Weekend Update 2-26-12

Miles this past week: 9 (big step down from the goal mileage)

Beer drinking goals: fail, I missed my tiny window for Hofbrau Doppelbock, it’s only available during the month of February and it runs out by the third week

Oh, yeah, that knee thing. In last Sunday’s post I mentioned that my knee was a little pissy, so I had skipped last week’s Long Run. I also, to be safe, skipped out on Monday’s run. Which kept me home for almost the entirety of the 3 day weekend (I dropped my wife off at work Sunday night simply so we could go out to breakfast the next morning) which was great. Saw my daughter Cassandra “almost” roll over (5mos) and watched Star Wars Clone Wars with my son (3yo) before he and I spent a few hours protect Cassandra from imaginary dinosaurs with our Thundercat Sword and Lightsaber.

Ultimately, playing it safe left me with an Easy run on Thursday for 3ish, and a short short Long run on Saturday for 6. The knee felt okay. There was a little tenderness and soreness, but my right knee ended up hurting even more (compensation). This next week I plan on doing my regular plan mileage wise, but replacing the Pace and Speed runs with Easy runs.

Fun stuff aside. I’ve noticed a strange correlation in my health/training. When I pull back the numbers on my running I see my unhealthy habits go up. See Diagram (A: Weekly Miles, B: Crap Food)

It’s as if I replace my runs with binge eating. Then all my work and efforts towards my training goals takes not just 1 step back due to lack of training, but a 2nd step back due to the crap food. Not to get too psychoanalytical, but I’m certain that since I’ve been more serious about my running, it has become my main stress reliever (in place of Scotch). And when I can’t run I stress eat.

Anybody out there (in the vast sea of my followers) have any advice on how to deal with a situation like this.

Since January

Since I posted in January about my goals, I’ve done some running.

-No races (which I thought I’d have done one by now, but there’s one on the sched for Mar).
-Despite being crazy busy at work I’ve made it a point to get in at least 2 runs a week (albeit sometimes they’re only 3-5miles), though most weeks I’ve been sticking to my 4 run schedule.

-Also, as part of trying to be committed, I've taken to spending less time on Dailymile (which I know sounds backwards, but...). The way I see it, if I have time to dick around on the internet, then I have time to go out for another run, and I've been trying to use all my down time more wisely.-I’ve latched onto a small running group which is formed out of a locally owned running store, Tri State Running. I really like running with them, I’m not much of a talker while running, but I do like the “being around others” and I really like the water stops (I hate planting water, and hate carrying it even more). Though on longer runs I’m usually by myself, either no one likes me, or no one is my pace (not that I’m fast or anything, it’s usually 9:30-10:00 min/mile).
-Got me some sweet tights.
-Got me some Merrell Trail Gloves, love them, but when running the other morning in the rain I was being incredibly cautious down hill and it affected my stride. I was landing hard on my heel with my knee locked out?! and now my left knee feels a little...not right. So I’ve taken the past few days off of working out. I’m going to go at it tomorrow for a light run, then some bike work.

Preparing for this half marathon is confirming my concerns that there is no way I can train for a full marathon during the school year. I’m glad I decided to go with the half this Spring, and can then use the summer to prep for my Fall marathon, and the first few weeks of school will be taper anyway.