So with today being 4 weeks until our travel day to head to Disney World for the Goofy Challenge in January I figured I wanted to sit down and see where my training has gotten to and see if there are any tweaks to make to my training.
Before I even start looking at the numbers I know that my mental game and training were going really well up until the week of November 13th. We had company staying over that week and basically sleeping within 10 feet of the treadmill so I had to do a bunch of my mid week runs that week outside and I wasn’t able to push the speed the way I would have on the treadmill. It didn’t help we started getting a whack of snow and it got cold that very week so those runs were cold and dark – maybe not the best for the mental game. By the Sunday that week though I knew I needed to do a 19 miler and it happened to snow several inches that day – I got in 4.5 miles outside then had to come into the treadmill (company had just left for the day so could get on it) due to the snow but after 7.9 miles I let out the magic black smoke and the treadmill was pooched. After that every run had to happen outside and with the cold and snow the runs were slow and I missed a 10 miler outright and had to cut a 20 miler short at 6.6 miles because my face was frozen through my balaclava. The treadmill did get fixed after a couple weeks but some damage to my mental game had already been done.
I did some work to get some of that 20 miler back by increasing my Saturday and Sunday mileage on what was supposed to be a rest week. I did get a about 12 miles back that weekend over my schedule and with the runs last week I did get 2 back to back 30 mile weekends in.
The 20 miler this past weekend was very good considering it was done on the treadmill but downside of bumping my mileage on my rest week is that I am kind of bone tired right now. I don’t have the option right now to get extra sleep (who has any spare time around the holidays?) and those 2 things combined is resulting in me substituting carbs for sleep and my weight is showing it. I was on track to get down to my goal weight of 207 before the Goofy Challenge (giving a total of 50 pounds weigh loss) but instead of going down this past couple weeks I am in fact up a couple pounds. This should mostly be temporary weight but does mean I am under the gun if I want to get to my goal for the Goofy.
The numbers:
Miles to go until Goofy: 138.5
Miles in since September 3rd: 540.96
Miles over schedule Sept 3rd – Nov 1st: 52.71
Miles missed since November 1st: 26.95
Miles over schedule September 3rd – now: 25.76
So what it comes down to, is I think I was in better shape as of November 1st than I am now. Speed wise for sure and probably over all training level. I think I can get back to where I was and probably make some improvements before Goofy in January but it means I have probably lost a month and a half of improvements that I should have been making. Kind of disappointing.
But…I am still in very good shape to do this thing! I had in my mind maybe trying for 3:30 back in October – realistically I am probably looking at breaking under 4 hours as my goal but anything under my current PR of 4:15:01 set way back in 2005 will be a major accomplishment.
That is what I need to take with me on my runs right now. I am doing great – I have had a set back but that is life and I will overcome and I will make this Goofy (my 4th) my best one yet!
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