Ugh, my legs are still achy today. Maybe even more than yesterday. I took yesterday off and just did some pushups and foam roller.

Actually the right calf does feel better, but my whole left leg is sore. Maybe it's normal, I just don't remember feeling this way after playing a lot of basketball when I was in decent shape. Gonna lift today, foam roll and then jog like 1-2 miles at most. Supposed to do 6 tomorrow and 11 on Sunday, but I'm not sure that's a good idea if my legs feel like this.

Good idea not to try and force anything if your sore or not ready for it. The schedule you use is just a GUIDELINE. It is something that would help a wide range of people in your fitness level it is not a mandatory schedule. Listen to your body on the bad days and the good days. Take an easy day if your feeling bad or run a tempo a day early if you feel strong and want to. This is the biggest advantage of not being on a team schedule, you can personalize very easily and without negative effects. Kind of like what I am referencing in the long run if you feel great don't strictly adhere to 9:30 pace because someone who never met you wrote that down, run 8:45 if you can handle it. Our bodies respond to STIMULUS and RECOVERY. Any extra stimulus you throw at it and recover from will reap better benefits than following some schedule blindly. I'm sure you get that, I just think it can't be said enough.

Soreness pretty much comes with the territory when increasing mileage. Some active stretches and maybe some drills before you run could help. Going very slowly for the first 5-10 mins. will help your body warm up. The soreness usually subsides and your able to put in some good running after that. Also running very slowly for a short time will help the soreness go away more than just taking the day off. Getting blood flowing to the area aids recovery. Ice bath is another option. Many top marathoners will run long 8+ mile tempo runs under 5 min pace in the morning and then jog 8 min pace in the afternoon just to help recovery and get in a bit extra volume.

Also one more thing. People respond differently to different types of training. Some guys can increase mileage from 40 to 80 in a month or so running 7 min pace or faster. Some it may take a while. Ask them to run 5 repeat miles under 5 mins and the first guy needs a year to get there while the second guy is popping off 4:55 easily. The point is you may respond to a certain training system better than others, so don't force the recommended mileage because when the interval days come you may think the paces are too easy.

Are you currently running? If not, 12-18 months is a more reasonable target.
http://www.jeffgalloway.com/
Jeff Galloway has trained over 200,000 non athletes to run marathons. Not getting injured is high on his priorities. His training methods are much easier on the body than those recommended by ex high school jocks.

Well I laced up and went out with the intent of doing my easy 3 miles, but stopping if I felt anything out of the ordinary. As soon as I started striding the aching in my legs seemed to melt away and I felt pretty normal. Hmm.

So I did about 2.8 miles at a 9:40 pace. I'm considering a heart rate monitor because I'm really curious what I'd be at on a run like this. It was super easy and felt good to be moving.

Afterward I did some chins and foam rolling. The right leg feels great; basically no sign of the soreness I had for a few days there. My left leg still aches. It's not coming from a specific location, just kind of a vague ache. Some dude at my office who is a bodybuilder type recommended taking glutamine for recovery. I googled it and it seems fairly legit. Anyone have experience with it?

Did the 6 miles today in 50:12 (8:21 pace). My left calf was a little tight at first and my legs felt a little wonky in general for the first 1/2 mile or so, so I started slow. Then I felt fine so I picked it up. As far as effort goes this was probably a 7.5 out of 10, with 9 being a race effort and 10 being PR race effort. Hopefully that seems about right as far as how much I should be pushing myself on these.

Afterward my left calf did really tighten up again though, even after stretching and foam rolling. It's really annoying. It seems to be fine walking around but if I sit a while it sometimes tightens. It's been mostly fine tonight, although I've been wearing my compression sleeve around.

So... game time decision tomorrow on the 11 miles. If I can make it through that run and not be injured, I think it's time to purchase my entry to the race. If I'm not feeling it or I'm super sore afterward, I will try to hold off another week or two.

