Tag: marathon

Weekly training update

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Most of this week was an exercise in trying to figure out what else could go wrong. By Thursday, I started to feel better and didn’t have any more (mis)-adventures unless you count running through the rain (again) on Saturday. My goal for the week was 30-34 miles and I hit 31.3, even with taking a couple of extra days off.


Sunday – Spartan Sprint, 4.8 miles + 19 obstacles.

Monday – off

Tuesday – 7 v 7 soccer, 2.81 miles. This was our first playoff game and we started the game with only 5 players again. We never really recovered from starting the game down 2 players – even when we were able to add the other 2 guys, we were really disorganized. We ended up losing 4-1. Sometime in the first half, I managed to block a clearing attempt by one of the guys on the other team with my ribs & diaphragm (I don’t recommend that) which knocked the wind out of me for awhile and then about 10 minutes later, I took a deflection off my jaw. 

Wednesday – off – I actually started getting a cold on Monday and Tuesday night it hit me pretty hard so Wednesday was a full rest day including naps and lots of hydration. I’m thinking the cold weather soccer + my added injures during the game didn’t help my body in its fight against whatever germs I picked up on Sunday. Plus, my sore ribs and jaw made eating a little bit more of a challenge than normal – I couldn’t really eat anything chewy and with the sore ribs I couldn’t tell if I was hungry or my stomach hurt… not a great combination.

Thursday – 11 v 11 soccer, 3.69 miles. Game 3 of the women’s league and we played against a team who only lost one game last season (against us!). We didn’t realize until we arrived at the game that we were only going to have 10 players, so we recruited another defender from one of the teams playing before us and she definitely made a big difference. We ended up losing the game 3-0, but we were really focused on keeping the game tight defensively and forced the other team make some really good shots in order to beat us. Overall, it we played a good, hard game and with our full team in place, I think we’ll be ready to take this team on again. Maybe in the playoffs?

Friday – off

Saturday – long run, 20 miles, 12:02 pace. I combined a 7 mile training run with the Run the Bluegrass half marathon to get my full 20 miles in. More details to come, but I felt really good and ran a negative split in my half marathon! 

How did your week go? Did you hit your goals?

Weekly training update

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I switched up my 20-mile long run from this week to next week since I had previously signed up for the Run the Bluegrass half marathon on March 29, so my goal for the week was 15-19 miles, with a long run of 5-7 miles on Saturday. I ended up running 12 miles as my long run on Saturday and I still felt good after my long run which is a major bonus as I head into another high mileage week. I crushed my goal with 27.19 miles for the week!


Sunday – 11 v 11 soccer, 5.96 miles. The weather was not very cooperative for the game, with the weather hanging in the low 50’s and raining. It made for a pretty sloppy game – the only goal of the game came on a rebound that bounced a few times before hitting off of our keeper and sliding into the goal. Overall, it was a better game than we played two weeks ago, so I think the team is definitely improving.

Monday – 7 v 7 soccer, 1.96 miles. This was the championship game and the weather was pretty crappy again – it was just cold and rainy and windy. We lost to this team in the last minute of our regular season game with a ball that went through our keeper’s hands, so we were hoping to redeem ourselves with this game. During the first half of the game, I took a ball in the face (mouth / nose) and it was so cold out that it just went numb. A week later and my nose is still tender on the side, though definitely not as bad as last week. We went into half time of the game down 2-0 and while we are normally a better team in the second half of games, we couldn’t put one in and ended up losing the game 2-0. 

Tuesday – off

Wednesday – 3.74 miles, 10:19 pace. Originally, I had planned to do between 5-7 miles, but I made some poor late afternoon eating choices and realized pretty quickly into my run that I wasn’t going to make it as far as I wanted to. Oh well, it was still a good run and I got to work on a pretty big hill near the beginning of my run, so I think it was still a good training run.

Thursday – 11 v 11 soccer, 3.53 miles. This was our second game of the season and it was a really good game. We won the game 2-0 and had some really good plays moving the ball from defense to offense. Our next game is against one of the toughest teams in the league. We beat them last fall 1-0, but it was definitely a challenging game and I’m looking forward to see what we can do next week!

Friday – off

Saturday – long run, 12 miles, 13:27 pace. One challenge with some group runs (definitely with this one) is that we take several minutes at the water stops. I don’t stop my watch during the water breaks, because I don’t want to assume I’m not going to have to take these types of stops during my actual race. However, we had some really long stops this week, so if I look at just my moving average (instead of my overall average), my pace would be 12:46 instead – that’s a pretty big difference. I definitely expect to keep moving throughout my race, even if I have to add extra walk breaks – my plan is not to actually stop unless absolutely necessary.

