week of 21 May - 20 weeks to go

20 weeks to go today (5/27) until the marathon.  A lackluster week of running to start, but I had a renewed focus after commiting myself to run 42.195km.

 - Mo - nada, strangely sore
 - Tu - 5.6 @10:00 on TM
 - We - nada, no sleep
 - Th - 7.9 usual out and back, 9:18 pace
 - Fr am - 7.6 on TM, 78' weight loss level 7
 - Fr pm - 2.0 @ 10:00 on TM
 - Sa - 7.6 on TM, 78' weight loss level 7
 - Su am - 9.1 @ 9:48 at Burke Lake, 76deg and humid
 - Su pm - 3.0 @ 10:00 on TM
Total: 42.9 mile

I doubled on Friday and Sunday, which is always awesome.  I had planned to do 3 laps (13.8 miles) but stopped at two because my legs were sore and I didn't want to start this adventure injured.  I made up for it with 3 in the afternoon.  43 isn't good, but not bad with two days off.  I'll do better this week.

I'm still mulling over how to go about training.  I had hoped to have a plan before today, but... oh, well.  Here's a list of things I think are important:  weekly mileage, weight.  That's about it.  There's a long list of semi-important stuff I can't decide between -- long runs, hills, moderate runs, marathon pace runs, tempo, intervals, drills, strides, core, ...

Mount Desert Island Marathon - 14 October 2012

 20 weeks from Sunday, I'll be running the Desert Island Marathon in Bar Harbor, Maine.  The last marathon I ran was Boston in 2009.  Frankly, I've gotten a bit lazy.  I chased the sub-40 10k for a while and I sort of got there last Spring when I ran a downhill, wind-at-my back 39:35.  That was good enough I guess, because I haven't run that much since then.

I signed up for a Fall marathon, but it was local and easy to bail on.  This suckers in Maine.  We're talking hotels and airline tickets.  Plus a friend of mine is going.  Fear and same -- my greatest motivators.

I'm also planning to get back on the blogging horse, so I have to write down my weekly mileage.

Here's my mileage by the months since I last posted (July 2, 2011!).

July - 162 (37 mpw)
August - 152 (34 mpw)
September - 203 (47 mpw)
October - 190 (44 mpw)
November - 162 (38 mpw)
December - 218 (49 mpw)
January - 182 (41 mpw)
February 182 (44 mpw)
March 163 (37 mpw)
April - 155 (36 mpw)
May - 136 (thru 5/24 -- 40 mpw)

Compare this to the 60 mpw I *averaged* over 2008.  Also I notice a trend with my good races.  I ran 232 miles in March of 2011 before running 1:06:17 at Cherry Blossom and 283 in March 2010 before running 1:05:55.  I didn't make it in the lottery for Cherry Blossom, which I think killed some of my motivation.

The last race I ran was a 20:41 5k on New Year's Eve.  I did manage 2nd in my age group (the strange M36-40???), but didn't stick around to find out.

The race is in early Fall, so I'll have to get in some mileage this summer.  Here we go...