2016 WDW Marathon Journey (Comments Welcome)

THIS sounds hilarious!! :rotfl2:

Sorry to hear about your bad run but I guess they are inevitable and we all have them.



Best of luck with you run this weekend.. I can't help but be impressed with your times you are SO FAST.. I think I'll have to start referring to you as 'Fast LSUlakes' from now on... I had a dream once that I was really fast and ran a half marathon sub 2hrs... then I woke up... ;)

I like that you have an unrealistic goal, I think we all have them for every race but we tend to just not tell anyone about them!

Fast is all relative to whom you compare yourself with. If I had to rank myself within my group of running friends around town, I would say I am in the bottom half of the group. The same way you look at a sub 2 hour half is the same way I look at a sub 1:30 half. I believe that if we both work hard enough, we can both achieve what we once thought was impossible.
 
I think its safe to say that last weeks run is officially in the past now. Ran back to back 8 milers over the last two days and was easily able to maintain my GA pace. Fall is settling in nicely with our morning in the upper 50's and RH is down. Even though it was near 90 yesterday afternoon, the air felt coolish. A minor issue I need to correct in the near future is to take in a lot more fluids and some salts. I started the week around 213 and this morning dropped to 205.5. I normally see me weight move between 212 - 208 range during the week. I knew something was off last night when I kept getting cramps in my foot as I was going to bed. Not a major problem as long as I address it sooner than later. Picked up my race bib yesterday and got a nice race t-shirt. The finishers medal for this race is a bartender style bottle (beer) opener. Today is also my Friday this week, which will leave me plenty of time to prep for the big game this weekend against the Gators. Should be a really nice weekend.
 
Fast is all relative to whom you compare yourself with. If I had to rank myself within my group of running friends around town, I would say I am in the bottom half of the group. The same way you look at a sub 2 hour half is the same way I look at a sub 1:30 half. I believe that if we both work hard enough, we can both achieve what we once thought was impossible.

I totally agree! It's why I don't compare my times to others (well maybe there's a little competitiveness wiht me and my sister but we train together and are very similar in pace lol) I just continue to compare with myself so I can see real improvement. I still find myself really impressed when I look at someone like you and your times but I'm sure you hear that a lot from others on here and like you say it's all relative.

I think its safe to say that last weeks run is officially in the past now. Ran back to back 8 milers over the last two days and was easily able to maintain my GA pace. Fall is settling in nicely with our morning in the upper 50's and RH is down. Even though it was near 90 yesterday afternoon, the air felt coolish. A minor issue I need to correct in the near future is to take in a lot more fluids and some salts. I started the week around 213 and this morning dropped to 205.5. I normally see me weight move between 212 - 208 range during the week. I knew something was off last night when I kept getting cramps in my foot as I was going to bed. Not a major problem as long as I address it sooner than later. Picked up my race bib yesterday and got a nice race t-shirt. The finishers medal for this race is a bartender style bottle (beer) opener. Today is also my Friday this week, which will leave me plenty of time to prep for the big game this weekend against the Gators. Should be a really nice weekend.

I'm delighted to hear that your training runs are back on track! Hope you enjoy the game and your day off tomorrow!

When you say you'll increase your intake of salts what exactly will you be taking?
 


I totally agree! It's why I don't compare my times to others (well maybe there's a little competitiveness wiht me and my sister but we train together and are very similar in pace lol) I just continue to compare with myself so I can see real improvement. I still find myself really impressed when I look at someone like you and your times but I'm sure you hear that a lot from others on here and like you say it's all relative.



I'm delighted to hear that your training runs are back on track! Hope you enjoy the game and your day off tomorrow!

When you say you'll increase your intake of salts what exactly will you be taking?

Thanks for the compliments. As for the salts... I am not 100% sure if my method actually does what I am thinking it does, but I do some gains as well as feeling better. I will drink a sports drink or two which have salt in them. Then I will eat a meal with a higher amount of carbs than usual and add more salt to it. The carbs and salt help hold water weight better than eating lean meals/high protein. Some examples of things ill eat would be pizza, gumbo, rice and gravy (a south Louisiana meal), pasta. Come to think of it, plenty of unhealthy Cajun dishes will all help with this problem. The down side is most of the meal are very high in carbs and fat, so I try not to eat them often during training. At all cost I stay away from fried food. Sure I love eating almost anything fried, but when I am training it makes me feel awful. Fast food is the worse during these times as well. It makes me sick to eat it. Like I said earlier, I am not sure if what I am doing is the proper way or actually really doing anything, but it seems to help.
 