  • Mile 1 – 12:38 
  • Mile 2 – 11:45
  • Mile 3 – 13:31 <– water stop
  • Mile 4 – 12:19
  • Mile 5 – 12:26
  • Mile 6 – 16:20 <– water stop
  • Mile 7 – 13:21
  • Mile 8 – 13:17
  • Mile 9 – 16:59 <– water stop
  • Mile 10 – 12:48
  • Mile 11 – 13:26
  • Mile 12 – 12:36
How did your week go? Did you hit your goals?

Weekly training update

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Overall, it was a pretty good week for training – I got 17.62 miles of running in (goal: 15-19) so it was right where I wanted to be. I feel like I’m in a good place with 7 weeks to go before my marathon. I’ve two more really long runs to go before I start my taper and the next 3 weeks mean 3 more races for me, so it will be good to test out my training in race conditions.


Sunday – pick-up soccer, 3.51 miles. I felt much better the day after my 18 mile run than the day after my 16.75 mile run two weeks ago. It was good to shake out my legs with some pick-up soccer and I didn’t really feel any effects of my long run by Monday.

Monday – 7 v 7 soccer, 1.64 miles. 4-3 playoff win on my birthday! We started off slowly, but came back in the second to win the game and will play the Championship game on St. Patrick’s Day! 

Tuesday – 7 v 7 soccer, 1.29 miles. The only word to describe this game is frustration. We scored the first 3 goals of the game and then ended up in a 3-3 tie. I only played about 20 minutes of the game since we finally had 9 people show up and no one wanted to sub out of the game, so I just twiddled my thumbs on the sidelines most of the game. We have next week off and then we should start the playoffs.

Wednesday – 7 v 7 soccer, 4.08 miles. We lost 2-1, but we played a good game and everybody got a lot of running in because we only had 7 players for the game. It was our last game of the regular season for us and we didn’t make the playoffs. I’m going to take the next season off, so Wednesdays will become running days for me instead.

Thursday – 11 v 11 soccer, 4 miles. This was our first game of the women’s league spring season and it was a good game – we have most of the same team coming back from our fall season, so it should be pretty easy to get back into our rhythm. We tied the game 1-1 and I got a lot of good sprinting in during this game! 

Friday – off

Saturday – long run, 3.1 miles, 10:00 pace (estimated). Color Me Green 5k – I haven’t done a run this short in a long time, so when I got to the water stop at mile 2, I was surprised at how far I had gone so fast. It’s definitely a major change running for 30 minutes instead of 3 hours! 

How did your week go? Did you hit your goals?

Weekly training update

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This was a week of almosts. But the one almost I didn’t have was hitting my weekly mileage! I went above my weekly mileage goal for the first time since the beginning of January and only the third time overall since I started training back in October.


Sunday – 11 v 11 soccer, 4.8 miles AND pick-up soccer, 3.12 miles. I subbed for a co-ed 11 v 11 team – I actually played with a few of these guys a couple of years ago, but I stopped playing in the league because I had other commitments and while it’s technically a co-ed league, you only have to have 2 women on the field and if you don’t have 2 women, your team is just allowed to play 9 v 11 instead. At that point, it’s not really a “co-ed” game, now is it? Either way, a couple of the guys I play with on Tuesday nights had asked me to come out and there were 3 of us that rotated in and out of the game. This league is also different in that it’s actually 45 minute halves (all of the other 11 v 11 leagues I’m in are 35 minutes) – 10 minutes doesn’t seem like a long time until it’s tacked onto the end of a 35 minute half! Most of the game I played defense, but when I came back in during the first half, I came in at midfield and I got my first almost of the week. I was running down the back side with one of our players controlling the ball on the other side of the field. I made a run towards the goal and he made a perfect pass in the air, right to me. In full stride, I headed the ball towards the goal and it went upper 90 just outside the left post. I almost scored on a header! 

Sunday was such a beautiful day that when I finished the game, I went home to grab some food and then went back out to play pick-up in the afternoon. I definitely didn’t do as much running as I normally do at pick-up but it was nice to be outside with the warm sun for a change.

