^^
Thanks for the encouragement!


Wed May 31
4.4 miles of hills
181.4 lbs

Total miles for May 2017: 75.3 (N=16, max=9.1, stdev=1.3, stdev excluding long run = 0.66)

Fri June 2
4.0 miles (10:12 pace) - breaking in some new sneaks - yay
181.0 lbs

Really hungover today, and while running+shower usually makes the headaches disappear, my head is still throbbing today. Uggghhh. On the positive side, I haven't been below 180 lbs since Dec 2016 - almost there...

Sun June 4
5.0 miles (10:14 pace)
182.2 lbs (meh)

Mon June 5
5.0 miles (9:35 pace)
181.7 lbs

Wed June 7
4.2 miles (~2.7 of which was HIIT)
180.8 lbs

Thurs June 8
5.0 miles (9:22 pace)
180.4 lbs

Sat June 10
4.0 miles (9:56 pace)
180.2 lbs

Mon June 10
4.0 miles (10:02 pace)
180.3 lbs

(obv the previous post was for Monday June 12, not the 10th)

Tuesday June 13th
3.5 miles (10:20 pace)
180.1 lbs

Some quick notes:

(1) I was quasi-dreading these past two days given the weather forecast. I ran both at night, when the temperature dropped to 88 degrees (though the "heat index" was 92-93 thanks to humidity). I drank extra fluids in preparation (120+ oz water per day, compared to my usual 96oz), but still managed to feel dehydrated (dry mouth, the start of slight dizziness) by the end of each run. Will likely do no more than 4 miles when it's this hot, and there's no reason for me to do it faster than a really easy pace.

(2) Planning to do a long (~11 miles) run on Thursday. It's been 3 weeks since my most recent long run (9 miles on the Friday before Memorial Day). Temperature is forecast to be 15-18 degrees cooler by that point.

(3) New shoes have been great so far, so I ordered 2 more pairs. Should last me well into next year.

Thurs June 15
9.0 miles (10:35 pace)
179.7 lbs (measured a few hours before run)

Well that was disappointing. Wanted to do 11 miles, but around mile 8.0-8.5 it became clear to me that I simply didn't have enough in the tank. Was also becoming a bit lightheaded, and I noticed my knees were getting tight (not sore, just a tight feeling, if that makes sense). Temperature was a reasonable 77 degrees to start (with a nice 12-15 mph wind), and 70 by the time I finished. Drank 20 oz of zero-calorie Powerade steadily between miles 3.0 and 7.0. I suppose I could have gone a bit slower than 10:30 to start, but any slower just feels like walking to me. Perhaps aiming for 11 miles was too ambitious given my recent training; oh well, I figure I'll give it another shot in say 2 weeks. Rest day tomorrow, obviously.

Sat June 17
3.8 miles (10:07 pace)
180.0 lbs

Mon June 19
5.0 miles (10:40 pace)
180.6 lbs

That was nice. 68 degrees outside, and, not coincidentally, not once I did I think "f*ck this sh*t" or anything similarly negative during that run.

Probably going to stop posting my weight for each post now that I've been hovering near 180 for a solid two weeks or so. Was interesting at first for me to see how seemingly easy it could fluctuate, but now that curiosity is no longer interesting to me. Will stick to doing a weekly weigh-in (say every Monday) as I'd like to keep my eye on reaching 170 by the end of the summer, but it'll be slow and steady.

Tues June 20
4.5 miles (10:20 pace, temp=79)

Wed June 21
4.0 miles (10:40 pace, temp=71)

I think this marks the first time (in this log) I've logged three consecutive days. Rest day tomorrow.

Good job.
The jump from 9 to 11 miles is very big. No reason for that. Increase in smaller increments.
Also: if you could post weekly mileage, that would make it easier to follow along and keep the overview.

Thanks - I'm thinking I'm going to stick with your earlier advice to "first expand frequency, then expand length of run". Minor injuries aside, I've only recently upped my frequency to ~4 times per week, and I think I'd like to be able to consistently do 5 times per week before zeroing in on expanding the length of the long run.


Fri June 23
~1.7 miles - decided to call it early when my right knee started flaring up

Mon June 26
4.0 miles
Weekly Monday weigh-in: 180.6 lbs

Tues June 27
4.0 miles


Knee seems to be better now (no issues Monday or today), but I'll of course continue to be cautious. While I was busy not running during the weekend, I made a plot of my weekly miles and weight since starting this log.

Blue line = weight in lbs [left axis]
Red line = miles ran during previous 7 days [right axis]
Green line = 0.5*(miles ran during previous 14 days) [right axis]

[in other words, the green line is a weekly average of the previous two weeks; basically smooths out the red line]



I'll try to update this plot at the end of every month.

