Back from the dead!

Resurrecting the blog! Hooray. 3 posts before quitting blogging must be a record. How appropriate for this blog to return from the dead on Halloween night.

Anyway, to catch you up, I survived the marathon in May (barely). I have a history of terrible blisters underneath my right pinky toe - story for another day - and despite minimal blisters during training, I whipped up a huge honking one at about mile 7 of the marathon. My best guess is that it was due to the fact that the temps during the marathon were mid-upper 70s, while I had done all my training in sub-40 degree temps, and my feet were probably sweating. 

Either way, I was miserable for the last 19 miles of the race, which included a crap ton of walking and a few pit stops in aid tents to try to cushion/band-aid/beg them to amputate the toe. I had no time goal to start with, which made it easier to stomach the tortoise-like pace, and I am VERY proud of myself for finishing at all. My time was 5:14:38 which is a 12:00 pace on the dot. The good news is that I'm pretty sure I can PR my next marathon with minimal effort.

Post-marathon, I took a few months "off" from running. I was pretty burnt out, to be honest, and it took a long time for me to actually desire to run again. My friend Caryn suggested a 5k in September, so around August I finally started getting out there for a few miles. Then we ran a 10k in October, and a 10 miler last weekend, so I'm finally feeling like I'm back in the groove. 

My big race next year is my attempt at Pittsburgh marathon redemption. I created a training plan for myself (mostly based off of Higdon's intermediate plan) that takes me from November through May with a month or two of base building to start. I plan to chronicle my training and nutrition here -- hopefully I'll make it beyond 3 blog posts this time. 

GOALS FROM NOW UNTIL MAY:

1) Get to start/finish line of Pgh Marathon healthy and happy

2) Get down to goal race weight of ~120-125 lbs

3) Knock 1 entire hour off my marathon time (goal: 4:15, 9:45ish pace)

Today's run was a 3 mile progression. There is a 0.75mi reservoir loop that's a few blocks from my house and flat as a pancake.. but straight uphill to get there, and straight downhill back home. Very conducive to progression runs since I can really fly in that last half mile and it's motivating to see a fast pace when my legs are a little dead.

I had to take a quick break at mile 2.5 because I had such a painful side stitch that I was seeing stars with every step. I paused the app (which I know is cheating) but apart from the side stitch I was really feeling good and felt like I could've maintained the pace, so I was curious to see what my final mile split would be. I was wearing my Garmin also, which I did not pause, and mile 3 turned out to be 8:20, so I lost about 20 seconds stretching out that cramp.

TELL ME...
What's your stance on pausing GPS/watches vs. letting them run in training? Obviously there's no pausing the race clock, but sometimes I think pressing pause can be more indicative of actual training times/fitness levels -- within reason. Lately I've been using my iPhone AND Garmin together, mostly because I can look down easily at my watch to see my split time, but the perk is that I can pause one and let the other one run if I need to stop for any reason.