11 miles complete

Legs felt pretty good this morning so I followed through on the long run. My splits were:

9:28
9:31
9:57
9:53
9:57
9:59
10:20
10:06
10:32
10:40
9:34

for a total time of 1:50:17 (I did 11.04 miles)

That's exactly what I was shooting for. The run was aerobically easy the whole time, but it was challenging muscularly (if that makes sense). My legs had a little intermittent soreness throughout, and my hips started aching a little bit around 7 or 8 miles. It all seemed to be within normal tolerance, though.

I had to stop for a traffic light about 8 miles in, and when I started running again I felt my right calf begin to spasm. I immediately slowed to a walk and then picked up running again and it was fine.

Gonna rest tomorrow, and if I still feel OK on Tuesday, purchase my race entry.

Feeling good this week after the 11-miler so I threw down the $$$ and bought my entry to the marathon.

Monday - rest
Tuesday - 3 miles @ 8:54
Wednesday - 6.1 miles @ 9:08
Thursday - 3 miles @ 9:07
Today - rest

So these runs are all coming in a little bit faster than "target." I think it's just because my most comfortable pace on runs of this length is around 9:00. They've all been easy... yesterday was the most challenging of the three because it was a lot warmer out than it has been the past month, but I would still consider it an easy run.

In other news, it's been kind of a heavy food and beer week. Had the 4th of July and a poker game, plus one night of random drinking where I had a couple more beers than usual. I decided to start weighing myself every morning, and my weight has fluctuated from a low of around 175.5 to a high of 179.4 (this morning). I always weigh myself first thing in the morning AP;PD (after pee; pre-dump) to be consistent.

So I'm gonna try to keep up with the weighing so I can make a pretty graph. And I am also going to use the livestrong calorie counter to track my eating and drinking, something which I literally have NEVER done in my entire life. Should be interesting.

Running logs are rare here. GL with the fast 5k.

I wouldn't worry too much about this. For the last two months I didn't lift regularly, but did much more walking, dieting and running. (I think at one point I squatted once in three weeks and deadlifted once a month.) I lost 8 pounds of BW.

My squat dropped like a rock (~50 kgs), my deadlift dropped about 30 kilos, and my press dropped about five pounds. My bench didn't change due to lots of regular pushups.

Decreased strength has a lot more to do with detrained muscles than weight loss in general. You should be fine. Yeah, if you're a bodybuilder training strictly for swollertrophy, you'll shrink like a popped balloon, but other than that it's not a big deal.

Can't remember when I posted that but at this point I'm OK with losing a LITTLE upper body strength, as long as I'm losing a lot of fat in the process.

Although I have continued to maintain a barebones lifting routine comprised mostly of chinups and seated military press.

Ruh Roh... I'm at 2,545 calories already for today and it's only 6:30.

Evidently I have consumed 103 grams of protein today though. Here's the breakdown so far:

Protein: 103 grams
Fat: 106 grams
Carbs: 273 grams
Sugar: 51 grams
Fiber: 27 grams

Although my run today supposedly burned 839 calories. So I may still be at a deficit

12 miles in the books this morning. Splits (the first part was cooler and more downhill):

8:59
8:41
9:07
9:30
9:10
9:33
9:40
9:44
9:56
10:05
10:55
9:36
1:51 (0.18 miles over)

Total of 12.18 miles in 1:56:52. Works out to 9:36/mile. The first 9.5 miles were pretty easy, then I got to a big hill that I knew was going to be hard. Plus it was only getting hotter out there. So the last 3-3.5-ish miles or so were challenging, but I was less muscularly sore than I was last week. feelsgoodman

Oh yeah, I did 6.06 miles yesterday at an 8:27 pace.

So this is supposed to be a "stepback" week in the Higdon plan, where I do 3, 5, 3, rest, 6, 9.

I'm fully planning on "only" doing 9 miles on Sunday... but I am tempted to do 5, 5, 5, rest, 6 during the week instead. I actually already did 5 yesterday. I just feel great and like I want to be out there running longer than 3 miles.

I'm not gonna screw myself up adding an extra 4 miles total, am I?

