Count Down to Boston!!

The its official I just booked my flight out to Boston, thanks much in part to my cousin we generously donated some of his frequent flyer miles so that I could have enough miles for the flight.  Much Thanks.  

It is just over 7 weeks left until the big race and I'm getting very excited, my Dad and I are going out there from Saturday until Wednesday so we'll even have some time to do a little site seeing.  We are even going to try and go to a baseball game at Fenway Park, the MN Twins are in town the day after the race so we are going to try and get tickets.  Being from MN I'm a Twins fan, just in case you were wondering.  

Training wise I'm feeling very good and I feel I am in better shape that I was for the Grandma's marathon.  I think the strength training has helped out a lot and running on the treadmill a lot this winter has really allowed me to control the pace and difficultly of my runs.  

Anyways just over 7 weeks and counting...

  

Fitness Assessment

Yesterday I got a fitness assessment at the gym I go to, it is a Lifetime Fitness.  One of the personal trainers there offered to give me an assessment and even do some follow up work with me.  

Now I have been training quite diligently for about 6 months strength training and the past 8 weeks of intense running to get ready for the Boston marathon.  Well, to my slight surprise I registered quote average on all of the categories.  Strength, flexibility, cardio, Bio Mass index 

[See Results Below]

Well this is understandable because the tests are only in specific areas, such as the strength test is only bicep strength, which I was slightly on the low end of average.  Now not to brag too much but I can bench press around 250lbs and squat somewhere around 350, so I guess I need to start doing some more biceps.  

Anyways, I thought I'd share my results and my slight disappointment that I am just of average fitness level.  I would really like to know what someone that scores off the charts is able to do, if I'm average.  

Cardiovascular- Max VO2 50.5 

Average Range- 44-50

Bicep Strength-80

Average Range 78-91

Sit and Reach Flexability-12.5

Fair-11.7-13.5

Body Composition-9.5%

Low-<13%

Overall Fitness-64

Range 1-100

 

Feb. 23rd Workout Follow Up

Well, yesterday I ran 23 mile on the treadmill.  It was not nearly as bad as I thought, I actually got to watch an entire college basketball game...but then it ended and I still had 5 miles left to go.  Other than that it was not bad at all.  

My only complaint was that I am breaking in my new Nike Skylon 11 shoes, which is a lot more neutral shoes and forces a more natural stride, but requires more foot strength, so my feet started to feel it around mile 18.  Other than that it was not too bad.

 

Workout: Feb. 23rd

Feb. 20th: Off

Feb. 21st: I did a full body lift and then went for 7 miles at an easy pace.

Feb. 22nd:Off

Feb. 23rd:  I am going to attempt to do my long run. 23 miles on the treadmill today.  I have previously done 19miles before and surprisingly it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.  So we'll see how another 4 miles goes.  I have 2 audio books to finish, a number of podcasts and some music to try and help ease the boredom.  I'll let you know how it turns out.

 

Workout: Feb. 19th

Feb. 19th: 

Today, realized that I had been looking about 3 weeks behind on my training program, for the last week or two, so I'm an idiot I guess.  Well today I'm back on track and did a full body strength training and 2 sets of 20min intervals at marathon pace, actually I was feeling pretty good and ran about 30 seconds faster than my projected pace, around 6min. 38 sec.  I'm shooting for around a 7 min per mile pace. 

Felt a little sore during the strength training so kept it really light, but other than that the running portion I felt really good.  

Also, the new shoes are really nice.  Compared to my old ones it feels like there is nothing there. 

Ultra Marathon Man

I first heard about Dean Karnazes while reading though a Runner's World magazine, they were doing a story about his latest accomplishment of running 50 marathons in 50 days in 50 states.  The article was interesting, but it wasn't until a family vacation last summer when I was talking to one of my cousins about Dean's book Ultra Marathon Man: Confessions of an All-Night Runner, that I really got interested.

