Marathon Training Continued.. [Aug-18-2008]

The past one month has been busy with training. I have been training only for 2 days on weekdays and doing the long runs on the weekends. I also joined the 5 week beginner skating program at the rink in Galleria.


I have been trying to do the regular or Hill runs on Monday's, the interval / tempo training on Wednesdays and the long runs at the Whitewater lake.


Cross Training - Biking


Since I wanted to cross train and it was too boring to do the cycling on the standstill cycle in the Gym, I bought a Trek 1.2 series, size 54 bike (http://www.trekbikes.com/us/en/bikes/2008/road/1_series/12/). I did my first cross training cycling on this bike last Sunday (17-Aug). Again, here are the stats from my Forerunner 305.


Here is my breakdown of training so far after my last blog post (I will try to be more regular than one month updates J). All the data given here is from my Garmin Forerunner 305. I use the Forerunner with a heart rate monitor to track my progress during the runs and then download it to the Garmin software to analyze the statistics. I am a stats junkie and love to slice and dice the data.

Date	Day	Type	Miles	Time (HH:MM:SS)	Avg. Pace (min/Mile)	Avg. Speed	Calories Burnt	Avg. Heart Rate
26-Jul	Sat	Long Run	6.02	1:06:00	11:01	5.4	820	NA
28-Jul	Mon	Hill	3.75	0:46:16	12:21	4.9	477	NA
30-Jul	Wed	Interval	3.5	0:32:11	9:12	6.5	459	NA
2-Aug	Sat	Missing Training because of Trip to New Jersey
4-Aug	Mon	Missing Training because of Trip to New Jersey
6-Aug	Wed	Interval	3.38	0:31:24	9:18	6.4	457	156
9-Aug	Sat	Long Run	6.38	1:06:00	10:20	5.8	870	176
11-Aug	Mon	Missed Training because of Rain
13-Aug	Wed	Missed Training because of Trip to Phoenix
16-Aug	Sat	Long Run	9	1:33:00	10:20	5.8	1117	168
17-Aug	Sun	Cycling	21.2	2:22:42	10:33	8.9	1221	125
18-Aug	Mon	Easy Pace	6.25	1:05:34	10:29	5.7	844	173

As you can see, my pace has gradually increased for the long runs. Hopefully, I should reach my target pace of 10:00 min / mile for my long distance runs in the next month or two. That would take me 4hours and 20 minutes to finish the marathon which I would be happy with for my first marathon J


I watched the marathon this past weekend and the women runners ran the marathon in 2:30 and I can't even cycle 26 miles in 2:30 L This was a shock to me. I will try my best to better these times. Yeah..I mean cycling J


I will also try to start the swimming thing going this week to complete the cross training.


Strength Training


I was never a big fan of going to the Gym since I can't fathom the fact that you are in a closed Air Conditioned room and trying to pump the Iron. I would much rather plays any good sport or run / swim. But I did take the plunge about 3 weeks back and started my upper body strength training in the Gym. Although I still need to figure out how to do the upper body training for the various body parts, I am sure I should be able to do this in sync with the marathon training. Hmm..I think I am trying to do too many things in too short time. Hope my body holds up J