If you feel good go for it. These plans are guidelines and can't predict fitness jumps. There are probably a lot of 40+ year olds in this plan who need much more recovery time. Worry about altering the schedule when you are at full volume and doing hard workouts. For easy runs you can increase yourself as long as you are not killing yourself to get there. Looks like things are coming along nicely. It is always nice when you get over the initial soreness and start feeling strong.

I wouldn't even suggest planning daily distance too much. Some days you have 5 planned and should only go 3-4 and some days you have 3 planned and could go 6. There are lots of variables involved. If you like sticking to a schedule that's cool, but if you are enjoying yourself don't let anything hold you back. The best running performances came from people testing their limits in training.

All right, interesting week with the calorie counting and all. First the running.

Monday - rest
Tuesday - 5 @ 9:16 pace
Wednesday - 5.3 @ 9:21 pace
Thursday - 6.2 @ 9:39 pace
Today - rest

So I was "supposed" to do 3 on Tuesday, 5 on Wednesday and 3 yesterday. But I was basically bursting with energy and wanting to burn moar calories, so I went a little longer. All the runs were aerobically easy and I obviously kept the pace under control. It was really hot out all week but I took extra care to stay hydrated and consume lots of potassium -- although even with all the precaution I think I became slightly dehydrated at the end of my run yesterday. Within an hour of finishing my run I had consumed a bunch of water, some almonds, a banana and a 20 oz. Gatorade and I still noticed that my calves were spasming/twitching a little bit -- kind of like what happened to Alobar on his 100 mile attempt only with about 1/10th the intensity. Today they seem fine, though.

As for the diet... as accurately as I could track using the livestrong website, I consumed 21,338 calories for an average of 3,048 calories per day. However, I burned approximately 4,643 calories, for an average of 663 per day. This puts me at a net calorie count of 2,385 per day... which is probably close to maintenance at my BMR.

As for alcohol, I had 18.5 drinks. That's a little higher than average, as I had 4 drinks on Saturday (wedding) and 3 16oz. beers on Tuesday (night out with friends; counted this as 4 drinks). Probably need to cut this down a bit.

So I wasn't trying to really control myself at all this week; I basically just ate and drank whatever I wanted whenever I wanted, because I wanted to see sort of a "baseline" before deciding how much I need to cut back to lose a few pounds.

Here's one sample day (my highest gross calories consumed) -- let me know whether I'm tracking accurately or not. The cake and bourbon I listed as "evening snack" were actually consumed at the wedding. And now that I look at it, I think I may have over-reported the amount of Grape Nuts I had for breakfast.

Oh yeah, I weighed myself every morning. Here's the graph:

nice work staying with it!

LONG RUNS
it's still so early that I think by far the most important thing is that you just keep showing up and grinding out miles: thumbs up so far. But when you have a few more long runs under your belt, you might want to see how it feels to even out your splits. The first miles of the run will feel super slow, but that's good. Your current plan of "start with my fastest miles then get slower and slower until finishing with one fast mile" is ok for now, but as your runs get longer you should be trying to even the pace out (hills and wind and crap notwithstanding obv).

Some coaches take it a step further and say that the most effective long runs get faster in the later miles. Here McMillan gives a couple examples of possible marathon long run training. I think his carb advice is weird and unnecessary for noobs (even though it might be right), and that most people would be better off trying his "fast finish" workouts only 1-3 times a training cycle (as opposed to every other long run).

TEMPOS
would you say a little more about what you're doing on your tempos? Mabye even as detailed as mile by mile or whatever? Mostly just curious about 1) how you start them and finish them, 2) when in the workout you change the pace, 3) how long you hold the pace, 4) how fast the pace feels, 5) how you feel after the workout is over, 6) whether the terrain affects things, 7) bonus info about your pulse...stuff like that.

Ah, I was just about to post about this weekend's tempo and long run.

So on Saturday I did 5.44 miles @ 8:35 pace - this is what I understood to be a tempo run, going at my "target" pace for the marathon.

