Race Schedule

It’s been two weeks of training and my legs are beginning to cooperate again.  Got in my first “long-run”, a big bad 7-miler!  (Can you feel the sarcasm?)  Baby steps!  Last thing I want is to do too much too soon and get myself injured.  Hopefully within a few months, this past week’s “Long-Run” will be a normal base day of training for me. 

So I have recently settled on some races.  I have two key “building” races that I will be using on my way to Umstead 2012.  First is the NJ Marathon which I will be running on May 1^st.  This is run on roads and is extremely flat so it will not be specific to Umstead however it’s a nice spring marathon and the timing seemed to fit.  My second test leading up to Umstead 2012 will be the Can Lake 50M.  This is held Columbus Day weekend so hopefully the wife and I can make a mini vacation out of it.  The Elevation profile is nothing too crazy, but it should still be challenging.  I have to start working on that hill training as well as walking those inclines.  I am really excited about these races because they give me some shorter term goals and will keep me motivated and focused throughout this long training process.  I do not have a specific training plan for the Marathon.  I will just continue to add to my base mileage while increasing my long run. (I am not trying to qualify for Boston!) For the 50M however, I am thinking about using the Santa Clarita Runner’s program.  The program can be found on their website and it basically generates a plan based on the race date and length of the race.   It is pretty plain and simple.  There isn’t any specified speed or tempo work, just a mileage guide.

In between these two races I will also be running some shorter races that I can utilize as some added motivation as well as a gauge for my performance and progress.  A week after the NJ Marathon in May I will be running back to back 10Ks however I am going to use these as easy training runs because I do not want to do too much following the marathon.  The first race I will participate in is the Newport 10K which is a local race that I enjoy running in and they always give away a pretty decent Tech Tee!  Then, the following day, I will be running part of the North Face Endurance Challenge series.    I will be running the 10K at Bear Mountain.  The reason I am doing this one is in support of a couple of my co-workers.  They are both getting back into running so we all chose this race as a goal.  Hopefully they will get to enjoy running as much as I do and stick with it.  I like to take any chance that I can get to help open someone else up to the world of running.  I stand by the idea that after a run, you will always feel better than you did before.

Now for the weight stuff...  I dropped a few pounds last week which is good.  No specific diet, just cleaning it up and watching my portions!  I feel even the smallest of weight loss improves my ability to run a great deal.

12/28/2010 – 225.4 lbs

01/10/2011 – 224.0 lbs

01/16/2011 – 220.6 lbs

Thanks for dropping by.  Feel free to follow my training at both twitter and dailymile at the following:

http://twitter.com/MWest815

http://www.dailymile.com/people/MartyW4

Week One in the Books

Well week one is in the books and it was a crazy one.  It’s tough getting used to waking up early (especially in winter) however I feel so much better when I get my runs in during the morning.  I even get a chance to eat breakfast, imagine that!  I will start off with a couple of rants as they relate to my first week of training.  I am not a negative person and it usually takes a lot to rub me the wrong way however I do have some pet peeves!  My first pet peeve is winter themed, especially since we had about a foot of snow a week ago and are expecting another foot tomorrow!  I can’t stand it when people do not shovel their sidewalks.  I love getting halfway down a block and having to turn around & backtrack because someone was too lazy to clean their sidewalk.  I’m not talking about the day of a storm either; I am talking 3 days later!  Come on.  Another one of my pet peeves is being stopped mid run by someone who needs driving directions.  This drives me nuts!  I understand you are lost and need help but they never seem to realize that I am in the middle of a workout.  “Oh he can stop, he’s just jogging!”  I bring this one up in particular because of a funny story to kick off my first run of the year.  I was getting in some miles in the park when I was stopped by a woman who was a caretaker for an elderly man.  She had apparently showed up for work and lo and behold her “patient” was not there.  Normally I can’t stand getting stopped mid run (as mentioned before) but in this case I felt bad.  Unfortunately, I was not able to help her out as I could not recall seeing her patient during my run.  Hopefully she was able to find him somewhere in the park.  Not sure how far he would have gotten…  

Running in general was good this week.  I got in 4 decent runs.  I could have done more however I was unexpectedly sent up to Boston for work this past weekend and was unable to run long.  I am feeling good although I am in the process of brushing off a lot of cobwebs.  I would classify my motivation as average as I love being out on the run however it’s been tough getting out of my warm bed in the mornings.  Hopefully a few more weeks of dragging myself out of bed early and it will become habit.  For this week I am looking to run a few 3 to 4 milers with a weekend long run of about 6-8 miles with an easy recovery run on Sunday.

Starting weight @ 12/28/2010 – 225.4 lbs

Current weight @ 01/10/2010 – 224.0 lbs

Happy New Year

So my race plan was already altered and I am not even a week in!    Not a big deal though.  The CNJRR Hangover 5K was rescheduled due to snow & ice.  It will now be run on January 30th so I will have a month before my first race of the year.  Speaking of races, I also signed up for the NJ Marathon which will be run on May 1st.  With my ultimate goal of a 100-miler in Spring 2012 my thoughts are to get in the NJ Marathon in early May, a posible 50K this summer, a 50 Miler in fall (Late 2011, will also act as my Umstead Qualifier) leaving me an additional 4-5 months to prepare for my first 100.  Thoughts for a 50 Miler are the following: Can Lake 50M, Tussey MoutainBack, or the JFK 50M.

Thats the easy part, now for the running.  Getting back into the swing of things hasn't been that easy.  I am carrying around WAY to much weight and it is probably not a good thing.  Part of my journey is going to be getting back to a healthy weight, somewhere in the 180-190 range.  I am not going to turn to a specific "diet" as I always seem to derail on those things.  Rather, I am going to get myself back into healthy eating habits, eliminating all the junk food and just being conscious of what I put in my body.

My starting stats as of December 28, 2010:
Weight         - 225.4 lbs
Body Fat % -   30.7 %

I will be updating my workouts on daily mile so check me out at http://www.dailymile.com/people/MartyW4#ref=tophd and feel free to "friend" me.