Today was my birthday. It was pretty much a normal day, which was fine with me. Celia's gift to me was sleeping all night without a peep last night! She slept until 7:00 am, which gave me plenty of time to get up and have my breakfast before she woke up. I told her we were going to go to the store and she immediately gave me her own grocery list: "bread, yogurt, pie!" Haha. We went to my favorite grocery store, Trader Joe's. We did not get any pie. Poor kid. Then we headed home, had a snack, and my parents arrived for the day.
I went for a nice speedy 8-mile run. It has been raining here for three days and I'm looking forward to drier running weather, but the cool temperatures have been great. I've also noticed that I've gotten a lot faster in the last couple months. I'm still slow by many standards, but can easily run 8 miles at an 8:30-9:00 pace now, as opposed to 10:00-10:30 back in June. I'm still not sure what my goal marathon pace should be. Any runners have suggestions on that? How do I know how much to push my pace when I've never run a marathon?
After my run it was time for Celia's nap and we had this salad for lunch. It was good and I have leftovers for the rest of the week. This afternoon I did laundry and some cleaning, and made more spaghetti sauce to freeze for the winter. Unfortunately I didn't put a dent in all the organization I need to do to get ready for work. My brother and his girlfriend came over for dinner and birthday cake. His birthday is two days from now. And Chris brought me some chocolates and a bottle of wine when he came home from work.
Celia has been doing some pretty cute new things lately. Today she was singing "Itsy Bitsy Spider" complete with the sound effects from her music class. She's also starting to understand some simple concepts of time. She knows that a minute is some length of time, and that when she hears "minute" it usually means waiting for something, or that something will happen soon. So now she tells me that she'll be back in a "minute" when she leaves the room.
She is getting big! I think you are doing great on the running. I would love to get to a 8:30 pace..not there yet though! Do you do a lot of speedwork? Anyway...HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!
ReplyDeletePacing for a marathon is tricky. First, when is your goal marathon? Second, your 'long, slow run' day of training should be at such a pace that you can function well the rest of the day. If you are running your 10-20 mile training runs so fast that you are wiped out all day, you are doing them too fast. Given what you said I would say that you should run in the 9:30 or slower range for your long runs, faster for some of your mid-week runs. Then you can gauge as you get closer to your race how your longer runs are going at that 9:30 pace. Your goal in the long runs is to gain endurance, not speed so even though you could run it faster, that isn't the purpose of that run. When you get to your 20 or 22 mile training run you will have a much better idea of whether that 9:30 pace is realistic. I tend to think it will be.
ReplyDeleteAnother way to gauge how long your marathon might take is to take your 1/2 marathon time (if you have one), double it, then add 20 minutes. So, I did my 1/2 in 2:10. My marathon goal became 4:40 as a result. I ended up well over that (4:58) but you have to be adaptable to the circumstances and your body's condition and that is how it played out for me. One thing you might consider doing is joining up at www.dailymile.com It is a great tool to keep track of your runs, find friends who are runners, ask questions, etc. Check it out http://www.dailymile.com/people/NapkinDad#ref=tophd
How did I miss wishing you a Happy Birthday! Bad bloggy friend I am...pouty face will you forgive me....I will sing...Happy Birtday to You, even though it is late....Happy Birthday to YOu I sure hope it was great...hahahah I totally made up my own lyrics....there hot huh :0)
ReplyDeleteYay for your run....and yay for Celia letting mommy sleep in on her birthday
xoxo
Summer :0)
Oh you totally made me laugh out loud about my brace showing some toe hahahahahh
thanks so much for making me feel better about it....really it means a bunch....