Running Week Recap 10/12 - 10/18
10/13 - 8.3 Mi @ 8:21 pace +
10/14 - 8 Mi @ 8:20 pace (Hills) +
10/16 - 4 Stroller Miles @ 8:11 pace +
10/17 - 6.76 Miles on Bike
10/18 - .61 Mile Warm-Up
13.1 Gulf Coast Half Marathon @ 7:36 pace (PR!) ++

Weekly Total = 34.02
October Total = 93.16
Bike Total = 16.39

It was a very strange week for me. Early in the week I felt very tired and felt I needed some rest, so I decided to skip the run Monday for extra recovery. Ran back to back 8 milers, with one including as many hills as one can in South Louisiana. Again, the legs felt beat up so I took a rest day and then Friday ran 4 miles while pushing the stroller and things felt fine. So, this is where things get interesting. With a race on Sunday, I took Saturday off from running. The Tigers had a big game against the Gators, so I got the campus early to set up and then took my bike to the farmers market. The market is ~ 3-4 miles from our tailgate spot. I made the trip and got my items and while heading back I had an accident. I place all my goodies from the farmers market in my bag that I can wear like a book sack. As I am riding down the rode one of the straps came undone. All that weight moving suddenly made things very unstable, but I thought I was able to correct. I applied the brakes on the bike and this caused the bag to swing forward and proved to be to much for me to overcome and I lost all control. I laid on the ground in pain for a few minutes trying to figure out how bad things where. My calf was the number one thing in pain at the time but no bleeding on the leg. As I started to get myself together and see what was damaged and what wasn't a lot of things felt soar in a short time frame. I only ended up with one area bleeding which was my elbow. It appears most of the force of the fall was taken on my thigh and my shorts prevented any major cuts. I have some very nice bruises on my legs. I picked up my bike and tried to roll it off the street and the tire did not move. After inspecting it, I found the chain was off (Not a big deal) and the back rim was bent. So I'm ~3.5 miles away from my tailgate without a working bike. Thank God for cell phones. I got my uncle to come get me and bring me back to campus. As the day went by my neck/upper back became very sore. My DW said she could feel big knots back there. My neck is still tight and the calf is a little tight as well but everything else seems ok. Tigers played a great game on Saturday and the stadium was electric. Few things compare to a Saturday night in Death Valley. So, the game ended and we booked it out the stadium and made it home in a record of 30 minutes. (Baton Rouge traffic is terrible, and add 100K leaving all at once, it can take 2+ hours to get home after a game). We got home and I had to unload the truck because I was in charge of driving to the race on Sunday. At this point I wasn't even sure if I was going to run the race. I went to bed at 11:45 PM and woke up at 4:00 AM for the race.
Race day morning! I wake up and other than a little tightness things are looking ok. I get my stuff together and head out the door. My friend agreed to drive my truck to the race so I could rest. I got in the back seat and slept for about an hour, so now I have 5+ hours of sleep and I wake up feeling well rested. Before the race I still wasn't 100% if I was going to run it or not, so I went for a little jog to see how things felt. I ran a little over a half mile and felt that I could run the race, but I knew hitting my more aggressive goals would be difficult. The weather was about as good as it could be for mid October in Louisiana. Low 50's, low RH%, and a 5-10 MPH N wind. The race is the final race of a 3 part series called the Gulf Coast Half Marathon. This one was in Mandeville, LA and started in a state park. The route took us along lake Pontchartrain and surrounding areas. The most difficult part (mentally) was a ~3 mile stretch that was a long straightaway. The sun was in our face, but was lined by trees on both sides helping with the wind. It seemed like it lasted forever, and turned out to be my slowest mile of the race. So here is how the race went:

Mile - Split
1 - 7:39
2 - 7:40
3 - 7:32
4 - 7:35
5 - 7:26 (opps)
6 - 7:35
7 - 7:44
8 - 7:36
9 - 7:40
10 - 7:48
11 - 7:49
12 - 7:35
13 - 7:30
0.1 - 6:26

Mile 5 was a little too fast and 10&11 are part of the long straightaway. Official finish time of 1:39:28 which is a PR by ~ 2 minutes, 14 seconds. It was a good race considering everything leading up to the race. I finished 64 / 743 overall and 7/41 in my age group. Achieved my goal of a PR and sub 1:40, and confirmed that I am near where I need to be at this point in training. My next half is in December. If I race it and not use it as part of a training run, I hope to PR again, but we will see how things are going by then.

