In the past I’ve had mileage goals for each year, but seeing as though I was lazy about logging runs in 2010, I really think improving races times is more important than overall total mileage.

What are your running goals for 2011?

After my marathon, I decided that I should run some half-marathons to work on speed and try to improve my overall weekly mileage. So… that’s what I’ve been trying to do for the last year. Key word: try.

I told myself this at mile 14. It wasn’t encouraging to my aching body. Nevertheless, I completed 17 miles. I ran 5 of those miles, however, with a full bladder. Why? Because the first bathrooms that I pass on my run were locked. I have no idea why. That’s the first time I’ve ever seen them closed, and of course it was the first time I really had to use them. Thankfully, I made it to the second set of bathrooms, 5 miles later, without any accidents.

Including bathroom/drink breaks, my pace was pretty much exactly the same pace at which I ran my 14-mile-run. Although it’s nice to know I’m not slowing down as the miles keep building, I really would like to see myself getting faster. I’m praying that the cool weather coming this fall will somehow impact my pace, but I have a hard time trusting in temperature alone to get me across the finish line under 6 hours…

Dilemma. Yes, I can switch from the marathon to the half-marathon. And I don’t even have to decide until October. But, it makes sense (at least to me), that I should try to decide sooner, so I can train accordingly.

The Hammer HEED was great. Lemon-Lime tasted completely different from Gatorade’s Limon-Lime or Limon-Lime Sports Beans, but it seemed to do its job and definitly has a conservative amount of sweetness to it.

On a side note–school starts again Wednesday, and I move into the dorm on Saturday. Class work load might be the sole determinator of whether I drop down to the Half. School definitly should come first. Theoretically, I have time to both study and train. The one difficulty, though, is having the disipline to do both with 100% effort. But such is life, I suppose.

Therefore, I have no idea why my upper leg randomly feels tight at times. I’m still doing as much stretching as possible, but I still don’t do enough.

The 14-mile long run went well. I need to start deciding when I’ll be stopping at aid stations and then mimic the same conditions on long runs (only 4 ubber-long ones left!). Yesterday I bought two single-serving pouches of Hammer HEED, the energy drink mix that will be used at the race. I normally use regular Gatorade powder (cheeper), but I decided that I needed to at least try this new stuff. And you never know–I might like it better.

Saturday I run 14 miles as my long run. It’s “only 2 more miles” than what I ran two weeks ago, but that never changes anything. It’s going to be hard. It’s going to hurt. I’m going to feel exausted afterwords. But I’m also going to love doing it… but probably after the fact.

My leg seems to be healing. Slowly. For some reason, I notice it more walking around than when I’m running. Got to go stretch!

Now I’m doing the stretches, but I’m really opposed to backing off of my training plan. I am, however, starting to second-guess my marathon goal, and somehow the half-marathon looks so much more appealing. Is this just a mid-training psychological battle or are the recent injuries a sign of what is to come?

In an earlier post, I mentioned possibly running the Outer Banks Marathon in November. Well, instead, I decided to go for the City of Oaks Marathon. Same month (before my 20th birthday), a little sooner, a little closer to home, and a little cheaper. So I’ve registered, and I just completed week 14 of this plan. However, I must say I’ll definitly go back to creating my own running plans after the marathon. But for now, my only goal is to finish the marathon within the maximum time allowed–6 hours. I know that is plenty of time  for most people, but I run slow. So slow, in fact, that you probably can’t even imagine. Seeing that this marathon has significantly fewer participants than the other well-known events, I may very well be the last person to reach the finish line. I really don’t like that idea, but… it’s worth a shot.

I contemplated settling for the half-marathon this year. It’s a more logical step-up from 5K races. I would have more confidence, and I would also have time to throw in some speedwork into my schedule. But, I know that if I completed the half-marathon, there will always be the “what if.”

But I did buy new shoes in July–a pair of Saucony ProGrid Guide. I also ran my farthest distance before school started–6.2 miles (10km). I accomplished my run at turtle pace, but I don’t care about that so much.

Currently, my goal is to just keep running. I don’t usually have a lot of time for long runs, and so my runs have just stayed in the 25-40 min. time range. My goal is still to run the Outer Banks Marathon in 2009. We’ll see if that happens…

The first week I took completely off from running because of my knee. The second week consisted of one slow 2.4 mile run. My cousins came for a visit, meaning that I didn’t have time, and when I did have time I was dead tired. But that doesn’t really bother me, because I knew my knee was still healing, and we were doing tons of sightseeing on the side. Visiting relatives left on the third week, meaning–freedom! I only accomplished two runs of 2.4 miles (and a short run-walk day), however, because my knee still felt “weird,” and I didn’t want to undo the healing that I had been patiently waiting for. I finished off the month with an addition 10.8 miles relatively evenly dispersed. My longest run of the month was my 3.1 miles that I accomplished yesterday, and my knee was okay. Yay!

I found quite a few supposedly good running stores in my area of NC, so I’ll be visiting one of those right away when I get there in three weeks.

For now, I’ll just be building up weekly mileage by the 10% rule and trying to create a “long” run as well.

Tuesday–I wanted to go running since I felt “freed” from my plan and there wasn’t anything to tell me that I couldn’t run on consecutive days, but my knee ached a little, so I decided to hold off.

Wednesday–A nice, slow run. My knee still felt a bit funny so I didn’t want to do anything that I would regret.

Friday–Unfortunately, my wisdom on Wednesday somehow left me on Friday. I ran 5K at a moderate pace despite constant “discomfort.” I won’t call it pain, because is was bearable, but it hurt. I really thought it would eventually go away mid-run like it had in the past. Well… I got home, stretched, ate breakfast, gave up on school work for the day, and took two ibuprofen which knocked me out for three hours. Yes, that last part is a little scary as I look back on it. The drowsy side effect could have been intensified my a slight lack of sleep, or maybe I now know why I usually take only one tablet (200 mg) for headaches during the day and save two tablets for nighttime.

Saturday through Sunday–I took off. I really wanted to start running four times a week this week, but I figured that recovery is more important at this point. Tomorrow, Monday, I’m going to hit the bike. And maybe the next day, and the next day… but we’ll see. Although I’m not noticing any apparent swelling, ice sure feels good.

The cause of my problem? Yes, it’s my shoes. No one needs to tell me. But, if I were to wait to start running again until after I bought new, proper shoes, I would be waiting until the end of July. (Shoes are cheaper in the US at this point, there is more variety to choose from in the US, and I don’t know enough about shoes to just order some. I need a running store.) Sorry, I just can’t wait that long. However, now I’m starting to think I might need to limit my weekly mileage until then.