So this week hit 8 weeks until the Dopey Challenge in Disney World in January. I am ready but I am having issues getting motivated and a few things are conspiring against me so that I seem to be coasting instead of driving hard to get better.
Basically my treadmill is down while I wait for warranty parts to show up – I can still get in steady miles on my wife’s treadmill but it can’t handle me doing speed work so the wall breaker for it keeps tripping if I push hard. Plus the weather outside turned nasty cold (even for November in Winnipeg) with snow (with an inch of snow or so forecast for today on top of what we already have received). This has made outside running a bit tougher than I would like and since it is fresh snow with some ice under it speed work outside is mostly out of the question too.
Over the past 7 days we did a couple nights away for a family road trip, our daughter had her 6th birthday (followed by a birthday party which was exhausting), I had a sick day where I couldn’t do anything energetic like running and combined with all the other kids’ activities for the week we haven’t had too much spare time.
Combine all that and it feels like I am coasting at a point in marathon training where I should be at peak intensity. Feeling that is giving me issues with motivating myself as well. Bah!
I’m not trying to complain here just give an honest assessment of where my head and training is at this week. Acknowledging that I need to find a way to kick my own ass and get the mileage back up and pick up on the speed work.
So runs that I haven’t mentioned on the site yet (I put some of it out on twitter but not on the site):
Thursday – No run – sick and didn’t go to work that day – probably felt ok to run that night but didn’t want to risk retriggering the nausea I felt earlier in the day.
Friday – didn’t get on the treadmill until after the kids’ swimming lessons – put in 5 miles in a steady 40 minutes on the wife’s treadmill – about 7.5 mph is about all it can take from me.
Saturday – 8.85 miles outside in 1:23:56 – slow and cold with a strong wind. Dressed for it but it was definitely slow
Sunday – not a lot of sleep last night and I was exhausted from everything non-running that had to be done on Saturday. Started out hoping to get out to 13.1 miles but called it after 9.25. Cold and a bunch of fresh snow – hands were frozen (need warmer running gloves apparently) and my feet were soaked inside my shoes from snow falling in and melting. I mentally and physically could have kept going but at 9.25 I was close to my house and it made sense from a health perspective to stop considering cold wet feet that were getting colder. On a side note it has continued to get colder and keep snowing since I stopped. Glad I got out running when I did. In the end the 9.25 took me 1:32:58 with lots of slow road crossings and some fighting with my gear to get it to sit correctly (my hood especially did not want to sit correctly – it either wanted to blind me or pop off).
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So what is coming up this week? Well – I need to get motivated and pushing again. The warranty parts for my treadmill were supposed to show up Thursday or Friday this past week so I have already sent a query to the manufacturer to see what is going on. I will be pushing that harder now – I need that treadmill back! I need it to do speed work and I need it for days like today where it is not healthy to keep running outside.
I will be pushing the treadmill folks and I will be trying to get lots of miles in on the wife’s treadmill even if they are slow. I can at least push the mileage even if I can’t push the speed.
I also need to get back on track with my diet – between the road trip and birthday and birthday and party this week my weight is up a bit and my diet is off. So I will be trying to clean that up for sure.
I will also be trying to add some more light weight lifting back into my mix – I already do daily chin ups and triceps dips to strengthen my arms and shoulders but I am adding in push up as well (with some planking in there too). But I think I will be adding in more arm and shoulder lifting free weight exercises (which will also help to strengthen the core a bit) and I need to start adding squats back into things as well.
Lots of plans for the week so hopefully I can motivate my way through things and get things back moving in the right direction!
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