So it was a strange week, with a lot of interesting events going on, but I am happy how everything turned out.

Edit because I had 1:29:28 and should of been 1:39:28. Big difference!
 
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Thanks! Looks like the game between LSU / Bama is going to be another BIG game. I hope this year we have a different result.
We need to get past TN this week before I think about LSU, but yeah, could be for the SECw. Winner of that game probably makes the playoff.

Fournette looks amazing. Didn't like the punch that he threw in the FL game though. Needs to keep his emotions in check. Could have (probably should have) resulted in his ejection.
 
We need to get past TN this week before I think about LSU, but yeah, could be for the SECw. Winner of that game probably makes the playoff.

Fournette looks amazing. Didn't like the punch that he threw in the FL game though. Needs to keep his emotions in check. Could have (probably should have) resulted in his ejection.

#7 is a amazing player. His hand was open at the point of impact so not technically a punch but a stiff arm. I know what you are saying though, but did you see the facemask?!?! That wasn't the only one they did not call on them either. The Refs called a poor game for both teams. Off the field he is a very impressive person that is more interested in the success of his team than himself.
 
#7 is a amazing player. His hand was open at the point of impact so not technically a punch but a stiff arm. I know what you are saying though, but did you see the facemask?!?! That wasn't the only one they did not call on them either. The Refs called a poor game for both teams. Off the field he is a very impressive person that is more interested in the success of his team than himself.
Agreed - facemask should also have been called. But he punched him, open handed or not. I get how it happened - not ripping on Fournette. But that could have gotten him ejected and he is the LSU offense.

LSU is my second favorite team in the SEC. I pull for them all but one week each season.
 
Congrats on the PR! I'm so impressed that you were able to go out there and have a great race despite the bike accident and the late night. Awesome job!
Congrats on the Tiger win, too.
 
Congrats on the PR! I'm so impressed that you were able to go out there and have a great race despite the bike accident and the late night. Awesome job!
Congrats on the Tiger win, too.

Thanks! Just dropped off the bike to get repaired today and should be fixed by Friday. Now I just have to figure out how to make my bag a little safer to prevent that from happening again. Probably should purchase some safety gear while I'm there.
 
My bike is fixed! Still having some pain in my neck / shoulder area from the fall. Its been a tuff week of running, not because of the distances, but just legs feeling tired. Its bad timing really, but I will push on. I reduced my miles some this week and will probably have to do so next week to make sure I am able to get the long runs in as well as some of the pace work. Its a little warm going into this weekend. Not summer warm, so there's that, but warmer than I would like it to be for the first 18 miler this weekend. The goal for this run is to just make it.
Another home game for the Tigers this weekend, which will be the 4th in a row. I'm getting a little worn out, but the season goes by some fast I would never skip it. Plus we will only have #7 for so long. That guy is just amazing to watch. Also bringing DD to another game this weekend! She seemed to enjoy her last game day experience. Have a great weekend everybody!
 
Running Week Recap 10/19 - 10/25

10/20 - 7 Mi @ 8:17 pace +
10/21 - 11 Mi @ 8:24 pace +
10/23 - 4 Mi @ 8:38 pace +

I ended up having an unplanned easy week, and sitting here on Monday I am not happy about it. Whats done is done though and I need to get back on schedule. I was very tired last week and the few miles I did get in did not come easy. When Saturday morning rolled around, I just did not have it in me to go for a long run. Of course this will effect this weeks training by adjusting some of the miles, but nothing major.
 
I definitely know how frustrating it can be to have an unplanned easy week (I've had a few of those myself). As you said - what's done is done. You just have to get up and move on, and make this week awesome!
 
So every year around this time I start developing problems. Each year it is something different and this year looks like that isn't going to change. After taking it somewhat easy since my half, I thought I may avoid a injury this year. NOPE! I woke up this morning with a stiff knee joint. It took a few steps to get it to bend normal. Last year things started around my inner thigh, and I tried to run anyway which lead to a issue in the bottom of my feet. It felt like my toes where going over one another and had some pain in my arches. I was treated and ran the marathon, but not at the pace I wanted. The year before I had a inflamed tendon (or something) the made it felt like I was running with rocks in my shoes. The marathon before that one, I also had a similar issues with my foot but on the other foot. So, at various times my knee area has felt stressed, but it was muscular and only required some additional strength exercises to correct it. This year its a joint issue in the knee. Hopefully this is just something short term and resolves itself quickly, but I know that's not likely the case. :charac2:
 

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