Man, it has been awhile since I wrote on this thing.  Kinda surprised blogs are not obsolete yet.  As the above picture demonstrates, my running did not taper off like my blog usage.  And yes, I am about to get outkicked by a ten year old in this photo, but I was fortunate enough to be able to hold to cross before him...if the race was another twenty feet though...woof.

I have run two marathons since my  last blog post, one a year, and achieved a PR in each of them so that my current PR is 3:28:35.  I am proud of that 3:28 since it was run on a hot and humid day and on a hilly course (First Light Marathon, which is the same marathon I did before and have this weekend) and probably would have been a lot lower in ideal conditions.  I am running another marathon this weekend but do not expect to PR since I have been training injured for a year now and really like doubting myself before these things.

Also, since my last blog post, my family expanded with a wonderful little son who was so eager to get into this world to meet us that he came ten weeks early and weighed only 1 pound 9 ounces.  He stayed in the NICU in Pensacola, along with us, for over four months.  He fought through it though and is now a wonderful, healthy, once deaf (now has cochlear implants to help him hear) and kicking our butts son.

My new son has limited my racing but I have been training pretty heavy every year trying to get my marathon time down.  This year's marathon training had me following a modified Pfitz plan (Advanced marathon up to 55 miles with me eliminating a rest day and running the long runs from the up to 75 mpw plan) which entailed me running around 60 miles a week plus expanded long runs on the weekend.

To gear up for the training, I did a summer base building program of running 7 days a week with one long run a week since I was limited on the time I could put in mileage.  I figure my knee issues arose either during that phase or the early phases of my program and they never really went away.  So, I have been foam rolling my legs and killing the supplements (fish oil, vitamin C mainly) to try and get the knees feeling better.  Some days they do, some days they don't, but  I was not able to run my training runs nearly as quick as I have in the past.    

That lack of speed is what gives me concern for my marathon time this Sunday, but who knows what will happen?  The weather certainly looks like it is not going to be helpful in lowering my time any.

After the marathon I think I am going to gear up to train for going sub 40:00 at the Azalea Trail Run or Spring Fever Chase 10ks in March. That training would have to start after a solid two week reverse taper to try and get my knees back to non-hurting status.  From there, I would go on to start my base building for next year's marathon, where, hopefully, I could go sub 3:20.

I am going to try and post my weekly schedules here and maybe that will keep me motivated to hit those speed workouts and times needed to get to sub 40 and 3:20, if my knees cooperate.  Pardon the grammatical errors.

This week is uneventful except for the marathon which is Sunday.  I will post a race report on it, and try to remember some stuff from the other two times I have run it for my own record.  The two weeks following that will be spent resting, recovering and getting fat (Although I will resume my strength training routine) and then the third week I will start the new training regimen that I will post as well.    

Out