Settling in…

I took most of two weeks off at the beginning of July to deal with some overuse injuries. I had a shin splint in my left leg and a bit of pain in my knee. A couple of weeks of rest remedied it. Since then I’ve had weeks of 33, 40, and 41 miles. Today I did my first 10 mile run on trails with 800 feet of elevation gain. I’m running six days a week and the volume leaves me feeling tired most days. The effect of that is that I rarely feel fresh. But I can feel myself getting stronger nonetheless.

My weight is down to 164 pounds which is a total weight loss of 54 pounds. The weight loss had stalled while I dialed back the running but it has picked back up with the increase in mileage. I definitely need to lose another 15 as my body fat is still high. I believe that will happen by the end of the year with continued running and a light focus on diet.

I feel like I’m in a good spot. Running over 40 miles a week, I’m confident I’ll see continued improvement.

I’m in the opening weeks of Hansons’ beginner marathon training plan. That plan calls for about 20-25 miles at this stage. I’m doing 40+. I’ll continue to do more mileage than called for throughout the 18 week plan but I’ll start doing the speed work and tempo runs when the plan call for it.

My goal for this training block is a sub-2 hour half marathon at Thanksgiving. To accomplish that, I need to run the 8:45 pace from my last 10-K for 13.1 miles. There’s no reason to believe I can’t do that. In fact, it’s a fairly modest goal.