It's occurred to me that my late-April goal of wanting to do 26.2 by mid/late October was probably too ambitious. I haven't yet registered for the AC marathon; my contingency plan, if I think I need more time, is to instead register for the Philly marathon (late November - about a month after the AC marathon). And if I feel that I'm not ready for 26.2 at that time, I won't sweat it - one of my goals is to figure out some sustainable exercise equilibrium (such that I can avoid the "relapse" I referred to in my OP). At the very least I'll definitely do the half marathon in either AC or Philly (assuming no serious injury, of course).

I did register for a 10k at the end of the summer. No special reason for choosing that particular distance - basically just wanted to have at least one intermediate race to look forward to soon. It's nice that the starting line is literally within three blocks of my apartment, so, haha, almost no excuse to not sign up.

I was close to post this a couple of times, but refrained from it in order not to sound negative. But as you kinda bring it up yourself, wanted to share my view.

I really like how you slowly build up mileage, I believe it's the absolute right approach to reduce likelihood of injury and build a base to enjoy running marathons in the long term.

However, given your current mileage I would definitely not recommend to run a marathon in October. Even for November you're about 20 weeks away from it, so I'd think you should be able to comfortably run 12+ miles in about 3 weeks. It's probably still borderline-doable. Keeping in mind not to increase weekly volume and length of the longest run by more than 15% from week to week, it's already very close.

To be honest I would settle for a half marathon this autumn and shoot for a marathon next spring.

Just my 2cents

Thanks for the $0.02. I smiled in reaction to your saying that you held off posting a few times; I sorta had my previous post (regarding delaying the marathon) already written in my head approximately 3-4 weeks ago - but I knew that I could exist in a state of quasi-denial as long as I didn't type it, haha. As you said, I strongly agree that "building a base to enjoy" long term is super important.

-----------------------------------------------
Wed June 28
4.0 miles

Fri June 30
4.0 miles
-----------------------------------------------
End of month stats:

Total miles for June 2017: 77.0 (N=17, max=9.0)
Total miles for May 2017: 75.3 (N=16, max=9.1)
-----------------------------------------------

Finally been seeing sub-180 on the scale again; let's see if I can make it through the long extended USA#1 holiday weekend without f*cking that up too badly.

hehe, i thought the same as linpinpark when reading your previous post. but i also think that people are way too obsessed with the marathon.
i think a half marathon is the perfect distance for a fall race for you.

cool graph

haha yup, definitely felt myself being guilty of this. But I do appreciate the "tough love" and friendly encouragement.

Got stuck in a lazy/too-hungover/vacation mode and only ran once during the holiday weekend. F*ck it, mistakes/slip-ups will happen, but I feel like I'm back on the wagon now. Today's run felt great.

-----------------------
Sunday July 2
4.5 miles

Thurs July 6
6.0 miles

Fri July 7
4.5 miles
-----------------------

Sun July 9
5.1 miles

Mon July 10 - 178.3 lbs
4.5 miles

Tues July 11 - 4.5 miles
Thurs July 13 - 4.0 miles
Fri July 14 - 6.2 miles
Sat July 15 - 4.6 miles
Tues July 18 - 4.5 miles (178.1 lbs)

July update - overall I'm pretty happy with how this month went:

177.2 lbs

July 19 - 4.5
July 20 - 5.0
July 22 - 3.6
July 24 - 4.0
July 25 - 6.0
July 27 - 6.6
July 28 - 4.0
July 30 - 4.0
July 31 - 4.0

-----------------------------------------------
End of month stats:

Total miles for July 2017: 90.1 (N=19, max=6.6)
Total miles for June 2017: 77.0 (N=17, max=9.0)
Total miles for May 2017: 75.3 (N=16, max=9.1)
-----------------------------------------------

Blue line = weight in lbs [left axis]
Red line = miles ran during previous 7 days [right axis]
Green line = 0.5*(miles ran during previous 14 days) [right axis]

Slow-ish start to the month but I'm cruisin' again thanks to lots of 75 degree days/nights (instead of low 90s / high 80s, which was the case for many of my July runs - and will probably be the case for a lot of August too, but, eh, so it goes).

Aug 3 - 4.3 miles
Aug 4 - 4.5
Aug 6 - 5.5 (hills)
Aug 7 - 6.2
Aug 8 - 5.0
tomorrow: rest day, for sure

Had a nice 9-miler (10:10 pace) on Sunday. Ended up taking two off-days Tues-Wed from running because I hit the squats really hard on Tues and my thighs/quads felt too sore to run on Wednesday. So I'm obviously still in the process of trying to find that nice equilibrium between running and strength stuff, but I'm enjoying that process of discovery.

Aug 10 Thurs - 4.5 miles
Aug 11 Fri - 4.5
Aug 13 Sun - 9.0
Aug 14 Mon - 4.0
Aug 17 Thurs - 4.0
Aug 18 Fri - 4.0