Monday – 7 v 7 soccer, 1.91 miles. As I rolled out of bed Monday morning, I almost couldn’t move! As it turns out, playing soccer twice on Sunday wasn’t a smart idea. My knee has been bothering me after my really long runs and after too much exertion of any kind so the 7.9 miles I put in playing soccer on Sunday did not help my cause. Luckily, I was able to ice my knee and elevate it throughout the day on Monday, so by game time, I was feeling much better. Part of the problem is just getting it stretched and warmed up enough – once I get into a game or on my run, I rarely notice it. This was the start of our playoff season – we were playing a team that only 1 girl, so they had to play down a person for the entire game. We played two 25 minute halves which ended in a 0-0 tie, followed by a 5 minute overtime which still ended in a 0-0 tie, which meant: penalty kicks! Since this is a co-ed league, for the penalty kicks, it had to rotate guy-girl-guy-girl to take the shots. Both teams scored on their first shot. 1-1. Then, it was my turn. I haven’t scored on a penalty kick since high school, but I went back to the strategy that worked for me then and put one in! The girl from the other team was stopped by our keeper. 2-1. Both teams put in their next 2 shots. 4-3. We just needed our fifth kicker to score to win the game – and he did! We’re moving on to the semi-finals next week!

Tuesday – 7 v 7 soccer, 2.76 miles. Technically this was supposed to be 7 v 7 soccer, but we only had 5 people show up from our team. The team we were playing was nice enough to play with only 6 players so that it was 5 v 6 the entire game (they didn’t have to do that). We played with 4 in the field plus our keeper, which meant A LOT of running! We scored a quick goal in the beginning of the game and never really looked back. In the first half, one of our guys was coming up the field with the ball and he was drawing two of the defenders close to him, so I made a run through the middle with another defender trailing me and he made the perfect pass through all of the defenders to my feet and I almost had a goal – I flubbed my kick and it went wide. The final score was 4-3 and we never trailed during the game. 

Wednesday – 7 v 7 soccer, 2.62 miles. We definitely played better than we did last week, but our team still seems to be missing some of the cohesiveness that we were gaining at the beginning of the season. We almost won in a very high scoring game, but we ended up losing 8-7. Our last regular season game is Wednesday against the #2 team in the league, so it will definitely be a challenge. 

Thursday – off. I almost got to play soccer, but the weather in Charlotte had other plans – it was about 40 and rainy starting around 4:00 and the temperature was only going to drop, so I made the decision to cancel our games for the night and the women’s league will just have to start their regular season games next week instead!

Friday – off

Saturday – long run, 18.03 miles, 12:49 pace.

How did your week go? Did you hit your goals?

18 miles!

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I survived my longest run ever today! (As an aside, I will have two more weekends of longest runs ever before I actually complete my marathon on May 4.) Today’s plan called for 18 miles. The group I run with had an 11 mile run scheduled, so my plan was to get up early and get 6 miles in before I met up with the group at 8:00. That was the plan… the reality didn’t quite match up to that as I couldn’t drag myself out of bed, even though I got to bed earlier than normal. So, instead of getting out the door at 6:15, I was about 15 minutes behind, leaving me only about an hour to run before I had to meet up with my group. Since I ended up having to meet my running group on the run last time, I wanted to make sure to get back in time to actually meet up with them before they started the run. As a result, I did about 3.5 miles on my own before meeting up with the group and then about another 3 miles after the group stopped. I did much better at pacing myself on the first couple of miles by myself than I ever have in the past, even starting a little slower than normal pace – the last 3 miles I really just ran on feel since I was on my own and I just wanted to get through it! 

Mile 1 – 12:28
Mile 2 – 12:38
Mile 3 – 11:56
Mile 4 – 12:04
Mile 5 – 13:00 <– waiting on a stoplight
Mile 6 – 13:01
Mile 7 – 13:38 <– water stop
Mile 8 – 12:19
Mile 9 – 16:36 <– water stop
Mile 10 – 12:32
Mile 11 – 11:49
Mile 12 – 12:38
Mile 13 – 15:07 <– water stop
Mile 14 – 12:24
Mile 15 – 12:11
Mile 16 – 11:54
Mile 17 – 13:17 <– waiting on a stoplight
Mile 18 – 11:19 

My average pace through the 18 miles was 12:49. I think this pace would be a little faster per mile if I take out the waiting for stoplights and the extended water stops. When we stop for water on the group runs, we usually end up taking more time than I expect to do during my actual race. When I take my fuel during the run, I usually end up taking a longer walk break (closer to 1:30 if I’m eating an entire GU or a cracker), but the group breaks end up as a touch base with our leader, figuring out who is running which distance and various other tasks which I won’t be doing during my marathon. This was my last training run that won’t include a half marathon race in the middle of it, so I will get to test our my theory on my 20 and 23 mile training runs in the next month.