My cousin was telling me about the book and some of Dean's accomplishments and how inspiring he thought the book was.  Well about a month after that vacation I was looking through for an audio book to download, I like to listen to them during my commute to work and back, I came across Dean's book.  I listened to the first four chapters and got motivated and went out for a run.  I had only run about 3 times in the past month and a half, but I was in somewhat good shape from a previous marathon that I ran in June.  This was around the middle of Sept.  

I guess the runner's high and the inspiration from the book really hit me and I ended up going for 23.5 miles.  I had to walk most of the last 5 mile, they were quite painful actually. But it was an amazing experience to be able to get a little glimpse of being able to push your body to do something you did not think you would be able to do.  Which is the theme of Dean's book, being able to achieve what is thought to be impossible and taking advantage of every second of life.

I strongly recommend this book to everyone, runner or not.  Dean has just published another book about his experience running the 50 marathons, I'll have to post an entry about that one later, it was good but not nearly as good and this book.  

Some of Dean's next goals are to run 300 miles non-stop and run from L.A. to Hawaii in what looks to be a big inflatable hamster ball.  Go read the book and be inspired to do what you though you couldn't.   

The Minor Issues:

As I have been training I have noticed that during my longer runs the area of my legs that hurt the most are generally below my knees.  My calves and Achilles tendon area, so I have been jumping rope as a warm up to try and help strengthen this area.  

I have also been doing some strengthening exercises like standing on one leg and with my hand point straight up, like I'm about to dive into the water I slowly bend over to tough something about waist high.  This helps strengthen a lot of counter balancing muscles below my knees.  Both these have seemed to help a lot for the short period in which I've been doing them.  

I have found that it really helps to strengthen your core and counter balancing muscles that often get over looked when focusing on strength training.    

Workout: Feb. 15th-18th

Feb. 15th:

On Sunday I had my big run for the week 20 miles and really felt great.  As always I got really hungary toward mile 17.  I had a Cliff bar with me and ate it throughout the run but was still very hungary the last few miles.  

Feb. 16th:

I took it easy, just went for 3 miles really easy on the treadmill.  I think it really helped to work out some of the soreness though.

Feb. 17th:

I did a full body lift, which means about 1.5 hours of strength training then did 800 meter run at 5:30min mile pace, 90 seconds rest then 600m at the same pace, then another 600m.  I did this 3 times with 5 minutes in between.  [3 x (800 x 600 x 600) @ 5k pace]

I got my heart rate was around 175-190, which is tough. 

Feb. 18th:

Did a nice 5 miles on the treadmill, fair easy pace, again recovery and workout out some soreness.  

New Shoes!

I also just bought a new pair of running shoes which is always exciting for a runner.  I got the new Nike Skylon 11, which is a show based off of the Nike Free.  The main difference with this shoes is that it is a very neutral show or is does not provide a lot of support.  

More runners have been going to this more neutral shoes or minimalist shoes because they actually help to strengthen the foot and allow you to have a more natural running form.  The way they work is the sections are allowed to move independently which allows more flexibility in the shoe which is a more natural feel and does not restrict the foot as much.  I have done one easy workout in them, 5 miler on the treadmill and so far I love em. But the real test will be my first 20 miler in them.  They are very light weight and feel like there is nothing there, which is a good thing.   

Workout: Long over due

Well, its been a long time since I've updated this but I have been quite busy training for the Boston marathon.  So to sum of up what I've been doing for the last 4 months, I am in week 4 of my Boston training program. 

Throughout the November and December I focused mainly on strength training, both upper and lower body.  I have also been shifting my strength training to functional strength training.  Which means I am doing exercises that strengthens multiple muscle groups using free weights.  This is beneficial because it not only strengthens your main muscle groups but also all of the secondary and counter-balancing muscles groups.  

The focus of my training for the marathon has been on building my cardiovascular endurance.  This means a lot of training in a high heart rate zone.  For me around 170-185 beats per minute.