Saturday, December 02, 2006

The week before the final week

..and things are coming together. Finally. For one, we finally got our christmas tree up! I know, it's about time. I usually put it up the day after Thanksgiving, but I just had too much to do last weekend and chose not to take on the project until this weekend. And to make up for the delay, we got a real one! Granted, it came from Lowe's, so I don't have cool picture of us cutting it down or anything like Trimama, but hey, it's a step above the artificial tree we've had for like 8 years. Bo is 5 this year, and he was very excited. He helped with every part of it, and he was especially proud of the outdoor lights we put on our landscaping, as you can see. We had dinner at Cracker Barrell, then went and picked out the tree, and then all four us spent the rest of Friday night decorating the tree and putting up our lights around our landscaping outside. We don't go overboard or anything, but definitely do enough to know it's Christmas. So, now that I'm finally ready - 'Tis The Season!!!! I have refused, however, to do any of that crazy shopping out in the crazy malls this time of year. That's a sure fire way to kill my Christmas spirit. After last year, when I saw red(and not a Christmas-y kind of red, mind you) and had thoughts toward fellow shoppers that I'd never admit on this blog, I decided it was time to go electronic with the shopping thing. I'm shopping 2 places - The Internet and the Bike Shop. Oh, one more, maybe Vegas...but I wouldn't count on that since I have a marathon to run and some black jack calling my name. Anyways, on to week 15's training....

Week 15 started on Monday. FIRST said I had to do 5 x 1k with a 400m rest interval, and target time for each 1k interval was 4:25. I got up at 5:30 and since I woke Wrigley up getting out the door, I decided to take him to the track with me. He ran the warmup mile, the cooldown mile, and walked all the rest intervals with me. And he slept the rest of the day!!! ha! Here's the numbers:

1.02 mile warmup: 10:29
5x1k:
1.4:31
2.4:19
3.4:26
4.4:19
5.4:25
1 mile cooldown:9:01

Tuesday I rode the trainer for 32 minutes, doing some intervals of my own choosing, nothing special.

Wednesday I wasn't feeling so well, so I pushed the tempo run back to Thursday.

Thursday's tempo run was a 6 miler - 2 easy, 3 @short tempo pace (7:51), and 1 easy. Here's the numbers according to Garmin(I forgot to wear my HR monitor again, dangit):







I hit target pace on the 2nd tempo mile, then sorta went down hill. I was okay with this run, but not overly happy. I wish had worn my HR monitor, because I was working awfully hard for just those mediocre splits.

Still a little concerned about the level of effort required for Thursday's tempo run, I elected to rest on Friday in preparation for my final long run before Vegas. I had two objectives for Friday, 1.)Teach Bo to ride his bike without training wheels because this is way overdue, and 2.)Get the Christmas tree thing done. And although I didn't get in bed until 12:15 a.m., I accomplished both of those.

And then the alarm rang at 5:00 a.m. telling me to get up and run the final long run. And for some reason and totally out of character, I got up - no snooze button - and got ready. Lazy Lana did fling in a comment or two as I was brushing my teeth to try and get me to go back to bed, but it didn't fly. I had to get this run done before 7:00 because J.T. had to leave for work at that time. I got out the door before 5:30 a.m., and had a great run. Target pace was 9:00/mile (PMP) for 10 miles, and I ended up at 8:53/mile and feeling good. Here's the numbers:








So, the last week will soon be upon me. That being said, I should finally tell you my goal. It's sub 4 hrs. I want it bad. We'll see what happens.

Today was the Memphis Marathon and Half Marathon. Michele
is running the full, and my sister, H, and her boyfriend are running the half. Goodluck to all!!!!!!

10 comments:

Neese said...

what sweet photos! :o) we got our tree today too, it was from our usualy family owned place but then we went to Lowe's for a new stand and i was like "hey Lowe's sells trees!" it did look like a nice selection. happy holidays!

Bob - BlogMYruns.com said...

Hi Lana I am a newbie runner/blogger training for my first marathon. I found ur blog through Michelle's Back of pack site...

Great site and I will be back from time to time,

Bob

Kate said...

Your boys look like such great kids :-)
Looks like a good week of training- good luck for sub-4!

Michele said...

That was great week 15.

Good luck with your final two runs this week and then knock em dead in Vegas.

I know how bad you want 4:00, and I hope you get it. I will be sitting on pins and needles waiting on your results.

Brooke said...

I don't blame you--I don't do the mall either.

Triteacher said...

Very cute kids - Bo does look proud.

Phil said...

Lana ... looking at all your splits over the past couple of weeks, it looks like you've got a sub 4:00 marathon in you. You ran your last 20 miler at 9:25/mi and lived to talk about it. You're running long tempo runs in the 8:40 range, which is very good and your over all level of fitness is outstanding.

The course looks like it has a steady 200' climb over 5 miles and the whole back end of the marathon is down hill. You've got a lot of experience running hills so grinding your way up this one shouldn't be a problem for you.

Keep us posted on your final preparations.

You know the drill ... don't start out too agressive. Run your race and stay within yourself. Stay hydrated and keep up with the calories. You'll need it on the last 10K after you pass the 20M marker.

Thanks for sharing the photos. It is fun to watch the young kids this time of the year.

Rae said...

Great pics!! You're still ahead of me on the tree!!!

Just a few more days!! We went to Vegas in December a few years ago and the decs are beautiful this time of year! You have to go into the Bellagio, their Christmas decor is the BEST!

Joe said...

Good looking training numbers. It looks like you're ready for the race.

My son is also 5 this year and he had lots of fun helping us decorate the tree. Alas, ours is artificial but at least it won't dry out before Christmas Day.

Lance Notstrong said...

I think at this point, any run is a good run. At least that's what I'm telling myself :-)

I don't know about you, but after 16 weeks, I'm tired ALL THE TIME!!!