How was your Saturday?

Weekly training update

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Over the past two weeks, we’ve started hitting a few days of 60+ degree days and even one or two into the 70’s. It’s definitely starting to feel a lot more like spring, though there’s snow predicted for this coming Thursday, so who knows what we’ll get! I didn’t get any added runs into my week, but I came close to my goal mileage with 14.92 miles (goal: 15-19).


Sunday – pick-up soccer, 3.56 miles. I wasn’t sure how I was going to feel and I thought about skipping the day, but since I didn’t have a game on Monday, I wanted to at least get out and move around a bit. I was really sore when I first started, but I ended up playing for longer than I expected I would be able to, though I definitely didn’t run as much as I normally do.

Monday – off

Tuesday – 7 v 7 soccer, 1.57 miles. We finally had enough players to show up to start the game with a full team! We had two girl subs, so I didn’t play as much as usual, but I did set up the second goal for our team and we finished the game tied 2-2. 

Wednesday – 7 v 7 soccer, 2.38 miles. We were definitely a little off for this game and I can’t really pinpoint a specific reason, but we weren’t talking much on the field and there didn’t seem to be a lot of urgency throughout the game. We ended up losing by two, so with only two games left in the season, we’re on the fence for making the playoffs.

Thursday – 8 v 8 soccer, .91 miles. The women’s league had a team round robin so that all of the teams could have a little practice time playing together before we start the regular season. I played in 2 of the 3 games our team had and given the short field and less than 20 minutes of playing time, I’d say the mileage wasn’t too bad.

Friday – off

Saturday – long run, 6.5 miles, 11:05 pace.
  • Mile 1 – 10:31
  • Mile 2 – 11:13
  • Mile 3 – 11:48
  • Mile 4 – 11:30
  • Mile 5 – 10:43
  • Mile 6 – 11:97
  • Last .5 – 10:14
I started off fast, but I really just ran based on feel and didn’t worry about the time. The run felt good overall and the last half mile was faster because I skipped my last walk break since I was so close to where I was going to finish.

How did your week go? Did you hit your goals?

Weekly training update

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A theme of my weekly training is slightly missed goal totals – this week, I ended up with 23.28 miles (aiming for 26-30 miles). I’ve decided that I’m going to change up my weekly routine as I’m starting to get into my higher mileage weekly runs and I’m not getting enough mileage out of my soccer games during the week. I usually get the most miles out of my pick-up soccer on Sundays, but I don’t think I will be able to keep playing on Sundays after my long runs. I think the soccer games have been helpful in my shorter training weeks, but I want to hit 5-7 miles at least twice during the week, so I will be going from 5 days of soccer down to 2-3 (depending on the week) as my leagues end in the next few weeks. 

Sunday – pick-up soccer, 2.84 miles

Monday – 7 v 7 soccer, 1.66 miles. We started off slow for this game, but ended up winning 9-4, so it was a great way to end our regular season. We’re still waiting to hear what the plan is for playoffs, but we should be in a good position.

Tuesday – off

Wednesday – 7 v 7 soccer, 2.03 miles. This was a tough, evenly balanced game. We ended up winning the game 5-4 and scored our last goal with less than 30 seconds left.

Thursday – off

Friday – off

Saturday – long run, 16.75 miles, 13:00 pace.
  • Mile 1 – 12:46
  • Mile 2 – 11:43
  • Mile 3 – 12:22
  • Mile 4 – 11:21
  • Mile 5 – 11:47
  • Mile 6 – 13:31 
  • Mile 7 – 12:31
  • Mile 8 – 14:44 <– water stop
  • Mile 9 – 12:26
  • Mile 10 – 12:09
  • Mile 11 – 15:09 <– water stop
  • Mile 12 – 15:01
  • Mile 13 – 12:29
  • Mile 14 – 12:35
  • Mile 15 – 14:37 <– water stop
  • Mile 16 – 12:32
  • Last .75 – 13:27
As I mentioned yesterday, we started going the wrong direction at 12.9 miles and had to turn around at 13.5 miles, so that was rough mentally, but our group stuck it out together. 

How did your week go? Did you hit your goals?

