When I came home on Friday, the neighbor's mailbox door was missing entirely. I had no more parts to fix it and mail gets delivered on Saturday afternoon. I'm not sure if the mailman would deliver it if the box had no door, but it's probably a bad idea anyway since it's been snowing lately. Naturally, the new mailboxes are less wide and so I had to saw (by hand) the mounting board. Anyway, after much swearing, sawing and frozen hands, the mailbox was replaced.

Saturday night we had a party for Joe's (my husband) work group. We went and played dodgeball (who knew that there were places where you could rent dodgeball courts?). It was actually pretty fun, although I'm quite sore today. Then we had a get together at his manager's house. They are a fun group and it was a good time had by all.

Today we took Butler to the dog wash and gave him a bath. Then we had a friend's Super Bowl party. I don't care about football in the least, but it was fun anyway.

This week was a recovery week for me, so there were some extra rest days and no long run. Here it is:

M Rest
T 4 miles (this was supposed to be 7 miles + striders, but we were getting a "wintery mix"
which made it very difficult to get any traction. The slipping was killing my feet, so I cut it
short and moved the rest of the run to Wednesday, which was supposed to be a rest day. It
was the strangest thing. I've never in my life had my feet hurt like that. It was awful.
W 3 miles plus striders (~9:30 pace minus the striders and a treadmill run)
R 9 miles (~9:30 pace on the treadmill)
F Rest (had planned a dog walk, but the mailbox fiasco took up all my time and energy)
Sa 5 mile recovery run (8:32 min/mile. This is not my recovery pace, but I felt rushed and
ended up running faster than I had intended) + 3 mile dog walk (~20 min/mile). Cross
training: dodgeball.
Su 11 miles (8:39 min/mile)

All in all, not a bad week for a recovery week. Admittedly, the weekend was a bit booze-soaked and full of party food. Oh well-onward and upward!

Time for bed!

Happy Running!

Jen