Jillian is really starting to get her own personality. She is also really ticklish. Lately we’ve been spending some quality time on the floor together. She giggles and coos and smiles and makes me feel great.
But it isn’t all fun. You may recall from this post that she is a gassy girl. Well lately I think it has just been too much for her. She should wear a sign that says “Contents Under Pressure”. She has been very upset lately and her tummy is all tight and tense. She has been burping, spitting up, farting and pooping a ton. Sometimes the food isn’t all digested at the end. You can tell she is really miserable. Between the two of us I think Amber and I spent about 3 hours awake with her last night alone while she cried and screamed. All you can do is bounce her, shoosh her (white noise) and sing to her. Sometimes she’ll suck a finger or a pacifier which seems to help, but sometimes she is too upset even for that. I hope this is short phase. It breaks my heart and makes us all really, really tired.
It has been three weeks since I’ve started running as part of my marathon training. So how are things going? Not bad.
So far:
- I’ve run 48.62 miles
- I am currently averaging 8 min 33 sec per mile (week three)
- My longest run was 7.39 miles in 1 hour 12 min.
- On average my weight is at 154.9 lbs (-1.7lbs since start).
- On average my body fat is at 16.5% (-.6 percentage points since start)
I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the whole thing so far. I’ve run farther than ever before and for longer than ever in my life. I haven’t had any injuries yet and I feel pretty good. Wesley is still enjoying it and I really like running with him. I might actually be able to do this thing.
I am slacking a bit on the stretching. I’ve missed four days of stretching. When I skip it is because I’m tired and just want to go to bed. I don’t want to spend another 20 minutes on the floor. But when I do miss I can tell the difference the next day. If I’m going to keep doing well I really need to stretch every single day. That is my goal for the next three weeks.
Last Monday I ran Yasso 800s. Basically you run at one speed for 800 meters and then run at another speed for 800 meters then repeat for whatever distance you want to cover. In case you aren’t up on your metric system 800 meters is just shy of half a mile. That is a long sprint and you are ready to be done running fast by the end. If you want to run a 3 hour marathon you’d train so you can run 10 800 meter sprints in three minutes each with three minutes of slow jogging between each. So basically it is roughly 10 miles (less actually) of training that should get you ready for 26.2 miles of racing. Bart Yasso, a running coach and marathoner has been using these workouts for the last 20 years and a lot of runners swear by them as the key to good marathons.
Their are a couple of advantages of this system:
- You get to work in some speed work (which is the key to improving your overall times) and still get to cover some serious ground.
- Secondly you get to mix up what can be a monotonous run by changing your pace.
- It also forces you to focus on your pacing which helps improve your ability to maintain a steady speed
For my first time out with this system I ran slowly at more than 9 minutes per mile and then fast and less than 8 minutes per mile and covered just over three miles. If I am to run a sub four hour marathon I should shoot for Yasso 800s at three minutes and 59 seconds or faster. This works out to 7:58 min/mile. But you only have to keep this pace up for a half mile at a time. I’m thinking of incorporating these workouts into my sort-long Wednesday runs from time-to-time. Right now the runs are at four miles, but by the end get up to ten miles. I’ll add less than one Yasso 800 per week as the distance grows. This should be a perfect way to build up both speed and keep running the distances I need to be able to finish.
Tags: Marathon, Running, Yasso 800s
You may catch more flies with honey, but you catch more little boys dressed as spiders by handing out free candy. It didn’t take Wesley more than one house to realize that this was the best day ever. By the second house he was trying to go inside. If they give out candy at the door imagine what they have stashed away in the living room.
We only went around one block and it went pretty well. It is a little different here than in Washington. The weather is so warm (it is 10p here and still 69F) that a lot of folks sit around on their porch, driveway or lawn and hand out candy. Wesley was a little intimated by them if there were more than a few especially if they were in costume.
Tags: halloween, Jillian, Trick-Or-Treat, Wesley