Ready.

I woke this morning after 11 hours sleep (my roommate snores like a freight train, so I get what I can on the weekend), feeling tired.  I'm pretty worn out. I've been killing myself at the gym the past couple weeks and it feels good.  I wasn't able to maintain the higher mileage I'd been doing, but I made up for it with about 2.5 hours spent in the gym every day biking/rowing/lifting, with a few miles on the treadmills, often barefoot, to keep my lower joints used to impact.

So now, two weeks out from my first 50k(++)  (Holiday Lake in Appomattox, VA), I feel like I think I should, worn out.  I'm tired, and after a nice taper I should be race-ready.  I've been running more and more the past few days, and my ankle has held up just fine, albeit the running was done on a treadmill.  I'm hitting the road today for 6-8 miles, and then I'm running one loop of the course tomorrow (16ish) then I'll squeeze in a few more runs upwards of 10 miles, followed by a-week-and-a-half long taper to the race.

Below is an example day of what I've been doing in the gym:
Bike 35-45 Minutes (12-16 miles)
Row for 10 minutes (~2000m)
Bike for 20 Minutes [high intensity] (7+ miles)
Leg Press (6 sets of 15 reps)
Standing Hamstring machine (3 sets of 10)
Calf Raises  (4 sets of 15)
Planks (raise each leg on a 3-second up, hold 3 seconds, down 3 seconds timing)
Oblique planks
Elongated/elevated crunches
Run 3 miles (either increasing speed or incline as I go)

That's the best I could to to replicate regular running training, and I actually like going. I think that after this race I'll keep going in the evenings for cross-training since apparently my legs don't like doing 2-a-day runs as much as my mind does.

It's about time.

I've been considering making one of these for a while, and I'm taking a brief break from my reading for class tomorrow, so this seems like as good of a time as any.  I'll be posting up training information and musings on here.  I want a blog that's a bit more personal than my tumblr and one that I can dedicate to my running now that I'm hopefully going to be training well for a while.

Unfortunately, I've been laid out for the past week with Peroneal Tendonitis, which is honestly the most painful running injury I've ever gotten.  I could see the tendon popping over my ankle bone.  So after two days of rest and 3 days of gym workouts on a stationary bike, I jogged a mile barefoot on a treadmill and was actually pain-free.  It was a bit tender walking around later, but with stretching and strengthening, I should be fine to still run the Holiday Lake 50k in 3 weeks.  I was hoping to run a fast race there, and not running for a week and a half (even though I have been exercising) may or may not help things.  I had been building up a good base (up to 112 miles the week before this injury), so not all is lost.  I think Promised Land in April will end up being my fastest 50k of the Spring though.