I was running with a friend (same guy who I beat in the beer mile -- he has a lifetime 800m PR of 1:58 ) We held a conversation the whole way and did the 8:31 pace without any trouble. Maybe this is too slow for tempo run pace? I definitely feel like I'm getting stronger.

Splits were:

8:55
8:25
8:31
8:37
8:28
3:42 (.44 miles)

So to answer your questions... I start the tempo run like any other... a bit of foam rolling and then right into it. I go slow for maybe 1/8 to 1/4 mile and then get up to pace. I try to maintain a consistent pace until the end of the run. The pace feels fine, I could definitely go faster but it is a reasonable workout. I feel great afterward. The terrain DOES affect things -- I'm not a great uphill runner. I don't have any pulse info, unfortunately.

On Sunday I ran 9 miles with another friend who has done 10+ marathons (but none faster than around 4:20 -- she's a woman in her mid to late 40s). It was cool and lightly rainy out which was a nice chance from the heat. We also talked pretty much the entire time and the run was relaxed and comfortable throughout. Splits:

9:05
8:52
9:15
9:30
9:38
9:41
10:11
9:44
9:41

So with this run, we started out with a group of 4 (me, my wife, my friend and her husband). My wife and her husband were running shorter distances, so that's why we went out a little bit fast. I actually told them to slow it down a bit in the first mile or two -- not because it was hard, but because I knew I wanted to stick to around 9:30 pace or so.

I do try to keep a consistent pace in these runs as well, but obviously I have been slowing down as the miles add up. Still, this run overall was extremely easy and pleasant. I feel totally fine today -- a big difference from the Monday after doing 11 miles two weeks ago.

My long run this coming Sunday is supposed to be 14. So that'll be a jump, but I'm looking forward to it.

A 1-2 mile warm-up and cool-down would help a bunch on your tempo run days.

I dunno, imo the important thing now is just that you're doing your runs and that you feel like you're improving and that you're not falling into any bad habits. So far all of this seems good.

But yeah your tempo pace is definitely too slow--people don't talk comfortably through 40+ minutes of tempo pace--and it's also too long (for now anyway). I think Higdon's advice is usually ok but sometimes weird, so when I googled to see if you were doing some strange tempo workout designed by Higdon I was expecting the worst, but nope: even in Higdon's description of tempo runs for the intermediate plan he is only recommending like 20 minutes of tempo pace in the middle of an otherwise easy run.

Tempo runs are great because once you know your pace/effort level, there are a billion variations you can do on them in workouts and they're one of the best predictors of marathon success. I could post a bunch of fancy ways to figure out your true tempo pace, but the easiest way would be for you to run a race (like a 5k or a 10k) and then we could solve backwards from there. I thought you had built a race or two into your training but maybe I'm remembering wrong?

If you want to learn more about tempo runs there's a ton of spots online to start with, here are just three
--Runners' World
--some blog I just found
--McMillan

the reason I'm not taking a little bit of a harder line here is just because 1) you're doing fine like you are, and 2) there's some research that suggests you might have accidentally just run a good bad tempo workout.

PS the long runs seem really good, but if there was ever a time to not run the first few miles too fast then it would be this weekend's workout when you jump up to the 14.

Yes, I have a 5k on August 12th. I'm supposed to run 17 miles that day, so I think what I'm gonna do is race the 5k in the morning and then do an easy 8-10 or so that evening. I don't think I need to really try and get 17 in that day since the 5k will be a race effort.

Weird, I'm not sure how I missed that. Well, that's easy enough and it gives me an excuse to run a little faster for a bit anyway. I kinda sorta did this type of thing today on my run by accident... went down on the esplanade where there lots of lunchtime runners and I just can't help but chase people down in front of me.

So I started at a good slow pace, 9:22, then just kept getting faster. 8:42, 8:32, 8:29. Then I finally realized I was going way too fast for a midweek run so I dialed it back to finish with 9:10, 9:23, 9:22.

Did 5.3 miles at 9:07 pace yesterday.

The math works out to 7 miles at 9:00 pace for this run, by the way.