Questioning my sanity

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Today’s the day I start questioning my sanity in signing up for the Pittsburgh Marathon… Two weeks ago, I was supposed to run 14 miles as my long run, but since I was participating in a relay race where I would end up running 15 miles total, my actual longest run for the week was 8 miles. Today, my training plan required 16 miles – that’s 2.6 miles longer than I have ever run before! 

I got up about an hour earlier than normal so that I could run a few miles before meeting up with my running group who was planning to do 10 miles. My goal was to do about 5 miles before meeting up with the group, so I figured I would just do a short loop and then head back to the starting point. Unfortunately, I ran into a race as I neared mile 3 and had to change my route, so I ended up running a little farther than I was expecting and had to meet my group already en route. I had about 5.5 miles in before meeting up with my group and then we started out for our 10 mile run. Our group started out with about 15 people, but slowly dwindled to 6 as we hit the last few miles – everyone was running different distances, so it wasn’t unusual to have a smaller group doing the full distance. As we did our last loop before heading back uptown, we ended up taking a right instead of a left and added about 1.5 miles extra onto our route. Having to turn around at about 13.5 miles in was really rough! Not only had we just climbed a large hill, we also knew that this error would be adding extra mileage to our already long run. 

I’m glad I did a few miles before joining my group, because I was really hurting by the time I passed the half marathon mark and I know I would’ve slowed down if I was on my own. My overall pace for the 16.75 miles I did was 13:00 / mile, but there were several water stops where we all stopped moving and a few stoplights, so my average moving pace was closer to 12:30 / mile which is only about 30 seconds / mile off of what I was hoping to hit. Not too bad for my first really long run of my training series.

The good news is that after an ice bath and a nap, I’m starting to feel pretty good again (as long as I don’t have to do too many stairs), so maybe I’m not quite insane after all!

Weekly Training Update

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Vacation is officially over – I left Miami today in 85° weather and landed in Charlotte to snow! Over the next few days, I will be recapping the Ragnar Relay in Key West, but I wanted to get a recap of last week put together.

Sunday – pick-up soccer, 4.03 miles

Monday – 7 v 7 soccer, 2.34 miles. I was actually supposed to have the day off, but another team was short on players, so I offered to join them for the night.

Tuesday – 7 v 7 soccer, 2.47 miles. We started the game with only 5 players and it wasn’t very pretty, but it was definitely good exercise! We ended up losing 6-1, but we held the other team to only one goal in the second half, so that was a boost for our morale considering we were playing in pretty cold rain.

Wednesday – 7 v 7 soccer 2.42 miles. Another game where we were short on players, but luckily, we had 6 to start, with our 7th player joining after about 2 minutes. We ended up winning the game 10-4, so it was a good way to end the week.

Thursday – off

Friday – Ragnar Relay leg # 1, 7.98 miles

Saturday – Ragnar Relay leg #2, 6.15 miles & leg #3, 1.77 miles


How did your week go? Did you hit your goals?

Weekly training update

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Another week of a missed goal total – I ended up with 13.62 miles (aiming for 15-19 miles), but that doesn’t include anything for my Wednesday night cross training, so overall, I’m still comfortable with the distance I hit.

Sunday – pick-up soccer, 4.27 miles

Monday – 7 v 7 soccer, 1.75 miles. Our first loss of the season, 2-1. The worst part is that they scored their game-winning goal with only about 2 minutes left and it was an unfortunate play that hit our keeper and bounced off right to the guy I was supposed to be defending, 2 feet from the net. Definitely not how you want to see a game end. 

Tuesday – off


Thursday – off

Friday – off

Saturday – long run, 7.6 miles, 12:31 pace.
  • Mile 1 – 12:22
  • Mile 2 – 12:37
  • Mile 3 – 13:39 <– water stop
  • Mile 4 – 12:16
  • Mile 5 – 12:19
  • Mile 6 – 14:37 <– water stop
  • Mile 7 – 10:53 <– I started running on my own because the group was planning over 8 miles for the day and I was only planning to do 5-7 miles
  • Last .6 – 10:45
I really picked up the pace for the last two miles of my run, but it still felt comfortable. My goal for next week’s race is a 10:00 pace, so it’s good to know that I can pick up the pace in my later miles (my longest run will be 7.9 miles next week). Since I was on my own, I did keep an eye on my watch to see how fast I was going, but I really just ran by feel without worrying about how fast I was going. 

How did your week go? Did you hit your goals?