99 days and counting…
We’re within 100 days of the Trials… that’s scary…
A quick mid-week update: I’ve been running a little tired lately, as evidenced by my TC 10 performance. It’s hard to know what to do (since I’m relatively new to marathoning and mileage). I think I’m feeling this way because there have been so many changes to my training plan: I’m following the elite Daniels plan, which has much longer tempo and MP workouts in them (uff, I thought the regular plan was hard!!); Mileage is up (For Grandma’s, I hit 95 miles once, 92 miles another week… for Houston I have 7 weeks above 95 miles planned (3 of which are 105)), and paces are being challenged.
Perhaps it’ll just take a while to get used to all of this? Or perhaps I should back off the paces a little bit? During my MP workout yesterday, it was relatively comfortable to hit 6:16s — I had to really work to bring that to 6:10s, which is my new goal. Question is: do you push for sub 6:10s, and eventually that becomes easier? Or do you go at what “feels” like MP and that pace will come down gradually as the training plan progresses & I become stronger & more fit?
On another note, I’m doing really well with my weight and nutrition (well, I should clarify: really well in comparison to what I used to be doing, my goals are still to do much better :)). I’ve held my weight at 107.4 this week, which is relatively light for me. I was down to 106.0 for Grandma’s, and my goal will be to get there again within the next 3 weeks. Fun to think I can be there so early in the training cycle! The goal will be to be even lighter than that for Houston – a weight yet to be determined (with the help of a body fat test – hoping someone can point me to a “number” to shoot for). I just don’t want to be carrying around anything I don’t NEED at Houston. Based on how out of place I felt at TC 10 vs. the extremely fit/lean US Championship women, I have a bit on me that I don’t need 🙂
Part of it has been the change in the foods that I eat: I’m now eating a TON of healthy foods. I haven’t allowed myself to buy anything packaged or bad for you in the last 3 weeks, and instead have snacked on greek yogurt, organic bread with PB, etc. Sometimes I find myself staring longingly into our pantry or fridge, wishing there were packaged cookies, chocolate bars, pop tarts, or anything else to “satisfy” me. [Apples just don’t fill you like a heavy, unhealthy, sugar/fat filled snack :)] Ohh, just writing about those things makes me crave them…
I do allow myself to cheat when the “bad” food is being provided (i.e. snacks left out at work, goodies made by mother-in-law, etc). There’s probably a little more cheating than I should have, but at least this method limits it 🙂
My body/stomach have had a hard time getting used to this. Seriously. I’m guessing it’s just because my diet now has a ton more fiber, and I’m eating a lot more (you can eat so much more when everything is healthy!).
That’s all for now… plugging away, one day at a time (with only 99 more to go!). Yikes!!
