Week Five - Philadelphia Marathon Training

Monday - Intervals (10 min warmup, 6 min running, 90 sec rest X5, cool down)

Tuesday - 30 minute recovery run, body-weight exercises 15 minutes, leg exercises 15 minutes

Wednesday - 1 mile run, cross training: 20 minutes core, 20 minutes full body, 20 minutes leg exercises

Thursday - Rest day, 1 mile run

Friday - Intervals (10 min warmup, 5 min running, 1 minute rest X6, cool down

Saturday - 90 minute long run

Sunday - 3.5 mile run

It's hard to believe I'm rounding the corner to halfway through this 16 week training plan. I'm actually starting to enjoy the interval runs. I'm a bit nervous still that the long runs are not long enough. I'm afraid that I won't be well prepared without a long run over 3 hours. My plan in October is to do a 16, 18, 20 miles over three weeks.

This week was overall was great because I ran before work everyday. Rearranging my schedule has been even better than I thought. My days were just drifting too late. I would come home from work at 6 or 6:30, flop on the couch for 20 minutes or more while I convinced myself to get moving and then by the time I finished my workout, I was eating dinner at 9 or later. This week, getting up on time to run in the morning was pretty easy because I was in bed at a reasonable time. One night I was in bed reading for pleasure before 9pm. The more relaxed evenings made me feel sooo much better. I was able to ride my spin bike and take some walks for fun since I had free time.

My long run this week was the Charles Street 12 in Baltimore. The race starts in Towson, MD and ends at Under Armour headquarters in downtown Baltimore. I've done this race 4-5 times and I really enjoy it. The first 10ish miles I felt wonderful. I had some issues in the first 3-4 miles with my watch and the result is that I didn't know what mile I was at most of the time. There are mile markers but I didn't see all of them. The last mile to mile and a half, was tough but I know that last stretch of this course feels like it will never end. I thought I was well hydrated before the race and I thought I'd done really well finding the balance between drinking enough while I was running and not drinking so much I felt sick with a belly full of Gatorade sloshing. Dan was at the finish and I told him I was hurting. I got an icy towel which is a favorite finish line perk at this race. We walked around the corner to the parking lot where there was a band and food. This race serves Mission Barbecue at the finish. As we were standing in line, I started saying I felt queezy. Eventually I gave Dan my food ticket so I could go sit down, he didn't think I looked good. When he brought the food over, I knew there was no way I could keep it down. He could see I was unwell and we were on the other side of the event from the medical tent so he went to get someone and came back with a doctor and a wheelchair. They knew right away that I was dehydrated. After about 30 minutes of Gatorade and ice on my back I felt really good and the medical team released me with Gatorade and potato chips.

I was bummed that it felt like I didn't get to enjoy the post race festivities but the nausea and light headed-ness was overwhelming. I had similar symptoms on the way home from my last race in June so I'll be working really hard to get my hydration under control because I do not want to feel like that again.